Just as Shalkas reached for Ryan, a high-pressure beam of water tore through the air and pierced his hand clean off. Bone and skin separated in an instant, the limb torn like paper. Shalkas stumbled backward, retreating into cover, eyes wide.

  Water surged in from another direction, faster than his reflexes. It circled Ryan’s collapsed form, spinning tight around him before beginning to shape itself, head, torso, arms, and legs all forming at once. In the span of a blink, it took on humanoid form, clothed and complete. To the untrained eye, it might have looked like nothing more than swirling mist, but to those who could see, those who understood what had just materialized was terrifying.

  Max looked down at Ryan and muttered, “Just in time to save your neck, little brother.”

  Shalkas watched from the shadows, muttering to himself, his mind racing. “So he’s the second one. The one responsible for the corpses without a scratch on them. The sensation coming from him… insane. What are these people?”

  Sheen’s voice trembled. “Shalkas. We need to run. We’re not walking out of this if we stay. You’ve got that tramp spell, don’t you? Use it. Let’s go.”

  Shalkas didn’t argue. “You’re right. We need to leave. I can’t face this one… not in this body, anyway.” He paused, glancing at Sheen. “But I can use yours.”

  Sheen turned, horror spreading across his face. “What the hell are you talking about? Are you insane?”

  Shalkas, clutching the remains of his arm, smirked. “Oh right, the binding spell. I need to release it first.”

  Before he could speak the release, another stream of water cut through the air. He barely ducked in time. The streams didn’t just attack, they hounded him, staying close, cutting off his casting. They weren’t killing blows they were interference, perfectly controlled. Harassment.

  He realized it a second later. “He’s not trying to kill me… He’s making sure I can’t cast.”

  Then, a shift.

  Sheen clutched his head, stumbling, memories flashing through his mind—pieces that didn’t belong. He blinked, dazed. “Where… am I? What’s going on? Why was I with you? Why did I let that tribal near me? What was I even doing...?”

  A blast of water punched through his torso. His stomach opened, gut spilled. Another tore through his legs. His cries didn’t last long.

  “It hurts! Someone help me! It hurts—!”

  Silence.

  Shalkas watched Sheen’s body collapse.

  His mind reeled. He already killed him… I was going to take that body. He knew. He knew I’d use him as a vessel. This one is lethal. Not just strong. But strategic as well.

  “I just need one moment,” Shalkas told himself. “One chance. If I can reach the boy and cast tramp, I can get out.”

  Max turned his eyes toward Shalkas. “Just out of curiosity, what kind of hypnosis did you use on my brother?”

  Shalkas answered, feigning calm. “Brother? The two of you don’t look anything alike at all. And since you know I cast a spell on him, does it mean you just watched him get beaten like that? Some brother you are”

  He gave a half shrug, blood dripping from his severed wrist. “It was a control spell. It messes with the body’s link to the mind. Add a layer of sealing, makes the subject easier to capture. It wasn’t complete. I could remove it, if you’d like. It will only take a moment.”

  Max didn’t blink. “No need. If he got caught by something that weak, it’s his fault.”

  He raised a finger. A new beam of water blasted toward Shalkas, ripping through the soil.

  Shalkas ducked, then ran, weaving left and right. Beams crashed into the surrounding ground. One clipped his leg, shredding through the muscle. He stumbled, cursed, and barely avoided the next.

  He tried to retaliate with a fireball flew from his palm, struck Max directly in the face.

  But the water reformed. No burn, no damage. Max laughed.

  “That’s it? You think that was going to work? Couldn't you see all the water I have been using”

  He dropped low and drove his foot into Shalkas’ knee. The bone snapped. Shalkas screamed as he collapsed.

  And then he got to know how those soldiers and driver died without any wound, feeling same thirst and misery they felt.

  It hit like a curse. His tongue swelled. His skin cracked. All the moisture in his body vanished. He tried to scream, but even his breath came out dry. Every cell in him begged for water. He would have licked the blood from his own wrist if there was any left. But there was nothing. His body was failing, shriveling, drying out as if tossed into a desert where the sun never slept.

  “What is this… what is happening… what is happening!” His voice cracked into a hoarse croak.

  Then, silence.

  He had become the victim of one of max’s most brutal technique, Dehydration.

  His body collapsed in on itself. The tattoos, the symbols etched across his skin, gone. Faded. As if they never existed.

  Max stood over him, expression unreadable.

  “Job’s done. Let’s go home, Ryan.”

  He walked over to where Ryan still lay, groaning, on the ground. But before he could lift him—

  A whisper cut the air.

  From Sheen’s body.

  “Spirits of frost… lend me strength… give me protection…”

  It wasn’t Sheen’s voice. It was Shalkas.

  Max turned—too late.

  Sheen’s corpse, riddled with holes, sat up. Its skin pale, but the tattoos were there now. Transferred. The forest seemed to pulse with the spell, answering the call.

  Shalkas had taken Sheen’s body after all.

  Barely able to stand, bones fractured and flesh torn, he raised a trembling hand and spoke a final command.

  “??????????.”

  A glyph appeared beneath Max’s feet.

  Max didn’t move fast enough.

  He froze, not physically but mentally. Something inside locked down. His eyes remained open, but his body went limp. He was trapped, not unconscious, but aware. His consciousness still alive, watching, unable to move. A prison of his own flesh.

  Shalkas coughed, blood spilling from Sheen’s lips.

  Shalkas, inside Sheen’s mangled body, could barely keep it upright. Bones were cracked, tendons torn, but he forced the limbs to move. Every breath rattled.

  He stared at Max’s unconscious form, still frozen in place, the aftermath of the trap spell hanging in the air like a curse not yet finished.

  “Hah… what a pair you siblings are,” he muttered, voice strained but full of awe.

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  “I’ve never seen anything like this. This magic I had never experienced something like this… no that was not even magic, and it was far more amplified than any gift or blessing user I have known, just what are these fellows to build nature like this. That was something else. The way he controlled water… became water… conjured it, moved with it. That’s something a water nymph might be able to do, but not like this. They don’t kill like that. They don’t fight like that. This level... it's beyond that level.”

  He looked around at the mountain, at the battered trees and broken stone.

  “What are these people? And what the hell is this forest hiding? I have been here for year’s yet not once knew about them, how unfair.”

  He shook his head, blood trailing from his nose.

  “No matter. I’ll retreat for now. Taking these two are enough.”

  Dragging his barely functioning body, Shalkas staggered toward his original corpse. It lay there, shriveled, lifeless.

  He reached down and took hold of the talisman still clutched in its stiff fingers a spell seal, one he needed.

  But as his hand touched it—

  Max’s body twitched.

  Then it collapsed into water.

  Mana surged from him like a dam bursting. His aura, once perfectly controlled, exploded outward. The sky darkened. The air turned thick, heavy with pressure. Raindrops fell in a sudden torrent.

  Followed by the cold.

  Not wind-chill or winter’s touch but freezing. The kind that broke stone, that stilled the blood in veins. The temperature plummeted. Ice formed along the trees. The forest began to groan.

  Max’s unconscious body expanded, losing shape, taking on liquid form. The water didn't just pool, it rose, formed a towering spiral that stretched into the clouds. A pillar of churning, pure force. The entire mountainside groaned beneath the weight of the pressure.

  Shalkas stared, eyes wide. “Is the spell breaking?” he whispered. “No… it’s his instincts. Primal. Pure reaction. He’s not waking up. His body is just responding on its own.”

  He stepped back.

  “This is too much. I can’t stay here.”

  He turned toward Ryan, who was still slumped over, letting out broken sounds, more instinct than speech. Shalkas knelt and forced the talisman into the boy’s hands, making sure it was clasped tight.

  In the distance, Max's pressure continued to build. The pillar of water roared. The earth trembled. A deep hum began to resonate across the valley.

  “If he loses control here… he could bring down half this mountain.”

  Shalkas could barely breathe. His bones ached under the pressure alone. Fighting wasn’t even an option.

  “I’m taking this one and getting out,” he muttered. “One is enough. I’ll come back for the other... if I survive long enough.”

  Ryan’s body convulsed again. The remnants of the spell Shalkas had layered earlier were still clinging to him, spreading through his nerves like rot in a tree. Whatever had triggered Max’s outburst had also infected him, dragging his thoughts deeper into chaos.

  Shalkas muttered through gritted teeth, still clutching the talisman. “Him too? What are these monsters... I need to leave. Now.”

  He raised the talisman above his head, voice raspy, broken, but focused.

  “With the grace of the Spirit of Sky… and the Demon of Blood… I offer my obedience and glory. Return me to the land I hail from.”

  The talisman pulsed with light. The spell had begun.

  A faint hum built around him. The escape would only take moments. He breathed, for the first time in what felt like forever. The worst was behind him. Soon, he’d be gone.

  A sharp sound, like the air itself being torn apart.

  Like a shooting star born of nightmares, Lucien slammed into the heart of the battlefield. King of horror, landing from the sky with his divine terror.

  Bamboo in his hand, he spun midair, slicing through the towering pillar of water that had erupted like a summoned god. His movement was precise, elegant, the bamboo groaning under the force of his will as he enhances it by his aura.

  "Wake up, Max!" his voice sharp as thunder yet calm. "Now's not the time to go feral!"

  The air shifted.

  Looks like his consciousness is fighting against some kind of mental assault. Good, That's just make it easier for me.

  The moment his feet hit the earth, Lucien’s presence snapped everything into a new order. He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to.

  He pointed the bamboo forward at the unstable torrent of water still spiraling above. The storm lashed out, random tendrils of water striking in all directions raw, angry, blind. Lucien’s body moved through them with surgical precision. Not a step wasted. Not a breath misplaced.

  Each movement cut the tension. He read the erratic rhythm of the unstable magic mid-motion, dissected it, broke it apart piece by piece. Where others would flail, try to overpower the chaos, he slipped between its patterns, interrupted its pulse, and rewrote its logic.

  He didn’t destroy the Mental assault spell. He was simply changing it’s very core one by one, destabilizing the spell which was holding max captive by destroying its rhythm, letting the max subconscious do the rest of the job. And with in few seconds of Lucien arrival it was done.

  The spell shattered.

  Max, buried deep within the prison of his own mind, suddenly gasped for air. The surrounding water dissolved, dripping away like sweat in the sun. His body shifted back into humanoid form. His consciousness resurfaced.

  He fell to his knees.

  “Hah… what… what was happening to me…?” Max’s voice trembled, ragged. “It was like I was trapped in a some huge black room… nothing broke, no matter how hard I tried… no matter how much force or power I used”

  In front of him, Lucien stood. Motionless. Expression unreadable. His clothes were soaked by rain. His eyes, cold and steady, stared down at his younger brother.

  “Max, now would you bother explaining. What are you doing here? I hope I am not missing out on something”

  Max looked up.

  “Oh… Brother. It is a very long story. Give me break to catch my breath, to be able to move my body again feels excellent I must say, I still quite don't get what happened to-”

  Lucien:” Get to the point quickly”

  Not a word more.

  Behind them, Shalkas stood frozen. His body didn’t move. His breath was shallow.

  This man—he hadn’t postured, hadn’t announced himself. And yet the weight he brought had crushed the chaos itself.

  The pressure that Lucien radiated in stillness was heavier than the storm Max had unleashed in rage.

  Shalkas had never in his life felt something like it, It was something more terrifying.

  Silently, Shalkas dropped to the ground and rolled beneath the wreckage of the broken carriage, tucking himself beside Ryan, waiting for talisman to get ready, He didn’t dare move till than

  Lucien’s senses sharpened the moment the spell flared.

  He reacted without hesitation.

  In a single blur of movement, he appeared beside the wreckage and hurled the shattered remains of the carriage out of his path. For a less than one millisecond, shalkas and Lucien glanced

  The talisman’s glow intensified.

  A beam of light erupted upward, wrapping around both Shalkas and Ryan like chains pulled by the sky itself. The force was violent, magnetic, unforgiving. The two bodies were lifted in tandem, drawn toward the heavens.

  Shalkas laughed.

  “It was working. After everything, the spell was working.”

  He felt the relief like cold water on fevered skin. Freedom.

  But it lasted only a moment.

  Lucien moved.

  He leapt into the sky after them, aura breaking through the air like it owed him something. One fist crashed into the edge of the light barrier, the impact distorting the barrier. Sound shattered. It was twisted from the force. His hand plunged through the spell’s boundary like it was glass under pressure.

  He tore Shalkas out first.

  With zero grace, he ripped him free, arm locking around the man’s waist, and with one swift pivot mid-air, hurled him back down toward the earth. The body spun like debris in a cyclone before slamming into the ground, spine-first. Bones snapped loud enough to silence the forest.

  Lucien reached for Ryan.

  His fingers brushed the edge of the light cocoon, but the spell's sequence had already begun to accelerate. The pull surged. Ryan’s body was yanked higher, moving faster, the trajectory shifting unnaturally. The beam didn’t just pull him up, it tried to redirect him.

  Lucien lunged, bamboo in hand.

  The spell bent.

  It tried to reroute. To adapt.

  Lucien didn't let it.

  His aura surged through the bamboo weapon, force flooding its structure. Then, like a sword honed from purpose alone, he stabbed it into the heart of the light. The spell screamed. The light’s weave shattered with a sound that echoed through stone, cloud, and soul.

  But it was too late.

  Ryan had already vanished torn into the distance by the redirected spell’s force, flung somewhere far beyond Lucien’s reach.

  Lucien landed in the crater left by Shalkas’ dead body, the ground cracked beneath his feet. .

  Max ran up the slope, boots slipping slightly on the wet earth, still breathing heavily from the sprint. He saw Lucien standing where the chaos had ended, quiet as ever. Still. Composed. Unbothered on the surface, but Max knew better. He noticed the way Lucien’s shoulders barely shifted, the slight tension in his fingers. Something about him had changed. And Max understood why.

  Ryan was gone. Pulled into the unknown. Taken by a force they hadn’t fully anticipated or understood. And none of them had the answers.

  Max stopped a few steps behind him, catching his breath.

  “Brother,” he said, voice lower than usual, “how do we even begin to deal with this? That wasn’t a small mistake. That was… massive. I won’t deny my part in it. I was there. I let him convince me. I should’ve said no. Should’ve ignored the tantrum, held my ground. But I didn’t.”

  Lucien turned and walked over to the broken body lying nearby. Shalkas. Dead. Mangled. His presence reduced to a husk, a shell devoid of the threats he once posed.

  Lucien stood over him for a long moment before kneeling beside the corpse, his gaze methodical.

  “When I saw him earlier,” Lucien murmured, “he had tribal markings. Now they’re gone.”

  He ran his fingers lightly over the cold skin—bare, clean, stripped of anything magical.

  “More importantly... why would a noble bear tribal markings?”

  Max took a moment, trying to recall. “I didn’t notice. But there was another one I killed. Wore tribal clothing. I thought he was just some local guide or hired hand, happen same thing to him.”

  Lucien stood again, brushing the dirt from his fingers. “I see. Did you kill everyone else?”

  Max hesitated, looking around the remnants of the battlefield. “I... I think so. Most of them, at least. The only ones who might’ve survived are the ones in the cages. The tribal people.”

  Lucien didn’t even turn around. “Get them. We’re heading to the nearest village. Someone there will have answers.”

  Max groaned. “You know, brother... you could do that yourself. I’m not exactly in peak condition right now. Mentally speaking, I’m a little off balance. I rather go back home eat some good food and take some rest, though I could send someone else if you'd prefer.”

  Lucien finally looked over his shoulder. His eyes didn’t blink.

  “I will not repeat myself.”

  Max let out a defeated breath. “Alright. Got it. Message received.”