Chapter 108
Lucas stood with his katana lowered, his chest heaving, his body screaming. Across the stone shelf, Scarlett rose to her feet, Veylan beside her, both of them battered but far from broken. He had cut her contract. He had wounded the beast below. But against them both, with his strength failing and his speed outmatched, he could not win.
Scarlett's hand closed around her spear. Her red eyes fixed on him with cold calculation.
"We need to sign another contract," she said, her voice low. "Before the world removes us."
Veylan's wind blades reformed in his hands. "The boy?"
"He's done enough damage." She raised her spear. "Finish him quickly. We don't have much time."
Lucas braced himself. His mana was still full—the Severance had cost him nothing in that regard. But his body was failing. He could not match their speed, could not break through their defenses. He would die here, and Ashely would face the beast alone.
Then he felt them.
Three signatures, familiar and unmistakable, closing fast from the valley below. His mana sense, thin as it was, caught them a heartbeat before they crested the ridge.
Ethan's wind, Austin's fire, Kaya's lightning.
They appeared at the edge of the stone shelf, moving as one, their masks discarded, their weapons drawn. Ethan's sword was already coated in wind. Austin's Emberclaw blazed white-hot. Kaya's kunai crackled with arcs of blue lightning.
They took in the scene in an instant—Lucas battered and bleeding, Scarlett and Veylan ready to strike, the cracked stone and scattered arrows evidence of the battle already fought.
Ethan stepped forward, his blade raised. "Looks like we made it just in time."
Austin's fire wings flared behind him, his grin fierce despite the exhaustion written on his face. "You didn't think you'd have all the fun, did you?"
Kaya said nothing. Her white eyes were fixed on Scarlett, her lightning body already active, her stance ready.
Lucas let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. His lips curved into something that might have been a smile. "I'm happy to see you."
The three of them chuckled, the sound sharp and brief in the thin mountain air.
Scarlett's expression tightened. Her spear rose, its point shifting between the newcomers. Veylan moved to cover her flank, his wind blades spinning slowly in his grip.
Then another presence crested the ridge.
The rust-haired demon—the one Austin had faced in the valley—staggered onto the stone shelf, his chest bandaged, his face pale. Blood still seeped through the wrappings where Austin's blade had cut him. He looked at Scarlett, at Veylan, at the four Black Ops agents standing between them and the path down the mountain.
"What are your orders?" he asked, his voice a rasp.
Scarlett's jaw tightened. Her eyes swept over the new arrivals, calculating, measuring. Ethan at the Silver stage, pushing toward Gold. Austin wounded but still burning. Kaya's lightning crackling with barely contained power. And Lucas, spent but still standing, his Mana Eyes still glowing faintly in the gray morning light in his googles.
She had seen what those eyes could do.
"We finish this quickly," she said. "Sign a new contract before the world rejects us. What I came for won't be a waste."
The rust-haired demon drew a blade of black-red flame. Veylan's wind blades spun faster.
Scarlett raised her spear.
"Kill them."
The battle erupted.
Ethan met Veylan first, his wind blade clashing against the demon's compressed air, the impact sending shockwaves across the stone shelf. They moved at speeds that blurred—Ethan at 120 meters per second, Veylan matching him, their elements howling against each other.
[Wind Spell: Pressure Blade]
Ethan's sword condensed the air around it, becoming an edge thinner than paper, harder than steel. Veylan dodged, the blade cutting a trench across the stone where he had stood. He answered with twin strikes, his wind blades crossing, forcing Ethan back step by step.
Austin faced the rust-haired demon. The man was wounded, his chest still bleeding, but his flames burned as hot as before.
[Fire Spell: Inferno Point]
Emberclaw blazed white-hot. Austin drove forward, his speed matching the demon's despite his injuries. Their blades met in bursts of black-red and white flame, each impact sending gouts of fire into the air.
[Abyssal Flames Spell: Volcanic Fist]
The demon's fist drove toward Austin's chest. Austin twisted, the blow grazing his ribs, and answered with a kick that sent the demon staggering.
[Fire Spell: Snake Bind]
Tendrils of living flame erupted from Austin's free hand, wrapping around the demon's sword arm. The man snarled, black fire flaring to burn them away, but the distraction was enough.
Austin's blade cut across his chest, opening the wound wider.
Kaya moved through the chaos like lightning given form. Her kunai struck at Veylan's flank, forcing him to divide his attention between her and Ethan. She was slower than the others—80 meters per second at best—but her strikes were precise, each one aimed at the points where his wind blades thinned, where his guard faltered.
[Lightning Spell: Destructive Bolts]
Thin bolts shot from her free hand, forcing Veylan to spin, to block, to retreat. Ethan pressed the advantage, his Pressure Blade driving the demon back toward the edge of the shelf.
Scarlett stood at the center of the chaos, her spear raised, her eyes scanning. She could intervene in any of these fights. She could end any of them in moments. But her gaze kept returning to one figure—the silver-haired boy who had cut her contract, who had wounded the beast, who was no longer on the stone shelf.
Lucas was gone.
He moved down the mountain path at a dead run, his legs screaming, his breath ragged. The sounds of battle faded behind him—the clash of blades, the howl of wind, the crack of thunder. His team would hold.
He had to reach the basin before Ashely died.
The path wound through narrow ravines, across broken stone, past the cave mouth where the seal had once been. The air grew thick with demonic mana, heavy and wrong, pressing against his senses like a weight. The beast's howls echoed through the mountain, each one weaker than the last, but still loud enough to shake the stone beneath his feet.
He reached the basin.
The seal chamber had been transformed. The platform where Ashely had stood was shattered, the runes that had bound the beast for centuries reduced to scattered fragments of glowing stone. Lava surged below, casting the chamber in shades of orange and red. And at the center, suspended above the molten rock on a fragment of broken stone, the Demonic Mana Beast thrashed against chains of light.
Ashely stood on a jut of rock above the beast, her hands raised, her face pale, blood streaming from her nose, her ears, the corners of her eyes. Chains of golden light extended from her palms, wrapping around the beast's limbs, its torso, its throat. Each chain pulsed with her mana, her life force, her very will.
She was sealing it. Alone. With nothing but the spells her grandmother had taught her, the techniques passed down through generations of queens who had died doing exactly what she was doing now.
She was dying.
Lucas saw it in the way her hands shook, the way her legs trembled, the way the light in her eyes was fading. She had poured everything she had into those chains. And the beast was still fighting.
He did not hesitate.
[Astral Mode]
The chant left his lips before he could think, the words old and heavy, shaping the mana in the chamber. The seal on his eyes shattered, releasing the power he had held back.
"Upon the stars, where silence weaves,
A boundless force no fate perceives.
Light and shadow, flame and frost,
All are mine, none are lost.
By the sun's wrath and the moon's grace,
I break all chains, I bend all space.
Let chaos rise, let stillness reign,
In my grasp, all shall wane.
O heavens, bear witness to my decree,
For I am the will of infinity."
Cyan light erupted from his eyes, spreading across his body like a second skin. The mana cloak wrapped around him, luminous and fluid, and the world sharpened into impossible clarity. Every rune on the walls, every flicker of the lava below, every thread of mana in the chamber—he saw it all.
His speed climbed, 200 meters per second, 300, 400.
He shot forward, crossing the chamber in a heartbeat, his hand already forming the spell that would end this.
[Golden Sphere]
Gold light bloomed between his fingers—mana given form, fused with a fraction of all elements, condensed. The sphere grew in his palm, brighter, hotter, denser, until it was a star held in his hand.
The beast felt it. Its struggles intensified, its form thrashing against the chains, its crimson gaze fixed on the golden light that had wounded it once before. It knew what was coming. It knew it could not survive.
Lucas raised his hand.
[Mana spell: World-Severing Line]
The spell that had almost killed him once. The spell that should not be cast outside Astral Mode.
From his palm, the golden sphere transformed. A beam of pure, condensed light shot from his hand—not the thin thread he had used against Peter, but something vast, something absolute. It was five meters wide, blazing gold, moving at speeds that should not exist in the physical world.
It struck the Demonic Mana Beast.
The beast screamed. Its form, already wounded from the Severance, already bound by Ashely's chains, began to dissolve. The beam cut through its torso, through its limbs, through the darkness that composed its being. Golden light spread through the wound, burning, consuming, erasing.
Lucas held the spell for as long as he could. One second, Two, Five.
Then his mana gave out.
The beam died. The golden light faded. Lucas fell from the air, his Astral Mode collapsing, his body hitting the broken platform hard enough to crack stone. He lay there, gasping, his vision swimming, his core a hollow ache.
The beast was not dead.
Its torso was gone, a gaping wound where the beam had passed through. One arm had dissolved completely. The other hung by threads of darkness, barely attached. Its form flickered, unstable, the demonic mana that composed it struggling to hold together.
But it was alive.
Lucas pushed himself up, his arms shaking, his legs refusing to support him. He had little mana left. He had poured everything into that one strike, and it had not been enough.
He had failed.
Then he heard her voice.
Ashely stood above the beast, her hands raised, her face a mask of blood and determination. The chains of light that bound the creature had not broken. They had held through the blast, through the beast's struggles, through everything.
She began to chant.
"By earth and sky, by fire and stone,
I bind thee here, I claim thy throne.
By chains of light, by seals of fate,
I close the door, I seal the gate.
Blood to blood and breath to breath,
I bind thee now in living death.
By my hand, the lock restored,
By my voice, the chains restored.
Ancient hunger, hear my plea—
Return to dark, return to me.
By my will, the seal made whole,
Bound in flesh, bound in soul."
The chains tightened. The beast roared, its voice weaker now, its struggles fading. The golden light that Lucas had left in its wounds spread. The creature's form began to shrink, to fold in on itself, drawn back toward the seal that had held it for centuries.
Ashely's voice grew stronger, her hands steady despite the blood that streamed down her face.
The beast collapsed.
Its form dissolved into darkness, into light, into something that was neither. The chains pulled it down, down into the broken seal, into the prison that had held it for generations. The runes on the walls flared, once, twice, then settled into a steady, pulsing glow.
The Demonic Mana Beast was sealed.
Ashely stood for a moment, her hands still raised, her eyes fixed on the place where the creature had been. Then her legs gave way.
Lucas caught her before she hit the stone. His arms were shaking, his body screaming, but he held her, lowering her gently to the broken platform. Her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow, but she was alive.
He sat beside her, his back against a fragment of fallen stone, and watched the runes pulse in the walls. The chamber was quiet now, the only sound the distant hiss of lava below and the slow, steady rhythm of Ashely's breathing.
Above them, somewhere on the mountain, his team was fighting.
But here, in the darkness beneath the mountain, there was only silence, and the weight of what he had done, and the faint, fading light of a seal that would hold for another generation.
Lucas closed his eyes.