Chapter 7
1238words
"Feel it? This is raw, unlimited power!" Greta Li spread his arms ecstatically. "Lucas, after all those years rotting in the Void Prison, did you ever imagine I'd be the one to bury you?"
"Shut up." Lucas's face remained impassive as he shielded Isabella, whispering: "He wants me. I'll engage him—you watch for an opening to strike his soul core with light magic. It's his only vulnerability."
"Got it." Isabella gathered golden light in her palm, steeling herself for the battle of her life.
"Still plotting? You haven't grasped your situation at all." Greta Li's form vanished from sight.
In the next heartbeat, he materialized before Lucas, a talon of pure malevolence striking for his heart.
Lucas reacted with blinding speed, manifesting a shield of interlocking dark runes.
CLANG!
Talon met shield with a sound like breaking worlds. The impact sent fractures racing through the stone floor beneath them.
"Is this all you have? Pathetic!" Greta Li increased the pressure, cracks spreading across the runic shield.
In that instant, a spear of golden light lanced from behind Lucas, aimed perfectly at Greta Li's chest—directly at his soul core.
Isabella's perfect strike!
Greta Li had no choice but to abandon his assault, twisting away from the lethal attack.
"Clever teamwork," he snarled, eyes narrowing to slits. "Perhaps I should eliminate you first, little princess."
He shifted focus to Isabella, conjuring chains of writhing souls that lashed toward her from every direction.
"Not a chance!" Lucas materialized before Isabella, hands weaving complex patterns that summoned a black vortex, consuming the soul chains in its hungry maw.
"I'm your opponent." Lucas's voice was deadly calm.
"So be it!" Rage contorted Greta Li's features. "Witness my true power! —Abyssal Descent!"
He raised his arms skyward, and reality itself began to warp. A massive rift tore open behind him, connecting to some nightmarish dimension. Writhing tentacles, cyclopean horrors, and shrieking wraiths poured through, surging toward the pair.
Back-to-back, Lucas and Isabella faced the endless abyssal horde in desperate combat.
Lucas's dark magic scythed through the monsters in devastating arcs. Isabella's light magic proved equally lethal, golden beams slicing through abyssal flesh, reducing creatures to ash on contact.
But the horde was endless, a relentless tide of nightmares. Both defenders were rapidly approaching magical exhaustion.
"We can't win like this," Isabella gasped between spells. "His power is limitless—we'll be overwhelmed eventually."
"I have one option left," Lucas's voice had grown ragged. "I'll create a three-second window with my remaining power. When it comes, channel everything you have—magic, spirit, soul itself—into this."
He pressed the silver crucifix into Isabella's palm.
"This is…"
"The 'Ember'—my people's sacred relic," Lucas explained. "It carries and amplifies soul energy. I used it to bring your soul here. Now it must carry our last hope."
Isabella's fingers closed around the cold metal, understanding dawning. This was more than a plan—it was a sacrifice, a legacy, a desperate gamble.
"What will happen to you?" she whispered, already dreading the answer.
Lucas didn't answer. He simply looked at her, his amethyst eyes showing a tenderness she'd never seen before.
"Remember—survive."
With those words, he turned and charged alone toward the abyssal rift.
"By my name and essence, I offer all that I am!—Eternal Night Banishment!"
Lucas's form ignited with dark flames, his body dissolving into pure shadow essence. Using himself as the catalyst for the ultimate forbidden spell, he conjured a black hole more terrifying than the abyssal rift itself. Its irresistible pull devoured monsters, rift, and all, banishing them to the endless void.
The tomb fell suddenly, eerily silent, broken only by Greta Li's shocked, furious howl.
"NO! LUCAS! YOU INSANE BASTARD!"
He never imagined Lucas would sacrifice himself to neutralize his greatest weapon.
And now came the three precious seconds Lucas had purchased with his life!
"NOW!" Lucas's final command echoed in Isabella's mind.
Without hesitation, Isabella poured everything into the Ember—her magic, her spirit, and the unyielding essence of "Greenriel" herself.
The crucifix erupted with blinding radiance that seemed to illuminate existence itself! Not merely golden light, but a fusion of silver moonlight and purple shadow—the essence of Lucas's final gift—merging into the primordial light of creation itself.
"What—what IS this power?!" Terror contorted Greta Li's features. He tried to flee but found himself locked in place, trapped by the light's inexorable grip.
Isabella raised the blazing crucifix, aimed it at Greta Li's frozen form, and with her remaining strength, voiced the most powerful incantation of her existence:
"Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, from nothingness you came, to nothingness return! —FINAL JUDGMENT!"
A pillar of primordial light lanced through Greta Li's soul core, obliterating his very essence.
"NOOOOO——!"
With a final shriek of defiance, the traveler Greta Li was utterly annihilated—his soul purified and erased from existence itself.
The collapsed entrance exploded inward, pierced by a golden sword beam as Adrian charged in with the Royal Knights.
They found an apocalyptic scene of destruction—and Isabella unconscious amid the rubble, fingers still locked around a dull silver crucifix.
Of Lucas, there remained no trace. As if he had never existed at all.
……
Three days later, Isabella woke in her bedchamber.
"Your Highness, thank the gods!" Martha cried, tears of joy streaming down her face.
Isabella's eyes fluttered open. Her magical reserves felt utterly depleted—that final spell had consumed everything. But she had survived.
"What happened… after?" she whispered.
"The Royal Knights secured the academy. Prince Adrian purged all nobles tainted by necromancy, including…" Martha hesitated, her voice dropping. "Princess Selina and Princess Avril. His Majesty has confined them to the high tower for life. And you, for saving the academy and empire, have been named Crown Princess—first in line to the imperial throne."
Isabella fell silent. She had won everything—position, glory, power—yet lost something irreplaceable.
She opened her palm to reveal the Ember crucifix, now dull and lifeless. A single tear slid down her cheek.
"Lucas…"
One month later, the Valencia Empire held a grand ceremony to officially invest Isabella as Crown Princess.
She stood resplendent in gold and silver ceremonial robes, the blood rose crown of the heir apparent gleaming on her brow as she received the homage of kneeling nobles.
Adrian stood behind her, his expression unreadable. He had lost not only his claim to the throne but any chance to explain his unwitting role in the catastrophe.
Evan, newly appointed as Court Chief Mage, watched from below, his eyes filled with admiration and something deeper.
Leo, now commander of the Crown Princess's Knight Order, knelt before her, pledging his sword and life to his future queen.
After the ceremony, Isabella climbed alone to the Star Tower's summit. She fastened the Ember crucifix around her neck.
"I promise you," she whispered to the star-strewn sky, "I will survive. And I will stand at the pinnacle of this world."
In that moment, the dull crucifix flickered with a faint, almost imperceptible purple glow.
The corners of Isabella's mouth curved into a knowing smile.
She knew the story was far from over.
The true game had only just begun. And this time, she would be no pawn—but the player herself.
Her path stretched onward—toward the stars and beyond the sea.
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**[End of Book]**
