Outside the dome, the catastrophic battle between Rhesa and Anele went on.
Twenty meters in the air, Anele looked down at Rhesa below. The sight of her struggling to stand, still burning the last of her Vira even though she knew it wouldn't change anything, disgusted him.
"Give up, Rhesa!" he roared, his voice thundering across the field. "You're bleeding out. I can feel it. Your body's cracking. End this farce."
Rhesa wavered but rose. She cast a tired glance upward and slowly lifted her longsword then pointed it at him.
Anele's smile died. He clicked his teeth and muttered to himself in a low voice, "Why is she still standing? I thought she wouldn't last long. Not with that her condition."
His gaze turned toward the Veil. "I've already used sixty percent of my Vira. Hopefully, this next art should end things."
He raised both his arms wide, his eyes darkened and he screamed into the blood-stained sky:
"Come, Malahk of the Vein!"
Instantly, the Veil of blood above convulsed violently. Then… silence settled over the battlefield. Even the screams of the souls trapped in the Veil began to fade. For a moment, it felt as if time itself had froze.
Then an oppressive pressure descended on the world causing the ground to groan and split apart in long, moaning fractures.
Inside the armored dome, Ren dropped to his knees and vomited violently.
'What… what the hell is that?' he thought as his entire body suddenly went weak, causing him to fall flat on the rough floor.
In front of him, Simon held Anya tighter. She had already fainted in his arms, her small body unable to handle the immense pressure.
Outside on the battlefield, Rhesa raised her eyes to the sky and saw it.
From the torn Veil above, hooves emerged, glistening and wet, descending slowly until something massive pulled itself through the tear. It stood sixty meters tall, crowned in horns like crescent moons. Its body was forged from steaming, coagulated blood, sculpted into wet, pulsing muscle. Its head resembled a goat's, and its black eyes looked like ancient pits of cosmic dread.
Rhesa's lips parted and her breath caught in her throat. "Shit… shit… shit. I'm out of Vira."
The creature looked at Rhesa and moved. Its hooved feet slammed into the ground with a sound like thunder cracking bone, each step fracturing the earth.
Rhesa gave the mental command instantly. The metal knight golem surged forward, massive arms raised. She triggered a pulse of Vira, willing it to charge faster, but Malahk did not even flinch.
Instead, it raised one hand, and a massive pillar of hardened blood fell from the veil like a divine hammer of pressurized liquid. It slammed onto the knight burying it into the floor.
Malahk waved again. The pillar lifted and smashed down once more, then again, and again, until nothing remained but twisted limbs and molten gears.
The archer golem raised its bow to strike the blood fiend. Swirling metal gathered in the air, forming a piercing javelin, but before it could fire, another pillar of blood slammed down from the Veil, collapsing its frame in a shrieking mess of warped steel.
Then Malahk shifted. Its swollen form convulsed until, with a sickening tear, ragged, jagged, wings made of sinew and pulsing veins burst from its hunched back.
Malahk then rose with a shriek, soaring above the ruin and blotting out what little sky remained, until it spotted Rhesa behind her fortress, small and still beneath the shattered sky.
At this point, only the tank golem remained, her final defense. Its plated arms spread wide as it stepped forward with a seismic clang.
Malahk pointed a claw at Rhesa, and immediately a pillar of blood plummeted from the veil like a falling star.
"Warden's Carapace!" Rhesa screamed, desperation sharp in her voice, eyes wide with fear.
The tank golem shattered into metal plates, which immediately began to stack and fuse into the ground around her, sealing her inside a seamless dome of iron.
The impact came a heartbeat later as the massive pillar struck the dome with a force that sent shockwaves across the field.
The dome held, but barely.
Then Malahk raised a finger, and the pillar lifted, smashing the dome again and again until it finally shattered, exploding outward in a rain of steel and smoke.
Maybe the dome would've held if Rhesa had more Vira to give.
But that was the cruel truth: the strength of an art is measured by how much Vira you pour into it. And she had nothing left.
The shards of her domain collapsed. The knight, the fortress, the archer, and even the carapace that had protected her family.
Rhesa fell, hitting the earth hard, gasping. Her body shook, drenched in sweat, blood, and tears. 'So this is what it feels like to die.'
Regret began to flicker in.
'If I had known he'd come… I'd have taken them far away.
I said I'd protect them…' Her throat tightened as the thought struck her like a dagger between her ribs. 'I said they'd be safe. Will he let them live? Ahhh… what do I do now? He won't let them live…
Tears slid down her cheeks, carving lines through the blood and dust.
Now broken beneath the shadow of that repulsive being, Rhesa wanted nothing more than to hold her children, to gather them close and breathe them in.
'Ahh… Ren… I'm sorry i never told you that you were like me. I wish you'd never have to touch this world of Virans. I wish you'd never have to find out who your real father is.
…i wish I could've kept you small, just a little longer…'
Then the shadow of Malahk deepened. Rhesa forced her eyes upward.
Malahk stood over her, colossal and steaming. Its chest rose and fell with an inhuman calm, like the breath of some ancient, slumbering demigod. It tilted its head, curious about the person lying at its feet. Rhesa hated how it looked at her, as if she were already gone, just part of the dirt beneath its hooves.
Then she heard footsteps. Anele had landed nearby, his boots crunching on shattered stone.
Above, the veil of blood unraveled in slow, bleeding strands. Droplets fell like crimson tears, and the sky, ashen and bruised, peeked through once more.
"You can go, Malahk," Anele ordered quietly.
The blood-fiend dissolved into red mist. With it, a silence colder than death settled over the ruins.
Then Anele slowly approached Rhesa who lay helplessly on the broken ground.
"Look at you," he murmured, his voice laced with a mocking softness. "The Iron Will… reduced to a whimpering insect. Tsk. Ha!"
Rhesa's breath stuttered, but somehow she managed to drag her body forward inch by inch until she reached him at his feet. Her hand, bloodied and shaking, closed around his ankle.
"Please…" she whispered.
Anele looked down at her and his expression twisted in disgust. "You were a Kyrios… and now you beg?"
He knelt slowly, then seized a fistful of her hair and yanked her head up. Then he said coldly, "A Kyrios who grovels forfeits more than their life. You forfeited your legacy."
Rhesa whimpered. Her lips quivered, and her wide, red, broken eyes met his.
"Spare them," she whispered again, barely audible. "Please…"