At the training ground.
"Let's play then"
The women surveyed her surrounding, looking at every person, every corpse, widening her smile she gave a smirk.
Her looks were terrifying from the moment she entered through the gate but now her face was equal to a demon lord.
The wings—dragon wings spread fully now, casting a massive shadow over the battlefield. The air bends around them, unable to resist their force. Her serpentine dragon tails lash out behind her, slicing through the air with enough force to split the wind itself. Her eyes—They don't just glow—they radiate. Like embers in a dying world, like the core of a storm given form.
Her skin darkens along the edges, forming scale-like patterns that crawl up her arms. Each fingertip sharpens into curved talons, glinting with a lethal edge.
✧✧✧
Lisa widened her eyes.
"...."
The thought of winning was already gone in every person present there and it was obvious, like after seeing demon itself, who will be cling on that senseless thought.
"But..."
Lisa shifted her eyes towards her students and as she hates that the causalities on their side was far greater than she had imagine. The ground was covered with dead bodies of students and guards alongside their blood.
The training ground, which was once the pride of university in past, right now was surrounded by the headless bodies lying here and there.
"Oi, you can't ignore me."
A voice echoed and Lisa shifted her gaze towards the owner of it.
The Lady smiled as she closed her one eye and raised her hand towards Lisa. The orange glow in her open eye slowly starts to fade but something was wrong.
"What is she doing?"
A gut feeling or what you could say, Lisa realizes that something was coming and she was right.
The air around her hand twisted unnaturally. A sharp silence followed, like the world itself had taken a breath and then— A violent surge of compressed air shot forward, invisible but devastating, tearing across the ground toward Lisa. Dust, stone, and fragments of the courtyard were ripped up and hurled along with it, the force shrieking like a storm unleashed at point-blank range. Before the shockwave could even fully disperse—
Flames ignited within it.
The air itself seemed to burn. A roaring torrent of fire bloomed inside the rushing pressure, turning the attack into a blazing, spiralling blast—heat and force fused into one unstoppable strike aimed straight at Lisa.
She froze for a fraction of a second, the sheer intensity overwhelming—
Her mind got overwhelmed for few seconds and before the attack pierce through her body—
"I won't let it touch her."
A voice echoed and walls of ice erupted upward in rapid succession—one, two, three—layer upon layer forming in the blink of an eye. Each wall was thick, crystalline, and reinforced with compressed frost, their surfaces glowing faintly blue as mana surged through them.
The first wall shattered on impact.
The air pressure slammed into it with a thunderous crack, breaking it apart instantly—but it slowed the attack. The second wall held longer, cracks racing across its surface as fire spread over it, melting and splintering it at the same time.
Then the third.
And the fourth.
Each layer weakened the blast, bleeding away its force, dulling the flames, scattering the pressure. By the time the attack reached the final barrier, it was no longer a devastating storm—just a fading surge of heat and wind.
The last wall trembled… but held.
Steam hissed into the air as fire met ice, the battlefield filling with a thick mist.
Behind the barrier, Lisa stood unharmed—eyes wide, breath unsteady.
And in front of her, Riya remained still, her hand slightly raised, cold mist curling around her like a shield.
The Lady watched from afar… and smiled.
✧✧✧
The air turns cold.
The last of the flames died against Riya's final barrier.
For a moment, everything went quiet.
The shattered ice lay scattered across the ground, still hissing as it melted into thin streams of water. Steam drifted through the air, thick and blinding, turning the battlefield into a ghostly haze. Bits of stone and debris slowly settled, tapping against the ground like fading echoes of the impact.
Lisa stood frozen behind Riya, her chest rising and falling unevenly. The heat still lingered on her skin, a reminder of how close it had been. In front of her, Riya didn't move. Her arm was still raised, fingers slightly curled, frost gathering and dissolving around them as if her power hadn't fully calmed yet.
"Nice one."
A faint sound cut through the silence and then the footstep echoed through the surroundings, slow, calm, and unafraid.
Through the thinning mist, the Lady emerged, untouched. Not a single mark on her. Her expression held that same unsettling smile—one that didn't belong in the aftermath of such destruction.
Her hands... What once looked human now seemed sharper, elongated—fingers like curved blades, veins faintly glowing beneath her skin as if fire itself flowed through them. She lifted both arms slowly, deliberately, until they crossed over her chest in a perfect X.
For a heartbeat, the world felt silence and then she moves.
With a sudden, sweeping motion, she flung both arms outward.
The air spilt.
Five massive bursts of compressed pressure erupted from her, each one launching in a different direction like invisible cannons. The ground cracked beneath the force as the blasts tore outward, ripping through debris, bending the very air around them.
And just like before—They ignited.
Flames surged within each pressure wave, transforming them into five blazing torrents of destruction. One shot toward the shattered stone ground, another ripped across the gate, one carved through the guards' position, another tore into the far walls—and one… surged directly toward Riya and Lisa again.
The battlefield was no longer a single point of impact.
It became chaos.
Fire and force spread in every direction, the attacks howling like raging beasts, leaving trails of destruction as they expanded outward.
At the centre of it all, the Lady stood with her arms extended—calm, composed—
—as if she had just unleashed a storm upon the world.
✧✧✧
The moment the five blazing pressure waves tore outward, Lisa reacted first.
"Move!"
She grabbed Riya's arm and pulled her sideways just as one of the fire-laced blasts ripped past them. The ground where they had stood split open, flames roaring through the cracks. The force alone was enough to throw debris high into the air, shards of stone spinning like blades.
They didn't stop moving.
"Thanks."
She spoke looking towards Lisa and then, pivoted mid-step, her palm slamming toward the fractured courtyard. Ice surged out instantly—wide, thick, and layered—spreading across the shattered ground like a freezing tide. The broken stone locked into place beneath reinforced frost, stabilizing what remained of the battlefield. In the same motion, she raised a towering ice wall toward the gate, sealing it off from another incoming blast.
A thunderous impact followed—
—but the gate held, encased in hardened ice.
Across the field, Lisa had already broken away.
She sprinted toward the far side, where another flaming pressure wave tore toward the outer walls. Drawing her sword in one fluid motion, she leapt forward and swung—
A sharp arc of force burst from her blade, slicing into the incoming attack. The collision split the pressure wave just enough for it to disperse around the walls instead of crushing through them.
Behind her, the guards braced themselves.
"Shields up!"
A line of glowing mana barriers flared into existence, overlapping one another. The remaining force slammed into them, sending ripples across the translucent surfaces, but they held—barely.
Lisa didn't wait.
She turned, eyes locking onto the Lady at the centre of the chaos. Mana gathered at her fingertips, condensing into a sharp, focused point.
"Let's see you stop this."
She fired.
A concentrated beam—clean, precise, and deadly—shot straight toward the Lady.
For a split second, it looked unavoidable.
But the Lady moved.
Her wings unfurled in a sudden, sweeping motion—vast and powerful. The beam struck them, and instead of piercing through, it bent. Redirected. Twisted off course like light hitting a mirror, the mana snipe veered away into the sky, dissipating harmlessly.
The Lady's smile widened.
It had worked exactly as she intended.
In that same instant, she raised one hand—already gathering pressure again.
The redirected beam had been a distraction.
A bait.
With a sharp motion, she released another compressed blast—faster, denser, and already igniting as it formed. It roared forward, streaking past the battlefield—
Not toward Riya.
Not toward Lisa.
But toward the university stairs.
Where the students were hiding.
"Ahghhh—Its coming."
"It was a mistake to come."
A numerous voices echoed as the attack surged forward.
The air screamed as the flaming pressure wave tore straight for them, unstoppable, closing the distance in seconds—
And then—
A flash.
Yellow.
A single arc of lightning split the air.
The incoming attack was cut cleanly in half.
The flames scattered. The pressure collapsed. The blast dissolved before it could reach the stairs.
Silence followed—but only for a heartbeat.
A figure stood at the top of the stairs now.
Lightning crackled faintly around him, tracing along the ground like living veins. His presence alone shifted the air—heavy, intense, like a storm that had just arrived.
Kira.
His aura flared, raw and overwhelming, pushing outward in waves that made even the lingering flames flicker and shrink.
He looked down at the battlefield… then toward Riya and Lisa.
A faint, almost annoyed expression crossed his face.
"I came late."