Kael took one step.

His legs buckled.

The ground rushed up and he hit it shoulder-first with a muffled thump that sent pain lancing through his already broken ribs. The realm had cost much more than he’d calculated. Opening a bounded space without the cultivation to sustain it was like trying to lift a mountain with broken arms.

Possible, maybe, for a few seconds. But the aftermath was absolute.

"You idiot," Sage hissed.

Her hands found his shoulders. Hauled him upright. His vision swam—gray at the edges, dark at the center, the two moons of Athelas spinning overhead like drunk fireflies.

"Open your mouth."

"What—"

She shoved something past his lips. Small. Bitter. A pill dissolving on his tongue.

Shadow Shop — Mana Restoration Pill (Earth Grade) — 100 SP — Purchased x2

Warmth flooded through him.

"Another one," she muttered.

"Already did. While you were busy faceplanting."

His mana reserves climbed. Twenty percent. Thirty. Forty.

Sage ducked under his right arm and draped it over her shoulder. His hand landed on her collarbone—and slipped slightly downward, settling against the curve of her breast.

"You did that on purpose," Sage said flatly.

"Partially."

"Kael."

"What, It’s more comfortable."

She didn’t push him off. Just sighed and started walking.

They left the warehouse through the same rusted door they’d entered—emerging into the cold night air of Thornwick’s abandoned district. The two moons hung low. The streets were empty. Somewhere in the distance, a dog howled.

And coming toward them from the east—

Mira Chen.

She stopped ten meters away. Raised one hand to her glasses. Pushed them up her nose with the deliberate slowness of someone who wanted to make a point.

"Seems I’m not the only smart one," she said.

Kael squeezed Sage’s breast.

"Hey, four eyes."

Mira’s eye twitched.

"Can you get the other group members here? Byron and Zane." He tilted his head toward the warehouse. "There’s a Peak Foundation Establishment cultivator down there. He probably runs the operation. We’ll need help to kill him."

"Who are you calling four eyes?" Mira’s voice was dangerously calm. "And stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"You know exactly what you’re doing."

"This?" Kael squeezed again. "I’m injured. Sage is supporting me. My hand is positioned for optimal stability."

"It’s positioned on my tit."

"That’s where the stability is."

Sage’s tails bristled. "Kael, I swear—"

"Can you guys please focus," Mira interrupted. "How many hostiles?"

"Twenty-six dead. One Rank 9 still active. Plus whatever guards we didn’t see."

Mira processed this. Her expression didn’t change, but something behind her glasses sharpened.

"You killed twenty-six people."

"Technically, Sage killed about half."

"I helped," Sage muttered.

"I’ll get Byron and Zane." Mira turned. "Stay here. Don’t die."

She walked away.

Kael watched her go.

"I like her," he said.

"You like anyone who tolerates you."

"That’s most people. I’m very tolerable."

Sage’s retort died in her throat.

The air changed.

It happened instantly—a shift in pressure, a weight settling over the district like a wet blanket, a presence that made every nerve ending in Kael’s body scream DANGER.

Sage’s tails went rigid.

Mira stopped mid-step.

The sky above them ignited.

Fire.

Not ordinary flame—something divine, something that burned with light instead of heat, casting golden radiance across the abandoned buildings like a second sunrise. A figure descended through the conflagration. A tall imposing female dressed in flowing red robes that seemed woven from living flame. Her hair was fire. Her eyes were molten gold. Her skin glowed with inner light that made her look less like a person and more like a concept given form.

She landed between them.

Boom.

The impact cracked the concrete. Shockwave rippled outward—picking up debris, flattening Sage’s tails against her back, forcing Mira to her knees.

"Nobody moves."

The voice was absolute. It carried the weight of something that didn’t need volume to be heard. Authority. Power. The casual certainty of someone who had never been denied anything in her existence.

Kael’s Essence Trace blazed.

The signature that filled his vision was overwhelming—bright, hot, burning with an intensity that made Grellik and Vornin look like candle flames next to a sun.

Mana Heart, Peak Rank 1.

His stomach dropped.

Footsteps approached from behind the flame woman. The male Rank 9 from the underground facility—the one with the crown-like circlet, the one who’d been loading cages onto the teleportation array.

He stopped beside the flame goddess and surveyed the scene with cold indifference.

Twenty-six bodies visible through the warehouse doorway. Grellik’s headless corpse. Vornin’s scattered remains.

"How," he said slowly, "did three people at Rank 6, Rank 5, and Rank 4 manage to kill so many of my men? Even Grellik and Vornin?"

The flame goddess tilted her head.

"This one is a fox-kin." She pointed at Sage. "Royal bloodline, if I’m not mistaken. That explains some of the carnage."

Her molten eyes shifted to Kael.

"But this one..." She studied him with an intensity that made his skin prickle. "This one has mana reserves greater than even my own."

Silence.

The Rank 9’s head snapped toward her.

"That’s impossible, Seraphine. He’s Foundation Establishment. Rank 4 at most."

"That’s exactly what I’m seeing." Seraphine’s eyes narrowed. "Either his cultivation is disguised, or he possesses some manner of mana storage that defies conventional understanding."

The Rank 9—Thorne, his name surfaced from Kael’s earlier reconnaissance—stared at Kael with renewed interest.

"I would have recruited him if he hadn’t killed my men," he said. "But we’ll find out his secret after dissecting him."

Kael’s expression didn’t change.

His hand dropped from Sage’s shoulder.

She stepped back—nine tails flaring wide, golden light building behind her, the ethereal halo of the nine-tailed fox manifesting in a blaze of divine radiance.

Mira rose to her feet. Her glasses glinted.

And ice formed at her back.

Not a small amount. Not a tentative effort. Towers of ice—jagged spikes erupting from the ground behind her, climbing toward the sky, casting blue-white light that clashed against Seraphine’s golden fire. And on her other side—

Flame.

Red-orange fire spiraling around her fist, heat shimmer distorting the air, creating a duality of elements that shouldn’t exist in a single cultivator.

Dual elemental. Fire and ice.

Mira Chen had been hiding that the entire time.

Kael’s hands rose. Lightning crackled between his fingers—a dozen orbs of compressed electricity forming in a ring around his body.

Thorne’s eyes widened.

"You—"

Kael fired.

Twelve lightning fangs screamed toward the Rank 9—guided by micro-gravity adjustments, moving faster than sound, covering every possible angle of escape.

Sage and Mira attacked simultaneously.

Golden light and ice-and-fire crashed toward Seraphine like a tidal wave—Sage’s tails extending into lethal spears, Mira’s dual elements combining into a devastating storm of opposing forces.

BOOM!

The impacts collided.

Dust erupted—debris, smoke, shattered concrete, the remnants of three attacks meeting two targets in a single catastrophic moment. The cloud expanded outward, swallowing the street, swallowing the buildings, swallowing everything in a blanket of gray-white haze.

Kael squinted through the chaos.

He couldn’t see.

His lightning fangs had hit something. He’d felt the impact through his gravity sense—a connection, a discharge, a successful strike. But had it been enough?

The dust swirled.

Footsteps emerged from the haze.

Two figures completely unharmed walking towards them with slow steps.

Seraphine’s robes still burned with divine fire. Not a scratch on her glowing skin. Not a hair out of place. Her molten eyes found Kael’s and smiled.

Thorne’s clothing was pristine. The lightning fangs had dissolved against a barrier Kael hadn’t even seen—a thin shell of compressed wind that had surrounded him like a second skin, absorbing the attacks without visible effort.

They stopped ten meters away.

Thorne tilted his head.

"Interesting," he said. "Very interesting."

Seraphine’s smile widened.

"Shall we continue?"

Seraphine moved.

One moment she stood ten meters away, the next she was there—directly in front of Sage, close enough to touch, golden fire already wreathing her raised palm.

Sage’s eyes went wide.

The fox halo flared—twelve feet of golden light surging outward in a desperate defensive wave—

But it was too slow.

Seraphine’s palm connected with Sage’s chest.

WHOOSH.

Fire erupted on contact—as a flood of flame that poured over Sage’s body like liquid sun. Her clothes ignited. Her fur singed. The golden halo screamed and buckled under the divine heat.

"AAAAAHHHH—"

Sage’s scream tore through the night.

Kael’s body moved on instinct—lightning gathering in his palm, gravity compressing, the familiar weight of the Pulsar building at his fingertip. He needed three seconds. Maybe four. Just enough time to form the orb and—

Thorne appeared.

His palm was already moving. Wind compressed against it—visible, swirling, dense enough to distort the air into a lens that focused the force into a single devastating point.

It hit Kael’s stomach.

BAM.

The Pulsar collapsed before it could form. Kael’s feet left the ground. Pain exploded through his abdomen—not just new pain, but even old pain, every wound from the battle with Grellik and the operatives tearing open again as the wind impact rippled through his body. His broken ribs screamed. His slashed back split wider. Blood sprayed from his mouth as he flew backward and hit a wall with a sickening crack.

He slid down.

Couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t think.

Sage’s scream had stopped.