· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
'Sometimes I feel like there's something inside me that wants to spill out,
a kind of pressure that builds up over time, made from things I never say.
Not because I don't want to say them, but because I know how people are.
Everyone's tired. Everyone's busy carrying their own mess.
And if you try to ask for help too often, you just become another burden.
I've learned to keep it all in.
The guilt, the regrets, the fear of disappointing people I once wanted to impress.
I tried to be honest once, tried to reach out.
But all it did was push people away, until I stopped trying altogether.
Maybe I deserve that.
Maybe not.
I don't know anymore.
What I do know is that no one's coming to save me.
And lately, I'm not even sure if I'd want them to.
Another wasted hour in a life made of them.'
The office lights buzzed like trapped insects. Bzzzz. Constant. Annoying. Almost invisible, after a while.
I zipped my bag shut, the sound too loud for the hour. Zzzip.
Everyone else had cleared out. Almost everyone.
"Still here?"
Co-worker A leaned into my cubicle with that tired smile people wore like a badge. Like we were comrades in some unspoken war.
I nodded. Just enough to count as human interaction.
"Boss pushed the commit deadline again," I said. My voice came out flatter than I meant it to.
He chuckled, fingers tapping his desk in a rhythm that grated on my nerves. Tap tap tap. "Isn't it always?"
I didn't respond. I shoved my charger into the front pocket of my bag and stood up.
My reflection in the dark window caught my eye. Unkempt black hair, streaked prematurely gray. Dark circles deepening each week. Twenty-something and already looking like someone's overworked uncle. Neat.
My coat hung limply from my chair. I put it on with practiced movements, tugging the sleeves down over my wrists. The lining had started peeling near the cuffs. I never bothered fixing it. Not worth the time.
"Do you ever think…" I began, not entirely sure why I said anything at all, "…what if life wasn't like this? Like, what if we lived in a fantasy world or something?"
Co-worker A laughed loudly, a little too genuine for my taste. "With dragons? Knights? Cute magical girls?"
"Even being a countryside farmer sounds better than this," I said, more honest than I meant to be.
At least that life sounded quiet.
He kept laughing, and I pretended to join in because it was easier. My hand clenched at the sound of his too-cheerful laughter. I wasn't really joking, but he took it as one and I let him.
I grabbed my umbrella, cheap and bent near the spokes. Rain always waited till I stepped outside. Of course it did. That's how life worked.
"Well," I said, forcing a tone that didn't belong to me, "time to catch the train, eat the same sad dinner, maybe pull another three-star disappointment before bed."
Co-worker A raised an eyebrow. "Careful out there. World's got it out for people like us."
If only, I thought.
Instead, I just said, "No promises."
Outside, the cold slapped me awake. The street smelled like wet asphalt and convenience store fried food. The station was a tunnel of fluorescent light and footsteps, the crowd flowing like a current that didn't care who drowned.
On the platform, my phone buzzed with notifications I didn't open.
My thumb hovered over a familiar icon anyway.
Not because I was excited. Because I needed something that felt like it followed rules. Something that made sense when I did.
A hunt.
A camp.
A world where preparation mattered, where effort had a shape you could see.
I didn't even get that far.
The train doors opened with a hiss. Psssh.
Bodies surged. Someone's elbow clipped my shoulder. A man muttered an apology without looking at me. Another person laughed at a video, bright and sharp.
I found myself standing near the exit, because the middle was too cramped and the edges made it easier to leave.
The ride was a blur of advertisements and reflections.
When my stop came, the rain had intensified. It drummed on the umbrella like impatient fingers. Pat pat pat.
I walked. Not fast. Not slow. Just moving.
At the intersection, the crosswalk light flipped.
A cheerful electronic chirp started, too bright for the gray night. Beep. Beep. Beep.
A child stood near the curb, one shoe half off, tugging at his laces with clumsy fingers. His guardian was turned away, distracted, bags hanging like weights from both hands.
A delivery truck turned the corner too fast.
It was not cinematic. It was not meaningful.
It was rubber, momentum, and a driver who was probably also tired.
Tires screamed. Screeeech.
My body moved before my thoughts did.
I grabbed the kid by the hood and yanked him back.
His eyes went wide. My umbrella flew from my hand and spun away like a broken wing.
The truck's grille filled my world.
There was a sharp white sound, like metal biting bone. Krak.
Then the street disappeared.
...
Darkness does not feel like sleep. Sleep has edges. Darkness is a room with no walls.
I try to breathe and realize I am not breathing.
I try to blink and realize I have no eyelids.
I try to speak and the attempt becomes a thought that slips away before it forms.
So this is it.
Something stirs, not in front of me, not behind me, but everywhere at once. Not a voice exactly. More like the sense of text appearing on a screen that I cannot see.
A calm presence presses a question into me.
"Confirm. Consciousness detected."
I laugh, or I try to. The idea of laughter flickers through the void like a spark that refuses to catch.
Seriously? A system message?
The presence waits.
I answer with the only thing I can still control. Meaning.
Yes. Unfortunately.
Another line settles into place.
"Stability: Low. Memory load: High. Consent required."
Consent.
That word irritates me more than it should. As if I have ever had the luxury of being asked.
Consent to what?
The presence does not explain. It simply offers the next prompt, quiet and patient, like a clerk who has seen every kind of customer.
"Designation. Provide a name."
A name.
My real name tastes like expectations. Like obligations. Like a dozen people I could not satisfy and a dozen versions of myself I failed to become.
A different name rises instead, one that feels like clean air.
Auralis.
The void accepts it.
"Designation registered: Auralis."
A beat passes.
Then the presence shifts, as if opening another folder.
"Origin record: Inconsistent. External pattern detected. Identify core experience."
Core experience.
The darkness ripples, and my mind skids into the one place I was always honest.
A campfire glow in a cold night.
The little clink clink of a knife against a whetstone.
The soft, pleased purr of a companion who never asked me to be more than what I could manage.
A Palico, small and stubborn, tail flicking as if annoyed that I was taking so long.
He wore a tiny chef's hat once. Ridiculous. Perfect.
I could almost hear it.
"Mrrrow."
The memory brings warmth, and that warmth brings sound.
The crackle of cooking meat. Ssss.
The thud of a greatsword set down with care. Thunk.
The distant howl of something enormous beyond the trees, not yet seen but already felt in the marrow. Rrrrroooo.
It wasn't comfort because it was easy. It was comfort because it was clear.
Hunt. Gather. Cook. Sharpen. Try again.
No one cared if I was charming. No one cared if I was sociable. The world did not demand I smile at the right time.
The world only demanded that I learn.
"Monster Hunter," I answer, and the thought comes with a bitterness that turns into a grin. "My longest relationship."
The presence waits again, not judging, not amused.
So I keep going, because I finally have a listener that doesn't flinch.
I remember the stupid little gathering quests that somehow felt like therapy.
The first time I ran through a forest at dawn, not chasing glory, just chasing materials.
The pop of herbs when you plucked them. Pop.
The soft jingle of a find. Ting!
Honey glistening in the hollow of a tree, golden like a secret.
Mushrooms that smelled like damp earth and danger.
I remember my Palico bouncing beside me, paws barely touching the ground, a tiny backpack too big for his frame.
He would stop to pose after a successful carve, as if to say, See? We did it.
He would steal the last bite of steak if I looked away for half a second.
He would get knocked flat by a tail swipe, then spring back up, furious, ears pinned, as if the universe had personally insulted him.
"Mrrrow!" he'd shout, and it somehow sounded like swearing.
I remember the big hunts too.
The first time an Elder Dragon appeared on the horizon like a natural disaster with wings.
The air changing before it arrived.
Wind that wasn't weather.
Heat that wasn't sunlight.
A pressure that made small creatures go silent.
I remember standing at the edge of a crater, my breath fogging, and thinking, That thing should not exist.
Then the quest horn would blare, loud and ceremonial. Bwoooom!
And my hands, for once in my life, would stop trembling.
Because fear had a direction.
Because the problem in front of me was honest.
Repelling an Elder Dragon was never about victory. It was about survival with pride.
You didn't need to slay the storm. You just needed to make it leave.
You needed to learn the rhythm of its rage.
The way it lifted a claw before a slam.
The moment the wings tucked before a dive.
The brief second of stillness before the breath weapon turned the ground into a furnace.
And when it happened, when you timed it right, when you rolled under the impossible and came out alive, it felt like cheating fate.
Not because you were special.
Because you prepared.
Because you failed a hundred times in private and returned anyway.
I remember the metallic taste of panic when the monster limped and I thought, This is where I get greedy.
I remember my Palico yanking me out of danger with a clutch of rope, squeaking in outrage like a tiny commander.
And I remember the moment the Elder Dragon finally recoiled, roared, and fled into the clouds.
Not dead. Not defeated in the dramatic way stories wanted.
But repelled.
A win measured in breathing.
A win measured in the campfire afterward, when I sat down and the tension drained from my shoulders.
My Palico would sit across from me, paws tucked, eyes bright with reflected flame.
He would offer a fist bump like it was the most important ritual in the world.
And I would tap his paw, and for a moment I would not feel alone.
In the office, I never knew how to ask for that.
In that world, it came naturally.
The presence shifts again, almost as if it has been taking notes.
"Composite record detected," it says. "Multiple iterations."
It pauses.
"Persistent skill imprint probable."
Skill imprint? The words don't just appear. They settle, heavy, like a stamp on the soul.
The presence offers the next prompt.
"Template proposed. Accept?"
A template.
A blueprint of a legend that never existed, built from hours, failures, and stubborn retries.
I think of my real life. The buzzing lights. The deadlines. The jokes I pretended to laugh at. The way my chest felt tight when I tried to be honest.
I think of the hunts. The field. The campfire.
The difference is not fantasy.
The difference is purpose.
I answer, and for the first time, the decision feels clean.
"Fine," I think, and it almost sounds like a laugh. "If you're giving me a second chance, at least let me keep the part of myself that actually lived."
"I accept."
The presence presses down, and the void blooms with sensation.
Cold first, then heat, then pressure.
A sound like ice fracturing in slow motion. Crk… crk… crk…
Then everything snaps.
· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The night before the march, Alfia sat alone in the quietest corner of Hera Familia's camp.
Not because she disliked company. Not because she wanted to be dramatic. Because silence was the only thing that did not ask her for something.
A fire cracked somewhere behind the tents. Crk. Crk. The smell of oil and sharpened steel clung to the air. Even the wind carried it, as if the world itself had learned that tomorrow would taste like blood.
Across the camp, the high ranks moved with purpose. Healers counted vials. Supporters checked harnesses. Smiths inspected blades for hairline fractures, hands stained black with soot and sweat. A mage from Zeus Familia muttered a long chant under his breath, rehearsing cadence until it became muscle memory.
Alfia did none of that.
She checked her gloves, tightened the straps, and then sat perfectly still. Her anti-magic dress lay beneath her mantle like a second skin, heavy in a way cloth should not be. She could feel the enchantment nibbling at the edges of her own power, a steady pressure that kept her "noise" from spilling out.
A small luxury, that restraint.
She looked at the empty space beside her.
Meteria would have sat there, if she could.
That thought arrived the way old wounds did: quiet, uninvited, precise.
Meteria's world was mostly a bed, a window, and the soft footsteps of people who tried not to make her cough. Yet she smiled anyway. Always a little, always enough to make the room feel less heavy. Even Hera, proud and merciless, had softened around her.
Alfia still did not understand how.
If kindness was a magic, then Meteria was a spirit.
If strength was a sin, then Alfia had been born guilty.
She lifted her right hand and watched the faint shimmer of Silentium Eden over her skin. It was not visible like a barrier. It was more like the absence of sound given form, a pressure that swallowed the world's spellwork before it could touch her.
Armor that negated magic.
A seal that negated herself.
"How many times will you punish yourself?" a voice asked behind her, amused and too loud.
Zeus.
He was not subtle even when he tried. His laugh always came first, then the words, then the truth he pretended not to care about. Tonight, his presence carried less laughter and more weight.
Alfia did not turn. "I am not punishing myself."
"Sure, sure," Zeus said, stepping closer. His sandals pressed into wet grass. Sqch. "You are just doing your usual. Quiet. Difficult. Acting like the world is a nuisance."
"It is."
Zeus chuckled, then sighed. "Hera will take your head if you collapse early."
Alfia's lips barely moved. "Then tell her to stop expecting the impossible."
"Impossible is what we do," Zeus replied. "Otherwise the gods would not have bothered coming down."
She finally turned her head, just enough to meet his gaze.
Zeus's eyes were bright, but there was a tiredness behind them that no divine smile could erase. He knew what waited for them. He just refused to show fear because fear was contagious.
"Is Meteria asleep?" Zeus asked, softer.
Alfia's throat tightened. "She is always asleep."
"That is not what I meant."
"She is resting." Alfia corrected, and hated herself for needing to correct it. "She asked me to bring her something."
Zeus blinked. "Something?"
"A story," Alfia said. "One of her 'what if' talks."
Zeus laughed once, quietly. "That girl. Even dying, she still asks for stories."
Alfia's fingers curled, just slightly. "She said if I came back, I should tell her what the dragon's eye looks like up close."
Zeus's grin faltered. He looked past Alfia, toward the dark horizon. "That is a terrible request."
"She has terrible taste," Alfia replied.
Zeus's smile returned, gentler this time. "You will tell her. You will come back. That is the plan."
Alfia did not answer.
Plans were for people who believed the world cared.
When Zeus left, the silence rushed back in like water filling a crack. Alfia breathed it in.
Then her stomach twisted.
Not fear.
Something uglier. Something familiar.
A warning from her own body.
She pressed her palm against her abdomen and waited for the wave to pass.
It did not pass.
She swallowed once, slowly, as if swallowing could force her blood to stay where it belonged.
Tomorrow, she thought.
Not tonight.
Tomorrow would be loud enough.
...
The march began before dawn.
Mist curled around boots. Hff. The world smelled like damp earth and cold iron. Their formation moved like a living machine: Zeus Familia on one flank, Hera Familia on the other, vanguard forward, healers and supporters protected within the moving core.
Above them, Hera's banner snapped in the wind. Zeus's banner answered it, as if the two gods were arguing even in cloth.
Alfia walked near the front.
She was not supposed to be there. Not as a mage. Not with her condition.
But Alfia had never been a normal mage. Not in technique, not in temperament, not in the way she treated the line between melee and magic as something she could step over whenever she wished.
Silentium Eden covered her skin.
Her anti-magic dress weighed down her limbs.
And inside her chest, Gif Blessing waited like a coiled blade.
She could feel it already, as they approached the region where the land turned sharp and lifeless. Grass gave way to rock. Trees thinned until the horizon became a jagged spine of black hills.
The air tasted wrong.
Not sulfur. Not rot.
Something older.
Something like a cave that had never been touched by sunlight.
The Empress walked ahead of the Hera side, her presence so dense that even the wind seemed to detour around her. A Level 9 captain, a woman whose very existence made the word "limit" feel like a joke.
On the Zeus side, Maxim walked with the steady pace of a man already committed to dying. A Level 8 captain, the "strongest" of his era, eyes fixed forward as if he could force the world to make sense through will alone.
Between them, the two Familias kept perfect distance.
Not rivalry today.
A truce shaped by necessity.
A truce shaped by the fact that the One Eyed Black Dragon did not care about pride.
The first sign was the silence.
Birds stopped.
Insects stopped.
Even the wind quieted, as if it had reached the edge of a cliff and did not want to look down.
Then the ground trembled.
Not a sharp quake. Not a sudden crack.
A slow, steady vibration, like a giant heartbeat beneath stone.
Thum. Thum. Thum.
Supporters stiffened. Healers tightened grips on satchels. A few lower-level adventurers swallowed hard enough for Alfia to hear it.
Maxim raised his arm.
The entire formation halted.
Alfia felt her own pulse slow. Her mind sharpened. Silentium Eden held steady.
Then she felt it.
The moment combat began.
Gif Blessing activated like a curse snapping shut.
Her veins burned with a phantom poison. Her fingers tingled, half numb, half electric. Her lungs tightened. Her heart skipped once, then hammered harder as if trying to outrun her own blood.
A small cough escaped her throat.
She swallowed it back.
No one needed to hear that yet.
Ahead, the jagged hills opened into a wide basin of broken rock.
And in that basin, the world ended.
The dragon's body was not merely large. It was geography.
Black scales layered over black scales, each plate the size of a shield wall. Its claws dug trenches into stone with the careless flex of a hand. Its wings were folded, but even folded they spread like a storm cloud pinned to the earth.
The head lifted.
One eye shone, bright and cold, a vertical slit that looked like judgment given sight.
The other was ruined.
An empty socket, scarred and jagged, as if something had torn the light out of it long ago.
Albert Waldstein's legacy. A reminder that heroes existed, once, and still died for it.
The dragon inhaled.
The air pulled inward. Dust rose. Pebbles jumped.
Then it exhaled.
A roar.
Not sound.
Impact.
VRRROOOOOOOOM.
The roar hit Alfia's bones before it hit her ears. It rattled teeth. It shook the stomach. It made a few supporters collapse to their knees, hands over their heads.
Silentium Eden did nothing against that.
Because it was not magic.
It was existence.
The vanguard surged forward anyway.
Steel flashed. Shields locked. Spears leveled.
CLANG. THUD. SCRAPE.
Magic circles bloomed behind them as mages began long chants.
Light and heat and wind twisted into forms that would have erased armies.
The first volley struck the dragon's scales.
BOOM. KRAK. SSSHHH.
Fire washed over its shoulder.
Lightning crawled across its ribs.
Blades of wind carved at wing joints.
For a brief moment, the world seemed to obey human effort.
Then the dragon moved.
It was not slow.
It was not lumbering.
It shifted its weight and the ground buckled. A sweep of its tail carved through stone and men alike.
WHUM.
A line of adventurers vanished in a spray of blood and shattered armor.
A second later, the aftershock arrived and threw the backline off balance.
Alfia watched, calm expression intact, and felt her stomach drop.
Not because people died.
Because the dragon had not even looked at them yet.
Maxim leapt first.
He moved like a blade thrown by the world itself, closing distance with speed that made lesser adventurers look frozen. His weapon struck the dragon's foreleg with a crash that cracked stone.
KADOOM.
A fissure spidered across one scale plate.
One.
The dragon's eye turned toward him.
Maxim did not flinch.
On Hera's side, the Empress advanced with a sword drawn low, posture relaxed, almost casual. A single step, then another.
The air around her felt heavy, as if she carried pressure with her.
She swung.
The slash did not end at the edge of her blade.
A shockwave peeled off, a distant strike, an "Afterglow" that hit the dragon's chest without her needing to be near it.
SHRAAANG.
The dragon's scales rippled. Dust burst outward.
Alfia's eyes narrowed slightly.
So even the Empress had to fight from range.
Interesting.
No.
Not interesting.
A warning.
Alfia stepped forward.
A breath, then a super short chant.
"Satanas Verion."
The sound did not travel like a normal spell.
It hit like a block.
An invisible hammer that slammed into the dragon's jaw.
GONK.
Shockwaves burst outward in concentric rings, shattering stone around the impact point, disrupting the air itself.
The dragon's head jerked, just a fraction.
A fraction was enough.
Vanguard fighters poured into that opening, blades seeking joints, spears driving toward softer seams.
Alfia did not smile.
Her mind counted.
One spell. One flinch. Minimal effect.
She tasted iron.
Her lungs tightened again.
Gif Blessing's "gift" kept draining. A steady leak, subtle now, but accelerating with time.
She shifted her stance, weight balanced, and kept Silentium Eden active despite the mind cost.
The dragon inhaled again, this time deeper.
The air screamed as it compressed.
This time, it was not a roar.
It was breath.
A beam of darkness edged with heat, like a column of night made physical.
Magic, or something that behaved like it.
Alfia raised her arm, not because she needed to, but because she wanted the dragon to believe she was "blocking."
Silentium Eden swallowed the attack at the point of contact. The darkness dispersed into nothingness against her "armor," eaten by negation.
But the pressure still hit.
Alfia slid back several meters, boots carving grooves into stone.
Her ankles screamed. Her bones rang.
She stopped.
The vanguard behind her did not.
The beam swept across them.
They did not get swallowed. They got erased.
SHHHHHK.
Armor glowed red, then ran like wax.
A scream rose, then cut off.
Alfia's eyes did not widen. Her expression stayed calm.
Inside her chest, something cold spread.
This was not a monster to be hunted.
This was a calamity that happened to have a body.
A voice flashed in her memory, gentle and bright.
"What if," Meteria had said once, smiling from a pillow, "what if we were born in a time where heroes were not needed?"
Alfia had scoffed then, and Meteria had laughed, soft and wheezy.
Now, Alfia felt that question turn into a blade.
What if.
What if she had not "stolen" the talent.
What if Meteria had been the one to stand here, healthy and bright and strong.
What if the world had been fair.
Alfia exhaled slowly.
Fairness was noise.
She did not have the right to ask for it.
She only had the right to endure.
Alfia lifted her hand again.
Satanas Verion.
GONK. GONK.
Two blocks of sound slammed into the dragon's cheek and neck. Shockwaves cracked rock, rattled scales, forced a slight adjustment in posture.
It was not damage.
It was control.
A moment stolen.
Maxim used it, driving in with another strike that carved deeper into the same weak point.
The Empress followed with a second Afterglow slash, this time aimed at the wing joint.
SHRAAANG.
The dragon's wing twitched.
It unfolded one wing halfway, not because it was hurt, but because it was irritated.
The sky darkened beneath it.
Alfia's mind ran the calculation she did not want.
If it flies, the battle ends.
Not in their favor.
Never in their favor.
A cough escaped her throat again, sharper this time.
She covered her mouth with her glove.
When she pulled her hand away, there was blood.
Not much.
Enough.
A few nearby adventurers glanced at her.
Alfia's gaze sliced them into stillness.
They looked away.
Good.
She swallowed, forcing her breathing to remain steady. Silentium Eden shimmered faintly, still intact. Her mind pool felt thinner.
Time.
The skill was eating her, turn by turn.
She could end this faster.
There was one spell that could turn the battlefield into nothing but ringing silence.
Genos Angelus.
A long chant. A gigantic bell. A range that could swallow a hundred meters. Enough force to kill Leviathan, once.
Also enough force to worsen her condition.
Enough to turn today into her last day.
Alfia's fingers trembled once.
Not from fear.
From the way her nerves misfired under Gif Blessing's dysfunction.
Poison, paralysis, the body's betrayal, all layered together under the word "talent."
She clenched her hand until the tremor stopped.
Not yet.
Not until she was sure.
The dragon's eye locked onto her.
For the first time, it looked directly at Alfia.
The pressure of that gaze was obscene.
It was like standing before a god that had never learned mercy.
Alfia felt her mind want to recoil.
She did not let it.
She raised her chin, calm as always.
Inside, a thin thread of will tightened around a memory.
Meteria, smiling.
Meteria, coughing.
Meteria, saying, "Alfia, you always look like you are carrying the whole world. You do not have to be strong alone."
Alfia's lips parted. A whisper, so small no one else could hear it.
'If you were here, you would tell me to stop pretending I do not care.'
Her eyes narrowed.
'So I will care properly.'
The dragon moved.
Not a tail sweep this time.
A step.
It planted its foreclaw down.
The rock shattered outward like a wave.
KRRAAASH.
A dozen adventurers lost footing. Some fell. Some were crushed before they hit the ground.
Maxim leapt back, barely clearing the impact zone.
The Empress slid aside, cloak snapping.
Alfia did not move.
She could not.
Her legs failed for half a heartbeat, nerves stuttering, paralysis biting just long enough to remind her what her "gift" really was.
The shockwave hit her chest.
Silentium Eden did nothing.
Because it was not magic.
Alfia's ribs screamed. Her vision flashed white. She tasted blood again, heavier.
She forced her body to move by sheer refusal.
Her boots scraped back, carving lines in stone.
She stayed upright.
A healer shouted something, but the roar of combat swallowed it.
Alfia wiped her mouth with the back of her glove.
Blood smeared across pale fabric.
The dragon's head lowered, close enough that its breath rolled over her like furnace wind.
Its single eye reflected her.
Small.
Fragile.
Temporary.
Alfia's calm expression did not change.
But inside her, the decision clicked into place like a lock.
Genos Angelus was not a choice anymore.
It was a cost.
A price she had been born to pay.
She inhaled.
Silentium Eden shimmered, still sealing her noise, still holding the world's magic at bay.
Alfia's throat tightened.
She began the first words of a long chant.
And the battlefield, as if sensing what she was about to do, became very, very quiet for an instant.
Even the dragon seemed to pause.
As if it, too, was listening for the bell.
Alfia began the chant.
Not loudly. Not heroically. The words left her mouth with the same flat cadence she used when correcting someone in a corridor. The spell did not care about drama. It cared about precision.
The battlefield reacted anyway.
It was not fear that spread through the ranks. It was recognition.
People who had survived the Leviathan knew that sound. Not the bell itself, not yet, but the way the air sharpened when the chant started, like the world was holding its breath so it would not be cut.
A horn answered from the Zeus side. BWOOO. Short, clipped. A command signal, not a rally cry.
Maxim's voice followed, deep and clear, carrying over the chaos. "Bell-guard! Tighten! Anchor teams, advance!"
They were not soldiers. No uniforms. No drilled ranks polished by parade grounds.
But they were first class adventurers who had fought calamities that erased nations.
They had learned order the hard way.
Supporters and shield-bearers moved without being told twice. A wedge of heavy shields formed in front of Alfia, angled to deflect not spells but mass. Their boots scraped in unison. Scrrk. Scrrk.
On Hera's side, the Empress lifted one hand.
That was all.
Squad leaders snapped their fingers and pointed. A chain of gestures rippled outward, fast and silent. The closest strike teams pulled back from the dragon's forelegs and shifted into a wide ring, leaving lanes open for the injured to retreat and the mages to reposition.
Alfia did not look at them for long. Looking invited attachment.
Attachment invited hesitation.
She kept chanting.
Her words were long, old, and heavy with meaning she did not care to understand. She only cared that each syllable landed cleanly, without slipping.
In front of her, Silentium Eden shimmered faintly, not a barrier but a seal that kept her own "noise" from spilling out. She raised her arm anyway, because the gesture made people think she was protected, and people fought better when they believed the mage was safe.
The dragon's single eye narrowed.
It understood, or it simply disliked being treated like an obstacle.
The One Eyed Black Dragon drew back, then slammed its foreclaw down again.
KRRAAASH.
Stone erupted.
Shields caught the first wave. The wedge broke, then reformed, men skidding sideways as their heels carved grooves in rock. The impact still punched through. Two shield-bearers went limp, armor ringing as they hit the ground. Clang. Clang.
Healers rushed in, not panicked, just fast. They dragged bodies by harness straps and pulled them into the safe lane behind the wedge, where supporters were already uncorking vials with shaking fingers.
Alfia kept chanting.
Her stomach twisted again.
Gif Blessing had no mercy. It did not care that she was casting a spell that could change the course of the battle. It only cared that combat had started, and therefore she must be punished for the "sin" of being strong.
A pulse of numbness crawled up her left arm.
Then it vanished.
Then her fingers spasmed.
Then they steadied.
Poison, paralysis, dysfunction. All at once, rotating like a wheel that never stopped.
She swallowed, forcing breath through a throat that wanted to cough.
Not now.
If she coughed mid-syllable, she could misfire.
If she misfired, she could kill her own people.
The dragon inhaled.
The air pulled inward so hard that dust rose from the ground and streamed toward its maw. Pebbles skittered and bounced. Tktktktk.
A breath weapon followed, not flame, not lightning, but something like condensed darkness edged with heat.
A beam that looked like the absence of light.
Alfia did not stop chanting.
She angled her raised arm.
Silentium Eden swallowed the magic at the point of contact, dispersing it into nothing. The beam did not "break" against her. It simply ceased where she stood, eaten by negation.
But the pressure remained.
Her boots slid back a full meter.
Her ankles screamed.
She stayed upright.
Behind her, a Zeus mage shouted a warning. "Sweep incoming! Left to right!"
Maxim answered with another horn. BWOO BWOO. Two blasts, different cadence.
The bell-guard wedge split into two walls, leaving a corridor in the center so Alfia could keep line of sight. On the flanks, adventurers sprinted to draw the beam away, waving capes, throwing alchemical smoke, anything to make the dragon track motion.
It did.
The beam swung.
It grazed a cliff face and shaved it down like clay. SHHHHK.
Rocks melted. A scream rose from someone too slow, then ended.
Alfia's eyes did not widen. She registered the loss and stored it in a cold place, the way she stored all losses.
Her chant continued.
The Empress moved.
She did not run.
She stepped, and the distance between her and the dragon collapsed as if the world had been folded.
Her blade drew a line through air.
SHRAAANG.
Afterglow struck the dragon's shoulder from range. Shockwaves rippled across scales. Dust burst outward in a halo.
Maxim took the opening.
He launched himself toward the foreleg he had already cracked. His weapon hit the same spot again.
KADOOM.
The fissure widened. A single plate shifted, not broken but loosened.
Zald crashed into view on the Zeus flank, a giant in full armor moving with grim focus. He did not look at the dragon like it was an enemy.
He looked at it like it was a wall that needed to be brought down, even if he died on impact.
His greatsword came down in a brutal arc.
WHAM.
The strike did not cut. It crushed. The sound was blunt, ugly, effective.
Alfia felt a thin, distant satisfaction.
Not because the dragon was hurt.
Because it was being forced to respond.
A calamity that responded could be managed.
A calamity that ignored them would annihilate them.
The dragon's wing twitched again, irritated.
It began to unfold.
The shadow of it rolled across the battlefield like night spilling out of a cup.
"No," Alfia breathed, still chanting.
If it flew, they lost the ability to dictate angles. They lost the ability to protect the backline. They lost the ground itself as a reference point for formation and retreat.
Maxim knew it too.
"Anchor teams!" he roared. "Bind the wing!"
From behind the main line, heavy weapons rolled forward, pushed by supporters and guarded by mid-tier adventurers. Not siege engines in the military sense. More like oversized hunting tools built by a mad smith who had seen too many monsters and decided to answer with excessive metal.
Ballista frames clicked into place. Kchk. Kchk. Thick chains were loaded instead of bolts, each link as big as a man's fist.
Mages in support robes gathered behind them and began synchronized chants, their voices layered to reinforce the chain's enchantment so it would not snap on first contact.
"Three," a squad leader counted.
"Two."
"One."
"Loose!"
The ballistae fired.
THOOM. THOOM.
Chains screamed through the air. WHIRRR.
Two missed, slicing past the wing and biting into rock, anchors useless. One struck true, wrapping around the wing's leading edge.
The chain went taut.
For one heartbeat, it held.
Then the dragon flexed.
The chain whined like a dying animal. REEEE.
It did not snap. Not immediately.
The enchantment flared, bright, resisting.
The adventurers holding the ground anchors dug in and braced, bodies angled like living stakes. Their boots carved trenches. Their teeth clenched.
Then the dragon pulled.
The anchors ripped out of the earth like weeds.
Men flew.
The chain whipped and tore through the air, smashing two supporters into the ground. CRUNCH.
The wing still unfolded.
Alfia kept chanting.
Her vision blurred at the edges.
She tasted iron again.
The relapse hit like a knife from inside.
Her lungs tightened, then convulsed.
A cough escaped.
She turned her head slightly so she would not cough into the circle forming above her, and still blood sprayed into her glove.
Hot. Thick. Real.
The wedge in front of her stiffened.
A Hera adventurer shouted, "She's bleeding!"
Alfia's gaze snapped toward him.
It was not anger, exactly. It was the sharp, dead-eyed command of someone who did not have time for weakness to become contagious.
He flinched and shut up.
Good.
She forced her breath back into order.
Her mind trembled.
Genos Angelus was not a spell you cast "while unwell." It was a spell you cast by grinding your body into ash and calling it devotion.
She had done it once before.
She remembered the sea.
Not waves, not sky, but the Leviathan's sheer presence, like a continent moving under water. The feeling of being too small, and still hearing people behind her trust that she would act.
She had cast the bell.
She had killed the monster.
And afterward, her body had paid.
Meteria had held her hand in a church, smiling as if Alfia had done something beautiful.
"You did it," Meteria had whispered. "So you can do it again. If you must."
Alfia hated that memory.
Not because Meteria was wrong.
Because Meteria believed Alfia deserved praise.
Alfia did not.
Her chant continued.
The silver-grey outline of a bell began to manifest above her head, faint at first, like moonlight drawn into shape.
The air vibrated.
Not loudly yet.
Just enough to make teeth itch.
Hmmm.
The dragon noticed.
Its head snapped toward her.
The single eye locked on.
A pressure slammed into Alfia's mind, heavier than the roar, heavier than the breath weapon. It was not magic, or maybe it was magic so old that it felt like instinct.
Fear as a concept, forced into flesh.
Around her, lower-level supporters froze. A few dropped their tools. One fell to his knees, lips moving in a silent prayer.
Alfia's heart beat once, hard.
Then steadied.
Fear was noise.
She had sealed her noise long ago.
She met the dragon's gaze without blinking.
The bell above her grew.
The Empress shifted, reading the dragon's intent before it moved.
She raised her hand again, sharp.
The Hera ring tightened around Alfia's position, not as protectors of a fragile mage, but as a moving barrier designed to steal time. Two spear users took the front, bracing to intercept any charge. A sword user moved to Alfia's right, ready to cut anything that slipped past.
On the Zeus side, Maxim barked, "Vanguard, draw aggro! Do not let it reach her!"
He did not sound like a king.
He sounded like a man who had already accepted that his role was to die buying seconds.
Zald answered without being asked.
He sprinted, armor thundering. THUD THUD THUD.
He slammed his greatsword into the dragon's foreleg again, not aiming for elegance, aiming for pain.
WHAM.
The dragon's attention flickered.
Maxim followed with a strike that landed like a falling tower.
KADOOM.
The cracked plate on the foreleg finally broke.
A chunk of black scale shattered off.
It fell, and the impact cratered the earth. BOOM.
For the first time, the dragon bled.
Not red.
Dark, viscous, steaming.
The smell hit the battlefield like burnt iron and bitterness.
Adventurers shouted. Not in joy, not in relief, but in the instinctive way people do when they see proof that the impossible can be moved.
The dragon roared again.
This time the roar carried heat.
The air warped.
VRRROOOOM.
The dragon's wounded foreleg slammed down, and the ground buckled, but the top fighters did not scatter.
They adapted.
Hera's strike teams slid in and out, cutting at tendons, joints, seams. Zeus's vanguard focused on creating fixed points, forcing the dragon to commit to positions, punishing it when it did.
It was not pretty.
It was not "heroic."
It was professional violence at the edge of human capability.
Alfia kept chanting.
The bell above her grew until it looked like a second sky.
Its rim shimmered.
Its interior was not hollow. It was dense with vibration.
The spell wanted release.
Her body wanted to collapse.
Her mind began to fray, not from fear, but from the constant drain, the semi-permanent decrease that Gif Blessing inflicted every turn. Each second made her weaker, and the spell demanded she be strong.
Her knees threatened to buckle.
She locked them.
Blood ran down her chin in a thin line.
She wiped it away without looking.
Meteria's face rose in her mind.
Not the sickroom. Not the coughing.
The smile.
The way Meteria's eyes softened when she spoke about a world that did not need heroes.
"You are always trying to make things quieter," Meteria had said once, teasing. "Maybe you should try making them louder, just once, if it saves someone."
Alfia's throat tightened.
'If you were here,' she thought, you would tell me I am allowed to live.
Her mind rejected it.
Allowed.
Deserved.
Those words were poison.
But the will behind them was not.
She took that will and sharpened it into something usable.
Not self-love.
Duty.
A debt she could pay.
The dragon's wing finished unfolding.
Wind exploded outward. WHOOM.
Dust and ash became a storm.
The dragon's body lifted slightly, claws digging, muscles coiling for a leap.
If it rose, it would bring the entire fight into the air.
It would turn their order into scattered survival.
Maxim shouted, voice raw, "Ground it!"
The Empress moved like a blade.
She struck the wing joint directly with Afterglow, forcing shockwaves into the hinge.
SHRAAANG.
The wing faltered.
Not stopped.
Faltered.
Zald threw himself at the dragon's wounded foreleg again, driving his greatsword into the broken seam like a wedge, trying to force instability.
KRRRK.
The dragon's balance shifted.
It planted its other foreclaw hard to stabilize.
That moment, that tiny wobble, was all Alfia needed.
The final syllables left her mouth.
The bell above her head solidified.
A gigantic silver-grey bell, suspended in the air like judgment.
For a heartbeat, there was no sound.
Then the bell rang.
BOOOOOOOONG.
The wave of sound did not travel like music.
It traveled like a wall.
It slammed into the dragon's chest, into its wings, into its bones, into the air itself.
Stone shattered outward in a ring. KRAK-KRAK-KRAK.
Adventurers behind the bell-guard dropped to their knees, hands clamped over ears, blood leaking from noses, because even at distance the vibration was punishment.
The dragon's body recoiled.
Its wing snapped inward slightly, forced by the impact.
Its head jerked back.
The single eye widened.
For the first time, the One Eyed Black Dragon did not look like a god.
It looked like a beast being struck.
A roar tore out of it, ragged, furious.
GRAAAAAAGH.
The sound wave ended.
Silence rushed in, heavy and wrong.
Alfia's vision dimmed.
Her heart stuttered.
For a second, she did not feel her legs.
Then pain returned, hot and absolute.
She tasted blood again, too much.
Her lungs tried to collapse.
She swallowed hard, forcing breath.
The bell above her flickered, then faded.
Genos Angelus had been cast.
The price was immediate.
Her body felt like it had been scraped hollow.
She swayed.
The sword user on her right caught her elbow.
Alfia jerked away, not wanting to be held.
But the battlefield did not give her the luxury of pride.
The dragon moved through the pain.
It did not fall.
It did not die.
It recovered faster than it should have.
It lifted its head, and its single eye burned with a cold, focused hatred.
Then it exhaled again.
Not a beam.
A wave.
A cone of black heat that swallowed the ground, turned air into knives, and erased everything in its path.
The bell-guard wedge tried to shift.
Too slow.
The first shields glowed, then liquefied. SSSSSS.
A man screamed as his armor fused to his skin.
Another scream ended mid-note.
Maxim threw himself into the wave's edge, weapon raised, trying to carve a path through the attack with sheer force.
The Empress's cloak snapped as she moved, blade flashing, cutting trajectories, forcing the wave to split.
Zald braced, armor steaming, teeth clenched as he pushed forward anyway.
And Alfia, knees shaking, blood on her lips, realized something with cold clarity.
They had hurt the dragon.
They had proven it could be moved.
But the dragon was still the one deciding how many of them would be allowed to exist on its battlefield.
She steadied herself, forcing her spine straight.
Her calm expression returned, not because she felt calm, but because it was the only mask that kept her mind from breaking.
The fight was not over.
It had only reached the point where the dragon stopped playing.
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