From the shadows, Sirius watched.
His hands were clenched so tightly the bones creaked. He could end this in a breath. Just one spell was all it would take.
A whisper of mana was all he needed.
But the threads still stretched outward.
Watching and measuring every movement in the village through the eyes of the creatures currently trying to lay waste to everything around.
If he acted now, Ainz would be marked. Especially if this eyes belonged to a power they couldn't afford to mess with at the moment. Like the ones that had killed the Lich King before.
"…Hold," he whispered to himself.
The villagers were bleeding but they were fighting. And Sirius remembered.
This was how a village truly became his. Or rather, the village of the previous Lich King. Not through fear but through shared blood.
Mira was slammed into the ground, skidding for meters before stopping.
She spat blood.
"Damn it… it's faster than I thought."
Her beast lunged again.
She rolled, barely avoided its fangs, and countered with a mana-charged kick that shattered its shoulder plating.
Aria screamed as her beast broke through her flame wall and slammed her into a tree.
The trunk cracked.
She fell but rolled up immediately, casting again.
The third beast roared as it finally breached the outer defensive line.
Houses loomed behind it and children cried within said house.
Duran forced himself to stand.
Lulie stood beside him, shaking but determined.
"We can't let it pass," she whispered.
Duran nodded. "Then we don't."
They charged again.
And in the shadows, Sirius watched the moment approach.
The moment where restraint would no longer be possible.
The moment where a choice would be forced.
~~~~~
Mira wiped crimson from the corner of her mouth as she rolled to her feet. Her breath came hard, but her eyes were sharp and focused. Alive.
Her opponent, the second White-Core Mana Beast, was no longer moving.
Its massive body lay twisted among broken trees, white mana leaking from deep fractures in its core like steam escaping cracked stone. The hardened mana plates that once armored it had dulled, fissured, and finally shattered under repeated impact.
Mira planted her heel against its skull.
Mana surged into her leg—controlled, precise.
She brought her foot down.
CRACK.
The beast convulsed once… then went still.
She didn't celebrate.
She turned immediately.
"ARIA!"
Across the field, Aria was still fighting.
The first beast roared as it charged again, its body scorched black in places but still terrifyingly intact. Flames licked across its hide—but they no longer bit as deeply. Its mana core flared brighter, compensating, adapting.
Aria was breathing hard now.
Her casting speed had slowed.
Her mana reserve was thinning out.
"Damn it… stubborn thing…" she muttered, weaving another flame lance.
The beast plowed through it.
It slammed into her thing barrier which had been hastily formed, and shattered it like glass.
Aria was sent skidding across the dirt.
Before the beast could finish her, a blur struck its flank.
Bang!
Mira hit it like a meteor.
Her fist, wrapped in compressed mana, smashed into the creature's rib plating with a thunderous crack. Plates shattered outward, exposing raw flesh and the pulsing white glow beneath.
The beast screamed.
Aria didn't hesitate.
She forced herself upright and poured everything she had left into a single spell.
"Burn."
A spiral of fire which proved denser, hotter than anything she had cast before, pierced straight into the exposed core.
The White-Core fractured.
Then exploded inward.
The beast collapsed mid-roar, its body crumbling as the mana sustaining it dispersed violently into the air.
Silence followed.
Aria dropped to one knee, gasping.
Mira grabbed her before she fell.
"You alive?" Mira asked sharply.
Aria laughed weakly. "Barely… but yeah."
They didn't rest but turned together. Toward the village.
Toward the third beast.
Duran's arms trembled.
His spear was cracked.
Blood ran freely down his side.
The White-Core Mana Beast loomed over him, towering, its breath a hot, distorted haze of mana. Its hide was scored and bleeding, but its core still pulsed—slower now, unstable, but active.
Around them, bodies lay still.
Not dead.
But broken. Weakened to the point where they couldn't move.
Lulie stood beside Duran, her hands shaking violently as she forced mana into her palms again and again, each cast weaker than the last.
"We can't…" she whispered. "It's still standing…"
Duran gritted his teeth.
"We don't need to kill it," he said hoarsely. "We just need to stop it."
The beast raised a claw.
But then, its body faltered.
Just for a fraction of a second.
The hardened mana plates that armored it flickered.
It cracked and then dimmed.
Duran's eyes widened.
"…What?"
The beast roared in confusion—its roar weaker than before.
Behind it, Mira and Aria sprinted toward them, closing fast.
"NOW!" Mira shouted.
But Duran didn't wait.
He felt it instinctively.
Something had changed.
He channeled everything he had left into his weapon—not finesse, not control—just raw, desperate intent.
Mana flooded the blade.
The spear glowed.
He drove it forward with a scream.
The weapon pierced clean through the beast's neck.
The White-Core Mana Beast staggered.
Its mana plating failed completely.
With a roar born not of rage but of fear, the creature tried to pull back.
Duran didn't let it.
He ripped the spear free, grabbed his sword, and poured mana into it without restraint.
Then he swung.
The blade severed the beast's head in a single, brutal arc.
The moment the head hit the ground, the mana core shattered.
The body collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
Silence fell over Ainz.
The Invisible Severing
Far from the battlefield and hidden beyond perception, Sirius's eyes narrowed.
He saw it.
Not the kill nor the victory but the cut.
A thread so faint it was almost nothing snapped. It was severed.
Mana recoiled violently into the distance, scattering like frightened insects.
"…There," Sirius whispered.
A mana link.
Severed.
It had been weak.
Deliberately so.
The controller had been careful—watching through the beasts' senses, but masking the connection so thoroughly that even experienced mages wouldn't notice unless they were looking for it.
Looking the way Sirius was.
"They didn't want to be found," he murmured. "Only to observe."
To test and to measure.
And they had been close to succeeding.
Sirius's fingers curled slowly.
"But you failed."
Whoever it was, they had underestimated mortals.
And they had underestimated Ainz.
The villagers stood frozen for a moment.
Then the cheers broke out. Some laughed hysterically.
Others collapsed where they stood.
Duran dropped his sword and fell to his knees, breathing like a man who had outrun death by inches.
Lulie stared at her hands, disbelief etched across her face.
"We… won?" she whispered.
Mira approached Duran and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You did more than win," she said quietly. "You saved everyone."