Grimoria — Throne Room

  Elara didn’t slow.

  She ran through smoke and screaming steel with the rebels at her back, cutting down anyone who tried to block the hallways. The palace fought like a living thing—doors blown off hinges, pillars cracked, bodies dragged across marble. Every step forward felt like pushing against a storm.

  Then the corridor opened.

  The throne room.

  Generals were already there, waiting with blades drawn, faces tight with panic they tried to hide. The rebels crashed into them at once, and the room exploded into a new fight—shields slamming, swords ringing, blood splashing across gold inlays like paint.

  And on the throne—

  Vilgas sat.

  Smiling.

  Like he’d been bored until she arrived.

  He leaned back, eyes cold, and laughed softly.

  “Well, well… who would’ve thought,” Vilgas said. “Daddy’s little girl came home.”

  Something in Elara snapped.

  Vilgas rose from the throne and reached for the spear.

  The spear.

  The one he kept like a trophy.

  He lifted it with one hand and started walking toward her, slow, confident, as if every soldier dying in his palace was background noise.

  “So you came to kill your father,” Vilgas said. “How shameful.” His gaze traveled over her like dirt. “The rumors were true. You joined the human king.” He smiled wider. “You were always the curse of this house.”

  Elara’s fingers tightened around her weapon. Her heartbeat turned loud.

  Vilgas’s voice sharpened. “Lucan was always better than you, you renegade whore.”

  The words hit like a whip.

  Elara’s vision flashed—hands grabbing her hair, stone walls, blood in her mouth, Vilgas’s voice over her like a shadow. The old pain tried to climb back into her ribs.

  She swallowed it.

  Then she reached into a bag at her side and threw it at his feet.

  It landed with a wet thud.

  Vilgas’s eyes narrowed. “What—”

  The sack rolled.

  And blood seeped out.

  Elara’s voice came out steady, almost calm.

  “He was superior,” she said. She spat on the floor. “Now you have no one left, Father.”

  Vilgas stared for one hard second.

  Then his face twisted.

  Rage.

  He raised the spear.

  Elara lunged.

  Vilgas met her head-on and deflected the strike with a sharp, brutal angle, the spear shaft slamming her weapon aside and throwing her off-balance. He followed with a sweeping step that forced her back across the marble.

  Elara skidded, caught herself, breathing hard.

  Vilgas ripped his heavy cloak off his shoulders and tossed it aside like he was done pretending to be a king. The generals and rebels were still clashing behind them, screams and steel filling the room, but Vilgas’s attention locked onto Elara like everything else had stopped existing.

  “Come,” Vilgas growled. “Show me what you learned while you were running away.”

  Elara’s chest rose and fell. Nervous. Angry. Focused.

  She moved again.

  Fast.

  Elara attacked in tight angles, trying to slip inside the spear’s reach, forcing Vilgas to adjust. Vilgas rotated the spear like it was part of his body—blocking, parrying, jabbing, making space with every step. He didn’t just fight her. He controlled where she stood.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Elara darted left. Vilgas pivoted and cut her path. She tried to roll in—he struck the floor beside her foot with the spear tip, cracking marble and making her jump back instinctively.

  He smiled.

  “You’re still predictable.”

  Elara’s jaw tightened. She attacked again, harder, refusing to give him the rhythm. Steel clashed. Wood and metal groaned. Vilgas’s spear moved like a serpent, snapping at her wrists, her throat, her ribs.

  She caught one strike, barely—then felt the force behind it.

  Vilgas shoved forward and locked her weapon.

  For a second, they were close.

  Too close.

  Vilgas leaned in, eyes burning.

  “Now,” he whispered, voice full of hate, “hold it.”

  Elara’s arms shook.

  She gritted her teeth and tried to push back—

  And the spear’s shaft pressed tighter, pinning her guard, forcing her down like he was trying to make her kneel in front of the throne.

  The fight behind them kept raging.

  But in that moment, it was just father and daughter.

  And Vilgas was smiling like he’d been waiting for this his whole life.

  Palace Bridge — Grimoria

  Explosions cracked the air. Stone jumped. The bridge shook like it wanted to break in half.

  Isaac hit the ground hard, skidding across blood-slick marble. Yu’s sword ripped out of his grip and stabbed into the bridge by itself, vibrating like it was angry.

  The Reapers didn’t slow.

  One came in with twin axes—heavy, clean, perfect swings meant to end things fast. The other moved with curved blades, cutting arcs through the air like it was writing his death in circles. Isaac rolled, ducked, slid back, barely avoiding steel that should’ve taken his head.

  He forced distance.

  His eyes flashed blue.

  “Yu!”

  The sword tore out of the stone and snapped back into his hand like a living thing. Isaac raised it just in time to catch a curved strike. The impact blasted through his arms and threw him sideways, boots carving a trench into the bridge.

  He gritted his teeth, breathing hard.

  “They’re too strong…”

  The Reapers marched side by side again, perfectly synced. No faces. No emotion. Just that chain-scrape sound only he could hear, crawling deeper into his skull.

  “King of Olympia,” they said together. “Cease.”

  Isaac surged forward anyway.

  He found a gap—an angle that should’ve worked—then drove Yu straight through the axe Reaper’s chest.

  Nothing.

  The blade passed through like smoke.

  Isaac blinked, confused for half a heartbeat—sure he’d landed it.

  The axe Reaper kicked him.

  A simple kick.

  It hit like a siege hammer.

  Isaac flew off the bridge and through a building wall. Stone exploded around him. He crashed into the street below and rolled through debris until he finally stopped in a pile of shattered brick and splintered wood.

  Silence for half a second.

  Then pain.

  Real pain.

  His ribs screamed. His lungs burned. Blood filled his mouth.

  ~Isaac…~ Yu’s voice came into his head, tight with worry.

  He dragged himself up with the sword and coughed—too much. Thick blood splashed onto the rubble. His vision blurred at the edges. The two Reapers stepped into view above, looking down at him like he was a problem that hadn’t finished dying yet.

  Isaac’s knees shook.

  He was going to black out.

  He took one breath.

  Then another.

  And he roared.

  [Berserk Mode]

  The world turned sharp.

  His fury lit up through his veins like fire racing through oil. He pushed himself up, shoulders trembling, and the skin along his face split wider—rage forcing something ugly to the surface.

  Isaac launched.

  No plan. No fear. Just speed and violence.

  He punched straight through one Reaper’s chest again—nothing—his fist passing through as if the body wasn’t real. Isaac’s eyes narrowed.

  Intangible… when hit.

  He adjusted on instinct.

  The curved-blade Reaper swung.

  Isaac didn’t try to “damage” him.

  He caught the strike.

  Metal screamed.

  And the instant the Reaper’s blades met resistance—the instant it became “solid” to attack—Isaac countered.

  His elbow slammed down into its head.

  The Reaper staggered.

  Yu felt it through the blade and shivered.

  ~He found it…~

  The axe Reaper came from the side.

  Isaac turned, blocked, and countered again—fast, brutal, perfect timing—using their own attacks as the only moments they could be touched.

  He squeezed Yu’s handle so hard it hurt.

  Lightning crawled down the sword.

  Yu gasped in his mind, a sharp sound like pain.

  “Stop—!”

  Isaac didn’t stop.

  He poured power into her until the air around the blade screamed. Blue-white arcs snapped across the ruins, turning dust into sparks.

  Isaac threw his head back and let out a roar that shook windows.

  A shockwave blasted out, cracking nearby walls and tossing loose debris into the air.

  The Reapers didn’t flinch.

  They marched again.

  So did he.

  Isaac baited a strike—stepped into range on purpose—then moved at the last instant. The axe swung. The Reaper became solid for that heartbeat.

  Isaac’s electrified blade flashed.

  One clean cut.

  The Reaper’s head came off.

  For a moment it didn’t fall—like even the world didn’t believe it.

  Then the body collapsed.

  Golden blood exploded out in a violent spray, drenching the rubble like molten metal. The head hit the ground and shattered under Isaac’s boot as he crushed it without thinking.

  The second Reaper moved behind him.

  It grabbed Isaac from the back and lifted him off the ground with crushing strength. Isaac’s ribs screamed again. Yu slipped from his hand and clattered across stone.

  The Reaper tightened.

  Trying to break him.

  Isaac’s rage spiked higher.

  He screamed—louder—until the sound turned into pure pressure. His face twisted, skin tearing further, the berserk form pushing through until it looked like a glowing skull under torn flesh.

  Electricity flared from his body in wild surges.

  Not a spark.

  A storm.

  Billions of volts ripped out of him, turning the air into a burning cage. The Reaper held on for a fraction of a second—

  Then it detonated.

  Golden blood and shattered armor blasted outward. The force punched Isaac forward and dropped him onto the rubble hard.

  He hit the ground on all fours, breathing like an animal, shaking, furious—still searching for the next thing to kill.

  Yu rushed back into humanoid form, sliding to him and grabbing his face with both hands.

  “Enough,” she said, voice low and urgent. “Look at me.”

  Isaac’s eyes twitched.

  Black flooded his vision.

  His pupils swallowed the blue.

  His body locked—

  Then went limp.

  He collapsed forward, unconscious.

  Yu caught him before his head hit the stone, holding him close as the war raged above.

  And somewhere on the palace bridge, the chains stopped.