Chương 416: Chapter 405 - The Breaking Light

Ayu's Will flared as The Sun burned at her back, golden radiance merging with A Song of Fire until heat and melody became one. Flame ran through her limbs and settled into her bones. Each kick landed with crushing force. Each forearm met a descending scythe in a violent clash that rattled through the air. Splinters and sparks burst across her skin, but she did not yield. She planted herself between Alonso and death and refused to move. Another bladed tendril shrieked toward his neck.

She pivoted and slammed her reinforced guard into it, shin snapping upward in the same motion to divert another. The impact drove her half a step back. She pushed forward again. Then she felt it. A thinning behind her. Lukas emerged from the distortion, The Hermit's muted glow wrapping him in a dim sphere that bent light and Maerwyn's awareness just enough. He moved straight for Alonso—and— Alonso's sword rose by reflex, halting a breath from Lukas' throat. Hollow eyes stared back at him, empty and distant.

Lukas did not flinch.

"Alonso… it's me." For a suspended heartbeat the world narrowed to that blade between them. Then Alonso's arm lowered. Lukas seized him without hesitation, magnetising the fallen sword and his cards as the scythes screamed toward them once more. Ayu answered with a surge of heat, intercepting the killing arcs while Lukas pulled Alonso back beneath The Hermit's lantern-light. Their presence dimmed as they withdrew from the frontline. A pulse brushed her awareness." He's safe," Lukas' voice carried through the link."

I've got him. You don't have to hold back anymore. Help the others, and create the opening Pablo's summon needs." Relief tightened her chest, then hardened into resolve. The next wave of scythes came fast. This time she did not anchor herself. She let her Awakening surge fully. Her body flowed between converging arcs, a blade grazing air where her ribs had been, another cutting the space her thigh had just left.

She pivoted and drove her heel into a branch-end mid-swing, redirecting it into another with a sharp crack. Her song rose, bright and unyielding, fire streaming from her as she pressed forward. She was no longer a wall. She became motion. Her body surged forward, joining the others as they drove the blood-forged remnants and the descending scythes back. Imani roared and charged at her side, adding his weight to the surge.

The Manifestation of Strength towered behind him as his hammer crashed into an advancing Knight, detonating in a rolling shockwave that split bark and shattered crimson armour in a violent spray of splinters and blood-sap. The ground fractured outward from the impact, forcing the remaining Spawn and Knights to stagger and reset their footing. Chiara's eyes flashed as symbols rotated around her in tightening sequences.

A concussive blast tore across the field, striking the warped trunk and sending a thunderous pulse through the branch-arms. Sap erupted in thick sheets. The fourteen scythes faltered for a fraction of a breath, their arcs disrupted. From the flank, Pablo's mutated Thrall blurred into existence. It did not charge headlong. It flowed. Its body bent and twisted with uncanny ease, panther-sleek and humanoid in equal measure, bladed limbs flashing as it skimmed beneath descending scythes and vaulted off shattered roots.

Its movements drew minimal attention, slipping through the chaos like a shadow that refused to be caught. Ayu's eyes locked with it for an instant. Understanding passed without words. Imani's Guardian Star flared, gravitational pull dragging the remaining Knights and the last Spawn into a crushing orbit around him. The Spawn lunged, daggers carving lethal arcs, but Ayu was already there. She spun through its guard, knee crashing into its jawline, elbow smashing across its collarbone.

Fire flared along her limbs as she forced it backward into Imani's path. Chiara's next detonation split the earth between the scythes, disrupting their synchronized descent. Metallic shrieks echoed as several blades fractured and collided mid-air. The opening widened. The Thrall surged. It crossed the distance in a heartbeat, bladed forelimbs slicing through the space before the trunk. Its first strike carved deep into a branch-finger.

The second followed instantly from a higher angle, the twin arcs intersecting in brutal precision. Bark split open. Dark red sap burst outward like blood. Two fingers severed. Spectral threads snapped as they lost their anchor. Across the battlefield, the final Spawn convulsed and collapsed into red slurry. One Knight froze mid-swing, its rope unraveling as its body split apart and sank into thick sap that soaked into the fractured ground. Momentum surged. This was it.

Imani drove forward with a roar, hammer crashing in relentless arcs that kept the remaining Knights from closing. Ayu blurred through a descending scythe and shattered it with a rising knee, fire streaming behind her. Chiara's next detonation tore across the clearing, blasting a corridor through bark and blood alike. They were breaking through. The Bride answered in fury. Scythes carved wild crescents through the air. The last Knights lunged in desperate attempts. The pressure spiked, suffocating and violent.

Still, they forced their way forward. Another opening formed. The Thrall struck. It landed against the trunk in a spray of splinters, bladed forelimbs biting deep into warped bark as it coiled for the final strike. Its limbs rose in a crossing arc meant to sever the last two fingers and end it in a single motion. The giant arm shifted to evade, but it moved a fraction too late. The summon's blades were about to carve through the final hold, to finish the nightmare— The bark twisted.

Two hollow sockets opened within the wood and turned. They fixed on the Thrall. For a heartbeat, the battlefield stilled. Then the Thrall faltered. Its fluid motion faltered. Its head lifted slightly, and— Its eyes had gone hollow. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The scythe descended faster than any before. A silver crescent blurred through the air and cut cleanly through the Thrall's torso. There was no resistance. No stagger.

The body split in two mid-leap, fragments scattering before dissolving into fading motes. Silence struck for half a breath. At the rear, Pablo convulsed. A surge of awareness slammed into him as the link snapped back. His eyes flew open in raw shock, comprehension flashing across them—then he doubled over and vomited a large amount of blood onto the broken stone. His body collapsed completely, consciousness extinguished as the strain overwhelmed him. Lukas saw it all, his expression hardening.

The remaining two Knights and the scythes were manageable. Imani and Ayu could contain them, even if the strain showed. But the last two fingers still stood. Someone had to shatter them.

"I will do it," Chiara said, her voice steady. Lukas turned toward her. He knew she was capable. Yet she had been holding back for a reason. Her body was fragile—far more than most realised. If Maerwyn's full attention shifted onto her for even a breath, the backlash alone would end her. A direct hit would be unnecessary. The pressure wave itself could rupture her from within. If she committed and failed to finish the battle in a single strike… there would be no second chance. Lukas exhaled slowly.

The risk was immense, and yet—"Alright," he said.

"But we prepare for the worst first. Give me a moment." Chiara nodded. Lukas moved at once. Silver cards formed beneath his boots as he rode them across the fractured ground, weaving through the torn field. He reached Pablo quickly, lifting his limp body with care before gliding back toward the rear, where Leonie and Alonso lay. He placed Pablo beside them. From their backpacks at the rear, he withdrew three Escape Crystals. One by one, he pressed them against Leonie, Alonso, and Pablo.

He then sent a pulse toward Ayu and Imani." Chiara will blow up the last two fingers. Hold the line a little longer and create the opening when needed. If the creature somehow survives the blast… use your Escape Crystals immediately." Confirmation came back, strained but resolute. Three sharp silver cards rose from his deck and hovered above the three crystals, aligned and ready. At a single command, they would snap them. Lukas kept one crystal in his own hand. Chiara mirrored him, calm fingers wrapped around hers.

"All set," Lukas said, turning to her, eyes sharp.

"Let's end this show… give it hell." The air shifted. The Magician settled behind Chiara. Her thoughts sharpened. Geometry unfolded across her vision—angles, densities, stress nodes layered over the warped hand. She raised the cane. Air twisted at its tip. A compact sphere of distortion formed, sparks snapping within it in tight, disciplined intervals. Three minds aligned. Coherence increased. Phase stabilised." Ayu. Imani. Ten milliseconds."

Ayu surged first, fire blazing as she smashed through two converging scythes, forcing their arcs wide. Imani's internal capacitors flared white-hot. He stepped through the remaining Knights and swept his hammer in a brutal lateral arc. The blow detonated air and earth together, hurling two blood-armoured figures aside and ripping tendrils off-line in a violent shockwave. A window opened. Chiara focused on the final branch-hand. The sphere at her cane shrank to a needlepoint of white-gold intensity.

The air screamed around it, pressure building until even the mud at her feet began to tremble. She released. A needlepoint of white-gold force tore from the tip of her cane at several times the speed of sound, the air splitting in its wake. It struck the branch-hand at its root. For the briefest fraction of a heartbeat, there was only a point of blinding contact — light compressing inward as bark, and sap collapsed around it. Then— BOOM!

The explosion erupted from that single impact point, a contained sphere of annihilating force that swallowed the entire hand in incandescent light and destruction. The final two fingers disintegrated instantly. Reinforced wood imploded along its grain before bursting apart in a concussive shockwave that cracked stone and blasted splinters skyward. Sap atomised into a red mist. The remaining two Knights dissolved into thick pools of blood.

Fourteen scythe-like branches faltered mid-arc, their sustaining tendrils fracturing in rapid succession. The tree reacted like the Bride herself, a sound tearing from it that carried agony and hatred in equal measure. The cry ripped through the clearing like metal splitting apart. Red sap geysered from the trunk as cracks raced across bark and hollow sockets alike, splintering outward in jagged webs. The embedded bridal silhouette twisted along the grain. The entire oak bowed inward with a deep, splintering groan.

Branches snapped toward the core. Roots ripped free and were dragged back as the structure compressed in tightening spirals. Then the colossal tree imploded— A thunderous inward collapse that drew splintered wood, blood-dark sap, and ruptured Will into a spiralling vortex before crushing them into nothing. And then… silence. Dust hung in the air. Fragments rained down in slow arcs. Lukas exhaled, the pressure in his chest loosening as the domain thinned. They had finally done— BAM!

The shockwave detonated through the clearing without warning. Dust burst outward in a violent ring, splinters and grit slamming against Lukas' face as the air itself convulsed. A massive figure blurred across his peripheral vision and crashed into the far edge of the battlefield with a resounding crack that split stone and tore vines from the earth. Lukas' breath caught in his throat. He turned sharply.

Imani lay twisted against fractured ground and torn tendrils, shield caved inward, armour crushed along the chest as though something had tried to cleave him in half and nearly succeeded. His pulse skipped. But he didn't hesitate. He couldn't. Cards snapped into motion, flashing toward the Escape Crystals resting above Alonso, Leonie, and Pablo. He pulsed to Chiara at the same instant, urging her to trigger hers as well, while he pivoted to reach Imani— The silver edges struck the crystals… and bounced back.

The crystals did not shatter. Lukas froze. His throat tightened, fingers going numb around the cards as a thin line of sweat traced down his spine. The air suddenly felt thinner, heavier, as though the clearing itself had sealed shut around them. His gaze snapped toward the centre of the field, dread spiking through his chest. A scream tore through the settling dust. From within the thinning fog, Ayu's body burst outward like a rag doll.

She struck the ground and tumbled across torn earth, leaving a dark trail of blood behind her. Lukas' vision sharpened in disbelief. She was missing an arm, and the right side of her torso had been carved open. A brutal diagonal gash ran from shoulder to hip, deep enough to expose ribs and torn muscle, as though a blade had almost split her in two and she had survived by the narrowest margin. Flesh hung in ragged strips. Blood poured freely, dark and heavy against the fractured ground.

Her heartbeat pulsed visibly beneath shredded muscle. Yet her eyes remained open. Through sheer vitality and Will, she clawed into the soil with her remaining arm and dragged herself backward, teeth bared, eyes burning red through the haze of agony. Soft footsteps echoed from beyond. That was when Lukas saw her. She stepped from the thinning fog where the oak had stood. The air bent around her in a warped halo of fractured light, as though reality itself refracted in her presence.

Her bridal gown had transformed into pale, flowing armour—layered plates of white and silver that shimmered with a cold inner sheen, edges traced in faint crimson. An unnaturally large sabre rested in her hand, its dark, polished blade longer than any mortal weapon had the right to be. The edge warped the air around it as condensed Will rippled along its length like liquid glass. Its hilt was formed from twisted vines that coiled and fused into the base of the blade itself, writhing faintly as though alive.

Vein-like channels pulsed beneath their barked surface, drawing fresh droplets of blood that slid from the sabre's edge—Ayu's blood—into the living lattice. The vines darkened to a deep, glistening red as it coursed through them, the weapon seeming to drink, to feed, each pulse of crimson climbing toward the blade in slow, deliberate throbs. The blade pulsed once in her grip. Then her presence expanded.

From her back unfurled vast black wings, feathered and whole, each plume edged in a dim red glow, spreading wide with broken grace. Her face remained serene, beautiful, framed by loose strands of pale hair. Above her brow hovered a broken halo of splintered light, jagged and incomplete, rotating slowly in silent orbit. She stood there before them like a fallen seraph, radiant, twisted, and utterly beyond mercy.