Nairel's roar echoed through the still battle field, his vision blurring from the violent pain in his chest. His beast was going bunkers. The just tamed flame nesting in his chest was riled to an utter frenzy.
The Treant raised its bloody branch with Raven's lifeless body attached to it and smashed it into the earth. Her still and cold body broke through the already soft surface, plunging straight through the ground.
A cold wind blew across the battle field as Nairel's sanity drifted away at a speed unimaginable to anyone else and he wasn't the only one. Damian stood still between two towering trees, his already red eyes growing bloodshot. This bloodlust was different from what he felt before. This time it came with vengeance from its suppression. Ale was no better, the contract tying him to Raven flickered non stop. His red eyes were covered up by an unfathomable darkness.
Nairel attacked first, The Dragon flames causing havoc as the expanded outwards with him as the center. They burned with an infinite coldness. Distinguishing neither foe nor friend. He had lost toatl control. His once thin fae wings were now strong and jagged. He was going through an evolution in his madness. The wings were larger than ever seen before. A cold blue as they covered the sky. They were a mix between dragon wings and fae wings. His silver hair grew longer. Diablo horns with jagged edges dug out from his skull. His eyes taking a shade of chilling green. This was no longer a fae.... he was now a Draconian, with fae blood running through his veins.
The flames didn't stop their harvest in the least. The Treants stood no chance again Dragon flames.
Damian and Ale were pulled out of their madness by the chill of the attle field and the shrill screams of their soldiers.
They had to stop this one!
Damian closed his eyes and chanted an ancient speel from his memory; a large runic circle spread under the feet of every vampire, dead or alive. They were all transported away from the burning hell.
Damian unfurled his wings and so did Ale as the stared at the burning grave below.
Damian frowned!
Nairel was on his knees in the midst of the flames. His agony fuelling his mania. Damian flew down, staying a couple meters above the wailing fae prince.
"Nairel...! You need to stop."
Nairel did not hear him. The voice of the vampire king was completely drowned out by the roaring of the cold blue dragon flames and the violent rushing of blood in Nairel's own ears.
His mind was a fractured, dark space filled only with a suffocating weight.
What has he been working so hard for? The question repeated like a cruel, unending echo in his head. Every sleepless night, every drop of blood he had spilled, every ounce of power he had desperately clawed his way to attain, it was all completely worthless now. He couldn't even protect her. The one person who mattered. The girl he loved was gone, ripped away right in front of his eyes, and he had been too weak to stop it.
He had nothing left to live for. With that final, crushing thought, the last remnants of his restraint snapped. The guilt and self-reproach transformed entirely into raw, unadulterated destructive energy. The massive, jagged blue wings on his back flared outward, sending a shockwave of freezing air across the blackened earth. The chilling blue fire rose higher, forming a massive, swirling vortex of destruction with Nairel at the absolute center.
Damian hovered above the eye of Nairel's storm. His face was a mask of absolute, paralyzing agony. Raven wasn't just a comrade or a soldier, she was his daughter. He loved her more than life itself, and watching her body plunge into the earth had ripped his very soul in two. The bloodlust in Damian's red eyes was blinding, a wild, roaring tide of paternal grief and vengeance that threatened to swallow his sanity whole. He wanted nothing more than to dive into that crater, to tear the earth apart with his bare hands until he found her.
But he couldn't. He was the leader of the vampires. Below him, his clansmen were scattered, wounded, and still surrounded by the remaining hostile treants. The heavy burden of his crown pressed down on his fracturing heart; he could not abandon his people to perish, even as his insides screamed in torment.
Beside him, Ale's dark wings beat steadily against the violent currents. Ale's face was completely devoid of color. The blackness in his eyes seemed to swallow the light around him, but amidst the absolute chaos, a sudden, sharp tremor ran through his entire body. He clutched his chest, his fingers digging deep into his clothes right over his heart.
The contract. It was dragging, pulling, and trembling violently but it had not snapped.
Ale didn't waste another second. He dove straight into the howling winds of the vortex, using every bit of his strength to force his way closer to the maddened Draconian prince. Damian watched him, his own hands trembling with a mix of fury and despair as he held the line for his retreating soldiers.
As Ale drew closer to the center, the freezing blue flames licked at his skin, threatening to turn his blood to ice. He ignored the pain, focusing entirely on the kneeling figure of Nairel, whose jagged horns and long silver hair whipped wildly in the wind. Nairel's hands were buried deep in the ash of the destroyed treants, his throat raw from silent, agonizing screams.
Ale landed heavily a few paces away, the pressure almost forcing him to his knees. He leaned forward, channeling his remaining mana directly into his voice, forcing the words to cut through the deafening roar of the blizzard-like fire. He spoke in a low, sharp whisper that somehow vibrated straight through the air and reached Nairel's ears.
"What do you think she would think if she found out you wiped out her cherished clansmen?"
Nairel's entire body stiffened. The massive blue wings froze mid-beat.
Ale took a ragged breath and pressed on, his voice urgent and direct. "She isn't gone yet! The contract between us still stands, though it's a little unstable."
The words seemed to hang in the frozen air for a fraction of a second.
Then, the change was instantaneous. The roaring vortex of chilling flames wavered. The high-pitched wail of the wind began to die down, dropping into a low, eerie hiss. Around them, the massive, towering treants that had once dominated this specific spot were completely gone. They did not leave behind burning embers or glowing coals; there was nothing left of them but a vast, silent sea of gray ash.
The terrifying pressure in the air vanished, leaving behind an oppressive, heavy silence.
Nairel remained on his knees in the center of the ash. The jagged, terrifying diablo horns still protruded from his skull, and his silver hair hung loosely over his shoulders. His wings remained flared, a stark, unnatural blend of dragon and fae biology. Slowly, he raised his head. His eyes were still an unnatural, chilling blue, glowing faintly, but a tiny, fragile flicker of rationality had been restored to his gaze.
"What... did you say?" Nairel's voice was completely ruined. He stared at Ale, his chest heaving heavily.
"The contract is flickering, Nairel," Ale said, his own breath shallow. "It is incredibly weak, and it is unstable, but it is not broken. She is alive. Somewhere down there."
Nairel stood up instantly, his tall, evolved form casting a long shadow. The desperation in his eyes turned into a frantic focus. He spun around, staring directly at the massive, jagged crater where Raven had fallen, his wings flaring as he prepared to launch himself blindly into the abyss.
"Don't move a single step!" Damian's voice boomed like thunder as he landed heavily between Nairel and the edge of the pit.
Nairel bared his teeth, the chilling blue fire sparking at the edges of his jaw. "Get out of my way, Damian. She is down there. I am going to get her."
"You think I don't want to go down there?!" Damian roared back, his eyes bloodshot, his composure finally cracking as tears of anger and grief threatened to spill. "She is my daughter! My heart is burning just as hot as yours, boy! But look around you!"
Damian pointed a trembling hand toward the horizon. Beyond the ash-covered clearing, the rest of the continent of Brusselie was still screaming. The sky was dark with smoke, and the heavy thuds of hundreds of other treants echoed in the distance. The plague of monsters was still actively destroying the land, and the vampire forces were being pushed back across the northern borders.
"If we leave right now, the entire northern territory falls," Ale added, stepping up beside Damian, though his hand remained tightly pressed against his chest where the contract pulsed. "The rest of the continent is still being plagued. If the land is entirely wiped out, there won't be a world left for her to return to. We have to secure the perimeter first."
Nairel clenched his fists so hard his claws drew blood from his palms. He glared at the two men, his chest heaving as the brutal reality clashed with his desperate need to find Raven. He looked down at the dark, yawning abyss, then out toward the distant battlefields where the cries of war still echoed. He was trapped. They were all trapped by duty and survival.
Before another word could be spoken, a deep, unnatural rumble vibrated through the earth beneath their feet.
The trio froze, looking down. The massive crater, the deep, jagged wound in the continental disk that Raven had been smashed through, began to shake violently. But it wasn't collapsing outward. Instead, the surrounding stone and earth began to stretch, pull, and fuse back together at an impossible speed. It was an eerie, silent self-repair, as if the continent itself was rejecting the wound and forcing its skin to close.
"No!" Nairel lunged forward, but it was too late. With a heavy, echoing thud that shook the northern plains, the earth sealed itself completely, leaving behind nothing but a smooth, seamless expanse of solid stone where the deep chasm had just been. The way down was completely gone.
In the weeks that followed that disastrous battle, the whole northern part of Brusselie fell into a deeply gloomy, sorrowful mood. The sky above the northern territories remained perpetually overcast, draped in heavy, dark gray clouds that refused to let any sunlight through. A cold, damp mist clung to the valleys, matching the heavy grief that weighed on the hearts of every soldier and survivor. The news of the vampire king's daughter being lost to the depths of the earth had cast a long, dark shadow over the entire war effort.
The mysterious closure of the crater baffled everyone. It made no logical sense; a wound that deep through the continental disk should have caused permanent geological instability, yet it had healed perfectly, leaving no trace of the abyss.
Recognizing the gravity of the situation and the threat to the entire continent, the Fae King, Navaiah, finally brought the hidden Fae Kingdom out from its centuries of isolation.
An unprecedented alliance was forged between the Fae and the Vampires. King Navaiah's royal scholars and Damian's oldest mages set up massive research camps directly over the site where the crater had once been. Day and night, the camp was filled with the glow of analytical runes and ancient texts. They worked tirelessly, desperately researching two vital questions: why exactly the crater had self-repaired on its own, and how they could put the drifting, broken continent of Brusselie back on the right, ancient path towards home.
But while the surface world scrambled in politics, research, and warfare, the truth remained buried far beneath their boots.
Deep below the surface of Brusselie, far beneath the sealed stone crust and the roots of the world, lay an immense, hidden void.
Here, there was no wind, no sound, and no passing of time.
Raven was not lying on a hard, cold stone floor. Instead, her still body rested directly upon a massive, horizon-spanning barrier of solid, glowing energy. It was a golden boundary, an ancient foundation of immense, primordial magic that separated the upper continental layers from something far older and completely forgotten. This glowing gold plane stretched out infinitely into the darkness, its surface smooth and flawless, humming with a power that felt alive.
Raven lay perfectly still in the absolute center of this vast golden expanse. Her eyes were closed, her pale skin illuminated by the intense, yet soft gold light radiating from beneath her. The thick, suffocating silence of the underworld pressed down from all sides, creating an atmosphere of heavy, unbearable suspense.
The faint, unstable contract in her chest pulsed with a ghostly rhythm, completely isolated from the world above. She remained there, suspended over an ancient secret, completely motionless on the glowing gold boundary, as the silent clock of the deep began to tick.