Serra's face crumpled. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she looked at her fallen comrades, at the warriors who'd fought and bled and died trying to slow The Reaper. "I'm sorry," she choked out. "I'm sorry for being weak. We couldn't even scratch him."

"You're not weak," Lilith replied firmly, her four wings folding back in a gesture of respect. "It's just that this is an opponent you can't handle yet. Your strength is still growing. His has been growing for three hundred years. It's not about weakness—it's about timing. You'll get stronger. You'll face opponents like this someday. But that day is not today."

The Valkyrie Squad nodded, tears streaming down their faces, pride and shame mixing in equal measure. "Thank you, Commander Lilith," Serra managed. "Thank you to all of you. Please... please win. Don't let him destroy our home."

"We'll try," Veronica said. "That's all any of us can promise. But we'll try with everything we have."

The surviving warriors began retreating, carrying their wounded, heading back to the defensive shelters. Some looked back, wanting to see the battle that would determine their fate. Others couldn't bear to watch, too afraid of seeing their commanders fall.

As the last of them disappeared into the inner city, The Reaper stretched, rolling his shoulders and cracking his knuckles with theatrical flair.

"Enough with the sob talk," he said, his casual tone cutting through the emotional moment like a knife. "Aren't we going to fight? It's getting boring standing here while you have your dramatic moment. Save the tears and speeches for after—if there is an after for you guys."

Lilith turned toward him, and the grief and compassion she'd shown her warriors was gone. In its place was pure, crystallized fury. Her soul-fire blazed brighter, her aura becoming physically oppressive.

"This is where you die, Reaper," she snarled, her voice carrying centuries of accumulated rage—rage at invaders who'd threatened her home, at heroes who'd killed her friends, at this walking apocalypse who treated their desperate defense as entertainment.

The Reaper just smiled—a genuine, excited smile that was somehow more disturbing than any threat.

"Finally," he breathed. "Someone with real killing intent. This might actually be fun."

His own aura flared—not aggressive, not hostile, but present. Undeniable. Vast. Like standing before the ocean and feeling the weight of its depths, understanding that no matter how strong you were, there were forces in the world that simply dwarfed you.

—-----

The moment the retreating warriors cleared the combat zone, all five commanders moved as one.

There was no dramatic countdown, no honorable declaration of combat start. They simply attacked with everything they had, simultaneously, from five different angles.

Lilith struck first, her soul-fire coalescing into a massive blade of crimson flames. She swung with speed that broke the sound barrier, the air itself igniting in her wake. The attack carried enough power to vaporize a building—aimed directly at The Reaper's head.

He tilted his head slightly to the left. The blade passed millimeters from his face, so close that his hair ruffled from the heat. But he remained untouched, his expression one of mild interest rather than concern.

"Soul-fire," he observed casually. "That's actually rare. Most people can't master spiritual flame manipulation. Nice."

Before Lilith could recover from her swing, Veronica attacked from behind. All twelve of her magical constructs fired simultaneously—twelve different schools of magic, twelve different attack types, all converging on a single point.

Fire, ice, lightning, earth spikes, wind blades, water pressure, light beams, shadow tendrils, spatial tears, temporal stasis, gravity crush, and pure arcane force—all hitting at once in a coordinated barrage that should have been impossible to dodge.

The Reaper moved.

Not away—through. He threaded between the attacks with movements so precise they seemed choreographed, his body flowing like water through gaps that shouldn't have existed. A fireball passed through the space where his torso had been a microsecond earlier. Lightning arced around him without connecting. The spatial tear opened on empty air as he'd already shifted position.

"Twelve-school mastery," The Reaper said, sounding genuinely impressed even as he dodged. "That takes real dedication. Most mages pick three or four and call it good. You went all in. Respect."

Morgana attacked next, her dimensional existence allowing her to strike from angles that shouldn't be possible. Her blade—existing in multiple dimensions simultaneously—thrust at The Reaper from what appeared to be seven different directions at once.

The Reaper's eyes tracked all seven attacks. His hand moved in a blur, and impossibly, he parried all seven with his simple steel sword. The sound of metal meeting dimensional blade rang out like a discordant bell, and Morgana was forced to retreat, her eyes wide with shock.

"Multi-dimensional combat," The Reaper noted. "Clever. But I fought a demon lord with similar abilities about a hundred years ago. Once you understand the dimensional framework, it's just pattern recognition."

Carmilla struck from above, her blood magic manifesting as thousands of crimson spears raining down like a deadly storm. Each spear was infused with draining magic—designed not just to pierce but to consume life force on contact.

The Reaper didn't dodge this time. He raised one hand casually, and the blood spears simply stopped. Frozen in mid-air, hovering inches from his body, held by some invisible force.

"Blood magic," he said, examining the frozen spears with interest. "Now we're getting into the really specialized stuff. This is good. This is what I came for."

He gestured, and the spears reversed direction, flying back at Carmilla with triple their original speed. The vampire barely managed to dissolve into mist, reforming a safe distance away, her expression shocked.

"How did you—" she started.

"Adapted," The Reaper interrupted. "Your blood magic is now my blood magic. But I've got three centuries of accumulated techniques to draw from, so mine's just... better. No offense."

Seraphine attacked last, her corruption magic surging forward in a wave of transformative energy. Not designed to kill, but to bind, to change, to make The Reaper hers. It was the attack she'd perfected over centuries—the ability that had created her collection, that had bound countless powerful beings to her will.

Author Note

Hello its author here ,i just wanted to ask how are you guys enjoying the current arc hehehe

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