So flying was hard.
Not difficult in the way fighting was difficult, not painful in the way surviving usually was, but awkward, demanding, and strangely humbling. Aelius had spent years forcing his body through punishment, adapting to pain, learning how to keep moving when most people would have dropped. None of that prepared him for trying to coordinate a pair of wings he'd only had for what felt like minutes.
And to make it worse, he couldn't even ask for help. If it had been levitation, magical propulsion, or some trick of magic control, then Happy, Carla, or Panther Lily could have offered something useful. But because that was his luck, this wasn't that. He wasn't floating like they did, using magic to lift himself.
He was trying to fly. Actually, fly as a bird would, or in this case, a butterfly. That meant muscles he'd never used before, trying to work in patterns his body somehow knew, but his mind didn't. It meant instinct telling him one thing while conscious thought got in the way and ruined it. It meant every movement had consequences. Too little force and he dipped. Too much, and he nearly threw himself sideways. Shift too hard with one wing and the world tilted fast enough to remind him gravity still had a hold on him.
It was maddening, but it was also fun. The realization annoyed him a little. He'd been in the sky before, plenty of times. Most of his own free will, usually standing in the air through magic control. This was completely different.
He kept flapping, jaw set in concentration as he hovered perhaps fifteen feet above the clearing, then drifted backward another ten because he'd forgotten forward momentum mattered now.
"HAHA!" Natsu yelled from below, pointing up at him with zero sympathy. "You look stupid!"
"I'll land on you first," Aelius called back without looking down.
"That means you gotta land right!"
Lucy smacked the back of Natsu's head. "Maybe don't distract the scariest mage learning how not to die."
"He won't die," Natsu said confidently. "Probably, I can also take Aelius any day of the week."
"That does not help," Levy muttered.
Aelius tried another strong downstroke and immediately shot upward far faster than intended. Air rushed past him as the trees dropped lower beneath him. "Oh." That was all he got out before overcorrecting. He angled one wing harder than the other and spun half sideways, catching himself with a rough second flap that sent him into an ugly wobble.
Below, Bixslow was laughing hard enough to bend over. "This is incredible," he managed between breaths. "The plague prince is getting bullied by physics."
"It is less graceful than I expected," Fried added, though the slight upward curve of his mouth ruined any attempt at neutrality.
"Shut up," Aelius called down, then immediately lost another few feet because he'd stopped focusing.
Happy was circling nearby, arms behind his head like he was some veteran instructor inspecting poor form. "You're too stiff. You gotta feel the air."
"That means nothing."
"It means a lot if you can fly."
"It means nothing to me."
Carla landed on a branch with the kind of poise that made it more irritating. "He's overthinking every motion. Wings are not hands. Stop trying to command each muscle like a weapon."
"I do not have time to unpack how insulting that sounded."
"It was meant to help."
Panther Lily hovered a short distance away, arms folded. "Your center of balance is wrong. You still think like a man standing on legs."
"That one was actually useful," Aelius admitted.
"I know."
He adjusted, drawing a slow breath and letting his body settle instead of fighting every sensation. That helped more than he expected. His shoulders loosened. His back stopped locking every time the wings moved. He let the motion happen instead of trying to manually force each beat.
The next series of flaps was smoother. He rose steadily this time, then held altitude. There, that felt right. The wings moved with deep, powerful strokes, emerald eye-like markings flashing whenever they caught the light. They were strong, far stronger than he'd first assumed. Each downward beat displaced enough air to bend branches below and send leaves skittering across the clearing.
His first serious attempt at liftoff had more than proven that. He'd put everything into it, instinctively treating takeoff like lifting a weight. The resulting gust had shoved everyone nearest him backward several steps, including Gildarts. That part had nearly caused him to crash before he focused again.
Then Gildarts had burst out laughing. "You trying to fly or start another war?" he'd said while digging his heel back into the dirt.
"I said move."
"You grunted."
"Same thing."
Now Gildarts stood below with his arms crossed, watching with the focused look he usually reserved for fights worth remembering. "Your raw power's there," he called up. "The problem is you keep trying to overpower technique. Same thing you do while punching."
"It usually works when I try to overpower."
"Yeah, because people don't have gravity."
Makarov, seated on a chunk of broken stone while recovering, snorted. "He gets that from you."
"I heard that, old man."
"You were meant to."
Aelius angled forward carefully and managed an actual glide across the clearing. It was clumsy, altitude dipping too quickly, but it was movement he actually controlled. The sensation hit him all at once, the smooth rush of air beneath him, the way speed built naturally when he stopped fighting it.
He grinned despite himself. Then he clipped a branch with one wingtip and pinwheeled through a shower of leaves. Gasps rose below as he corrected mid-fall, flared both wings hard, and landed in a crouch hard enough to crack the earth beneath him.
The silence lasted half a second, then Natsu started cackling again. "That counts!" Aelius snapped, standing up.
"It absolutely did not!"
"It was controlled."
"I mean….he did land on his feet?" Lucy said. Not sure who was right in this situation.
Aelius flexed his wings once, shaking loose leaves and splinters. They responded more clearly now, faster and less foreign. His back still burned with the unfamiliar effort, but not exhaustion. More like muscles waking up after being ignored for their whole existence, and not wanting to.
That was another odd part; it wasn't draining him the way it should have. The constant motion should have been brutal. Instead, his body adapted as it went, stamina feeding back into itself, regeneration smoothing strain before it became weakness. Every minute in the air made the next minute easier. Aelius looked upward through the canopy, toward open sky beyond the branches. Then he bent his knees,
"Oh no," Lucy said immediately.
"Aelius," Makarov warned.
Gildarts just smirked. "Do it."
With one brutal downward beat of both wings, Aelius launched straight upward like a spear, blasting dirt, leaves, three very offended Exceeds, and most of his guildmates outward in every direction as he tore through the upper canopy and into open sky.
And it hit him all at once, open air in every direction, stretching out farther than he'd ever actually felt before. The wind caught him immediately, stronger up here, pulling at him, trying to throw off what little control he had, but he adjusted faster this time, wings spreading wide, catching it instead of fighting it. His momentum carried him higher for another few seconds before he leveled out, hovering there, the island lay out beneath him like something small enough to grasp.
He could see everything. The massive tree at the center dominated it all, its trunk wider than anything natural had a right to be, stretching upward and outward like it owned the sky itself. Around its base, flashes of magic lit up in sharp bursts, distant but clear enough to track. Steel clashed, fire sparked, and something heavier struck in steady intervals. Erza most likely, from Freed's earlier words.
Further off, closer to the tree line, another disturbance, less explosive but constant, waves of motion breaking through the forest. Water, shifting unnaturally, surging and collapsing in patterns that didn't match the terrain. Juvia. And someone matching her.
He could see the rest, too. Bodies scattered across the island, most still, some moving, the aftermath of fights already decided. The little green summons moving in clusters, swarming anything that still fought back, their presence faint but distinct even from this height.
And beyond it all, stretching in every direction, the ocean, endless in both size and beauty. Except for one thing. At the far edge of the island, cutting into the sky like it didn't belong there, sat the warship.
Massive and dark, like it was made to scream 'hey im evil'. It dwarfed anything else nearby, hovering just far enough out that it couldn't be reached without some effort. His wings shifted slightly, catching a new current as he stared at it. Hades, if he wasn't on the island, then he was there. Watching and waiting for them to come to him.
Aelius exhaled slowly, the breath steady, his mind lining things up without forcing it. If they went in as a group, they'd be watched the whole way, prepared for, and probably broken apart before they even got close. That was the kind of opponent they were dealing with. His wings flexed once, then again, the motion smoother now, less hesitation with each beat. The wind pressed against him, but it didn't throw him anymore. It fed into him, something to work with instead of something to fight.
"…Yeah," he muttered to himself, the decision settling before he could second-guess it. Now was as good a time as any. He leaned forward, and with one powerful flap, he was off, angling toward the ocean, and by extension toward the ship.
The ship grew larger with every second. What had seemed distant and manageable from above now loomed in front of him, massive and still, the dark hull cutting through the air like it had been placed there by the gods.
Aelius angled upward at the last second, clearing the side of the ship in a tight arc, the force of his wings kicking up a violent gust that rippled across the deck as he came down hard, landing in a low crouch against solid wood instead of earth. The impact thudded through the planks beneath him, a few boards groaning in protest as shallow cracks spread from where he landed. For a second, he stayed low, one hand braced against the deck, wings half spread behind him to bleed off the last of his momentum. Salt air hit first, sharp and wet, carrying the smell of sea spray, tar, old rope, for all its looks. It smelled like a ship.
When he rose and took a proper look around, he had to admit the ship was impressive. It was enormous, far larger than it had seemed from the air, broad enough to house a small army and built with the kind of confidence that came from people who expected to win before the fight started. Multiple levels rose around the main deck, stairways and walkways linking upper platforms, towers, and enclosed structures built into the body of the vessel itself. Thick masts cut high into the sky with dark rigging stretched between them like webs. Metal reinforcement lined key points of the hull, and he could already spot mounted weapons near the sides, not decorative pieces either, but siege-grade hardware meant to tear apart ships or flatten cities and shorelines alike.
There was enough room here for hundreds. Maybe thousands, depending on how large the bottom decks actually were
And if Grimoire Heart had stocked this thing properly, then side weapons were the least dangerous thing aboard. The real issue was simpler, and more Aelius's fault. He had no clue where the hell Hades was. There were the upper decks above him, and at the top what he assumed was the helm with a clear vantage point over the whole vessel, but he didn't see anyone matching the image in his head. Then again, he hadn't exactly spent the landing calmly surveying targets. He'd been more concerned with not smashing through the deck or tumbling over the opposite rail like an idiot.
So now he stood somewhere on what he assumed was the main deck, trying to look like this had been intentional. That became harder when he noticed he was no longer alone; people were everywhere. Crewmen, mages, guards, whatever label fit best, scattered across the deck in small groups or at stations they had abandoned the moment he arrived. Some stood near crates and supply lines. Others had been working ropes or watching the shoreline. A few looked like proper combatants, armed and armored in mismatched gear with the arrogant posture of people used to being stronger than those around them. Every single one of them was staring.
The violent entrance had bought him silence for a moment, that strange pause where nobody had quite processed what they were looking at. A broad-shouldered man near a ballista still held a hammer frozen halfway to a bolt fitting. Another mage with a tattooed scalp had one hand raised, a magic circle half-formed but forgotten and left to fade. Two men carrying a crate had simply dropped it, spilling tools across the deck. Then the silence broke.
"What the hell is that?"
"Enemy on deck!"
"Is that one of Fairy Tail's?"
"It has wings."
"It is clearly a man, you idiot."
"Why is he covered in slime?"
That last one annoyed him more than it should have. Aelius glanced down, and they were right. Bits of blackened residue and wet strands from the cocoon still clung to his clothes and skin. Wonderful. He rolled one shoulder, then another, trying to look unconcerned while taking stock. Around thirty were visible on this level alone. More footsteps somewhere above. Almost certainly even more below deck. No sign of Hades yet, or if he was one of the men around, he was painfully unassuming for the master of the strongest dark guild in Fiore.
That meant one of two things. Either the man was deeper in the ship, or he was good enough to hide himself until he chose otherwise. Neither option was ideal. Aelius straightened fully and folded his wings in tighter behind him. The emerald markings along them seemed to catch more than one set of eyes, several crewmen taking an involuntary step back when they thought the false eyes had moved.
A thin man in a decorated coat pushed forward from the others, trying to gather authority from the air around him. "You are trespassing aboard Grimoire Heart property. Identify yourself and surrender immediately."
Aelius looked at him for a moment. "I'm looking for your boss," he said plainly. "Old, ugly, probably thinks too highly of himself. Answers to Hades."
Murmurs spread instantly. Some angry. Some nervous. The thin man flushed dark red. "How dare you speak of Master Hades that way."
"So he is here."
The man realized the mistake too late. Aelius sighed and rubbed at his temple. "Great. That narrows it down from the whole island to the giant warship I'm already standing on."
Several of them rushed him at once, more out of outrage than discipline. He moved before they finished committing. One wing snapped outward in a brutal half-beat, not enough to lift him, more than enough to create a compressed gust that hit the front line like a battering ram. Men were thrown backward into crates, off railings, and into each other in a tangle of limbs and swearing. The dropped tools from earlier scattered like shrapnel across the deck.
The rest halted instantly. Aelius lowered the wing again and looked around at them.
"I'd really prefer directions," he said. "But we can keep doing it the hard way until someone gets practical." No one rushed him this time, but he was answered, above, on one of the higher walkways, a slow clap echoed across the ship. Every head turned, Aelius's included.
Standing on the raised deck above him, just beyond a short set of stairs and framed by the dark rail behind him, was an old man who somehow managed to look more dangerous by standing still than most people did while casting magic. He wore fine clothes cut for status, layered with enough armored padding beneath them to make it clear vanity had never replaced practicality. White hair was swept back cleanly, his beard trimmed but severe, and an eyepatch covered one side of his face. His hands were clasped in front of him, the motion of a slow clap only just ended, like he'd taken his time deciding whether Aelius's arrival deserved approval or amusement.
The deck around the man had space. That was the first thing Aelius noticed beyond the obvious. No guards stood too close. No eager subordinates crowded his side. Even the members nearest that level had unconsciously given him room, the kind of distance people kept from things they respected, feared, or had seen destroy someone before.
Pressure rolled off him in quiet waves, a quiet power only the strongest of mages could release. The kind that had already been used enough times, it no longer needed to announce itself. Aelius straightened fully, wings shifting once behind him before settling and folding against his back. He tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing as he took the man in.
"I'm gonna guess you're Hades," he said, his tone darkening with the name. "You gonna offer me tea, like the last time I was in a situation like this?" Several of the crew nearby stiffened, either at the disrespect or because they weren't sure if they were allowed to react before their master did.
Hades smiled, a thin, knowing expression, the sort worn by a man who believed he'd already seen every variation of defiance and found them all lacking. "Young men so often mistake composure for hospitality," he said, voice deep and measured, carrying across the deck without needing force. "But I admit, this is a rarer interruption than most." His visible eye moved over Aelius slowly, not lingering on any one detail.
"When I felt Bluenote fall, I expected resistance," Hades continued. "I did not expect a half-born insect to throw itself onto my ship." A few of the nearby members laughed too quickly, then stopped when Hades didn't join them.
Aelius rolled one shoulder. "Half-born still made it farther than your number two."
That got a reaction from the crew. Some anger, some fear, some instinctive glances toward Hades to gauge whether Bluenote's loss was a subject worth surviving.
Hades only hummed faintly. "Bluenote's victories and defeats are his own burdens," he said. "A servant's stumble does not diminish the master." His gaze sharpened slightly. "Though I am curious. Did you come alone because you are brave, or because Fairy Tail has finally run out of wiser fools?"
"Bit of both," Aelius said. "Mostly because I was nearby."
Hades descended the stairs one step at a time, in no hurry to respond to Aelius, each footfall somehow louder than it should have been. no visible effort, and yet the entire deck shifted around that simple motion. Men moved without being told, giving him space like prey that understood exactly where the predator stood without needing to see teeth. Aelius felt like he was facing Gildarts, but whereas he knew Gildarts would never intentionally hurt him, this felt like stepping into the lion's den.
"So," Hades said as he reached the lower steps, his voice carrying cleanly across the deck, calm and measured, like he was asking something trivial instead of addressing the man who had just torn through his ship's perimeter. "Tell me, what is the name of the fairy who damages my ship, kills my men, and judging by the feel of your magic…" his visible eye narrowed slightly, something sharper surfacing beneath that composed exterior, "…you are also the one responsible for the foul little beasts infesting my island."
"Aelius," he answered without hesitation. "I'd say it's nice to meet a former master of Fairy Tail, Precht, but you tried to kill what little I have, so not so much anymore." A murmur ran across the deck at the use of the old name. Some of the crew looked confused. Others looked uncomfortable. A few simply stared at the floor, as if even hearing it spoken aloud was dangerous.
Hades simply regarded Aelius for a long moment, his visible eye narrowing in thought. Then he descended the final step and stood fully upon the main deck, hands resting loosely behind his back like a scholar taking interest in an unexpected specimen.
"You and I," Hades said at last, voice lower now, more intimate despite carrying across the ship, "are rather similar."
That drew more tension than shouting would have. Aelius said nothing curious, but already knew where this was going. Hades continued, circling half a step to the side, studying him from a different angle. "I can feel it in your magic. In the scent of it. In the shape of what you have become." His gaze flicked briefly to the wings, then back to Aelius's eyes. "You do not merely walk the grey line between good and evil." A faint smile touched his mouth. "You very well might be the line."
For a brief second, the words struck closer than Aelius liked. Because there was truth in them. Not necessarily the kind Hades meant, but enough to irritate him. "Please," Aelius said, rolling one shoulder and letting contempt settle plainly into his tone. "Spare me the join me speech." A few crewmen glanced sharply toward Hades, waiting to see if such disrespect would be punished instantly. "Besides," Aelius continued, eyes hardening, "I know full well I don't walk the line." His wings opened wider behind him, boards beneath his feet creaking as power gathered through muscle and magic alike. "I've long since fallen off into the deep end."
He swung his arm out toward Hades in one sharp motion. "Plague God's Pestilent Arrow." The air in front of his outstretched hand blackened and thickened, moisture rotting into vapor as a mass of virulent green and black energy condensed into a jagged spear the length of a lance. It hissed as it formed, droplets sizzling through the deck where they fell.
The projectile screamed across the distance between them, trailing a wake of withering air that turned polished wood grey in its path. Crewmen dove flat or threw themselves behind crates. One unfortunate mage, too slow to move, had his sleeve brushed by the passing current and decayed into flakes before he'd even finished screaming.
Hades raised one hand, and a black magic circle bloomed in front of his palm. And let the Pestilent Arrow strike it head-on.
The sound was not an explosion; instead, it was a grinding shriek, like a nail trying to scratch through iron.
Green corruption spread across the barrier in branching veins. Black force pushed back. The deck shook beneath them as opposing energies tore at each other, wood splitting outward from the pressure point.
Then Hades flicked two fingers, and the entire spell detonated sideways. Aelius threw one wing across himself as a wave of his own corrupted magic burst outward, shredding railings, snapping ropes, and hurling three nearby Grimoire Heart members into a mast hard enough to leave them a corpse heap.
When the haze cleared, Hades still stood exactly where he had been. Only now his barrier was gone, and the sleeve of his coat had withered halfway to the elbow. He looked at the damage, then at Aelius, and smiled. "Oh," Hades said softly, genuine delight entering his voice for the first time. He glanced down at the ruined sleeve, fingers brushing across the withered cloth before bits of it flaked away and scattered over the deck like ash. "This was a rather expensive suit, you know." His gaze lifted again, calm and curious in a way that was somehow worse than anger. "But let me ask this. I beat your master. So tell me, little fairy." His smile thinned. "I am genuinely curious why you think you stand a chance."
Aelius didn't answer; he simply threw his arm out again. "Plague God's Bloom." The spell erupted from his palm in a violent pulse, a cloud of multicolored spores burst outward across the deck, expanding in a rolling wave of sickly greens, bruise-purple motes, pale yellow dust, and wet black flecks that moved with a hunger all their own. They spread fast, faster than smoke, clinging to wood, rope, cloth, skin, and breath alike.
The first screams came almost immediately. A crewman near the mast inhaled before he realized what it was. He dropped to his knees, clawing at his throat as mushrooms forced their way up through his mouth, splitting lips and gums as they bloomed in frantic clusters. Another man slapped at his own arms where patches of skin softened and sloughed away in sheets, exposing meat already turning grey beneath. One woman stumbled backward only for the deck under her feet to burst into a carpet of slick fungal growth, sending her down hard as rootlike tendrils crawled over her legs and into every seam of her armor.
The polished boards of the ship blackened where the cloud touched them. Tar bubbled. Rope fibers swelled with mold and snapped under their own weight. Barrels split open as pale growths punched through the wood from inside. Men ran blindly into thicker pockets of spores. Others shoved each other toward the railings in desperation. A mage tried to cast a wind spell, only for his circle to destabilize when pustules erupted across the hand he was using to form it. The backlash blew two of his allies off their feet and sent him writhing across the deck with half his face missing.
Aelius stepped through the spreading haze as if it were morning fog. His wings shifted behind him, stirring the cloud in controlled currents, directing it, feeding it movement. The false emerald eyes upon them seemed to bathe in the diseased light.
Hades remained where he stood. The spores hit him in waves, rolled across his coat, coated his boots, and gathered on his skin, then stopped. A thin black membrane of magic hovered less than an inch from his body, invisible until the spores struck it and slid away, hissing. They withered against the barrier, collapsing into dead dust before they could root.
Still, Hades's expression had changed, so it was something. "Well then," he said, voice almost annoyed now, "Let me answer for you." He lifted one hand. "Amaterasu Formula Twenty-Eight."
The spell circle that formed was vast and immediate, black and crimson runes layering over one another in rotating rings that spread across the deck beneath Aelius's feet before he could fully react. Magic pillars erupted upward in jagged succession, spears of destructive force punching through wood and air alike. The section where Aelius had stood vanished in an explosion of shattered planks and screaming pressure.
Aelius was already moving, his wings snapped downward with brutal force, launching him skyward as the first pillar tore through the spot his body had occupied a heartbeat earlier. Splinters and broken metal chased him into the air. He twisted hard, barely avoiding a second pillar that ripped upward close enough to scorch his side, skin blistering from the heat.
"Plague God's Carrion Gale." He beat both wings outward. Use them to cast instead of his hand. A storm front of rancid wind burst from him, thick with corrosive dust, bone-white spores, and shrieking pressure. It slammed downward across the spell formation, speed amplified from the gusts of his wings, grinding through runes, blowing infected debris in every direction. The few surviving crewmen caught in the gust were hurled like rag dolls, skin rotting where the plague-laden wind touched them.
Hades planted one foot and extended both arms, and the gale split around him. "Childish," he said, then vanished. Aelius's instincts screamed. He folded one wing and dropped. A black blade of compressed magic carved through the air where his neck had been, launched from Hades's hand at close range. The old man was already beneath him, having crossed half the deck in a blink. "Grimoire Chain." Dark chains burst from his hands, wrapping around Aelius's ankles, wrists, and wings.
"Plague God's Rotting Husk." Aelius's skin blackened in patches for an instant, body swelling with layered disease-armor as the chains tightened. Magic links corroded on contact, hissing and snapping apart as decay devoured them faster than they could bind.
Aelius drove downward like a meteor. His fist smashed into the deck where Hades had been standing. The ship lurched as timber cratered inward. A shockwave ripped outward hard enough to throw bodies and crates across the deck. He missed Hades, who stood twenty feet away, coat fluttering lightly.
"You rely on force because force has served you," Hades said. "That habit ends here." He thrust out his palm. "Yomotsu Hirasaka." A sphere of black magic condensed and fired, not large, but dense enough that the air warped around it. Aelius crossed both arms and braced.
The impact was monstrous. He was hurled backward through the mast behind him, wood exploding around his body, then skidded across the deck, tearing a trench through planks before slamming into the far railing hard enough to bend iron supports outward.
Several surviving crew members fled below deck outright. Aelius coughed blood, then laughed. He stood, one shoulder hanging wrong for a moment before bones cracked back into place beneath skin already knitting shut. "Good hit," he said, wiping blood from his mouth. "My turn." His wings spread to full span in response. "Plague God's Pestilent Swarm."
The deck split around Hades as masses of bloated flies, corpse beetles, needle-winged locusts, and things with too many legs poured from cracks in the wood itself. They surged over each other in a living tide, a screaming carpet of hunger racing for him from every direction.
Hades's eye narrowed as he muttered. "Tenrou Kokyu." A pulse of gravity-like force detonated from his body. The swarm burst apart mid-charge, reduced to paste and black mist across the deck. Nearby corpses flattened into the boards. Loose cannons slid several feet. Aelius himself was driven to one knee, wood splintering beneath him.
The pressure was immense, even breathing became an effort, just like with bluenote. Hades approached through it slowly.\ "You see now?" he said. "Makarov's era was sentimental weakness. Fairy Tail forgot what power was meant to be."
Aelius's muscles trembled under the force, blood running from his nose. Then he pushed upward anyway. "Maybe," he said, rising inch by inch. "But I've not been around for most of his era."
The pressure cracked further boards as he stood. Hades stopped walking, and for the first time, genuine irritation crossed his face.
Aelius inhaled deep, drawing in spores, smoke, blood, salt, and death. "Plague God's Bloom." This time, he exhaled it point-blank. A concentrated blast of living contagion struck Hades's barrier like acid thrown. Layers of black defense peeled away in shrieking sheets. Fungus rooted through the outer membrane before burning to ash. The deck beneath Hades's boots softened and collapsed.
Hades leapt backward, but not untouched. One spore had slipped through, clinging for less than a second before his defenses burned it away, the flesh beneath his sleeve blistered, dark veins spidering outward from the point of contact before his magic purged it.
His expression didn't twist into rage, but something colder settled in its place, something that stripped away the last traces of patience he had been indulging himself with. His hand flexed once at his side, slow, controlled, like he was measuring exactly how much of that restraint he intended to discard.
"And here I was being nice," he said, voice low, no longer humoring the situation. Magic flooded the deck, dense to the point it felt like the world itself had grown heavier. The remains of Aelius's spores died where they floated, crushed out of existence before they could drift further. The warped planks beneath them groaned louder, cracks spreading deeper as if the ship itself was struggling under the pressure now settling over it.
The pressure bore down on Aelius, heavier than before, heavier than anything Hades had released yet. His wings shifted instinctively behind him, bracing against something that couldn't be pushed back by normal means. The deck beneath his feet cracked further as he adjusted his stance, grounding himself through it instead of letting it force him down.
Across from him, Hades straightened fully, dark sigils began to form again around him, slower this time, each one heavier than the last as they layered into something far more complex than the spells he had thrown before. The space around him warped slightly, like reality itself didn't quite want to sit right where he stood. Hades lifted his hand. "You did more than most could."