The battle **exploded forward** again.
No buildup.
No words.
Steel met flesh, fire, and blood in a blur of motion so fast the courtyard became a storm of afterimages, impacts overlapping before sound could catch up.
Aldric took them all.
Lucan came first—his blade wreathed in **blinding holy fire**, heat so intense it peeled blood constructs apart before they could fully form. Every swing carved glowing arcs through the air, scorching stone and **burning away Aldric's mana on contact**.
Aldric blocked with blood-hardened limbs—
—and they were severed.
An arm flew.
A wing shredded.
A leg split clean at the knee.
He laughed even as it happened.
The blood **surged back**, limbs reforming mid-motion, knitting together in grotesque perfection. But the regeneration was no longer instant. Each rebirth hissed and steamed, holy fire eating at the edges, slowing the flow.
Elliren struck next.
His sword slipped through impossible angles, blade flickering as space bent subtly around it. His cuts weren't wide or brutal—
They were *precise*.
Tendons.
Joints.
Mana channels.
Every strike disrupted Aldric's control, forcing blood constructs to falter, collapse, or reform crookedly.
Carvon followed like an executioner.
His sword came down with overwhelming force, each impact detonating shockwaves that **drove Aldric backward**, carving craters into the courtyard floor. Where Lucan burned and Elliren disrupted, Carvon **ended things**—cleaving through blood shields, smashing Aldric into walls, refusing to let him stabilize.
Aldric was everywhere at once.
Blood spears.
Blades.
Wings.
Claws.
He fought all three simultaneously, countering with savage efficiency. A blade took Lucan across the ribs—holy fire flared, cauterizing instantly. Elliren was thrown back by a blood shockwave, boots skidding. Carvon had his shoulder pierced straight through—
—and Aldric's arm was severed in return.
Again.
And again.
Still Aldric held.
Still he smiled.
But cracks were showing.
Lucan's fire **never relented**.
It grew hotter.
Denser.
More punishing.
Rain could no longer exist near him—evaporating meters away, the air shimmering violently. Aldric's blood steamed constantly now, mana bleeding away faster with every clash.
Aldric clicked his tongue, irritation sharp.
> "You're really starting to piss me off, you know that?"
Another limb regenerated—slower this time.
Lucan pressed in, blade blazing white-gold as he drove Aldric back step by step.
> "Good," Lucan said coldly.
> "Burn."
Elliren appeared at Aldric's flank, sword slipping in—
—severing a wing mid-formation.
Carvon followed immediately, blade crashing down and **splitting Aldric from shoulder to hip**.
Blood exploded outward.
Aldric staggered, regeneration surging desperately to keep pace as holy fire continued to **suppress, devour, and exhaust** his mana.
For the first time—
Aldric stopped laughing.
His grin tightened, eyes narrowing as he looked at the three of them.
> "…If this keeps up," he muttered darkly, blood pulling back into tighter, more conservative shapes,
> "this is going to get *annoyingly expensive*."
The three swordsmen didn't answer.
They just **pressed harder**.
And Aldric finally understood—
This wasn't a battle of endurance anymore.
It was a race.
And Lucan's fire was winning.
The clash reached a breaking point.
Steel screamed.
Fire howled.
Blood **boiled**.
Aldric still fought like a monster—parrying Elliren's impossible angles, ripping through Carvon's brutal strikes, severing Lucan's blade once only for it to reform in holy flame an instant later. He moved with ruthless efficiency, conserving motion, tightening blood constructs, refusing excess.
But it showed.
Every regeneration lagged.
Every blood surge came thinner.
Every clash with Lucan **cost him mana he could no longer afford**.
Rain could no longer fall inside the courtyard.
Lucan's presence alone turned the air into a furnace.
Aldric twisted to avoid Elliren's blade—
Carvon smashed him sideways—
And Lucan **stepped in**.
No flourish.
No shout.
Just a single, perfect thrust.
The holy blade **punched straight through Aldric's chest**.
For half a heartbeat—
The world froze.
White-gold fire **detonated inside him**.
Not outward.
*Inward.*
Aldric's blood **screamed**.
The holy fire didn't burn like flame—it **judged**, expanding through his veins, igniting mana channels from the inside out. Blood constructs across the courtyard collapsed instantly, splattering lifelessly as their core connection was severed.
Aldric's eyes went wide.
For the first time—
Genuine shock.
The fire erupted from his back in a blinding lance, vaporizing stone and carving a molten trench through the courtyard wall beyond him. His wings disintegrated mid-formation, torn apart by holy heat before they could even solidify.
He staggered.
Blood poured from the wound—but it didn't surge back.
It **hesitated**.
The regeneration failed.
Aldric dropped to one knee, clutching at his chest as steam rolled off his body in violent waves. Cracks of light burned beneath his skin, holy fire **refusing to be expelled**, anchoring itself inside him like a verdict.
Lucan leaned close, blade still buried deep.
His voice was low.
Steady.
> "Found you."
Elliren and Carvon didn't waste the opening.
Elliren's blade flashed—space tightening around the strike as it pierced through Aldric's shoulder, pinning him in place.
Carvon followed, sword crashing down with catastrophic force, driving Aldric fully to the ground, stone collapsing beneath the impact.
The courtyard shook.
Aldric coughed—
Blood sprayed from his mouth, not red, but **burning white at the edges**.
His laughter was gone.
Replaced by a strained, furious snarl.
> "…You *bastards*," he hissed.
Holy fire continued to **eat him from the inside**, mana hemorrhaging uncontrollably as his control unraveled. Every attempt to purge it only fed the flames more.
Lucan twisted the blade.
Aldric's eyes **blew wide**.
Not fear.
Recognition.
His snarl tore out of him, raw and furious.
> "You—*bastard*—!"
The holy fire **answered**.
It didn't erupt like an explosion.
It **expanded**.
Flames burst from *inside* Aldric's body—first through the wound in his chest, then violently through his throat, his eyes, his mouth. White-gold fire poured out of him as if his flesh had become a furnace that could no longer contain its own judgment.
His scream was drowned by the roar.
Blood boiled instantly, turning to steam and ash as it tried—failed—to regenerate. Every vein became a burning channel, every drop of mana igniting in sequence, setting off a chain reaction that **consumed him from the inside out**.
Aldric clawed at Lucan's arm, fingers blackening, cracking, burning away as they touched the blade.
Fire **spilled from his eye sockets**, tears of molten light streaming down his face as his wings ignited mid-formation, collapsing into drifting embers.
His mouth opened in a silent howl—
And fire **erupted outward**, blasting upward in a blinding pillar that scorched the sky itself.
The courtyard was bathed in white.
Stone melted.
Metal warped.
The air screamed.
Elliren shielded his face, teeth gritted as heat washed over him. Carvon drove his blade into the ground to keep from being thrown back as shockwaves rippled outward.
Lucan did not move.
He stood firm, arm steady, eyes cold as the fire raged through Aldric's body like an unrelenting verdict.
> "Burn," he said quietly.
Aldric's body convulsed violently as the flames devoured what remained of his mana. Blood constructs collapsed everywhere at once, disintegrating into ash before they hit the ground.
His regeneration **failed completely**.
Nothing came back.
No blood surged.
No limbs reformed.
Only fire.
Only judgment.
Aldric's scream finally broke—cut short as his body began to **crumble**, flesh and bone turning brittle, glowing white-hot before fracturing into shards of charred ruin.
The fire roared one final time—
Then collapsed inward.
When the fire finally died—
There was nothing left of Aldric.
No blood.
No ash-cloud of remains.
No corpse to claim.
Only **a single, blackened remnant** lay at the center of the crater.
It looked like a piece of burnt wood.
Twisted.
Charred.
Shrunken.
But it was wrong.
Cracks ran through it—thin, jagged veins of **white-gold light** glowing from within, pulsing faintly like a dying heart. Holy fire had not consumed it completely.
It had **sealed** it.
The ground around it was glassed stone, melted smooth and still radiating heat. The air shimmered, warped by lingering divine pressure. Even the rain, when it finally dared to fall, hissed and evaporated on contact with the glowing fissures.
Lucan withdrew his blade slowly.
The holy fire along its edge dimmed—not extinguished, just… restrained.
He stared at the remnant, jaw tight.
> "…Persistent bastard."
Elliren stepped closer, eyes narrowed, sword still raised. The white-gold light reflected sharply off his blade as he studied the thing.
"Is that… a core?" he asked quietly.
Carvon didn't lower his weapon.
"Or a curse," he growled.
The remnant **pulsed once**.
The cracks brightened.
Not attacking.
Not moving.
Just existing.
Like something that refused to admit it was finished.
Lucan planted his sword into the scorched ground beside it, heat still rolling off him in waves.
> "It's what's *left*," he said flatly.
> "Everything else burned away."
The remnant cracked again—*just a hairline*, spreading slowly, light seeping through.
Whether it was dying…
Or waiting—
None of them could yet say.
But one thing was clear:
Aldric was no longer on the battlefield.
And whatever remained was **no longer a demon that could fight back**.
The holy fire clinging to Lucan's blade and body **slowly receded**, its blinding white-gold glow dimming to drifting embers carried away on the hot air. The oppressive heat lessened at last, allowing the rain to fall again—hissing as it struck scorched stone, steam rising in ghostly plumes.
Lucan exhaled.
The breath came out **heavy**, strained, his shoulders lifting and falling as the last of the fire withdrew into him. Sweat streaked down his face, mixing with soot and ash, his grip tightening briefly on the sword before he planted its tip into the ground to steady himself.
Carvon stepped closer, eyes still on the cracked remnant in the crater.
"Tch," he muttered. "You held that state longer than I expected."
He glanced at Lucan sideways, expression grim but edged with respect.
"Lucky, too," Carvon continued. "If that fire had dropped mid-fight—just once—he would've torn us apart before we could recover."
Lucan didn't argue.
He simply nodded once, jaw clenched.
"…I felt it slipping," he admitted quietly. "Near the end."
Elliren approached as well, sword lowered but not sheathed, gaze sharp as he studied the white-gold cracks still glowing faintly in the remnant.
"Then you timed it perfectly," Elliren said. "Another heartbeat sooner or later and this ends very differently."
Lucan looked back at the burnt, wood-like fragment, its light pulsing weakly as rain continued to hiss around it.
"…It had to end *there*," he said, voice low. "No room for mistakes."
The three of them stood in silence for a moment, rain falling harder now, washing ash and blood into the broken stone.
The battle was over.
But none of them relaxed.
Because something that left *that* behind—
Was never something to underestimate.