In that moment, the forest floor beneath her feet erupted upward with terrifying force, as if a buried mine had detonated, hurling soil, roots, and shattered stone into the air.

The atmosphere itself trembled. Golden brilliance flooded the clearing, washing over everything in sight, and before anyone could react, Hera moved. A pure white blade flashed forward, slashing toward the first opponent in her path, a Holy Knight commander who had not even finished drawing breath. His own sword hesitated, instinct screaming at him not to meet hers head-on.

Clang!

The metallic impact rang out like a bell struck by the gods, the sound heavy enough to make the ground shudder. Hera's strike sent him flying backward as if he weighed nothing at all, his body hurled through the air like a discarded ragdoll. The sheer power behind her slender grip was monstrous, closer to a charging bull than a duelist's finesse, and the illusion of softness shattered completely in that single exchange.

I did not waste the moment either, striking while both sides were still reeling. My wings spread wide in a single, decisive motion, and I flapped with everything I had, forcing my body into the air.

A green flower bloomed in my left hand, its petals unfurling with unnatural precision, while the frost halo formed behind me, locking into place like a silent command. The forest temperature plunged further, cold seeping into bark, soil, and breath alike, turning the already eerie clearing into something hostile and suffocating.

I gathered as much power as I could and hurled an ice barrier toward the mercenaries below. I did not care whether they shattered it immediately or used the opening to retreat. That was not my concern.

My agreement with Hera was clear. The Holy Knights were my priority. They would die first. And if, by some miracle, a few mercenaries survived the chaos afterward, I would allow it.

Only if I could...

I caught the distracted gaze of the priestess who had been mocking us earlier. Her eyes shifted from Hera to me, and the scorn inside them deepened instantly. If I did not trust my own power, I might have believed I had already lost, just from the way she looked at me.

She was looking down on me.

Her golden irises bled into crimson, and I felt it immediately. My blood slowed, thickening in my veins as if something invisible had wrapped around my heart and squeezed. A deliberate warning. A threat meant to break my resolve before the fight even began.

Unfortunately for her, she was fighting me.

I moved my fingers.

Blood control snapped into place. Her body froze where she stood, not even a tremor allowed through her limbs. The power was absolute. Her expression shattered, mockery draining away as horror flooded in instead, raw and unfiltered. Exactly as it should.

"Stop her!"

The shout came from the woman wielding dual daggers, sharp and urgent, ripping every eye in the clearing toward me before I could close the distance.

In that instant, it felt as though I were charging straight into a pack of wolves as nothing more than a lamb. My heart hammered violently, my vision blurring at the edges. Fear surged through me, honest and suffocating.

I was not confident. Not even a little. I did not know if I would survive this. But at least Elira would be safe.

Weapons surged toward me all at once, every strike aimed at ending my life as quickly as possible. To the Holy Knights, I was nothing more than another human. Even when I fought Blackbrand, he knew who I was and still looked down on me, ignoring Hera's warning. She had told them to be careful around me in battle, but they never listened.

Today, that arrogance would be my advantage.

Still… I wished Hera would help me a little more, instead of committing herself to a single opponent.

Their clash was shaking the forest. Each impact sent tremors through the ground, and strange veils rippled through the air, as if unseen souls were whispering to one another.

The sound of bones rattling echoed from that direction, hollow and unnatural. The commander must have been involved. It would not surprise me if he had already claimed control over the skeletons buried beneath this forest.

Crimson acupuncture needles burst free from beneath my skin.

Ten of them shot forward in a single breath, streaking through the air toward the foreheads of the seven attackers rushing me from the front and both sides. I was not aiming for instant kills. That was impossible in this situation.

But I did not need to kill them quickly.

As long as I maintained blood control over the one who posed the greatest threat from afar, no one here would stop me from killing her today.

Blood surged from beneath my fingernails, condensing in an instant into a narrow scalpel of hardened crimson. Frost crept along its edge from my left hand, tightening the structure, sharpening it beyond steel. One clean motion. One step closer. I was a single slash away from Sister Ilyana's throat.

Then thunder roared.

Golden light smashed into my flank from the right, violent enough to twist the air itself. My needle deflected against an invisible barrier as Lady Vivienne's staff flared, lightning screaming outward in a blinding arc that crashed toward me without mercy. At the same time, the wind scraped against my bones, pressure tearing at my muscles before pain even had time to register.

Instinct screamed.

A sharp arrow cut through the chaos. Sir Aldren's shot. I barely saw it, felt it more than anything else, the space around it collapsing as it raced toward my heart.

In that frozen heartbeat, the smile returned to Ilyana's face. It was the kind that said I could never reach her, that I was insignificant.

If I took those hits head-on, I would suffer. If I dodged fully, I would abandon my target. Either choice would be punished instantly by the remaining seven. Slowed movement meant death here. I knew that with brutal clarity.

So I chose survival.

Frost detonated outward from my body in a violent sphere, ice exploding into existence and swallowing the incoming lightning in a storm of crackling resistance. The impact threw me sideways, and I twisted with it, just enough to let Aldren's arrow tear past my ribs instead of through them, its tip biting into ice that shattered seconds later.

I pushed off the frozen ground and vanished in a flicker of shadow, retreating just far enough to breathe, canceling my blood control mid-motion before it could rebound on me.

The relief lasted less than a second. A massive presence locked onto me like a hunting beast. Axes tore through the air.

Sir Magnus came down on me like a falling mountain, laughter rumbling from his chest as blood rituals flared across his skin. There was no pause, no restraint. Only relentless pressure, driving me back step by step, forcing my body past its limits.

They would not let me recover.

And I knew, with chilling certainty, that one mistake was all it would take for this place to become my grave.

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