"MOVE!" Aria shouted. The impact shattered the battlefield; Silas clicked his tongue and forced mana through his aching spellheart.
It was nearly empty, but if they failed now everyone here would die.
His sister steadied herself with her spear and exhaled slowly.
The guardian charged, its sheer size made the entire ruin tremble with every step, yet Aria calmly lowered her stance.
"Silas," she said quietly. "Open a path."
A grin spread across his face despite the danger.
"About time you asked."
Mana surged through the markings scattered around the battlefield. The glowing crimson sigils he had prepared earlier ignited one after another beneath the guardian's feet.
[Burning Sigil].
Explosions erupted in succession. The colossal creature staggered as fire consumed its lower body.
Before it could recover, Liora slammed her hand against the ground.
"Fall."
Dozens of massive stone hands erupted upward, grabbing different parts of the guardian's body like chains and halting its movement for a brief second.
That second was enough. Aria vanished.
Wind spiraled around her body as she invoked [Gale Step]. She accelerated forward faster than Silas could follow. The ruins cracked beneath each step she took.
The guardian roared and tried to raise its blade, but a crimson flaming sword pierced through its wrist first.
It was Silas's.
Aria leapt into the air. Every remaining strand of mana within her spellheart poured into the runic symbol on her hand but it wasn't enough. "FUCK, the spell is going to fall apart, I don't have enough mana" Aria thought.
Aria's understanding of mana and her magic came from her deep obsession of runes and dungeons since childhood.
But now it seemed all for naught considering she didn't save enough mana for the core guardian.
Aria desperately searched for any possible way to gain mana in order to finish the spell.
One possible way flashed into her mind.
If She, channeled the mana that allowed her to breakthrough to the fourth spell into itself, would the spell still succeed or would I lose the fourth spell entirely.
The surrounding winds began to distort violently. Even the dust in the air split apart around her.
Aria began drawing from the mana that allowed her to unlock the fourth spell.
Pain exploded throughout her spellheart. A scream tore from her throat as the uncontrolled mana flooded into the runic symbol carved across her hand.
Her voice rang out weakly across the battlefield. "Fourth Spell…"
The guardian looked up just as Aria thrust her spear downwards.
[Sky Rend].
For a moment, everything became silent. Then the air itself split apart.
A massive arc of compressed wind crashed through the guardian from head to waist, cleaving straight through its armored body before continuing across the ruins behind it.
The monster stood motionless. A thin glowing line appeared across its torso. And then its entire body split in half.
The colossal guardian collapsed with an earth-shaking crash.
Silence filled the dungeon, only the sound of heavy breathing and falling rubble could be heard throughout the echoes of the ruined chamber.
Silas slowly lowered his sword, staring at the guardian's corpse in disbelief.
Aria fell from the sky soon after. Her body slammed against the cracked ground, the glowing runes on her hand had returned to their normal dormant state. And deep within her spellheart…
The place where the fourth spell had once existed was empty.
Liora arrived only seconds later, breathing heavily as she as she slung her bow across her back and secured it in place.
The stone hands she had summoned earlier crumbled apart behind her, scattering across the ruined chamber like shattered statues.
"She's alive," Liora said after kneeling beside Aria.
Silas exhaled shakily and looked down at his sister. Tiny trails of blood ran from the corners of her mouth and beneath her eyes where the strain had burst capillaries from overloading her spellheart.
But what frightened him most was the emptiness he felt from her mana.
It was felt wrong.
Aria's mana had always felt sharp and violent, like wind constantly swirling around, ready to be released. But now there was almost nothing.
Faint traces of it could still be sensed but the way it was moved felt erratic.
"Aria, what the hell was that...?"
"I didn't have enough mana…" she muttered.
"So, I kind of used the mana that allowed me to reach the fourth spell to power itself."
Silas frowned. "So now what? do you still have access to that spell?"
Aria's expression darkened. No, I don't believe so.
Silas carefully helped Aria sit up.
The moment she moved, pain shot through her body like fire tearing through her veins.
Something was wrong. Not just the exhaustion.
Her spellheart was unstable.
Aria's expression changed immediately as she pressed a hand against her chest.
The remaining mana inside her wasn't flowing naturally anymore. Instead, it moved in chaotic surges, like a river violently crashing against broken walls.
Her eyes widened slightly.
"No way…"
Silas immediately noticed. "What?"
Aria ignored him for a moment and focused inward.
The place where the fourth spell had existed was empty, just like she expected. The runic pathway connected to it had shattered completely when she forced the breakthrough mana into [Sky Rend].
Normally that kind of damage would take months to recover from.
Yet faint strands of mana were still gathering around the destroyed pathway.
Not repairing it but changing it into something foreign. Aria's gaze drifted downward toward her own trembling hand.
The dormant rune engraved across it looked stranger than usual.
The lines seemed sharper somehow.
More complete.