Ermid was the first to reach the scene, bursting through the smoke-choked clearing and immediately setting upon the dark elves who were putting the place to the torch.

The faint screams of the last remaining survivors had already been snuffed out. Their mangled bodies lay strewn across the ground, twisted in unnatural shapes, blood soaking into the earth. Around them, the trees had blackened once more, their bark cracked and withered beneath the overwhelming taint of dead mana that hung thick in the air like poison.

Xeveris arrived with the others only moments later. Without hesitation, they charged at the handful of dark elves, aiming to subdue them and drag them back to the colony before they could cause further ruin. Yet instead of yielding to their elders, the younger elves lashed out wildly at anyone who came near.

More horrifying still, they knelt beside the corpses and greedily drew in the dead mana leaking from the slain. Dark wisps curled into their bodies as they fed upon it. The sight alone left the elders aghast. No one in the colony had ever been taught such depravity.

"You brats! What do you think you’re doing?!" One of the men at Xeveris’s side shouted as he ducked beneath a slashing blade.

"Hold them back!" Another yelled.

Steel rang in the clearing. Cloaks whipped through the smoke. Fire crackled from the burning huts nearby.

Xeveris caught one of the younger dark elves by the shoulder and tore back his hood, ready to roar his name in fury only to pause.

The face staring back at him was unfamiliar.

For a long moment, Xeveris simply frowned. As leader for so many years, he knew every member of the colony by name and by face. He knew the children who had grown into hunters, the elders whose backs had bent with age, even the stubborn youths who thought themselves too clever for rules. Yet this one... he had never seen before.

The youth slapped Xeveris’s hand away and twisted to flee, but Yttriva intercepted him, seizing him by the collar and jerking him back. She glared into his face, only for her own expression to harden with confusion.

"Who are you?" She demanded sharply. "Where is Fior?"

Before the youth could answer, another dark elf lunged at her from the side with a dagger. Yttriva released her captive and spun away just in time, the blade slicing only air.

Only then did Xeveris truly take stock of the battlefield.

Their attackers were fewer than he had first assumed. And judging by the startled curses from his people, none of the others recognized them either.

"What’s going on?"

"Hey! Who are you people?"

The rogue dark elves offered no answer. They only kept their distance, circling like feral beasts, lashing out at anyone who dared come close.

A knot tightened painfully in Xeveris’s gut. These elves were not from his colony. He was certain of that. And there were no other colonies left on the island, not even hidden remnants in Ortbon.

Then where had these dark elves come from?

"Fior..." Xeveris muttered under his breath, dread crawling cold across his skin. "Just what have you done?"

"Whoever they are, kill them first!" One of the strangers barked from behind the line.

At once, the others surged forward with blades drawn. Xeveris’s people braced themselves to meet them, but before either side could clash, a great sphere of black flames erupted between them.

The blast roared upward like a living thing, forcing both groups to stagger back as heat and darkness swept through the clearing.

The black flames surged upward like a towering wall, swallowing the clearing in heat and shadow. For a few heartbeats, no one could see through them.

Then, as the fire slowly receded, the younger dark elves were gone.

In their place stood a single figure cloaked in darkness.

"Wha-What is that?!" Someone stammered.

Xeveris’s eyes widened. He knew those flames. He had seen them once before and had prayed never to see them again.

"It can’t be..." Ermid gasped at his side.

Even Yttriva, who rarely showed fear, had gone rigid with tension.

The other elders reacted no better. Faces that had weathered centuries of hardship now blanched with alarm. Some staggered back a step, others could only stare.

"How is this possible?"

"Th-There’s no way those flames are here..."

They muttered among themselves, voices trembling, their composure cracking before the younger elves’ eyes.

The younger dark elves looked between the elders in confusion, unable to understand what had shaken them so badly.

"What’s going on?" One of them asked.

"Do you know who that is?" Another demanded.

Yet none of the elders answered. They could not. To speak the truth aloud would be to accept it and many of them were still trying to deny what stood before them.

Xeveris slowly straightened, forcing steel back into his spine. Somewhere deep down, he had known it might come to this.

Aelfric’s final letter had warned him that a third party was moving in the shadows. But Xeveris had hesitated to tell his people. The mere notion of such beings still existing had sounded impossible. Better to wait for proof than spread fear over a phantom.

Now the proof stood before him in flesh and flame.

Every doubt he had harbored was gone.

"Le-Leader..." Ermid muttered hoarsely. "How could this thing be here?"

Yttriva’s lips curled in disgust as she fixed her gaze upon the figure.

"A dark mage."

The figure, clad in black from head to toe, stood motionless for a moment, its face hidden beneath shadow. Then it took a slow step forward.

"Dominus expected you all to interfere with us."

The voice that emerged was male, flat and hollow, stripped of any trace of emotion. It sounded less like a man speaking and more like a verdict being delivered.

Xeveris snapped out of his momentary shock the instant he heard that title.

Dominus.

His blood ran cold. This was no isolated incident, no band of reckless youths acting on their own. If that title was involved, then it meant something far worse. It meant that the history was repeating itself.

Xeveris’s jaw tightened as the figure advanced through the dying curtain of black flames.

"I shall see to it that our plan does not fail this time."

Xeveris’s eyes widened.

In an instant, scattered fragments of suspicion locked together in his mind. Fior’s strange behavior. The unrest. The missing pieces that had never fit. This had not begun tonight. It had likely been in motion for far longer than any of them realized.

They had all been maneuvered like pawns.

And if this conspiracy had spread beyond the island... then the danger was no longer theirs alone. It threatened the whole world.

A cold breath escaped him, but Xeveris crushed the rising panic before it could take hold. He clenched his fists, dead mana beginning to coil around his body like smoke.

"Prepare for battle," he ordered.

The shaken dark elves looked to him at once. Though his arms trembled, he stood at the front like a wall, steady and unyielding. Seeing their leader hold firm pulled many of them back from the edge of fear.

Yttriva moved to his right, drawing her weapon in one smooth motion. Ermid stepped to his left, lowering himself into stance despite the tension in his shoulders.

"Don’t tell me Fior got involved with them," Ermid muttered darkly.

"If he did," Yttriva snarled, eyes fixed on the cloaked figure, "I’ll kill him the moment I see him."

The figure in black inclined forward slightly then vanished into motion.

He rushed them with terrifying speed.

Yttriva reacted first, loosing an arrow straight for his chest. The dark mage swayed aside with effortless precision, letting it pass him by. But unlike what he expected, the arrow did not continue into the trees. The moment it missed, it curved sharply through the air and wheeled back toward him.

At the same time, Ermid and Xeveris lunged in from opposite sides, dagger and saber flashing.

The mage tilted his head the instant he sensed the returning arrow. He reached up lazily, caught it out of the air, and reduced it to ash in his palm. In the same breath, he slipped past Xeveris’s sweeping strike, seized Ermid by the wrist, and hurled him away as though he weighed nothing.

Ermid crashed into a tree with a sharp cry, pain exploding through his side. He slid to the roots gasping, one hand clutching his ribs. A second pain flared from his wrist. When he looked down, the place where the mage had touched him was badly burned. The flesh had turned raw pink and was already swelling.

Ermid cursed under his breath and forced himself upright, staring in disbelief as a single dark mage dismantled their fighters one after another.

He moved through them like a shadow in fire. Every strike was precise. Every dodge effortless. Bodies hit the ground one after another until only a handful of the strongest remained standing, Xeveris, Yttriva, Ermid, and a few battered elders.

"What do we do against this thing?" Ermid muttered, breathing hard.

"His flames devour anything they touch," Yttriva said, frowning as she nocked another arrow.

"Hell’s flames," Xeveris grimaced. "We can’t fight him properly without a holy weapon."

"We don’t have one."

As if to answer them, the mage raised a hand. A massive sphere of black flames roared toward them.

They barely escaped in time, diving aside as the inferno tore through the earth where they had stood moments before. Heat blasted across the clearing. Smoke and ash churned through the air.

The dark mage regarded them coldly, then tilted his head back slightly.

"I have wasted enough time here," he said. "I should be moving."

The ground beneath him erupted in black fire. From that center point, the flames raced outward like a living forest blaze, devouring everything in their path. Several dark elves fled at once to avoid being caught, but Xeveris and the others held their ground, knowing they would never outrun it.

Then, just as the flames reached them-

A brilliant white flash split the clearing.

The light was so sudden and pure it blinded them for a heartbeat. A thunderous crack followed, shaking the earth beneath their feet and forcing them to stumble backward.

When their vision cleared, the black flames had been cut apart.

A familiar presence stepped through the smoke.

Xeveris turned toward the measured sound of approaching footsteps and saw an elegant man walking calmly toward them, clad in green-blue robes embroidered with gold at the cuffs and collar. In his hand gleamed a radiant white weapon.

Long silver-white hair framed a breathtaking face, and piercing blue eyes swept over Xeveris and the others before a small smile touched his lips.

The younger dark elves stared with slackened jaws. Several elders immediately bowed their heads.

Keeping one eye on the enemy, Xeveris inclined his own head in respect.

The King of Nelius Ocean had arrived.

Zale Turquoise.

His aura was cool and gentle against the scorched, dead-mana-choked clearing. Merely standing there, he seemed to brighten the ruined place.

"Wh-Why are you here, Your Majesty?" Xeveris asked, unable to keep his gaze from the weapon in Zale’s hand.

It was a sacred blade forged from the scales of an ancient dragon. Its holy radiance needed no explanation. The supple, fluid weapon curved and shifted like water given steel form- the blade that had chosen the current King of the Merfolk as its wielder. Serathil.

It was nothing short of a miracle that Zale had appeared in time to save them.

"I am too late, am I?" Zale said lightly. "I was told to come an hour after midnight."

His eyes flicked suddenly past the dark elves. Serathil moved before he did, whipping from his hand like a living serpent. It coiled through the air and sliced cleanly through a sphere of black flames that had been speeding toward them from behind.

Xeveris frowned. "What do you mean, you were told?"

Zale only smiled. Then he stepped past the dark elves and faced the cloaked mage directly.

"Jabran," he said calmly. "If I am not mistaken."

The dark figure flinched.

The dark elves looked between the two men, confused but newly hopeful.

"How do you know my name?" the mage asked.

Zale shrugged and brushed long pale fingers along the segmented scales that formed Serathil’s blade.

"Oh, you know," he said pleasantly. "From my Master... who happened to defeat you back in Sestia."

The flames around Jabran surged violently. Beneath the hood, his expression twisted.

"The Dragon."

"Indeed," Zale replied. He flexed his wrist, and Serathil sang as it moved.

"Now then," he said, smile widening. "Shall we begin?"