Shivering with rage, Kaelen stands over Sebbeh's battered form. Purple bruises bloom across his body like spilt ink, his split lip knitting itself back together at a cruel, sluggish pace.
Dishevelled, voice scraping against his throat, Sebbeh forces the words out."I didn't kill him."
The confession drifts upward, fragile… almost meaningless against the storm in Kaelen's eyes.
She doesn't look at him for long.
"That isn't what concerns me."
Her voice is low. Not loud, not explosive… just cold enough to make the air feel thinner.
Then she turns and walks away.
Sebbeh loses vision as her silhouette shrinks.
Sitting back-to-back on either side of the door, the pair linger in an awkward silence, comforted only by the quiet awareness of each other's presence.
"Hey…" Irva begins—
A thunderous bang cuts her off.Kaelen stands in the frame, her eyebrows twitching with barely contained rage. Dense criole pours off her skin, rising like heat from molten metal. The air tightens.
The door slams open.
Myles braces.
Silence.
Then, just as suddenly as it came, it vanishes.
The pressure dissolves. The room exhales. Kaelen's breathing steadies, and the fury on her face softens, reshaping into something gentle… warm.
Myles rises, drawn to her, taking one step… then another—
Before the third, a streak of red engulfs him.
For a moment, confusion flickers—
Then it clears.
Kaelen is holding him.
Tightly.
"Good to see you," she exhales.
Myles lingers for a moment before gently pulling away. "You followed me?"
"Well," Kaelen tilts her head slightly, a faint smirk playing on her lips, "I have to look after my own, don't I?"
Myles just smiles.
A sudden blur cuts across the room.
Irva rushes in—then right back out again, clutching her soiled clothes as her life depends on it.
Myles lets out a quiet chuckle.
Kaelen gives him a questioning look. He shrugs.
Back on Domain First, Lia, Terrene, and Thia had spent a month training under Cerve and his children. Verdure remained on the opposing side, watching, waiting.
"Oh… yes," Terrene murmured, almost inaudible.
In her hand, Esthvan's decapitated head hung loosely, a grotesque trophy still dripping.
Lia's throat tightened.
"D-does it… does it have to go that far?" she stuttered, forcing herself into a stance as she prepared to face Ulda.
The answer came faster than thought.
A blur.
Two slender legs slammed into Lia's ribs with explosive force.
The impact cracked through the air like a thunderclap, sending her skidding across the ground.
"You know," Ulda said, laughing lightly as she hovered above the rising dust cloud, "we're already as strong as we can be."
Her eyes gleamed.
"The only thing that makes the difference… is pain."
She tilted her head.
"And how much of it you can take."
Silence.
Then—
"Really?"
The word cut through the dust.
Lia emerged.
Before Ulda could react, Lia's hand snapped forward, gripping her head with terrifying precision.
For a fraction of a second, everything paused.
Then Lia threw her.
Ulda's body tore through the air like a launched missile, the force ripping at her skin, nearly peeling it from muscle as she was hurled away at blinding speed.
It wasn't that she couldn't withstand it.
She simply wasn't ready.
Lia lowered her arm, calm, composed.
"From what I can tell…" she said quietly,
"I'm stronger."
A chaotic wave of Criole erupted from Ulda's landing point.
Thick. Heavy. Suffocating.
It rolled outward like a living storm, its pressure mounting with every passing second, crushing the air itself into something dense and unbreathable.
Then—
Lia saw her.
At the centre of it all.
"Well," Ulda's voice curled through the distortion, her laughter jagged and unhinged, "there's more to it than pain."
She stepped forward.
"Why don't I show you?"
She vanished.
A crack split the air.
Her fist collided with Lia's jaw.
Bone shattered on impact.
Before the force could even finish traveling, a second strike folded into the first, snapping through her neck with brutal precision.
Lia's body went limp instantly.
But it didn't stop.
Momentum carried her.
Her body tore across the ground, bouncing, twisting—each impact grinding flesh against stone, shredding skin, splintering what remained of bone.
The world blurred into violence.
Until—
Stillness.
What remained of Lia lay sprawled across jagged rock, her body broken into a grotesque arrangement of chipped bone, torn flesh, and exposed tendons.
The air hummed faintly with the remnants of Criole.
And then, silence.
What remained of Lia's chest rose and fell, faint and stubborn.
Ulda flinched."Still awake?"
She stepped closer, cautious now, drawn in by something she didn't understand.
Then—
It erupted.
Dense criole burst from Lia's body, not outward, but everywhere at once, like pressure finally given permission to exist. Bone snapped back into place with sickening precision. Tendons pulled taut. Muscle rewove itself. Skin sealed over ruin as if time itself had been forced into reverse.
Tears slipped from beneath her closed eyes, silent and unbroken.
Her body lifted.
Not by effort. Not by will.By something deeper.
Her blood-stained hair drifted around her face, weightless, as though she had been submerged in an unseen ocean.
Then—
Her eyes opened.
And the world answered.
A crushing force detonated outward. Ulda barely raised her arms in time, crossing them as the impact slammed into her. The ground beneath her feet fractured as she fought to hold her ground—
—and lost.
She was hurled back, her body tearing through the air, a violent streak of purple trailing behind her like a wound in the sky.
The streak bent, sharpened—then took form.
Lia.
Her face twisted, teeth bared, fists drawn tight with intent to shatter whatever stood before her. She came down like judgment given motion—
—and was stopped.
Not violently. Not even abruptly.
Gently.
Cerve caught her.
With a grace that felt almost misplaced, almost wrong, he seized both Lia and Ulda by their heads, halting them as if their momentum meant nothing… as if they meant nothing.
"Our bodies are nothing but vessels," he said calmly.
His grip tightened, just enough to remind them.
"We, however… shouldn't push them."
His gaze shifted to Ulda.
She should have known better. She was the older one.
"You know," a voice, low with quiet disappointment, "you could have just told her how to compress her Criole before emission."
A soft sigh followed.
Yuri approached, Thia at her side, stepping over the fractured remains of the battlefield with practised ease.
"Would've saved us all this…" she murmured, her eyes drifting across the devastation, "…mess."