A long-forgotten memory resurfaced.
"Big sister…"
A small girl—her face resemble Elara—reached out her tiny hand, eyes wide and trusting.
The girl before her, barely older, grinned wide and teasing.
"El, you're such a spoiled little sister."
She grasped Elara's hand, and together, they giggled and ran down the flower path between the trees—just two children with no idea of the world's cruelty.
My sister… My dear big sister. She always protected me. Even in her final moments.
The memory bled forward, stained in crimson and ash.
A demon outbreak. Chaos in the streets.
Their family's carriage—once a sanctuary—lay shattered in the wreckage of a collapsed market square. Smoke curled into the sky. Screams rang like bells of despair.
Elara remembered it too well.
The two of them had taken shelter beneath the remains of a broken wheel and burning canvas. And then—it came.
A demon.
Crawling through the wreckage. Sniffing. Searching.
Elara had frozen, too afraid to breathe.
But her sister… even with her body trembling, eyes brimming with terror… forced a smile through her tears.
That brave, impossible smile.
"Wait here," she whispered. "Help will come. Sis will come back after protecting you."
She stood.
Faced the demon.
And she never returned.
She died buying time. Diverting the creature's attention. A child—just like Elara—but with the heart of a lioness.
Help arrived only moments later.
But not for her sister.
I lived because of her.
Back in the present—
"Sis Ela?"
Lyra's voice broke through the haze.
Elara glanced back.
That girl—weak, fragile, trembling—clutching her breath behind a broken beam…
In her, Elara saw herself.
The helpless child.
And that's why she stood now.
Not to survive.
But to become the sister she had once admired.
To protect.
To fight.
To be the shield someone else never had.
Elara's gaze sharpened. Blood ran down her temple, but her spine stayed straight.
Then—her voice cut the air.
"So you're afraid of Soren Noctis, aren't you, Vellian?"
The words hit like a slap.
Vellian's eyes twitched, his smirk faltering.
"You keep mocking him. Dismissing him. But now he rises like a comet in the sky."
Her voice was quiet, but it burned.
The insult buried itself deep.
Vellian's smile vanished, replaced by a steely cold in his gaze.
Before he could respond, a voice cut in from the side.
"Hmph. Bitch, what do you even know?"
Caldus.
The young man strode forward, sneering. Vellian's nephew. His eyes gleamed with arrogance and certainty.
"You think we're afraid of that blind cripple? Of you? Don't make me laugh."
His laugh was short, sharp, bitter. But behind it, there was something else—a flicker of uncertainty, buried deep.
He gestured broadly to the mercenaries. "You're surrounded. You're wounded. You're out of time."
Elara glanced at him once and looked away.
Ignorant fool, she thought.
"Elara," Vellian said, "you're interfering with matters outside yours. Don't blame me for what happens next."
His hand lifted.
The floating Codex above him pulsed once—runes spinning, light gathering like a storm.
"I'll show you no mercy."
Elara's breaths came deep and even.
Her mind worked faster than the pain spreading through her torn knuckles. The mana within her body pulsed like a second heartbeat—erratic, urgent, alive.
One wrong move, and this was where she'd fall.
She glanced—just briefly—toward the side alley Lyra had vanished into.
Please run faster.
Please live.
Her feet shifted. She let her stance lower. Centered. Weight distributed.
Every instinct screamed that this next moment would be the hardest she'd ever fought through.
Then the Codex pulsed again.
A circle of violet light flared beneath Vellian, ancient glyphs locking into place with precision too perfect for mortal hands.
From the floating pages, tendrils of spell-formed chains burst outward—arcing toward her like serpents of mana, each one humming with suppressive force.
"Immobilization weave," she muttered.
A high-tier capture spell.
She couldn't let those chains touch her.
Elara moved.
Her body twisted as she launched forward—not back, not sideways—through.Toward Vellian.
"A frontal charge? Fool!" he snapped.
His eyes flared with mana and the Codex responded, lashing out with another barrage of violet tendrils.
But Elara was already leaping—low to the ground, rolling under the first wave, kicking up stone and dust as she closed the gap.
A mercenary lunged from the right.
She spun mid-air, her heel slamming into his jaw—CRACK!—sending him flying like a ragdoll.
The others barely had time to register the blow before she was among them.
Elbow. Knee. Palm. Each move a blur of calculated violence, each strike enhanced to devastating effect.
Still—there were too many.
A sword scraped her side. Blood bloomed across her ribs.Another blow struck her shoulder, nearly dislocating it.
Then—
Bang!
Another shot from above.A translucent barrier flared to life around Elara at the last second—pure instinct, pure desperation.
But the bullet tore through it like paper.CRSHH!
She twisted at the last possible moment.
The shot pierced her side—not fatal, but deep. She stumbled, breath knocked from her lungs.
Then—whip!
Vellian's violet tendrils caught her.
Wrapped. Locked.
She felt her limbs slow, mana pathways constricted.
"Immobilization... successful," Vellian murmured, Codex glowing brighter.
But Elara grinned through the pain.
"You think you can take me down like this?"
Her eyes flared.
A sudden shockwave pulsed outward from her core—crackling, radiant, defiant. BOOOM. Stone shattered. The mana chains snapped.
And for a breathless second, it felt like the battlefield had shifted.
Her aura ignited—burning bright like a second sun.Crimson-gold arcs surged through her limbs. Her pupils gleamed with twin suns of unrelenting will.
She whispered—
"Limit… break."
Above—Hawking's eye widened.
He fired again. Bang!
But the bullet ricocheted off the next pulse of her unleashed force.A second shockwave—sharper than the first—blasted through the air.
"Crazy strong," Hawking growled."I didn't sign up for this…"
He reached for the custom bullet—the one he'd been saving.
"…I'll just ask Vellian to reimburse this one."
Below—
Vellian paled.
"This woman… she's throwing caution to the wind!"
He could feel it—Elara was burning life, not mana.This wasn't a spell. It was annihilation in motion.
He reacted fast.The Codex glowed again—tendrils now solidified and forged sharper, like conjured spears.
Conjuration magic.
They shot toward her in a frenzy.
Elara moved like strong gale.
The mercenaries in her path—ordinary footsoldiers—fell like wheat before the scythe.She ducked, dodged, smashed. Her palm struck one chest—BOOM. His ribs collapsed.
And then—Caldus stood in her path.
His eyes widened as the burning force rushed at him.
He moved to raise his his guard and counter.
Too late.
Elara's blow struck like a hammer of judgment—clean into his chest. The impact caved his sternum, and mana crackled out the back of his spine.
His mouth opened—no words came.
Only a whisper of thought remained.
Why…
I just wanted to be someone to enjoy good privillege… to take the instructor's seat, to replace that damn Soren.Women flocking at me.
Why did it end like this…
His body crumpled. His breath faded. His ambition died.
"Caldus!"
The conjured tendrils of Vellian tried to hold her back. She tore through them, unraveling spells with sheer force.
Then—
She reached him.
Vellian raised his magic barrier—It shattered.
Her fist, wreathed in blazing aura, struck him across the face.WHR-KAAM!
Vellian flew back—blood spraying, magic flickering.
She charged again. One more blow to end it.
But something—
Hissed.
Not like before.Not like a bullet.Like a comet.
It screamed through the air, splitting wind, space, even mana.
Elara's eyes snapped toward the sound.A special bullet.
She knew.
She couldn't dodge.Couldn't deflect.
Even her aura couldn't bend it.
The moment it neared—she pivoted.
Her fist met the bullet.
BAAAAAANG!
A raw explosion of force—shockwave against singularity.
The ground cracked beneath her feet.A blinding light surged as power clashed midair—Elara's limit break against Hawking's best shot.
Her arm trembled, fist locked against the bullet that refused to yield.
Mana clashed in a maelstrom of force.Elara gritted her teeth, her limit-broken body beginning to give way. Her muscles tore, her bones cracked. She could feel it—
She was losing.
And then—
A voice.Low.Clear.Commanding.
"Devour."
A rippling distortion split the air.
Suddenly, the bullet—unstoppable, god-killing—began to twist mid-flight.Its velocity faltered. Its form distorted.
Then—like a star falling into a black hole—it was swallowed whole.Gone.
The shockwave dispersed in an instant.
A void had consumed it.
Elara gasped, stumbling forward from the sudden loss of resistance. Her legs barely caught her. The clash had drained her, broken through the last reserves of strength.
And just beyond the battlefield—
He stepped forward.
Soren.
Charging through the smoke, his left eye burning—Ruin was open.
The Eye pulsed once, faintly flickering with that familiar black and crimson.
But—
Before relief could set in.
Before Elara could speak.
SSSSHHK!
Her body jerked.
A sharp, bladed tendril—conjured from the Codex—pierced clean through her chest.
Right where her heart was.
Her breath hitched.
Her eyes widened.
The world fell silent again.
Vellian—bloody, staggering, barely standing—had cast one final blow.
And it struck true.
Soren's expression shattered.
"NO—!"