The earth trembled beneath the weight of the four overwhelming presences that oppressed the very atmosphere. Rubble rose from the shattered streets, suspended in the air as countless motes of mana drifted through the battlefield.
The three companions fixed the Saint with razor-sharp eyes, each poised to strike at a moment's notice. Across the ruined town, Isidro returned their gaze with equal vigilance, measuring each of them in silence.
Neither side was willing to make the first reckless move. Their caution held the battlefield in a suffocating stillness until nature itself shattered the deadlock. A deafening clap of thunder roared across the heavens, heralding the beginning of a battle destined to turn the world upside down.
Victoria, Aiden, and Godric charged as one. Flames surged, lightning flashed, and raw force crashed upon the Saint from every direction.
Isidro summoned a wall of iron shields to receive the assault. They held, but the impact drove him relentlessly through the remains of several ruined houses.
Even then, the Saint refused to fall.
To his surprise, Victoria emerged before him alone.
For a fleeting instant, Isidro's eyes searched for her companions. Had they withdrawn? Hidden themselves? The thought barely had time to form before the fallen princess was dashing at him again, denying him the luxury of dividing his attention.
"Don't hold back, Vicky!" Elysia urged within her master's mind. "This man is dangerous!"
"I already know." She replied.
Steel met steel.
Victoria's sword danced in an unconventional rhythm, every strike flowing into the next with remarkable precision. Yet it was not merely her technique that had changed. Each blow carried far greater force than before, its impact reverberating through Isidro's guard.
No detail escaped the Saint.
"How cunning for an insect," he thought, an unfamiliar irritation creeping into his mind. "She's combining the build-up spell that generates shockwaves before flowing into Reich, dramatically enhancing both the force and lethality of every strike. Just how skilled is she?"
"Globulus."
Victoria's blade slammed against the spherical barrier. At the instant of impact, Isidro suddenly enlarged the barrier before compressing it back into its original size, releasing a violent burst of force that blasted her into the air.
With force, he thrust his spear, unleashing dozens of piercing strikes that tore through the wind toward her.
Victoria intercepted as many as she could, but the relentless barrage soon overwhelmed her. The invisible thrusts ripped across her body, leaving countless wounds in their wake. One even sheared away the tip of her left ear.
Fortunately, none reached anything vital.
"Too shallow," Isidro observed, narrowing his eyes. "Her body is far tougher than it appears."
Victoria's body crashed through the Monument of Logomorio Ferges, the statue erected in honour of Bazareff's founder, the man who transformed it into the Town of Joy. Perhaps it had been worthy of that name only moments ago.
The Saint immediately pursued her. She remained his true objective—the sole reason he had departed the Holy Lands.
Aiden and Godric, however, had no intention of allowing him a clear path. Flames and lightning burst from opposite directions, converging toward the Saint.
"Globulus."
The spherical barrier absorbed both assaults. Yet as its surface dissolved, Aiden and Godric emerged from the fading haze instead of the lingering elements.
They had broken straight through the Saint's defence.
Isidro drifted backward, but the two mages gave him no chance to recover. They pursued relentlessly, refusing to yield even a heartbeat.
To keep his opponents at bay, the Saint conjured another array of iron pillars high above the battlefield and sent them crashing toward his attackers.
Though neither Aiden nor Godric spoke nor exchanged so much as a glance, each instinctively understood the other's role.
Godric halted, turning his full attention to the descending iron pillars.
Aiden never slowed.
"Firefly!"
A swarm of blazing insects shot forth in rapid succession. Each exploded on impact, their continuous detonations forcing the Saint backward while flooding his vision with blinding flashes.
Shielded by the relentless bombardment, Aiden cloaked both arms in scorching flames before closing the remaining distance. His burning fists rained blow after blow on Isidro, while the Fireflies continued exploding around the Saint without pause.
Meanwhile, the Lord of Storms soared through the heavens to intercept the Saint's retaliation—an assault that could only be likened to divine judgment.
Raising his hand toward the skies, he invoked one of his favourite spells.
"Bolts of Taranis!"
Towering pillars of lightning descended with overwhelming might, shattering the iron pillars before they could reach the battlefield. The violent collision unleashed a shockwave so immense that it swept the clouds from the sky, leaving the heavens startlingly clear.
Aiden grinned at the display, exhilarated by his companion's feat, yet never relented. Flames continued to rain on Isidro as he pressed his relentless assault.
Moments, however glorious or fleeting, were destined to pass, and with each passing second, Aiden felt something subtly shift in his strikes until it no longer felt as though he were hitting flesh, but iron.
The Saint of Execution stood unmoving amid the relentless barrage, enduring every blow like an immovable monument until the Flame God himself began to tire from the futility of his assault.
Iron now encased portions of Isidro's body. He lowered his gaze toward Aiden, who had instinctively begun flexing his aching fists.
"Is this the extent of your dance?" he asked in his usual grave tone.
Aiden laughed.
"No... we've barely started the party, dumbass! Now, Godric!" He sprang backward.
Isidro instinctively raised his eyes to the heavens. It was already too late to react as the majestic Bolts of Taranis descended on him alone, driving him deep into the ground beneath an earth-shattering roar.
A cry unlike any heard before tore from Isidro's throat.
It echoed throughout the entirety of Bazareff, forcing every survivor to cover their ears—including Dolores and Pritish, who still waited near the city gates.
Only after the last traces of lightning faded into drifting sparks did Godric descend from the heavens.
Panting, Aiden stared at the smoking crater.
"Think that killed him?"
Godric kept his eyes fixed on the destruction below.
"An ordinary man would have perished the instant my bolts struck. Only the Grand Master and Victoria have ever survived them." His expression darkened. "If he survives as well... then we'll have a far greater problem than I imagined."
As silence settled over the ruined town, a deep voice slowly rose from the depths of the crater.
"Pain... Real pain. I haven't felt this alive in a very long time."
The two rivals stiffened at once.
It was Isidro.
As the Saint spoke, he slowly levitated out of the crater. To Aiden and Godric's utter bewilderment, his body bore little more than superficial wounds, far from enough to threaten his life.
"This has to be a joke..." Aiden could only smile in disbelief.
"Only scratches...?" Even Godric found himself at a loss for words.
"You two have proven me wrong since my first impression of you," the Saint said as he finally touched down on the ruined earth. "You are the kind of mages whose strength does not remain constant—you must invoke and infuse mana to fully manifest it. That inconsistency led me to misjudge you as insects."
His gaze hardened slightly.
"Tell me then… why protect her? She has slain a Patriarch of the Agape Cult. That is a crime."
"If it is, then why not leave her to the proper authorities?" Godric cut in.
"You mean the Magic Council?" Isidro let out a chuckle. "Those usurpers are nothing but profiteers who thrived in the wake of the Goddess's fall. They parade as rulers of this world, yet they are nothing—and will always remain nothing compared to us, the Agape Cult, who bear her divine will of the goddess."
A weary sigh escaped from behind them as Victoria stepped forward, Elysia hovering near her shoulder.
"It must be exhausting," she said calmly, "listening to your sermons. You all believe yourselves chosen, born to decide the fate of the world. You cling to your so-called truth—not because it is proven, but because you have decided it must be true."
"What point are you trying to make, woman?" Isidro frowned.
"That you didn't come here to avenge your little comrade, nor to serve your disgusting cult. You came because you enjoy it, don't you? The smell of blood. The scent of iron in the air."
She pointed her sword directly at him.
"That is what you are. Not a believer… but a born murderer."
For a moment, silence fractured as something in her words cut deeper than intent and stirred what had long been buried within him. Images rose unbidden in Isidro's mind—a younger self, twenty years of age, seated atop a mountain of corpses, a massacre later erased and rewritten by the Cult's hand.
A twisted, unnatural smile slowly crept across his face as his mana grew colder, heavier, and deeply ominous, the air itself seeming to recoil from him until he no longer resembled a man, but something far more unstable and inhuman.
"Didn't your parents teach you it's rude to speak the truth so loudly?"
"What a creep," Aiden muttered in frustration. "He isn't even denying it."
"Because he believes we will die here," Godric replied calmly, never taking his eyes off the Saint. "After all, dead men tell no tales."
"Let him try." Victoria's mana erupted outward. "Together. We strike him down as one."
No one disagreed.
Reich, Bolts of Taranis, and Comets were unleashed in unison at the trio's command.
The attack was inescapable.
It surged forward like a colossal wave, obliterating everything in its path as houses collapsed, the ground fractured, and a vast stretch of Bazareff's outer walls was erased beneath its overwhelming force, the devastation rolling onward until it reached the edge of a distant lake.
For a moment, nothing remained before the trio. Their combined assault had annihilated all in its wake. Yet something remained—something none of them had seen until now.
An iron cocoon.
Before they could comprehend it, a spell was already being chanted from within.
"Iron Death Angels."
The cocoon liquefied.
Within it was Isidro, having endured the full brunt of their attack by encasing himself in iron. The molten mass flowed outward instead of collapsing, reshaping itself into two towering constructs—each nearly eight feet tall, with four vast iron wings unfurling from their backs.
No time was given to react.
The constructs exploded forward at blinding speed, tearing through the air and seizing Aiden and Godric by the face in an instant before launching into the surroundings, smashing them through ruins and debris as they were dragged across the battlefield.
"Guys!" Victoria shouted, caught off guard.
"Vicky, focus!" Elysia snapped.
But by the time Victoria steadied herself, Isidro was already before her. At point-blank range, his iron-clad hand closed around her throat as she gritted her teeth, struggling to breathe while his grip tightened.
"Divide and rule," he smirked, his eyes darkening. "Now those two won't interfere anymore. I've changed my mind. I won't take you alive. I'll carve out your suffering here, then take your head. So… entertain me while you still can."