Aelius was healing.
He hated that fact more than the pain ever bothered him.
The magic was creeping back in, slow and stubborn, like it always did. He could feel it knitting things together that had no right to work again. Muscle. Nerve. Things that had spilled out onto cold stone not that long ago. He was still very much against the idea of it coming back, against the curse sliding back into its familiar place like it owned him.
But he would be lying if he said Vanessa did not have a point.
And if there was one thing Aelius hated more than his grandfather, it was hypocrites.
Which, annoyingly, was also why he hated himself so mu—
He shook his head hard, like he could physically throw the thought off, and forced his expression flat. The mask slid back into place easily. Too easily.
When he pushed himself up from the floor, there was no dramatic pause. No wince. Just the scrape of boots on stone and the dull awareness that the wound Knightwalker had given him was already gone. Fueled by the drink he had downed before they were captured. Fueled by magic, he did not want.
The only real problem now was that he looked like a massacre. Blood covered him. His hair, still hanging just past his shoulders, was dark and heavy with it, thick green strands dripping crimson down his neck. His white shirt was no longer white in any sense of the word. Red soaked through it completely, clinging to his skin. His pants and boots were the same, sticky and dark, like he had waded through a slaughterhouse instead of a battlefield.
He had bled a lot today. And judging by how things were going, he probably was not done yet. The first thing he had to do after standing was grab Vanessa's wrist mid-swing.
Glass stopped an inch from his groin.
He blinked once, looking down at the bottle in her hand, then back up at her face. "…Absolutely not," he said flatly.
Vanessa froze, then snarled. "Get off me."
His grip tightened. "I may have let you convince me to keep living," Aelius said, voice flat and cold, "but even for you, Vanessa, I am not in a good mood. Do not try me right now."
Whatever had been loose in him snapped shut. The mask dropped into place, not physically, not metaphorically. It slammed down like an iron cage locking from the inside. The tired edge vanished. The uncertainty vanished. What was left was the version of him that some people survived, not liked. The one he preferred.
Vanessa froze. Not because he was louder. Not because he threatened her. Because she recognized that look. "…Fine," she muttered, wrenching her arm free. "Point made."
Aelius released her and immediately turned away, already done with the exchange. He rolled his neck once, blood still dripping from his hair onto the stone. His posture straightened, shoulders squared, spine rigid. Whatever healing magic crawled through him was finished now, sealed behind clenched teeth and stubborn refusal.
Lucy watched him carefully, arms wrapped around herself. "You're… really okay?"
He didn't look at her. "No."
Happy swallowed. "But you're gonna fight, right?"
Aelius glanced down at the cat, expression unreadable. "I never said I wouldn't."
Gray shifted, watching him like he expected the man to fall apart or explode. Neither happened. Aelius simply stepped past them, boots leaving wet prints behind him.
"Listen carefully," he said, voice carrying without effort. "I'm not doing this for hope. Or guild spirit. Or speeches about friendship."
He stopped at the doorway, half turning back, eyes sharp and distant.
"I'm doing this because they decided I don't get peace."
Somewhere deeper in the fortress, metal screamed. Magic detonated. The fight was still going.
Aelius cracked his knuckles once, blood flaking from his hands.
"He's back," Gray muttered, eyes tracking Aelius as he moved ahead of them, "and worse, I think. What did you say to him?"
Vanessa didn't look at Gray when she answered. Her gaze stayed locked on Aelius's blood-soaked back, on the way he walked like nothing in the world could slow him now.
"You heard what I said," she replied quietly. "I don't think I helped him survive. I think I reminded him why he keeps going."
Gray frowned. "That's… not reassuring."
"It shouldn't be," she said flatly. Then, after a pause, softer, almost to herself. "He wasn't lying."
Gray glanced at her. "About what?"
"When he was dying," Vanessa said. Her fingers curled slowly, like she was gripping something invisible. "That was the happiest I've ever tasted from him."
Gray stopped walking for half a step. "Vanessa…"
"I never realized how much he hated his magic," she continued, voice low, steady, dangerous in how honest it was. " Hated it. Like it was a chain someone welded to his spine."
Ahead of them, Aelius paused at an intersection in the corridor. He didn't turn around. He didn't need to. He knew they were talking about him. He always did.
Lucy hugged herself tighter. "He doesn't look happy now."
"No," Vanessa agreed. "He looks focused."
Aelius stepped forward again. The corridor lights reflected off the drying blood on his clothes, turning him into something that looked less like a man and more like a warning sign.
"Whatever you're all whispering about," he said without looking back, "do it faster. We're burning time."
Gray jogged to catch up, falling in beside him. "You sure you're good enough to fight like this?"
"You saw me as less than half a torso and a head, and it still only took a few days to recover fully," Aelius said, not looking back. "You sure your magic isn't freezing your brain, Fullbuster?"
There was bitterness on the edge of it, sharp but controlled, like he'd filed it down from something worse.
Gray opened his mouth to shoot back, but the words died before they left him.
"Please."
The voice cut across the corridor, raw and breaking.
"Please, don't take her. I'll do anything. I swear. Just let her go."
Natsu.
The group froze.
Aelius stopped mid-step. Lucy's breath hitched. Happy's ears flattened as he hovered closer to Carla.
Another sound followed. A scream. High, torn, and wrong. Pain. Real pain.
"Wendy!" Lucy shouted before she could stop herself.
The scream came again, louder this time, echoing through the stone like it was being dragged out of her. Magic flared somewhere ahead, unstable, violent, tearing at the air.
Natsu's voice cracked again. "She can't take it, okay? She's just a kid. I'll die, I don't care, just don't hurt her!"
Aelius exhaled slowly through his nose.
So that's where the time went.
He turned toward the sound, eyes dark, unfocused for half a second, like he was lining something up inside himself.
"Well," he said quietly, almost conversational, "guess the choice just got made for us."
Vanessa's jaw tightened. Gray's fists clenched, ice creeping up his knuckles without him noticing.
Another scream tore through the halls. Shorter this time. More desperate.
Aelius started forward again, faster now, boots skidding slightly on the stone as he rounded the corner. The screams were louder, tearing at the air, raw enough that they made his teeth grind. A room just ahead. He didn't slow.
He stepped inside.
The sound hit him full force.
Wendy was screaming. Not shouting. Screaming. The kind that came from somewhere deep, dragged out of her. Natsu was chained beside her, teeth clenched so hard his jaw shook, arms straining uselessly against thick metal restraints bolted into a towering device. Runes crawled across it, ugly and mismatched, wires and crystal jammed together without finesse. Whatever it was, it wasn't elegant. It was brute force. It was ripping magic out of them, tearing through the blocker this world had slapped on their power like it wasn't even there.
Aelius's eyes flicked over the room in a heartbeat.
Guards. Half a dozen. Spears already coming up.
And a man in a stained coat, hunched over a console, eyes wide not with fear but fascination. The scientist. Taking notes while children screamed.
That decided it.
"Carrion Gale," Aelius muttered.
He swung his hand forward.
A wing tore itself out of the air, not feathers but sickly vapor and writhing pressure. It ripped across the room like a living thing. Aelius snapped his wrist at the last second, pulling it short of Natsu and Wendy.
The rest weren't so lucky.
The guards didn't decay like usual. Their armor didn't rust. Their bodies betrayed them instead. Boils erupted across exposed skin, swelling and splitting in seconds. Thick pus burst free, sizzling as it hit the floor, eating through stone, through boots, through flesh. Screams filled the room, higher-pitched than Wendy's now, panicked and choking as acid burned them from the outside in. Spears clattered uselessly as hands dissolved.
The scientist barely had time to turn.
"What did you do?" he started to say.
The wing caught him full on.
He didn't scream long.
His coat disintegrated first, then his skin sloughed away in wet sheets. Acid ate through muscle, through bone, through the notes still clutched in his hands. He collapsed into himself, a smoking ruin that kept melting until there was nothing left but a hissing stain on the floor.
Silence followed. Heavy. Broken only by the machine's hum and Wendy's ragged breathing.
Aelius stood there, chest rising slowly, hand still extended. The room stank of rot, chemicals, and burned flesh. His eyes flicked back to Natsu and Wendy. He didn't speak.
He stepped aside instead, a silent gesture, letting Lucy and Gray move past him.
Gray was already in motion, jaw tight, eyes locked on Wendy. His hands shook as he slammed them onto the restraints, ice blooming outward in sharp, controlled bursts, freezing joints, cracking runes, snapping the crude mechanisms apart. Wendy cried out once more as the drain cut off, then sagged forward, barely held up by the chains, until Gray caught her.
Lucy didn't move at first.
She was staring at the floor. At what was left of the scientist. At the guards. Her face had gone pale, eyes unfocused, like her mind had stalled somewhere between breath and thought. That didn't surprise Aelius in the slightest.
Gray glanced back at her sharply. "Lucy. Now."
That snapped her out of it. She swallowed hard and hurried to Natsu's side, hands fumbling as she tried to help, voice breaking as she spoke to him, grounding him while Gray finished tearing the device apart. Metal screamed as it split, crystal shattering under ice and brute force.
Natsu dropped to his knees the moment the chains released him, coughing, shaking, but conscious. Wendy collapsed entirely, Gray holding her upright, murmuring something low and frantic that Aelius didn't bother listening to.
He stayed where he was.
Blood dripped from his hair to the floor in slow, steady drops. His magic still hung in the air, heavy and bitter, clinging to the walls like it didn't want to leave. He watched the others work with the same distant focus he'd watched battles.
Lucy finally looked up at him then.
Their eyes met.
She flinched.
Aelius looked away first, already turning toward the exit. "Get them out," he said, voice flat. "We need to get the rest before this place starts using them as fuel."
He didn't wait for a response. He stepped into the corridor and stopped there, leaning a shoulder against the stone. The noise from inside bled out anyway. Metal clattering. Wendy crying softly. Natsu swearing between coughs. Gray barking orders. Lucy trying to keep it together and failing a little.
A few minutes passed like that.
Vanessa hovered nearby, clearly unsure what to do with her hands, her posture, or him. She looked like someone standing next to a storm, debating whether it was safer to run or wait it out. She spoke once, quietly, like she was afraid of spooking him.
"When we get back… I'll try to talk to the others," she said. "I know I've only been in the guild less than a day, but I'll try to get them to stop sounding like broken records. I know better that words don't usually work on you."
Aelius didn't look at her. He gave a low grunt instead. Then he pushed off the wall and turned away, walking down the corridor without checking if anyone followed. Blood still dripped from him. His magic still itched under his skin, awake and unhappy. He was unhappy, and socializing was the last thing he wanted right now.
His quiet moment didn't last.
Footsteps came rushing back down the corridor, louder and messier than before. Natsu was upright again, shoulders squared, heat rolling off him like he'd never been chained to anything in his life. Wendy was on her feet too, color back in her face, magic humming just beneath the surface. Gray must've given them the beads. It tracked.
Wendy still looked wrong, though. Not weak, not drained. Hurt in that way that didn't show up on the surface. And Carla… Aelius paused when he saw her. He had never seen that much emotion on the Exceed's face. Not panic. Not anger. Something closer to raw fear that hadn't finished shaking yet.
He filed it away and turned back to what mattered.
Either way, the mission hadn't changed.
He glanced at Vanessa. "Stay with them," he said flatly. "Make sure they don't die."
Vanessa blinked. "That's it?"
"That's it."
Natsu bristled immediately. "Hey! We can fight now!"
Aelius didn't even look at him. "Didn't ask."
Wendy opened her mouth like she wanted to say something. Carla's wings twitched. Lucy watched him with that same conflicted look she'd been wearing all day.
"What are you going to do?" Lucy called after him. "Splitting up doesn't seem like a good idea."
Aelius didn't slow. He didn't look back. But as he rounded the corner, a faint smirk tugged at his mouth, unseen by anyone behind him.
"It requires magic to resist my magic," he said, voice carrying just enough to reach them. Calm. Certain. "These people don't have any."
He stepped into the next corridor, shadows swallowing him piece by piece.
"So what am I going to do?" he continued, almost conversational. "I'm going to kill a king. And anyone who decides that's a problem."
The corridor ahead opened wider, brighter. Guards further down hadn't noticed him yet. He could hear them talking. Laughing. Normal sounds. The kind people made when they still believed they were safe.
Aelius flexed his fingers once. The air around him felt thick, heavy, like something unseen had started breathing.
Behind him, Lucy went quiet. Wendy swallowed hard. Natsu clenched his fists. Vanessa watched the corner he'd disappeared around with an expression she couldn't quite name.
It didn't take long for Aelius to find his way out of the dungeons. A few guards had tried to stop him, but they were already disappearing into the drains. He wasn't even trying to be subtle now; his magic flared openly, boots long since decayed, his shirt soaked with blood and torn had joined it. There was a grim sort of humor in thinking that something as filthy as decay could clean him. The blood had flaked away, leaving only his pants, which were due to what restraint he had left.
With a thought, his mask returned, snapping onto his face in a flash of light. The sensation was oddly comforting; he hadn't been without it for this long before. He took a deep breath, letting his anger settle slightly. Behind the mask, Aelius was himself, not whoever he was without it.
He looked down at his hands and saw blood that wasn't his own.
Vanessa had snapped at him, something she'd never done before, never cursed like that around him. She had mirrored his own habit of finding sharp, cutting words, back from their time in the labyrinth.
He couldn't understand what he was feeling, why he was so easy to sway, why anger twisted inside him. This time it wasn't Nehzhar. This was… rawer, a war between mind and heart. His mind wanted death. His heart wanted redemption. But did he deserve it?
The blood on his hands multiplied at the thought, dripping and spreading, forming a waterfall that pooled across the castle tiles below. Why did he hurt everyone around him? People who got close always suffered, died, or went wrong. Maybe it was him. He had killed Alaric. He had driven Mira to—
The blood didn't stop. There was too much for it to belong to him or even the guards he'd slain moments ago. He hadn't drawn it. Why was there so much? He couldn't push the thoughts away. Children reaching for him, crying out that stupid title, "Mister Mask," begging for his help. More voices joined the chorus, all familiar. The baker, from the first time he met Alaric, who had given him bread every time he returned to the capital. The kids from the church, endlessly asking questions. The king who had actually tried to adopt him. The flower shop owner who called him Gladiaelius, after a green flower she sold.
He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, but one last voice slid into his mind, uninvited and familiar in the worst way.
"Look at you now, little slayer. Broken on the inside instead of the out. You, mortals, are always too funny like that. It feels like you're dying, like your heart's going to burst, but everything seems so clear, doesn't it?"
Nameless.
Hundreds of voices layered over one another, whispering, screaming, howling, all speaking the same words in the same breath.
Aelius snapped his head up so fast it nearly hurt. He looked around instinctively, breath sharp, muscles tensing, but there was nothing there. And yet the voice lingered, crystal clear, sitting right behind his eyes.
Why did it sound so real?
Why did it have to be right?
Everything did feel clear. Painfully so. The chaos, the guilt, the anger, all of it aligned into something simple and ugly. He was the constant. He was the common thread. Everywhere he went, things broke. People died. Lives twisted sideways just by being close to him.
He was too weak. Too cruel. Too slow.
Too useless.
The realization settled like a weight on his chest, pressing down until breathing felt like work. Maybe that was why he wanted to die. Not out of fear or despair, but out of some warped sense of balance. Like if he paid with his life, it might make up for everything he'd failed to protect.
For everything he couldn't save.
The thought didn't comfort him. It didn't absolve him.
It just sat there, heavy and undeniable, as the last echoes of Nameless' laughter faded into the back of his mind, leaving him alone with the clarity he never asked for.
"Right… haven't had one of those in a while," Aelius muttered, pressing a hand over his heart, forcing it to slow. The pounding eased bit by bit. It had been a few months since his last episode. The longest stretch he'd ever managed. Long enough that he'd almost convinced himself they were done.
Almost.
He exhaled slowly and straightened. He needed to fix something. No. Everything. This was always how it went. He cut himself off, retreated inward, tried to shoulder it, and someone else paid for it. Someone always got hurt. Killed. That was on him.
He'd have to remember to talk to the Master when he got back. When, not if. Even if this entire world had to burn for it.
He stayed still for a few minutes longer. The castle, or at least this stretch of it, was empty, which felt wrong given what should have been a state of emergency. His heartbeat evened out, his breathing leveled, his hands slowly unclenched. His thoughts settled into something manageable.
He was… okay. That was about as close to peace as he ever got.
A memory surfaced; it wasn't bad, it just was. Alaric, years ago, tilting his head as he studied him, remarking on how old he seemed. Older than he was. Sixteen at the time, even without the mask. Aelius had brushed it off back then, but now he knew Alaric hadn't been wrong. No nineteen-year-old should carry the thoughts he did, the memories, the weight of experiences that didn't belong to someone his age.
He let out a quiet snort and leaned back against the wall.
No teenager, no matter how close they were to adulthood, should own a Book of Zeref. Let alone read it.
Then again, most teenagers probably didn't build their own houses either. The thought lingered, oddly grounding. Maybe that was something he could focus on. Small things. Solid things. Things that didn't rot or bleed or scream.
Focus on the good. Be less pessimistic. If that was even possible for him. He was a monster, yes. But he wasn't mindless. He still had the ability to learn. The ability to choose. The ability to try and change.
"Surely you have better things to do than spy on a terrorist," Aelius said. He didn't turn his head. The general made no effort to be quiet as he approached.
"You seem better, boy," the man said. He stood in front of Aelius now, sword drawn but lowered.
"How'd you know I'd be here?" Aelius asked, ignoring the comment entirely.
The general barked out a laugh. "You really think everything revolves around you? No, boy. Coincidence. This path leads to my grandson's lab."
"That's fair," Aelius said, rolling his shoulders once. "So what now? We fight, and you die, or we pretend this never happened."
"We could," the general replied calmly. "But you've already lost your fight."
Aelius's eyes narrowed behind the mask. "Careful. That sounds like confidence."
"It's observation," the old man said. He stepped closer, boots scraping stone. "You came here furious. Ready to burn this place to the ground. Now you're standing still, talking. Thinking. That tells me enough."
Aelius scoffed. "You mistake restraint for weakness."
"No," the general said, shaking his head. "I recognize restraint because I had to learn it myself. Long ago. You're angry, yes. Dangerous, absolutely. But you're not committed anymore. Part of you is already pulling back."
Silence stretched between them. The air felt tight, not with magic, but with weight. With words that landed too close to something true.
"You think that means I won't kill you?" Aelius said quietly.
"I think," the general replied, voice steady, "that if you truly wanted me dead, I'd already be on the floor. Same for half this castle."
Aelius didn't respond right away. His fingers flexed once at his side.
"And yet," the general continued, "here we are. Two men, standing in a hallway, neither striking. You're tired, boy. Not just from today. From years."
Aelius laughed under his breath. It wasn't amused. "You Edolas types really love pretending insight is wisdom."
"Perhaps," the general said. "But I know this much. You don't want a fight right now. Not with me. Not here."
Aelius tilted his head slightly. "And what makes you so sure?"
"Because you're still listening."
The words hung there.
"So," the general said at last, easing his grip on the sword just a fraction, "we don't fight. Not now. Instead, I take you to the king."
Aelius stared at him for a long moment. Long enough that the silence stretched thin. Then he let out a slow breath through his nose. "You're either brave or stupid."
The general's mouth twitched into a faint smile. "At my age, there's not much difference."
Aelius gave a small shrug. "Fine. Take me to the king."
The general turned, motioning for him to follow, but paused after only a step. "One more thing," he added, tone almost casual. "Knightwalker has already recaptured your friends. They should be with His Majesty by now."
Aelius didn't stop walking, but something in his posture tightened.
"So," the general continued, glancing back at him, "try anything. Say the wrong thing. Breathe wrong if you like. And they die." He lifted a shoulder. "His words, not mine."
Aelius laughed quietly, a short, humorless sound. "Of course they are."
They moved down the corridor together, boots echoing against stone. Guards appeared at intervals, stiffening as they passed, eyes tracking Aelius like he was something feral being led on a leash. He didn't look at them. Didn't need to. His focus was already ahead.
"You think that makes me compliant?" Aelius asked after a moment.
"No," the general replied evenly. "I think it makes you careful."
"Careful," Aelius repeated. "That's one word for it."
His hands flexed once at his sides, then stilled. Whatever fury had been burning earlier was banked now, compressed into something colder and more deliberate. They wanted him in front of a throne. They wanted him contained. Predictable.
He'd play along.
For now.
As the corridor widened and the air shifted, heavier, more formal, Aelius tilted his head slightly. "Just so we're clear," he said. "If anything happens to them, there won't be a king left to blame."
The general didn't look surprised. "I assumed as much."
They continued on, the sound of their steps carrying forward toward whatever waited beyond the next set of doors.
It was… interesting.
"Knightwalker" wasn't Knightwalker. Aelius clocked that almost immediately. The stance was wrong, the timing too familiar. The Edolas people clearly didn't realize it, but he did. That was his Erza. Natsu was there too. Gray as well. He didn't see the others, which meant this was either part of a plan or the start of a very loud failure. Knowing them, it was probably both.
The chamber itself wasn't a throne room. It felt more like a container, something built to hold or restrain. At the back stood a massive structure. A statue, maybe, but that didn't feel right. It was too deliberate. Too functional. Channels ran through it like veins, converging toward a central point. A keyhole.
Aelius watched Gray form the key with magic. When he fitted it into place, the statue flared to life, glowing an eerie red as the entire building began to shake. Stone groaned. Dust fell from the ceiling. Whatever this thing was, it was awake now.
Aelius counted without meaning to. Guards. Lots of them. Close to fifty, if he had to guess. And one man who clearly mattered more than the rest. Draped in robes, holding a golden staff, posture stiff with authority. King, pope, something in between. Titles didn't really matter. Power did.
"I'm sorry, son," the man said, voice carrying easily over the noise. "But you've lost. The Dragon Chain Cannon will destroy the lacrima. Your friends are going to die soon. Take solace in the fact that they will not feel a thing."
Aelius didn't respond right away.
He looked at the glowing statue. At the guards. At Erza, who hadn't moved but was very clearly ready to. At Natsu, very poorly faking being unconscious. At Gray, jaw set, eyes fixed on the mechanism like he was daring it to work faster. So he began counting down.
"3"
"2"
"1"
Natsu moved first.
"Called it"
He tore free from Erza's grip in a burst of heat, burning the bindings from his arms, and everything unraveled in seconds. Five at most. Erza was already moving, blade at the king's throat, before anyone could react, while Gray slid into position beside Natsu, both of them squared off against the guards as weapons came up in a clatter of steel and shouted orders.
The general was fast. Aelius gave him that.
The moment Natsu broke loose, the sword was at Aelius's throat. Close enough that he could feel the cold of the metal even through the mask, it would've been intimidating if the height difference didn't make it almost absurd, the old man practically glaring upward while holding him at blade point.
The room locked into a standoff. Erza didn't release the king. The general didn't lower his sword. The guards didn't advance. For a brief, tense stretch of time, nobody breathed too loudly.
Erza won.
Not by force, but by leverage. Orders were barked, hands shook, and the cannon's targeting was redirected. The firing line shifted away from whatever its original purpose had been and toward the lacrima holding their friends. It wasn't elegant, but it worked. The chamber trembled harder as the mechanism adjusted, red light crawling along the statue's channels.
And then the wall exploded. Stone and dust blasted inward as Knightwalker came flying through, armor scorched, spear already in motion. She hit the ground hard and didn't slow, driving straight into Erza and forcing her back from the king in a clash of steel and momentum that sent both of them skidding across the floor.
The balance shattered. Guards surged. Shouts filled the chamber. The cannon screamed as its glow spiked wildly.
Aelius felt the sword at his throat tighten just a fraction.
With a sharp twist, Aelius turned to face the general. The movement dragged the blade across his neck, skin splitting open in a wet line. Blood spilled instantly. That was part of the reason he hadn't bothered with a cloak. No point pretending this wouldn't get messy.
He looked down at the general, head tilted at a wrong angle already. "Sorry," he said flatly, then amended without missing a beat, "not really. I may not like those idiots, but I'm not in the mood for them to die."
He drove his knee forward, hard, straight into the old man's torso.
It felt like slamming into a steel wall.
The impact jolted up Aelius's leg instead, rattling bone. The general didn't stagger. Didn't even grunt. He barely shifted his footing.
The sword came back in a smooth, practiced arc.
Too clean.
Aelius barely registered the cut until the weight shifted wrong. He kicked off the man's chest on instinct, forcing distance between them, and landed unevenly. His head lolled to the side, barely attached, and one half of his neck lay open. Blood poured freely, hot and fast, painting the floor beneath him.
"And here I thought I got special treatment," Aelius laughed. filled with vindication. "You're more like him than you realize."
He reached up, fingers pressing against his own jaw and temple, and shoved his head back into place with a wet, sickening sound. Flesh tugged, reconnected. Bone knit. The bleeding slowed, then stopped altogether as regeneration took hold.
Silence hit the room.
Guards stared. Some stepped back without realizing it. One of them gagged. Even the general's eyes widened just a fraction, calculation flashing behind them where confidence had been a moment ago.
Aelius rolled his shoulders, testing his neck, then looked up again. "You know," he said conversationally, "most people flinch after that."
He took a step forward, boots squelching faintly on blood that hadn't had time to dry yet. The cannon screamed louder behind them now, red light pulsing erratically as Erza and Knightwalker tore into each other nearby, steel on steel echoing through the chamber.
Aelius swung his arm out. "Plague Gods: Bloom."
It was a spell he had always liked.
Spores detonated from his arm in a wide, rolling wave, filling the chamber in a living haze. Wherever they touched stone, flowers burst forth in seconds, cracking tile and crawling over metal, petals unfurling as they fed the air with more spores, multiplying on themselves in an endless cycle. The blooms spread fast, aggressively, beautiful in the wrong way.
When they touched people, they were lethal.
Color mattered. Yellow locked muscles. Blue burned lungs. Red attacked the heart. White shut down nerves. It usually took an overwhelming amount of magic to resist his magic. Most people never even got to scream before collapsing.
The guards didn't fare well.
Some dropped instantly, bodies locking mid-step as paralysis seized them. Others clawed at their throats, coughing blood as vines wrapped around their legs and dragged them down. The room filled with choking, panicked sounds as flowers crawled over armor and flesh alike, blooming from mouths, eyes, seams in plate.
Aelius barely registered them. His eyes were on the general.
The old man took the brunt of it. Spores washed over him in thick clouds, flowers blooming at his feet, brushing against his coat, climbing his arms. Aelius waited for the signs he knew by heart. The stiffening. The tremor. The scream.
None came.
The general staggered a half step, boots grinding against stone, but he stayed upright. His breathing hitched once, then steadied. His grip on the sword tightened, veins standing out along his forearm, but his eyes stayed clear. Focused.
Aelius's brow furrowed behind the mask.
"That's… unexpected," he muttered.
The flowers near the general blackened and withered, petals curling inward as if burned from the inside out. The spores around him thinned, dying before they could take hold.
The general straightened fully, rolling his shoulders once, as if shrugging off a weight. "You rely on magic to kill," he said, voice rough but steady. "I was forged to endure it."
Aelius tilted his head, interest sharpening despite himself. "That explains a few things."
"I find it ironic," the general said, shifting his stance, sword lowering just enough to change his center of balance. "The beast my armor and weapon are made from. It was a slug. Massive. No matter what we hit it with, it healed. Fire, frost, magic, steel, none of it mattered. Its blood made people sick just by being near it. Its vomit killed villages." His eyes locked onto Aelius. "And now I'm fighting the same beast wearing human skin."
That got Aelius's full attention.
His posture straightened slightly. "That… sounds like one of my grandfather's creations," he said slowly with recognition filling his tone. He pulled his hands back and slammed his palms together with a wet clap. "Something like this?"
"Pox Make: Beast of Nurgle."
Green mist poured out from between his hands, thick and oily, clinging to the air instead of dispersing. It swirled, coiling in on itself, growing heavier, denser. Aelius thrust his arms outward, and the mist obeyed, expanding violently as a shape began to push through it. First mass. Then flesh.
A colossal slug tore itself into existence, nearly fifteen feet tall when it reared, its body sagging and swollen, skin hanging in folds that split and reknit as it moved. Pus leaked freely from ruptures along its side, sizzling when it hit the floor. Its mouth gaped open in a wet grin, strings of acidic saliva dripping as it let out a low, affectionate gurgle.
The chamber recoiled.
Stone cracked under its weight. Guards who hadn't already fled stumbled back in horror, some retching, others frozen in place as sickness crawled through them just from proximity.
Etching echoed through the chamber. Some guards dropped to their knees, clutching at their throats as sickness crawled through them just from being near the thing. Others stood frozen, eyes wide, bodies refusing to move, caught between terror and the simple fact that their limbs no longer obeyed.
The general didn't move.
"I'll take that as a yes," Aelius said, a frown forming beneath his mask. His voice had lost its earlier edge, replaced by something tighter, more focused. "You're more like him than I thought. Even if the circumstances are different… it feels the same. Like I'm fighting him all over again."
The Beast of Nurgle surged forward, its bulk rippling, flesh dragging itself across the stone in a wet, eager rush toward the general. Its roar filled the room, thick and almost playful.
It never made it.
The general stepped in. His sword flashed once, and the massive creature was split apart before it could even close the distance. The blade passed through rotting flesh, bone, and regenerating tissue as if none of it mattered. The two halves of the beast hit the ground with a sound like collapsing meat, already trying to knit themselves back together.
They didn't get the chance.
Whatever lingered on the edge of that sword flared, unseen but absolute. The halves twitched, spasmed, then went still. The rot didn't crawl. The flesh didn't reform. It simply… stopped.
Aelius went still.
His head tilted slightly, eyes narrowing behind the mask as he studied the blade. "That shouldn't work," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "It heals through disintegration. Through entropy. Through divine decay." His gaze flicked from the dead beast to the general's weapon. "Your sword doesn't just cut. It denies."
The general turned the blade just enough for the light to catch along its edge. There was no glow, no obvious enchantment, nothing dramatic. And yet the air around it felt wrong, like something fundamental had been scraped away.
"You learn quickly," the general said. "It was forged from the same creature you just summoned." His eyes locked onto Aelius. "Made to make sure another beast like that could never reign again."
A low sound escaped Aelius, not quite a laugh. "Figures," he said quietly. "Take my grandfather's favorite trick and turn it against me."
Around them, the guards were finally finding the courage to move again, backing away from both men, from the corpse that refused to decay and the one who had summoned it so casually. None of them wanted to be between whatever this was becoming.