Thranduil sat on his backside against the cold stone wall, still draped in nothing but his damp towel. Ever since he had finished unravelling the messy truths of his childhood and the horrors of the abyss, Cyra had been entirely quiet. The fierce wolf princess just sat there, her lashing tail completely stilled as she stared deep into the amber sunlight fading through the window.
"So—" Thranduil began, desperately trying to fracture the suffocating silence, but Cyra cut him off with a sharp flick of her ears.
"I would have honestly tried consoling you with a warm hug right now, but I know for a fact I'd just pounce on you again if I did that," Cyra muttered, a rare, sheepish scratch behind her head breaking her hardened composure. "So, sorry for forcefully making you narrate a painful past like that, Thranduil. But... if this whole mess is just about an ancient tower that Dan is planning to climb, why not just let him climb it?"
"First of all, I am absolutely not 'pained' by that memory anymore!" Thranduil yelled, his face instantly flushing pink as he gripped the edges of his towel. "And second of all—have you completely gone insane just like Dan?!"
Before he could launch into a full-blown academic lecture, Cyra raised a single, glove-clad hand to violently halt his words. She stared down at him from the mattress, her brown eyes completely calm, carrying a heavy, ancient weight that reminded him exactly who she was.
"Thranduil, I am a Hero," Cyra said slowly, her voice dropping into a resonant, unyielding register. "Whether I actively choose to act like one or not, that is the cosmic title I was born with. You just said some terrifying foreign entities are actively trying to breach our world, and that is exactly where my concern lies. I am not worried about Dan's survival. I trust him completely."
Thranduil opened his mouth, a barrage of logical arguments bubbling up his throat, but Cyra firmly shook her head, forcing him to listen.
"Listen to me. If whatever malevolent force drew you to that mountain peaks is left unchecked, there will inevitably come a time when none of us will be around to protect this realm. It will keep silently whispering, drawing desperate people out to free itself from the dark," she concluded, her jaw tightening as she stood up from the bed, her massive, phased sword shimmering slightly in the shadows. "So, since we currently have someone as monstrously powerful as Dan by our side... why not just let him try to solve it all, once and for all?"
"I know exactly what you're getting at, Cyra, but you do not understand the absolute gravity of the situation," Thranduil muttered, finally pushing himself up off the floor. He gripped the towel tightly around his waist, his blue hair falling over his face as he paced toward his wardrobe. "Given the fact that my mind was completely wiped blank and my mana reserves were thoroughly exhausted, I would assume I went through some sort of horrific physiological and mental test. What do you think is Dan's biggest weakness right now?"
"His mind," Cyra answered instantly, her voice dangerously flat.
She leaned back against the bedpost, her eyes closing as her analytical instincts took full control. "I've taken every single one of your words into account, Thranduil. Think about the sequence. You found that dark book hidden right in your garden. The key was stashed in a sealed cave. The peach tree gate was rooted on a mountain peak. You're a mage—and a damn skilled one at that. A completely evil creature that had ruthlessly slaughtered every single person who failed its trial suddenly lets you live? Was that merely a coincidence? A freak mistake? Or a carefully laid plan?"
She opened her eyes, the golden-brown irises gleaming in the fading sunlight. "Or maybe... that creature only needs one specific soul or vessel, and the conditions have to be just right."
Cyra began pacing the expansive bedroom slowly, her heavy boots clicking softly against the wood. Thranduil's eyes tracked her every movement. She was getting somewhere, unravelling a thread he had been too terrified to look at for years, and he knew it. He kept his mouth shut, blending into the shadows of the room as much as possible while his own mind severely pondered the terrifying puzzle.
"Dan can't be possessed or used as a conventional vessel of any sort," Cyra continued, her hand resting thoughtfully on her hip. "He doesn't have a core, after all. So, could it be after something else entirely? Dan could be considered a mage in his own right, but no..." Cyra grunted, her wolf ears pinning back in deep frustration. "Something is fundamentally wrong here. Didn't you explicitly say the primordial key got lost in the void when you escaped? Then how on earth did Dan get his hands on it? Is there more than one key?"
She paused by the window, the wind whipping her hair. "There is zero doubt in my mind that he is being lured. But my gut is screaming at me that Dan isn't the actual target. Think about it—a vessel strong enough to house an entity that made a high-tier elf mage pee his pants? I myself can't be possessed. Same goes for Antrea. You can be, Thranduil, but the creature clearly rejected your body. Dan can't. Croc could, but the key is with Dan and he's the one planning to go. Besides, I don't think Croc's raw nature would be a suitable host for anything truly evil. Of course... I haven't actually faced the suffocating presence you talked about, so I can't say for sure."
"Lilly?" Cyra muttered, tapping her chin. "No... though my touch just broke her curse and restored her powers, she's still a bit weaker than you, Thranduil. And I highly doubt she'd be willing to recklessly charge into an abyssal plane for Dan if he ever got stuck."
"Areia," Thranduil whispered, the realization hitting him like a physical blow.
"Yeah. Areia," Cyra carried on, her voice dropping into a dark, hollow register.
The heavy silence returned, thicker this time. "But she's due to arrive here in two days' time," Cyra muttered, her brow furrowing deeply as she stared at the floorboards. "I don't know exactly when Dan is planning on leaving for the peaks, but if she is the ultimate target... it actually makes a little bit of sense. At least, way better than Dan would as a vessel. She possesses absolutely zero mental defenses. She is an extremely, monstrously strong warrior. And she would willingly, happily run straight into the deepest depths of hell if it meant saving Dan. But she's still two days away... parts of this puzzle are still completely missing."
"I'm still skeptical about Areia being the vessel, but we have a really short list right now and she's currently at the top, but if any one can house a god without breaking apart Areia is the best bet no doubt.
....
The gravel of the training yard exploded as Dan pivoted on his heel, driving his splintered wooden practice sword forward in a vicious, blinding thrust.
THUD.
The strike never hit its mark. Haki's heavily scarred fist intercepted the wood with the density of iron. The impact sent a jarring vibration straight up Dan's arms, but before her clawed fingers could wrap around the weapon to disarm him, Dan ripped the blade backward, using a burst of raw footwork to slide into a defensive stance a safe distance away.
Haki stalked toward him with a slow, feline grace. She casually reached down to adjust the hem of her dark tank top, then tightened the leather straps of her combat pants. Behind her, her long, muscular tail cleaved the air in slow, calculated arcs.
"You're absorbing the mechanics just right, Dan," Haki admonished, her voice perfectly level despite the sheen of sweat glistening on her dark shoulders. "But I wouldn't say you possess a natural talent for the blade. You're fast, yes, and your footing is exceptionally disciplined. Plus, that hyperactive brain of yours is always calculating three steps ahead. For a pure physical brawler like me, you're a thoroughly irritating matchup."
Before the last word left her lips, she lunged.
The air whistled as her left fist tore toward Dan's jaw. Dan dropped into a low crouch, raising his wooden sword horizontally with both hands to parry the brutal weight of the blow. The sheer force of her knuckles against the wood nearly drove his knees into the dirt. Sensing the incoming danger, his eyes caught a microscopic tremor in her hips—a low sweep.
Haki's leg whipped across the ground to shatter his ankles, but Dan was already airborne. Channeling a localized burst of wind magic beneath his boots, he executed a tight, weightless flip midair, soaring clean over her outstretched leg. As he rotated, time seemed to dilate. He spotted it: Haki's chest was completely unguarded, her posture extended from the miss.
An opening? Dan's mind screamed. No—she's intentionally luring me into a counter-trap.
Aborting the midair strike, Dan pushed off the air with another kinetic burst of wind, landing heavily and skidding backward across the courtyard, the friction causing the soles of his leather boots to smoke against the gravel.
"Whoa. Cyra would have taken that bait in a heartbeat," Haki said, shrugging her shoulders with a loose, lazy grin. "But you can't just keep evading me forever, kid. You'll have to actually commit to an attack eventually."
A few yards away, Lilly sat quietly on a rotten moss-covered log, her golden eyes wide with anxiety. Beside her, Antrea leaned back against the bark, her arms crossed, watching the exchange with a critical, seasoned gaze.
Dan took a deep, ragged breath, bracing his core. He charged.
He closed the distance in a heartbeat, committing his entire weight into a powerful, downward vertical arc meant to split her guard. Haki's hand shot up to catch the descending wood, but just as her fingers were about to close around it, Dan activated his evasion. Spatial magic flared, and he vanished into thin air, reappearing instantly to her blind left side—yet the momentum of his downward strike seamlessly continued, aiming directly for her exposed neck.
I win, Dan thought.
But his victory was dead on arrival.
Like a striking viper, Haki's heavy tail whipped around his waist from behind, tightening like a steel vice. It violently hoisted him clean off the ground, arresting his momentum. With a bored expression, Haki raised her free hand and effortlessly caught the wooden blade right before it touched her skin. She stared up at the suspended, sulking boy.
"You actually almost clipped me that time," she muttered, her blindfolded face tilting upward. A genuine, proud smile broke across her lips as her tail uncoiled, lowering Dan back to his feet. "You're improving vastly. I think we should call it a—"
"No," Dan snapped, his voice a low, gravelly growl.
Sweat drenched his hair, stinging his eyes and dripping from his chin. His chest heaved violently as he tightened his grip on the hilt of his weapon. "Again. Let's go again and again until my limbs literally refuse to move."
Haki stared at him through the thick black cloth of her blindfold, sensing the sudden, desperate heat radiating off him. "Well... I'm always game," she purred, dropping back into her stance.
Dan lunged instantly.
His wooden sword cut a lethal horizontal line toward her head. Haki ducked beneath the whistling air, her hand darting out like a piston to grab his waist. Dan vanished again, displacing himself right behind her back. He threw the wooden sword directly at her spine as a projectile, but Haki simply swatted it aside with the back of her forearm. Dan met the deflected blade midair, catching it perfectly on the rebound. He violently weaved his torso to the right to dodge a retaliatory jab from Haki, launching a savage left-handed counter-strike.
But Haki's physical defense was a concrete wall. She didn't use a shred of magic—just raw, terrifyingly optimized human mechanics. Her next intercepting strike hit the flat of his blade with such devastating structural force that the practice sword completely detonated, scattering sharp wooden splinters into the dirt.
Dan didn't even blink. He tossed the useless hilt aside, dropped into a low, visceral hand-to-hand stance, and aggressively pressed the attack.
Haki lunged forward and successfully grabbed him by the forearm to lock him down, but she was forced to instantly release him as Dan's right leg shot out like a venomous snake, aiming a lethal kick straight at her liver. Dan followed up seamlessly, throwing a vicious right hook. Haki slipped the punch by a literal inch. She countered with a rapid, open-palm strike aimed directly at his carotid artery, but the boy was a step ahead. He spun his entire body in tandem with her outstretched arm, placing himself in her blind spot, ready to bring a heavy fist down onto her skull.
But Haki was simply too seasoned. Without turning her body, she fluidly snapped her outstretched arm backward. Her elbow caught Dan squarely in the face with a sickening CRACK.
The kinetic force sent Dan crashing hard into the dirt. He tumbled and rolled violently across the floorboards of the training hall, kicking up a cloud of dust before slamming to a halt. Groaning, he reached up, his fingers coming away stained with the bright, hot crimson of a heavily bleeding nose.
A sudden, ugly spark of pure frustration ignited in his gut. He was furious that despite all his magical output and frantic calculation, he couldn't land a single, solitary hit on her raw physical frame.
Dan smashed his fists together. A violent crackle of blue lightning erupted across his knuckles, but the volatile magical spark died instantly, his unstable mana failing to hold the form. Gritting his teeth, he wiped the blood from his lip. Haki and Dan began to slowly circle each other once more.
Then, the arena completely erupted.
The air was suddenly filled with a blinding barrage of punches and kicks—an absolute, breathless symphony of violent attack and defense. Haki violently leaped into the air as a jagged arc of blue lightning streaked across the ground, biting at her ankles. She crossed her forearms against her chest midair to block a secondary elemental strike that thundered down from above.
Landing on all fours like a predatory cat, she fluidly shifted her weight to dodge a sweeping kick from the now fully lightning-charged Dan.
He was moving completely out of his mind, coming at her from every single angle simultaneously. The entire training hall became a storm of blinding blue electricity as Dan circled her at an impossible, superhuman velocity, leaving afterimages in the dust.
Suddenly, a lightning-fast fist popped out of the static—Haki caught it. A devastating low kick materialized—she parried it with her shin. A brutal hammer-fist descended from above—she slipped it entirely. Moving like a serpent flowing effortlessly beneath the crashing waves of his strikes, Haki remained the absolute, calm center of his chaotic storm.
She waited for the exact micro-second his weight shifted too far forward.
With a sweeping hook of her heel, Haki ruthlessly tripped him, shattering his momentum. Before Dan could hit the ground or activate his spatial displacement, her hand shot through the electric static and firmly caught him by his damp hair, pinning him entirely.
The lightning instantly dissipated, leaving nothing but the smell of ozone and swirling dust.
"I think that will be more than enough for today," she muttered softly, her chest rising and falling with a heavy, satisfied breath.
She let go of his hair and watched him stumble backward on uncoiled legs. But before his boots could completely slip from the gravel, a sudden, precise column of wind surged beneath his shoulders, violently propping his battered body back upright.
Haki stood perfectly still, her hidden eyes tracking the invisible currents of his magic. "Why are you pushing yourself to learn raw physical combat so much?" she asked, her voice carrying a rare, profound interest.
"Just because," Dan muttered, his voice gravelly and raw. He reached out, blindly taking a plush white towel from Lilly's trembling hands. He muttered a quiet, distracted thanks to the princess and began aggressively wiping the grime, sweat, and flowing crimson from his face.
"Well, if I am being entirely honest with you... wouldn't it be vastly better to just do what you always do?" Haki pressed, stepping closer as her heavy tail flicked behind her. "I mean, I know for a fact that I am clearly weaker than you in an overall magical conflict. So why limit your capabilities so severely? If you are simply terrified that you'll lose control of your rage—"
"It is absolutely not that," Dan cut her off sharply, his voice dropping into a softer, chillingly hollow register. "I don't lose my mind to the madness. Well... I do to a certain point, but I can actively channel it. I can precisely choose exactly who to focus my anger on. Antrea here can easily testify to that." He nodded his head toward the silent, black-haired girl sitting on the log.
"Then why throw hands?" Haki asked, crossing her slender arms tightly across her chest, her stance unyielding. "Most legendary beings who possess a cosmic tier of power like yours don't waste their time trying to learn how to box."
Dan let out a long, exhausted sigh. Slowly, he stretched out his right hand, his face tightening into an expression of absolute, terrifying seriousness.
A sudden, violent ripple fractured the bare atmosphere right above his open palm.
Slowly, the warped air gave birth to a flame.
At first, it was a fine, beautiful sapphire-blue fire, dancing quietly. But within a fraction of a second, the flame began to violently distort. It started glitching and blinking in and out of existence itself, as if reality couldn't properly calculate its properties. It began aggressively and rapidly pulling raw mana directly from the surrounding world, expanding and growing exponentially more powerful with every passing heartbeat.
The blue turned into a raging, erratic purple. Then, with a sickening snap, it collapsed into a deep, lightless Vantablack.
The absolute ambient heat radiating from the spark instantly turned the training yard into a furnace. Lilly's loose silk robes spontaneously caught fire at the hems from the sheer friction of the air, forcing her to frantically swat the embers away. The black flame was physically no larger than a standard golf ball, but the immense, suffocating heat pouring from its miniature core felt capable of melting mountains.
"This is a basic, entry-level fireball that I am trying to produce," Dan muttered, his irises reflecting the dark, light-devouring void of the flames. "I know there is something fundamentally broken inside of me... but I don't fully understand the sheer, catastrophic scale of it yet. And until I do, I would highly prefer to limit my active output to a physical martial art that I can actually control with my own two hands."
He tightened his fingers slightly. "I cannot create standard, basic spells the way academic mages do. Of course, that was an absolute rule for me in the past, but it has changed terrifyingly lately."
The black flame roared even harder, violently pulsing as if desperately trying to expand its radius. Its dark, glitched silhouette tore at the fabric of space, causing the very atmosphere of the stone room to creak and groan under a sudden, localized gravity. The chamber felt like the absolute depths of hell. If the occupants of the room had been normal, ordinary humans by any metric, their lungs would have turned to ash within seconds. Instead, they all stood completely frozen, staring into the dark flame like students being shown a lesson in pure annihilation.
"I tried creating a simple, localized spell just like this one when I first found Croc being trafficked," Dan said softly, his voice echoing in the heavy air. "It went completely, terribly wrong. The surrounding mountain ranges... the grand river... the ancient forest surrounding the planes, the valleys, and every single shred of life that came with it... vanished. Vaporized into absolute nothingness in a single, instantaneous attack."
Dan closed his eyes.
POP.
The ball of black flame vanished instantly.
The moment the suffocating magical pressure lifted, the sheer, crushing weight they had all been under finally crashed down on them. Lilly let out a ragged, painful grunt, her knees buckling completely as she hit the dirt, clutching desperately at her chest as she gasped violently for oxygen. Antrea's face had drained of all color, turning a faint, chalky shade of milk as she clutched the log for balance. Haki, despite her legendary resilience, stood completely rigid, a thick coat of cold, hard sweat breaking out across her brow as her lungs desperately expanded.
"And there you go. That is the exact, singular reason why I am trying my absolute best to learn how to fight without relying on my innate powers," Dan continued softly, tossing the bloodied towel aside. He looked down at his bare hands, his shoulders dropping. "Even when I am actively trying to hold back... I can mistakenly command a crowd of completely innocent people to kill themselves. It is... honestly quite unsettling."
He shrugged his shoulders casually, turning his back to the lingering scent of ozone.
"By the way, where exactly is Croc?" Dan asked, pivoting around to look directly at Lilly.
"She has actually become quite insanely popular among the local townsfolk," Lilly muttered, awkwardly scratching her head as the suffocating, residual effects of the Vantablack spell still weighed heavily on her lungs, making her voice a bit raspy. "She was dragged off early this morning by a massive bunch of beastkin girls. I'd bet she's having a lot of fun eating somewhere right now."
"That's good," Dan smiled genuinely, the tension briefly leaving his bruised face. He stretched his arms high above his head, his spinal column popping and creaking like old timber under the strain. "Well... I better be off then," Dan added, letting out a sharp, exhausted yawn.
"Is this... is this really about that tower?" Lilly asked, her soft features instantly tightening into an expression of deep, visible worry.
"Naturally," Dan said, his gaze drifting upward toward the dense canopy of ancient trees towering above the training yard. The thick, vibrant leaves slightly obscured the afternoon sky, casting dappled shadows across his face. "The sooner I get this entire ordeal over with, the absolute better it will be. I honestly don't know how much longer I'll be able to successfully sustain Isis's lingering essence before it completely breaks apart into nothingness."
"Ummm... I know I am completely not one to talk," Lilly muttered nervously, her slender fingers anxiously playing with the fine fabric of her royal gown. "But... isn't a place like that super dangerous? Your elf friend out there literally flipped out and summoned a city-sized magic circle just because of the mere mention of that Tower, didn't he? Should you really be going there alone?"
Amidst her frantic muttering, Dan's eyes narrowed into a piercing, contemplative squint as he stared intently at her. Back when they were just kids, Lilly had been an absolute storm of chaotic energy—a wild, fierce girl who would recklessly fight Areia like a total madman. In her past, she seemed entirely built for dangerous adventures. But now? She was timid, intensely scared, and avoided anything remotely hazardous like the absolute plague. Well, to be entirely fair, quite a lot of time has passed since those days... but still, Dan thought to himself, his mind drifting into the mystery of her change.
"Are you even listening to a single word I am saying?!" Lilly yelled, her voice snapping Dan violently out of his deep chain of thoughts.
"Oh, sorry. I zoned out a bit there," Dan apologized quickly, rubbing the back of his neck with a sheepish grin.
"Honestly!" Lilly huffed in deep irritation, aggressively stomping toward the exit of the training hall. "A fine, elegant princess such as myself gets genuinely worried about your life, and you have the absolute balls to zone out on me? Good grief!"
"Watch your step, or you're going to trip on your own feet!" Dan yelled out after her. But even before the echo of his warning could fully reach her ears, a loud, catastrophic crash resonated from the corridor outside, followed immediately by a barrage of colorful royal curses flying from Lilly's mouth.
"I'll go check on her before she destroys the hallway," Haki said deadpan. With a fluid, silent motion, her athletic frame blurred, and she vanished completely from the room.
That left only two. Antrea sat perfectly still on the log, her dark eyes locked onto Dan. He turned his head and stared right back at her, the silence between them turning heavy and metallic.
"Well? Are you finally going to spill what's on your mind?" he asked, taking a step closer. "You've been acting incredibly weird as of late."
"Don't mind me," she sighed softly. She stood up from the log, casually dusting the dirt and moss off the thighs of her tight denim jeans. She took a slow, deliberate step toward him, her dark eyes carrying a profound, unreadable sadness. "I'm just getting a really good look at your face before you go." She walked past him, her shoulder brushing his. "This may very well be the absolute last time we ever meet."
The heavy word hung in the air. Before she could take another step, Dan's reflexes flared. He reached out and tightly grabbed her by the wrist, anchoring her to the spot.
"Is this about your people, Antrea?" he asked, his voice dropping into a fierce, protective undertone.
Antrea slowly turned her head to look back at him. To his absolute shock, brilliant tears were glistening at the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill over. "Dan... if you don't let go of me right now... I may get the complete wrong idea," she whispered, her voice cracking slightly.
"What is wrong, Antrea?" Dan asked again, his grip firm, refusing to let her deflect.
Antrea quickly looked away, refusing to let him see her break. She raised her arms and wiped aggressively at her eyes with the thick, oversized sleeves of her long knit sweater. With a sudden, sharp jerk of her arm, she broke entirely free from Dan's grip and started walking away.
"Don't try to multitask right now, Dan. Focus entirely on what you have to do," she said, her back completely turned to him as her voice stabilized into something chillingly distant. "I'll be just fine."
Before he could take a single step after her, space violently fractured around her silhouette, and she vanished instantly into the void, leaving Dan standing completely alone in the settling dust of the arena.