[Nicole Anstalionah.]
The fight between those two brutes was so violent it tore us awake from our inner worlds.
I can still feel the fractures rippling across space–time, faint but undeniable, stretching over the planet like cracks in glass.
For a moment, I truly feared they might destroy the world by accident.
I even spent power trying to encase their bodies in mana when they returned, but it was useless. Their clash was beyond me.
We fell back to the fortress we'd captured earlier and sent for reinforcements.
The war itself was forced into a pause, a pause we desperately needed. Malachi had been gravely injured.
After making a round through the fortress, I returned to the main tent where Jen sat beside Malachi's bed.
He was swaddled in thick bandages, buried under cloth and fur. Jen slumped in her chair, her whole body drained.
"You bored?" I asked, stepping inside.
She sighed and turned her head. "Not bored. Drained. It's been two days, and he still hasn't woken."
I dragged a chair beside her and sat heavily. "Well, he did manage to stalemate Madikai."
Demons, on their own, can reduce stars and worlds to dust. And Madikai had carved through hordes of them as though they were nothing.
Of course he'd be a nightmare to face. Malachi had held back at first, trying not to affect us. His passive sleep ability could've reached us even beyond this world.
The same could be said for Madikai.
They are both nearing the eleventh wall. At that point, power itself becomes something unreal.
When you break through a wall, everything shifts. Power doesn't rise gradually; it surges like a tidal wave.
The first six walls are simple, straightforward. They give you more strength, sharper senses, and finer control.
But the seventh wall changes everything. Your inner world begins to bleed into reality itself. The intangible gains form; your will can press against existence.
The eighth wall is the calm before a storm, the refining of what you are. It's about restraint and harnessing power, not letting it consume you.
The ninth wall grants mastery of the soul, mind, and body, the trinity of self.
The tenth wall opens control over the three greater forces, mana, infons, and spiritrons, the very threads of existence is woven from.
The eleventh wall… that is when your inner world no longer leaks but fully manifests, standing in reality as a sovereign extension of yourself. You command it without strain.
And the twelfth wall is something different altogether. Transcendence. Mortality is stripped away, and you step into the divine.
Not a borrowed divinity, but your own. That is what everyone in this realm seeks, though few will ever reach it.
I like to think I could. Even if it seems impossible. Even if the gods themselves once bent to that same ceiling.
I want to rise beyond it, to graze their feet, to forge power that even divinity cannot ignore.
And yet… even that dream felt like too little. My envy for the stronger burned hotter than my ambition.
I looked at Malachi, wrapped in silence, and allowed myself a faint smile. "He's so weak right now… even my little brother might be able to kill him."
Jen shot me a sharp glare. "Don't talk like that. Besides, who knows if she's listening?"
I laughed, nearly toppling from my chair, and grabbed her shoulder to steady myself. "Kivana? Spying on us every second? Ridiculous."
A hand brushed my shoulder. Jen hit the ground in reflex. Slowly, I turned.
Kivana stood there, smiling.
"Are you calling me crazy, Nicole?" she asked softly.
I forced a nervous chuckle. "How could I? I meant calculative."
She said nothing. She only crossed to the bed and ran her fingers over Malachi's bandaged arm.
"I considered interfering," she murmured, "but he insisted on fighting alone."
Kivana was terrifying. She moved through space, perhaps even time, like it were her own dominion.
Always listening. Always watching. If you ever became the target of her magic, your doom was assured.
She and Malachi shared a tier, but her power was more definitive. Think of a king and a knight.
The knight may surpass the king in combat, but the king still rules the field.
Malachi's swordsmanship outshone hers, but her unique abilities made her nearly impossible to stand against alone.
Her Regalia remained a mystery. Not even Malachi knew its true nature.
But I've seen her fight. I've seen her bind a great demon, something akin to an angel, to a law that should have been impossible.
Her voice then… it carried the weight of idols. For one second, the demon knelt.
Silence strangled the tent. The air thickened until Jen broke it.
"How should we continue the war?" she asked, her eyes on Kivana.
Kivana pressed a finger to her lip, thoughtful. "Rebuild. Send forces to the ravaged cities. Fortify the borders."
Her eyes shifted to me. Cold. Commanding. Predatory.
"For now, you'll lead the next coalition. The army needs a spine. You'll be it."
A laugh slipped out of me, hollow and frayed. "I'm confident in my strength. But… are you certain?"
Kivana gave a single nod. "If Malachi is like this, Madikai isn't much better. When he recovers, I'll send him back. Until then, you command."
I leaned back in my chair, exhaling slowly. "So that's how it is."
Malachi had a thousand goals. But for now, I would carry his burden. I'd seize more land, secure our cities, and hold the fragile frontlines together.
Because our enemies would come soon. They would see his fall as their chance to strike.
Kivana laid her hand over his chest. "I'll be taking my leave. He as well."
They vanished together.
Jen and I exchanged a look, but I didn't move. I only dropped into Malachi's empty bed and sighed.
"Jen," I muttered, hands behind my head, "you're my second-in-command now."
She narrowed her eyes. "Already abusing power? Miss being a princess that badly?"
"Maybe. Or maybe I just want to spoil you."
She rolled her eyes. "So… have you actually come up with a plan yet?"
"Give me ten minutes," I said. "I'm exhausted."
And I was. Every march, every fight, every sleepless night bled into the next. I was drained.
Yet some part of me still wanted to scream. To swing my blade until the sky itself cracked.
Because there is something deeper in us.
An inner force, old as creation, buried beneath choice and fear. Mine has always been envy. I was born hungry. I was born to crave.
And in that hunger, a memory flickered. Or perhaps a dream.
A girl walked through a dead field with nothing but a heavy blade in her grip.
She had no army, no future. And still, she fought. She failed, she lived, she died, she rose.
One day, she stood alone before ten thousand monsters. She raised her sword and fought until her last breath scattered in the wind.
But in her final moment, she spoke. Words that now surged through me, tearing free of my lips before I knew them.
"I want it all."
I sat up slowly, glowing, no, radiating, with wild, raw mana. Jen turned toward me, eyes wide.
I grinned. "Damn," I whispered. "I just reached the seventh wall."