The Sentinel's hand closed around Arin's throat, metal fingers locking into place with a mechanical click that echoed like a death sentence. Arin couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Panic clawed at his chest as the machine lifted him effortlessly from the rubble.
Kairon's roar shook the air.
"ARIN!"
Lira staggered to her feet, one hand gripping her cracked ribs. "Kairon—don't—!"
But Kairon wasn't listening.
The moment the Sentinel turned and began striding toward the gaping fissure in the ground—the one it had risen from—something inside Kairon snapped like a brittle bone.
He surged forward in a burst of flame, claws outstretched, fangs bared.
The Sentinel didn't even glance back.
It simply raised its free arm and blasted him with a shockwave.
Kairon slammed into the pavement, hard enough to crater it.
He groaned, but his vision remained locked on the machine carrying Arin down into the earth.
No. No, not again. Not someone else.
"Kairon," Lira rasped, reaching him. "We can still get him—"
But Kairon wasn't hearing her.
Something ancient stirred inside him.
A memory.
A voice—not human, not comforting.
It echoed from the deepest, darkest part of him.
You failed once. Will you fail again, little flame?
Kairon's breath hitched. He dug his claws into the ground so hard they cracked the stone.
He remembered heat.
He remembered fire.
He remembered someone screaming a long time ago—
No. No. Not Arin.
Kairon pushed himself up.
His tail lashed violently behind him.
Flame bled from his eyes.
"Kairon," Lira whispered, stepping back, "your aura—"
It wasn't just flaring.
It was boiling.
Kairon's pupils thinned to razor slits.
"I won't let them take him," he growled.
And then—
He broke.
Kairon didn't shift completely.
His body wasn't ready.
But his aura burst out of him like an exploding star, rattling windows, sending shockwaves pulsing through the plaza. Tiles shattered beneath his feet. Streetlights bent away from him. The air warped with heat.
Lira shielded her face as the heat wave blasted over her. "Kairon! Stop! You're burning your body—!"
But Kairon didn't hear her.
He only heard Arin's strangled breaths as the Sentinel dragged him deeper into the fissure.
Only heard that mechanical voice:
"CAPTURE: COMPLETE."
A snarl ripped from his throat—raw, guttural, animalistic.
He sprinted toward the fissure, flames spiraling behind him, leaving scorch marks with every step. The heat from his aura melted the asphalt as he ran.
But the Sentinel was already descending into the underground levels—its form growing smaller as it marched down.
"ARIN!" Kairon roared.
Arin's fading voice echoed weakly from below.
"K…Kairon…!"
The moment Kairon heard that, he jumped.
He dove straight into the fissure—a vertical drop into darkness, glowing with the faint purple light of the Sentinel's core.
But halfway down, torrents of defensive energy surged from the walls.
A barrier.
A containment field.
It flared into existence as soon as Kairon leapt.
Lira screamed from above:
"Kairon, WAIT—!!"
But it was too late.
The containment field activated—
—and blasted him back out of the fissure like a cannonball.
Kairon was hurled into the air, slammed into a bus several meters away, and crashed through the metal, sending flames erupting across the street.
The field sealed.
And Arin was gone.
Lira sprinted toward the fissure, gripping her daggers with bloodied hands.
"Arin!" she shouted into the darkness.
No answer.
The crack sealed fully with a grinding sound of metal grinding over stone, forming an armored plate over the Bureau's underground system.
"Kairon!"
She ran to the bus wreckage.
Smoke poured from it. Flames licked the broken edges. She could smell heat—real draconic heat—and fear coiled in her stomach.
"Kairon, can you hear me?"
A shaky hand gripped the edge of the torn metal and dragged itself out.
Kairon stumbled into the open, bruised, his white shirt half-burned away, scales flickering across half his face. His breathing was ragged and sharp, unstable.
He swayed.
"Kairon." Lira caught his arm.
He jerked away. Flames erupted from his skin, scorching the metal where her hand had been.
"Don't touch me," he growled, voice layered with a deeper resonance.
His other side—his dragon—was too close to the surface.
Lira tightened her jaw. "Then listen. They've taken Arin underground. You can't reach him like this. You'll burn yourself alive."
Kairon shook violently. "Let go. I have to follow him—"
"You can't!" she snapped. "The Sentinel just threw you through a bus like you were paper!"
Kairon bared his teeth. "I have to get him back!"
The ground trembled again.
Lira's eyes widened. "That rumble… that's not the Sentinel."
And she was right.
The tremor came from the opposite side of the plaza.
The direction the second dragon fled after the clash.
A crimson glow rippled across the ruined buildings.
Kairon froze—
Because he recognized that aura.
"Oh no," he whispered.
The air distorted—and a figure dropped onto the street with impact heavy enough to crack the pavement.
She stood tall, human-shaped but unmistakably draconic: scales patterned like burning embers across her cheeks, pupils glowing molten red. Her long dark hair whipped behind her in the hot updraft she generated just by existing.
Her aura rippled through the plaza like a wave of fire meeting a storm.
Lira backed up immediately.
"Kairon… is that—?"
"Yes." Kairon swallowed hard. "That's the other awakened dragon."
The girl's eyes scanned the street—cold, predatory.
Then landed on Kairon.
"You," she hissed. "You're the chaos-flame. The one who fought me earlier."
Kairon took a step forward despite his trembling legs.
"What do you want?"
She tilted her head. "To speak."
Lira stiffened. "She doesn't look like she came to talk."
The dragon girl glanced at Lira with disinterest—like a human looking at an ant.
"I did not come for you. Only him."
Her gaze returned to Kairon.
"We are in danger. All of us. The waking force below the city…" Her voice wavered. "It called something. Something older than the clans. Older than even dragons."
Kairon's fists tightened.
"You felt the Sentinel too, didn't you?"
She nodded.
"I felt its birth. Its hunger. It wants the Unbound one."
Her gaze sharpened.
"The boy you protect."
Kairon's heart thudded painfully.
Arin.
She stepped closer.
"You fought me earlier," she said. "You failed. But now… you burn differently."
Kairon stiffened. Lira stepped forward, ready to intercept, but Kairon raised a hand.
The dragon girl stopped right in front of him.
And whispered:
"I choose your side."
Lira's jaw dropped. "What?"
The girl's eyes flared with heat.
"I chose because I felt something down below. Something rising. Something ancient that should not wake." Her breathing quickened. "Something that wants dragons. All dragons."
Kairon stared at her.
"What is it?"
She shook her head.
"I don't know its name."
She pointed downward—toward the sealed fissure where Arin had been dragged.
"But it's beneath us."
Kairon's blood turned to ice.
"And it has the Unbound dragon now."
Kairon grabbed her shoulders. "Can you track him? Can you sense the Sentinel?"
"Yes," she said without hesitation.
Lira looked between them. "Then we need to follow—before they take Arin deeper."
The dragon girl nodded.
"Kairon." She looked directly into his burning golden eyes. "Your fire is unstable. But strong. Strong enough to break something the clans could not."
She raised a hand toward the sealed metal layer covering the Bureau's underground.
"Together, we might be able to crack its shell."
Kairon's throat tightened.
His flames flickered around his arms.
His vision trembled between fury and terror.
Arin… hold on…
"Fine," Kairon said, voice low. "Then we move. Now."
The dragon girl smirked—sharp and fierce.
"Good. Because if the Sentinel reaches the lower levels…"
Her expression darkened.
"…the real monster wakes."
Kairon inhaled sharply.
Then—
He unleashed his flames.
She unleashed hers.
And the plaza erupted in fire.