The air at Rosen Academy, thick with smoke and terror, crackled with a new, wild energy. Herr Blüm's cobalt griffin, Zephyr, let out a shriek that seemed to tear the very sound from the air, its sapphire feathers ruffling as it faced the Delta squad.
Ulrich, still shaking off the visceral echoes of his past, stared at the majestic creature. "That's a Phantom Echo," he breathed, recognition dawning. "A manifestation of condensed prana given semi-permanent form."
The lead Delta officer, cradling his shattered weapon-arm, responded not with fear, but with a slow, mocking clap. The sound was hollow through his helmet's vocoder. "Klat-klat-klat. A Level 4 Resonant. The academy's gym teacher. How… quaintly deceptive." He straightened up, his single red-stripe helmet regarding Blüm with cold appraisal. "But an Echo is just a tool. Let's measure yours against the standard issue."
He raised his functional hand. "Delta Squad. Echo Protocol: Unleash."
Five of the remaining black-armoured soldiers slammed fists against their chests. From their armored cores, swirling vortices of colored prana erupted, solidifying into monstrous forms that landed with ground-shaking thuds.
A Goliath Gorilla of shimmering, volcanic rock, fists like anvils.
A sleek, predatory Satyr with hooves of obsidian and eyes of emerald flame.
A pair of slavering Shadow-Wolves, their forms shifting like smoke and midnight.
Three colossal Jade Anacondas, their scales clicking like knives, prismatic energy dripping from their fangs.
A Minotaur of black iron, snorting jets of steam, its axe-head humming with violet corruption.
The spectral menagerie of violence roared, howled, and hissed in unison, a wall of predatory energy facing the single, noble griffin.
"Wow," Lina whispered, her face pale. "That's… really not fair."
"Fair's a concept for peacetime, Princess," Herr Blüm said, his grin returning, sharp and dangerous. He cracked his neck. "Now it's just math. And I've always been good at math."
Ulrich's eyes darted between the teacher, the Echos, and Lina. His voice was low, urgent. "Sir, Lina's power… it's unstable. It's a storm in a bottle. If it gets loose again—"
"It's a storm we need," Blüm cut in, his eyes never leaving the advancing Minotaur. "Reinforcements are scattered, fighting all over the campus. This is our stand. Lina," he called, his voice softening just a fraction. "That power isn't your enemy. It's the heritage of your bloodline, the very spirit of Kleindorfstein. It's angry because you are. So stop being scared of it. Start being its commander."
The words struck Lina like a physical blow. The terror of losing control, of being a danger, began to harden into something else—a steely resolve. She looked at the students cowering behind her, at Ulrich's worried face, at the burning city beyond the gates. Her fear didn't vanish; it became fuel.
"For my friends," she whispered, then louder, "For my family! For my country!" Her scream was a battle cry. She didn't try to gently channel her power; she unleashed it.
A titanic wave of cerulean prana exploded from her, not the wild spill from before, but a directed, furious tsunami. It washed over the Delta Echos. The Gorilla roared, bracing against the torrent. The Satyr was knocked skidding back. The Shadow-Wolves dissipated and reformed, snarling.
"NOW, ZEPHYR!" Blüm shouted.
The griffin was a bolt of blue lightning. It didn't engage the largest foe; it used its aerial superiority. It strafed the Jade Anacondas, talons of solidified wind shearing through one's neck, dispelling it into motes of green light. It barrel-rolled, avoiding a gout of flame from the Satyr, and raked its claws across the back of a Shadow-Wolf, which yelped and vanished.
Blüm himself became a blur. "Pulse Step." He vanished from his spot, reappearing behind the two riflemen who were trying to flank him. They spun, but he was already moving. "Prana Surge: Detonation." He didn't punch; he simply released a contained sphere of raw force from his palm. The air between him and the soldiers compressed then exploded outward in a silent, concussive wave. It shattered their rifles and sent them flying into a wall, where they slumped, unconscious.
One Delta soldier, faster than the rest, launched into a blistering combination of high kicks, each foot trailing violet energy. Blüm weaved under and around them, movements economical, almost lazy. As the soldier overextended, Blüm jumped, spinning in mid-air. "Prana Construct: Sky Spear." A lance of solidified white energy materialized in his hand. He threw it not to kill, but to maim. It pierced the soldier's thigh, pinning him to the ground with a choked cry.
The remaining riflemen opened fire, violet beams crisscrossing the courtyard. But before the beams could reach their targets, the shooters suddenly spasmed and dropped, their weapons clattering. Behind them, Ulrich stood, hands outstretched, breathing heavily. He had used the distraction to draw the ambient kinetic energy from their own aggressive movements and the chaotic environment, focusing it into a series of precise, concussive strikes to their nervous centers.
"Good timing, kid!" Blüm called.
While the teacher and Ulrich handled the soldiers, Zephyr was in a whirlwind duel with the remaining Echos. The Gorilla landed a shattering blow that Zephyr took on a wing-shield of hardened air, staggering the griffin. The Minotaur charged, its axe swinging in a deadly arc.
On the sidelines, Lina was shaking, veins of blue light pulsing under her skin. The initial surge was ebbing, and the feedback was agony. She was trying to "shape the mountain of sand," as Lukas had said, but the mountain was an avalanche.
Lukas, the scholarship student she'd saved, crawled to her side, his glasses cracked. "Princess! You're trying to control the whole flow. You can't. You're a Level S. You don't control the river; you are the dam's operator. Find the floodgates. Release pressure in one, directed channel!"
One channel. The concept pierced her panic. She didn't need to stop the power; she needed to give it a single, devastating purpose. She saw the Minotaur about to gore Zephyr. She saw the Gorilla pounding its chest. She saw the corruption they represented.
Her eyes snapped open, blazing with cerulean fire. She raised a hand, not in a vague push, but in a precise, cutting gesture, as if slashing a canvas.
"MANA FLUX: NULL-ZONE!"
A different kind of wave emanated from her—a sphere of silent, negation. It didn't blast or burn. Where it passed, active prana techniques died. The violet corruption on the Minotaur's axe winked out, the axe becoming mere metal. The Gorilla's rocky hide lost its inner glow, becoming brittle shale. The Satyr's fiery eyes guttered. It was a localized anti-magic field born of overwhelming prana dominance.
Herr Blüm didn't waste the opening. "Vein Burst!" Tendons stood out on his neck and arms as he forcibly overclocked his own prana pathways. Combined with his signature "Prana Surge," the effect was cataclysmic. He became a living comet. He shot forward, a single, devastating punch landing on the now-vulnerable Minotaur's chest. The iron hide didn't just dent; it vaporized in a sun-bright flash of white energy. The Echo disintegrated. A spin-kick shattered the de-powered Gorilla. Zephyr, seizing the moment, tore the Satyr apart with a final, graceful fury.
Silence, heavier than the preceding noise, descended upon the ravaged courtyard. The Delta Echos were gone. The soldiers were down. Only the red-stripe officer remained, standing amidst the dissipating energy of his defeated squad.
He slowly removed his helmet. Beneath it was a man with a sharp, scarred face and cold grey eyes. He looked at the trio—the breathing-hard teacher, the shaking but standing princess, the boy drawing strength from the trembling earth.
"A teacher, a unstable royal, and a natural-energy savant," he mused, his real voice a gravelly baritone. "To think a Delta spearhead was broken by the academy's extracurricular club. You three are… anomalously capable."
"You're under arrest," Blüm growled, stepping forward, white energy still crackling around his fists. "For murder. For invasion. You will pay for every life here."
The officer smiled, a thin, bloodless thing. "Pay? We are the invoice." He tilted his head, as if listening to a comms unit. "Collection is nearly complete. My purpose here is served."
"What collection?" Lina demanded, her voice trembling with fury.
Before he could answer, a shrill, descending whistle pierced the sky. Everyone looked up.
A single figure was falling from the clouds, limbs spread-eagled. Then, they stopped their descent, hovering high above the city. From this tiny figure, dozens of searing blue energy spheres blossomed like malignant flowers and rained down. Each impact was a thunderclap, carving new craters into Rosen's streets, igniting fresh infernos. It was indiscriminate, apocalyptic bombardment.
---
Elsewhere in the Burning City
Wilhelm von Morgenfels, immaculate in a tailored grey suit, walked calmly through the warzone as if it were a mildly interesting parade. The shadowy figure—a man known only as Nameless—glided beside him, violence parting before them like a curtain.
They arrived at the epicenter of political power: the Legislative Complex, housing the House of Lords and Commons. The grand buildings were now blackened shells, their democratic echoes silenced by fire and shelling.
Wilhelm stopped, a sentimental smile on his face. "It reminds me of university debates with Alaric and Elizabeth. So much passion for such small, human ideas." He turned to Nameless. "Today, we graduate to a higher curriculum."
Nameless gave a slight bow. The darkness around him deepened, enveloping them both. When it cleared, they were gone.
---
Back at the Academy
Over the city-wide panic channel, a new, synthesized voice boomed, overriding all frequencies. "Crown State Directive: Primary objective achieved. Collect all Black Matter residue from the impact sites. Secondary: Eliminate all remaining hostiles. Tertiary: Locate and extract Princess Lina von Rosenlicht, alive. All other life is expendable. Proceed."
The order was cold, final. A renewed wave of gunfire and screams erupted from across the campus and the city. The invading forces shifted from conquest to systematic cleansing and harvesting.
The hovering figure—revealed now as a young woman with wild pink hair and a manic grin, her uniform adorned with Delta insignia—laughed, the sound amplified and twisted. "Ooh, mass destruction! My favorite! If they want a show, I'll give them the grand finale!" She began to glow, drawing prana not just from herself, but siphoning it from the chaos below, from the dying energies of the city. A sphere of unstable, sun-white energy began to form between her hands, swelling rapidly. It was a Prana Surge bomb, growing to encompass the entire central district.
Lina, Ulrich, and Herr Blüm watched in helpless horror. The city was being methodically butchered and stripped, and now a single psychotic Resonant was preparing to wipe the slate clean.
"The city… it's gone," Lina mumbled, tears streaming freely now. The scale of the loss was too vast to comprehend.
Ulrich said nothing. He was back in the temple, smelling ash and rain, watching hope die. The scene was different, but the symphony of despair was the same.
Herr Blüm placed a heavy, steadying hand on each of their shoulders. His own anger was a frozen glacier, but his voice was firm. "We're not done. We breathe. We fight. We protect who we can."
Then, a new light split the hellscape. Not from the sky, but from the ground.
Where the Legislative Complex once stood, a pillar of raw, crimson energy erupted, punching through the smoke and the energy-dome above. It was not prana. It was something older, hungrier, and fundamentally wrong. It thrummed with a frequency that made teeth ache and souls shudder.
As the pillar stabilized, connecting earth to dome, the weather broke. The sky, already choked, became a cauldron of impossible storms. Black thunderheads boiled, lanced with lightning the colour of blood. The very climate of the alpine region twisted in real-time, as if the land itself was screaming in agony.
The pink-haired bomber above paused, her glowing sphere flickering in confusion at the new, dominant energy source.
The red-stripe Delta officer looked toward the crimson pillar, his mission-accomplished smirk finally vanishing, replaced by something akin to primal dread. "The Obelisk resonance… he's syncing it with the ley lines. He's not just tapping the power. He's grafting it."
He looked back at the trio one last time, his grey eyes wide. "You fought well for a doomed world." Then his body dissolved into the same inky smoke that had taken him, leaving only his discarded helmet behind.
They stood alone in the courtyard, the academy crumbling around them, the city dying at their feet, and a pillar of usurping god-light now claiming the sky. The battle against the Delta force was over.
They had won a skirmish.
And in doing so, they had witnessed the true war begin.