The Hydra plummeted from the sky, crashing into the ruins of Elyndor with earth-shaking force. What remained of the broken, burning city was obliterated upon impact, leaving behind only a massive crater. With a furious roar, the Hydra surged back into the air, its many heads writhing in rage.

  I hovered above, gazing down at the monstrous reptilian-insect that defied the moon. Lunar energy thrived in abundance under the moonlight, an unending wellspring of power that I drank from without restraint. Spears of moonlight, born of external and internal lunar energies, rained down upon the Hydra in a relentless barrage. For each spear that deflected off its armored scales, three more found the gaps, sinking deep into flesh and drawing forth guttural screams of pain.

  The assault did not wane as I continued to fuel my mana core, channeling energy from the lower dantian and into my body. I launched myself forward, darting beneath the leftmost head as it lunged. My fist struck the base of a lodged lunar spear, driving it deeper into the Hydra’s underbelly. A deafening roar split the air, but I did not hesitate. I pivoted, slamming my heel into another spear, sending it plunging into the beast’s hide.

  Swinging behind the Hydra, I plunged my hand into the Hydra's wound and wrenched Deathbringer free from deep within the Hydra's flesh. The black blade tore through muscle and sinew with greater destruction on the way out than it had the way in, protesting its removal as it dragged with it energy from the monster with an insatiable hunger.

  The sixth head lashed toward me in a blur. I twisted midair into a vertical spin, barely evading its snapping jaws. With a swift arc of Deathbringer, I carved through the outstretched neck. The easily severed, tumbling off the neck and into the sky, the cut so clean it almost startled me. Whether from my own increased strength or due to the blade’s capacity to absorb the Hydra’s energy, I didn’t know. Regardless of the reason, the momentum of the strike caught me off guard when it found no resistance, sending me reeling.

  A moment later, black-purple fire cascaded toward me. I barely had time to conjure a shield, deflecting the searing flames before the Hydra’s tail slid beneath my mana shield, too fast to counter. It slammed into me with the force of a battering ram. I was hurtled from the sky, causing the world spinning and black spots to litter my vision. Dust and dirt exploded around me as I crash landed into the Hydra's earlier crater, creating a second, albiet much smaller, second crater within.

  Gritting my teeth, I pushed myself up with a groan, expecting another strike. Instead, the Hydra shrieked in agony, red flames licking at the stump where its head had been severed. It likely wouldn't stop the regeneration completely or forever, but even just slowing it down would be good enough for the moment.

  I cast a quick glance toward the King and Marchioness Eliza, where Ethan and the red-haired woman conversed in highly animated gestures. The energy surrounding the group was turbulent, their movements sharp and erratic—clear signs of a heated argument.

  He’s trying to convince them, I realized. Ethan was pragmatic. If he hadn’t returned to us immediately, he had a reason. I turned away, leaving my thoughts at that.

  Lunar energy pulsed within me and I quickly ascended toward Benedict.

  The Hydra roared again, swatting Duke Granger from the air as its central head chittered archaic words I either couldn't hear properly or didn't recognize.

  “My lady,” Benedict huffed, guiding his wyvern closer as I approached. “Is it just me, or does this thing refuse to die?”

  “It's at least taking some damage now,” I said, shaking my head. “But not enough and not nearly with enough speed. We’re barely keeping pace with its regeneration, even with my new strength.”

  "Are we going to die, then?” Benedict asked, his gaunt, wrinkled face loose with resignation and exhaustion.

  “Maybe,” I admitted, my red eyes flickering toward the sorcerer. “I can hold it off. Fight it to a standstill. Perhaps even force it into a retreat. But…”

  “It’ll destroy the city and kill us all first,” he finished.

  I nodded and then grimaced. “There is a way," I mentioned hesitantly. "A method to disrupt its core and stop its regeneration—if for only a few moments. With my power, I can use that time to inflict real damage on it without resistance.”

  Benedict’s eyes widened, an ember of hope igniting within them. I crushed it. “But you’ll die, Benedict. Horribly.”

  He inhaled sharply and his breath caught, gaze falling to the battlefield below, littered with the broken bodies men, women and children, all drenched in pools of their own blood. “Can you bring me back? After?”

  I opened my mouth to say yes, but I stopped halfway. I wasn’t completely certain. After a pregnant, if quick, pause, I nodded anyway. I needed him to say the Runic words. He already knew their cost. He had spoken them once before, after all.

  But surviving once had been a miracle.

  A second time would be impossible.

  “Final resort,” I warned, jabbing a finger at him. “Not a second sooner. You’re one of my strongest allies in this world. You don’t have permission to die without my say. Understood?”

  He half-nodded, his expression distant. “If you can’t bring me back like Dralos… make sure my daughter is safe. And tell her I died a hero. A vanguard for the innocent. Not some coward hiding in the back.”

  I snorted. “Let’s try burning all its heads first.”

  His only response was a slight shrugging of his shoulders.

  We both knew the truth. The Hydra was too close to the diamond realm now. If its core evolved any further, victory would slip beyond reach.

  Benedict would need to die to create the portal again. He needed to die so I could kill the Hydra.

  He knew it. I knew it.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  It would ruin my plans—Cael would be harder to keep in check without him and the borders of Sealrite would become contested again—but I would deal with that later.

  As I turned back to the fight, his voice reached me, soft and sad. “Don’t take away my free will, Lilliana. When you bring me back, let me choose. I will choose you.”

  My gut twisted, but I forced myself to stay silent.

  He was a tool, I told myself. A useful one, yes, but ultimately expendable. A pawn to protect my territory while I expanded my influence. Nothing more.

  He wasn’t even a Paragon.

  Yet my heart pounded, and something in my chest resisted. It whispered that Benedict was more than just a disposable piece. That he was an ally, not a mere tool to be discarded.

  I narrowed my eyes and shoved the thoughts and emotions to the very corners of my mind. The last time I’d allowed personal emotions to cloud my judgment, I had lost much more than a mere city. Regardless of whether he was a friend, ally, or enemy, we wouldn’t win without his Runic script.

  “No victory comes without the cost of the few,” my father had warned Kyros and me as we stood at the outer ring, staring down into the slave pit. Across from us, the two other remaining Prince candidates—I didn't recognize either of them—exchanged knowing nudges and sinister grins. Below, in the grimy, putrid depths, the remaining Prince and Princess candidates tore at one another—nails flaying skin, teeth sinking into flesh and tearing it away. Every pair of eyes gleamed with a wild and chaotic desperation for survival.

  “If we allow more than the greatest to rise and rule Aedronir, we may save the weakest from death, but we doom the kingdom and country to ruin,” my father continued. One large, calloused hand pressed heavily on my shoulder, the other arm draped casually over Kyros. The vicious boy wore an ecstatic grin as his assigned brothers started the pit slaughter with my assigned sisters. Some died immediately, others pinned to the ground or dragged into the darkness. The pit was a collection of caves and this was a game of survival. The final of the failed candidates to survive would join us as a Child of Conquest. “You must remember this. The sacrifice of the few for the many is not merely necessary—it is right. It is the only choice. To deny it and choose otherwise is to condemn everyone else to death and despair.”

  Father turned to me, his hard red eyes—mirrors of my own—locking me in place. “Lilith,” he said. “You chose to save all your sisters during the last trial instead of allowing the two most worthy to rise above the rest. You robbed all of your sisters of any chance to prove themselves, rise or fall. You, not me, guaranteed their deaths and cemented their futures. Each and every one of them is now subjected to pain beyond what you know, and you ensured their deaths. Now, you have no one.”

  His fingers dug into my shoulder, nails biting into my bare skin. I didn’t so much as flinch, my heart having already shattered within its core as I watched my last remaining family devoured by the darkness

  “You are alone now, Lilith,” he said, his voice cold as ice. “Now and forever, alone. And it is your fault. Never forget.” His grip tightened. “You are Greater. Your kingdom is the many. Never again be willing to sacrifice either for the Lesser. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Father,” I whispered through cracked lips, my voice, like his, devoid of any warmth. “I understand.”

  My father had been many things before I ended his miserable life. Cruel, ruthless, a tyrant. Many even claimed he'd been evil.

  But he'd not been a fool.

  As the battle raged and even the moon’s energy began to wane from continuous absorption, it cemented that there was only one real choice: Benedict needed to summon the Dash’Ora and clog the Hydra’s core.

  I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Benedict and I fought with every ounce of our strength to avoid that fate. So did Nida, Nasq, and Duke Granger. Dame Annalise returned, newly healed, and Ethan and the Red Cardinal joined soon after. Then came the King, Marchioness Eliza, Alaric, even Duke Goldenhearts. Though their attacks barely left a mark, they carved paths for my own to strike deeper and unimpeded. From a distance, bronze and silver realm soldiers and mages supported us, though the Hydra melted them by the dozens with errant flames. Each time, more quickly filled the spots of the fallen.

  But the longer we fought, the more the city crumbled and the more people died.

  We could win. I knew we could.

  But by the time we triumphed, there would be nothing left for me to rule over.

  Nothing but ruins, ashes, and the dead.

  A throne of ashes.

  The Hydra’s center head suddenly twisted down, biting into the molten flesh of its burnt neighbor. It tore the charred remains of the neck away and black ichor gushed from the wound, but the flesh immediately began to writhe and reknit. The other heads shrieked, caught between agony and desire.

  I opened my mouth to call for more fire before the head regrew when something in the night’s energy shifted. A slight ripple at first, subtle and only faintly noticeable. But it grew quickly, distorting a pocket of energy into something vast and unknown.

  As if in eerie synchrony to the Hydra’s agony, the air directly north of the monster cracked and shattered, splitting open into a crimson portal that pulsed with violent energy. The portal utterly dwarfed the one Benedict had created in Sealrite.

  It was so large that the black night seemed to bleed crimson, the entire sky turning the color of fresh-spilled blood.

  I glanced just under the portal and my breath hitched. My eyes widened and my heart nearly exploded from within my chest. Just below the portal, Nasq hovered astride his wyvern, his hands gripping the Runic Script Benedict had been given by the Holy Kingdom.

  My mind froze.

  How? Why did Nasq have the script?

  There was no time to stop him. The portal was already pulling greedily at his mana, draining him dry with a sliver of resistance from the young sorcerer.

  Our eyes met and he offered me a small, sad smile. Though his lips moved without a sound, I felt as if I could hear each word he spoke as if it was screamed into my ear on a silent night.

  “Thank you for the gift of magic, my lady,” he mouthed. "I am forever grateful that you allowed me to join you and become who I was always meant to become." Tears slipped down his face as his lips formed more words, ones I couldn’t hear. Below, Nida screamed, utter horror painted across her face, her expression twisted into something that shot pains of grief through me. Nasq turned back to me, golden eyes glistening against the darkness of the red night.

  “It has been my greatest honor,” he said soundlessly. “But you still need Benedict. And if you still need him, this world still needs him." He removed a single hand from the Runic Script, and waved. "Make sure to kill the Hydra.”

  I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. There was no time for even a single word or farewell.

  No. No. This isn't the plan. Nasq isn't supposed to be the one to die. Not here. Not now.

  With a sickening pull, the portal drained the last of his mana. His pale skin hardened and cracked, turning a sickly ashen gray. Then the hardened skin flaked and crumbled, falling away into the wind leaving only raw muscle and blood visible beneath.

  “Nasq, you fucking idiot!” I roared as his husk fell. Nida shrieked, her pitch loud and filled with pained despair. She bore her teeth in raw desperation as she leapt from her wyvern, diving after him with her tears trailing in her wake.

  Instinct took over and I reached out with my Shen energy, wrapping what remained of Nasq in a portion of my Domain in some desperate attempt to cling to whatever life remained in him.

  How did he get the script? My thoughts swam with suspicious and accusations I couldn't control. Did Benedict give it to him? Where is Benedict? He wouldn't have given it to Nasq. I scanned the battlefield but, for a brief second I couldn't find him. If he did, I'll kill him. I'll kill him and I'll kill his daugh-

  Then I saw him—suspended a quarter mile behind the portal, mana fluctuating wildly around him. The older sorcerer was in a trap, caught by some powerful spell Nasq had probably invented on the spot.

  I—I couldn’t move. I couldn't speak. My mouth just hung open in disbelief, eyes unblinking.

  A part of me, the rational part, knew I could just resurrect Nasq. I was a necromancer. The Soul Weaver. But another part of me knew it wouldn’t truly be him. Not really.

  does work?!"