The cavern turned into a storm of steel.
A thousand blades—forged from mana, bone, lightning, and shadow—screamed through the air. The sound was deafening, a roar of tearing metal that promised absolute destruction.
Kael stood at the epicenter, his eyes locked on his brother, his hand outstretched. He poured every ounce of his hatred into that attack. This was the power of a C-Rank Peak who had devoured a dragon. This was his limit.
The tidal wave of swords crashed down on Sarae.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions rippled across the space. Dust and crystal shards filled the air. The sheer kinetic force shook the entire Heart Chamber, sending cracks spiderwebbing up the walls.
Kael panted, sweat dripping from his nose. His mana pool had dropped to 10%.
Did it work?
The dust settled slowly.
Sarae stood there.
He hadn't moved an inch.
Around him, the air was distorted, shimmering like a heat haze. Floating inches from his skin were the remnants of Kael's attack—hundreds of swords, frozen in mid-air.
They hadn't hit him. They had simply... stopped.
Sarae looked at the suspended blade hovering near his nose. It was a jagged piece of black steel, pulsating with Kael's killing intent.
Sarae plucked it from the air.
"A good concept," Sarae said, his voice calm, cutting through the ringing in Kael's ears. "Projection magic. But you lack the authority to enforce it."
He snapped the sword in half like a twig.
The sound of the breaking blade felt like a crack in Kael's own soul.
"My turn."
Sarae didn't gesture. He didn't chant. He simply... stepped.
Space folded.
One moment, Sarae was twenty meters away. The next, he was standing directly in front of Kael.
Kael's [Hawk Eye] couldn't track it. His [Earth Sense] didn't register the movement. It was as if the universe had simply edited Sarae's position.
SYSTEM WARNING
DANGER!
DANGER!
Kael tried to raise his guard, tracing a dagger.
Too slow.
Sarae's hand moved. It wasn't a punch. It was a slap.
BAM!
The impact connected with Kael's chest.
The world spun.
Kael felt his ribs shatter—not break, but shatter into dust. His lungs collapsed. He was launched backward, skipping across the stone floor like a flat stone on water.
CRASH!
He slammed into the far wall with enough force to crater the rock.
CRITICAL HIT!
HEALTH: 5%
STATUS: CRITICAL ORGAN FAILURE.
Kael coughed violently, spraying blood onto the pristine crystal floor. He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn't respond. The pain was so intense his vision was white.
"Regenera—" he tried to gasp.
A boot slammed onto his chest, pinning him to the ground.
Sarae looked down at him. His expression wasn't angry. It wasn't sadistic. It was bored.
"You are an embarrassment," Sarae said softly. "I thought perhaps the dragon's blood would give you substance. But you are still just a vessel of flaws. A Dhampir? A Dragon? You are a mongrel, Kaelyn. A chaotic mix of things that should never touch."
He pressed his foot down. Crunch.
"AAAGH!" Kael screamed as more bones snapped.
"Why did you come here?" Sarae asked. "To kill me? To prove yourself? You are a child waving a stick at a hurricane."
Sarae leaned down, his silver eyes boring into Kael's.
"I am the Ageless. I am the pinnacle. You are nothing."
He raised his hand. A sphere of compressed spatial wind formed in his palm—small, dense, and capable of erasing matter.
"I will fix Father's mistake. I will erase you from the timeline."
Kael stared at the sphere. He saw his death reflected in it.
No, Kael thought. Not like this.
SYSTEM: EMERGENCY PROTOCOL.
MANA RESERVES: CRITICAL.
SUGGESTION: DEVOUR SURROUNDINGS TO REGENERATE.
Kael's eyes widened. He couldn't devour Sarae. But the Heart Chamber...
The Heart of the Dragon God.
It was right there. The massive ruby heart pulsated behind Sarae, suspended in chains. It wasn't attacking; it was just... existing. Radiating energy.
Kael didn't have the strength to fight. He had strength for one last desperate act.
He opened his mouth.
[DEVOUR: AREA EFFECT]
He didn't target Sarae. He targeted the ambience.
He drank the mana of the dungeon.
The red mist in the room rushed into Kael's mouth. The heat from the lava rivers below. The ambient energy radiating from the Dragon Heart behind Sarae.
MANA RESTORED: 1000.
It was a drop in the bucket, but it was enough.
[LIGHTNING MANIPULATION: OVERDRIVE]
Kael didn't attack Sarae. He attacked the ground beneath his own back.
ZZZZZT!
He discharged electricity into the cavern floor, superheating the rock instantly.
Sarae frowned, lifting his foot slightly as the ground turned to magma.
"You struggle even now?"
Kael grinned, blood staining his teeth. "Struggle? No. I'm just leaving."
[TELEKINESIS: IMPLOSION]
Kael didn't push. He pulled.
He pulled the unstable ceiling above them down.
CRACK.
A massive stalactite, the size of a bus, broke loose, falling directly toward them.
Sarae looked up. He sighed.
"Tedious."
He waved his hand. A spatial blade slashed out, slicing the stalactite into dust before it could touch him.
But the dust cloud obscured Kael's form for a single second.
That was all Kael needed.
He rolled, ignoring the agony of his shattered body, and fell into the river of magma he had created.
[MAGMA SKIN] - ACTIVE.
The lava embraced him like a warm bath. It burned, but it also hid him.
Sarae blasted the dust away.
Kael was gone. Only a hole in the floor remained, bubbling with molten rock.
"Escape?" Sarae murmured. He walked to the edge of the hole. He could sense the mana trail fading rapidly into the deep, chaotic currents of the dungeon's circulatory system.
He raised his hand to destroy the entire section of the dungeon.
"My Lord," one of the attendants called out nervously. "The Heart! The delay is causing instability. If we don't secure it now, the dungeon will collapse before we can extract the core."
Sarae paused. He looked at the Heart, then at the hole where Kael had vanished.
He lowered his hand.
"Let the rat run. He will die in the depths, or he will crawl back to the surface only to find I have already ascended. He is irrelevant."
Sarae turned back to the Heart of the Dragon God.
"Proceed with the extraction."
Kael - Unknown Location
Time passed in a haze of heat and pain.
Kael drifted in the magma currents, his body broken, his mind fading in and out of consciousness.
The [Draconic Bloodline] kept him from dissolving. The [Regeneration] worked overtime, knitting bone and sealing organs with a desperate, primal urgency.
He didn't know where he was. He had lost track of direction the moment he hit the lava.
He felt weak. Helpless.
He didn't even try, Kael thought, the memory of Sarae's bored face burning into his mind. He stopped a thousand swords with a thought. He broke me with a slap.
The gap wasn't just levels. It was existence. Sarae had evolved beyond humanity.
Damn, I am still nothing in the grand scheme of things, Kael thought. I am still trash.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION
HOST MENTAL STATE: UNSTABLE.
ADMINISTERING ADRENALINE BOOST.
A jolt of energy snapped Kael back to reality.
He hit a wall. The current had slowed. He clawed his way out of the magma pool, dragging his body onto a cold, dark ledge.
He lay on his back, staring into the darkness. He was deep. Deeper than he had ever been.
HOST: KAEL
LEVEL: 51 (C-RANK)
HEALTH: 15% (STABILIZING)
MANA: 50/3800
He had survived. Barely.
He clenched his fist.
"I couldn't... touch him," Kael whispered to the darkness.
He had failed.
But as he lay there, the [Devourer System] pulsed.
QUERY: DOES THE HOST WISH TO ABANDON THE PATH?
Kael stared at the blue screen.
"Abandon?" he rasped. "No."
He coughed, spitting blood.
"I just realized... how much I have to eat."
He looked at the darkness around him. He sensed faint heartbeats. Monsters of the deep.
He was trapped. He was wounded. He was alone.
But he was alive.
"System," Kael whispered. "Mark Sarae Hart."
TARGET MARKED: SARAE HART.
THREAT: SS-RANK.
STATUS: ENEMY.
"When I see him again..." Kael promised, his eyes glowing in the dark, "I won't be an insect."
He dragged himself toward the nearest heartbeat.
"I'll be the thing that eats gods."