Destruction beckoned as the very ground began to vanish beneath the violent storm.

  Thousands of lightning bolts ruptured the land, erasing everything beneath the clouds. Dirt, mist, air—nothing resisted the blasts. Only the rocky platform where the trio stood remained, their breaths caught in their throats.

  The ionized air felt thick and alive, carrying a cold dread that pulsed from above. All three braced for whatever writhed within the storm like a fish in water.

  They scanned their surroundings and realized the platform was their last bastion. Everything else had been reduced to nothing.

  If only the world were silent, the terror might have felt less acute. Instead, the sky convulsed—and the creature overhead announced itself.

  A shudder ran up their spines. Deveralna, May, and Stella looked up as two absurdly large maws split the clouds.

  The jaws opened, and an oppressive roar exploded—an echo that rolled for hundreds of kilometers. The sound heralded the return of a great beast that had terrorized the world for who-knows-how-long.

  The clouds were ripped aside, revealing the thing hiding within the storm.

  Its shadow twisted the sky. A pale-blue serpent of impossible length—five kilometers at least—coiled across the heavens, each movement sinuous and deliberate. Every turn warped the air, tearing the remaining clouds into spirals that scattered like startled birds.

  Six arms extended from its serpentine torso, each ending in claws that could rend the strongest metal. Four colossal horns crowned its head—two swept forward like jagged scythes, and two curved back like the crest of a forgotten creator.

  Light itself faltered as it passed. The creature’s vast body blotted out the sun, bathing the world below in a cold, shifting dusk. Its scales shimmered faintly—not with beauty, but with the chill gleam of distant ice. When it moved, the air trembled; when it breathed, the clouds recoiled.

  It did not soar. It loomed, circling with the patience of a storm that already knew where it would strike.

  Massive eyes fixed on the small figures below.

  The shockwave of its roar slammed into them, driving their feet deeper into the cracking rock.

  When it faded, only dread remained—the raw, hollow weight left by something that vast. There was no plan, no naive hope of victory.

  All three froze beneath the creature, breath shallow.

  'How can we fight something like this?!' Stella’s thoughts surged, jumbled by the display. 'This is impossible! I can’t do this…'

  She turned to May for orders, desperate to break her paralysis.

  May was frozen too. Her face said fleeing was impossible.

  Stella’s gaze slid to Deveralna.

  The lamia’s expression was different—unshakable, colder than either of them managed.

  “Keep it together, you two. This is nothing Orion wouldn’t handle,” Deveralna said.

  The mention of her husband made May flinch.

  “I…” Her voice trembled. “Orion would—”

  For a moment, May stared at her shaking hands, the tremor a memory hammered into her soul—the day everything burned, the village she’d known reduced to ash.

  She ground her teeth, clenched her fists, and forced herself upright.

  'I am not so weak as to fall now.' She swept an arm to the side in defiance. “Thanks, Deveralna.”

  Deveralna returned a thin, fierce smile. They both faced the sky, where the largest thing they’d ever seen loomed above them.

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  “Stella. Don’t let this break you,” May said, turning to the frightened warrior. 'Swallow your fear. Stand strong.'

  “You can’t let yourself lose, can you?” Deveralna added, magic crackling along her arms. “We fight until the end—even if it’s our last breath.”

  Catharsis trembled in Stella’s hands. Inexperience set her thoughts racing; expectation threatened to crush her.

  But she was not alone. May and Deveralna were there.

  The fog lifted from her mind. Focus returned like a rekindled flame. She tightened her grip on the fauchard and looked upward at the greatest horror she had ever faced.

  She nodded once and steadied herself.

  Var’Lathen, thrown from its stolen shell, seethed with fury. Stripped of the face it had worn, it glared with nothing but hatred.

  Seeing the trio stand before it only poured more fuel onto its wrath.

  Its pressure rose, but the women did not falter. Its roar, meant to terrorize, failed to break them.

  “Pitiful beings!” Var’Lathen’s voice boomed like an explosion. “You actually wounded my pride.”

  “As an Elder One, I find this utterly shameless,” it continued. “Puny creatures—smaller than a nail of my claw—think they can bring me down.” Steam hissed from its maw.

  “Such an affront. I will not hold back.” Its eyes locked on Deveralna. “Your body will serve nicely as a replacement for the one I lost.”

  Disgust flitted across Deveralna’s face.

  “You will never have my body,” she spat. “Even if you could take it, you would not live long enough to enjoy it.”

  Var’Lathen scoffed. “No being is strong enough to damage me. Casting off the human shell I wore was your greatest mistake. Struggle pitifully while I shred you.”

  That small exchange sparked the beginning of a brutal confrontation—three mortals against an almighty beast the size of three Albriar.

  Yet they stood valiant before the impossible, ready to strike it down nonetheless.

  The battle began as Var’Lathen leaned forward, its first row of arms slamming toward the ground.

  “No time to hesitate!” May’s voice cut through the rising thunder. She clasped both hands together, summoning a blade of fire so intense the air cracked around it. “Let’s go!”

  “Deveralna—take to the sky,” she ordered, tone sharp and commanding. “Strike fast and without mercy.”

  “I was already planning to.”

  Deveralna coiled her tail, wings flaring wide as lightning coursed through her arms. With a blinding surge, she launched herself upward—straight toward the serpent.

  May turned to Stella, eyes burning with focus.

  “You attack from afar,” she said, just before a thunderbolt crashed toward them. May met it head-on—her blazing sword carving through the storm. Flame met lightning, the explosion shaking the air.

  “You’re better at range,” she called over the noise. “Find its weak point. I’ll handle the rest!”

  She dodged another strike, each motion fluid, deliberate, the mark of a seasoned warrior. Her blade swept aside three bolts in quick succession, scattering them into harmless arcs.

  “Hah! Karteira’s strikes were faster than that!” she shouted, smiling despite herself. The defiance in her voice carried even through the roar of thunder.

  Stella watched in awe. Then, tightening her grip on Catharsis, she drew a deep breath.

  “Alright. Let’s do this.”

  She spun the fauchard in its familiar motion, gathering grey energy along the blade until its edge pulsed with power. Then she took her stance—light on her feet, her movements deliberate, almost graceful.

  Lightning crashed all around her, but she flowed between each strike like a shadow in the storm, her weapon humming with restrained force.

  Above, the sky was chaos—lightning and flame tangled in the clouds as Deveralna faced the Devourer head-on.

  “You dare face me directly?” Var’Lathen’s voice rumbled through the storm. “Is it courage—or arrogance?”

  Deveralna said nothing. Her eyes glowed, calm and cold. Then, she vanished.

  “—!”

  Var’Lathen didn’t have time to react.

  BOOM!

  A shockwave tore through the air as Deveralna’s fist slammed into its lower jaw in a blinding uppercut. The serpent reeled, its massive form thrown upward, the force shaking the clouds themselves.

  For a moment, the heavens fell silent.

  Then Stella moved. She slashed outward, releasing a crescent wave of grey energy so wide it could have cleaved a mountain.

  It struck Var’Lathen’s scales—

  Ting!

  —and shattered harmlessly into particles.

  Not even a mark.

  Deveralna saw her opening anyway. She darted back, raising her left hand. A sphere of plasma began to form, brilliant and unstable, drawing in the air around it.

  The energy grew, compressing into a blinding mass that pulsed like a miniature sun. It was a similar yet different spell she had once used in the War against Miasma—deadly, consuming.

  “Nova,” she whispered.

  The sphere vanished.

  A heartbeat later, it reappeared within the coils of the beast—and detonated.

  A blinding flash consumed the sky.

  WHOOOOM—

  A column of white fire tore through the heavens, devouring clouds, distorting the air itself. For a moment, the world turned white. The roar of energy was deafening; the sound of matter dissolving filled the air in a sickening hiss.

  Then silence.

  The light faded—and the serpent was still there. Unscathed.

  “—!”

  Deveralna’s instincts screamed. She threw both arms up.

  CRASH!

  Something massive slammed into her, driving her down like a comet. The ground erupted on impact, sending shards of stone into the air. When the dust settled, she was kneeling in the crater, blood tracing the corner of her lips.

  She spat, wiped her mouth, and glared skyward.

  “You’re a real piece of work.”

  Above her, Var’Lathen hung untouched—its scales gleaming faintly in the twilight.

  The Devourer had taken the full brunt of her magic and survived. Not a crack. Not a burn. Nothing.

  The air thickened with pressure as Deveralna rose from the crater. Her expression hardened; her pupils narrowed into draconic slits, her orange irises blazing gold.

  Her dragon blood had awakened.