Chapter 215: A Promise Kept

Dust engulfed the battlefield like a living creature, thick and suffocating, rising in massive choking clouds that transformed the ruined Guild into a ghostly wasteland of shadows and jagged outlines.

The golden barrier that once protected everything was gone, shattered into nothingness, and in its absence, the sky reemerged, vast and indifferent.

Pale sunlight spilled across the devastation as if the world beyond had resumed breathing without regard for what had unfolded below. The light filtered through the dust slowly, piercing the haze in scattered beams that illuminated broken stone, overturned debris, and bodies lying motionless on the ground.

A faint wind carried the scent of ash, blood, and scorched earth across the shattered compound. For a brief moment, no one moved, neither Adventurers nor black-clad knights, all eyes were fixed on the spot where the crimson streak had struck, where the ground split and convulsed, where even now the air trembled from the force of impact.

Amidst this chaos stood Sage, his staff barely supporting him as exhaustion gripped his body from pushing his spells to their limits.

His face was grim; his eyes narrowed not in confusion but recognition. He already knew who it was before the dust began to settle, before a silhouette emerged from the crater like a ghost stepping out of flames.

He felt it in the air, the violent fluctuation of mana rolling outward like a storm, the pressure against his chest making each breath feel heavier.

There were only a handful of individuals in this world who possessed such overwhelming presence even while wounded and only one who could descend like a meteor through a barrier designed to withstand siege-level attacks.

As the dust shifted slowly aside, it revealed her standing at the center of the crater.

Valeria.

She was drenched in blood from head to toe; crimson coated her skin and soaked into what remained of her clothing until it was impossible to tell where her wounds ended and those of others began.

Her armor lay in tatters around her, torn away or shattered beyond recognition, leaving only her inner linen clinging to her form, ripped in multiple places and stained dark.

Cuts and gashes marred her arms, shoulders, and abdomen; some shallow but others deep enough to expose just how brutal her fight must have been before arriving here.

Her once-regal crimson hair hung wild and heavy with blood, strands sticking to her face and neck. Beside her stood her massive sword planted firmly into fractured ground, a weapon that mirrored its wielder’s exhaustion with its cracked blade blackened by soot and gore.

In one hand she held something:

A severed arm still clad in a metallic glove, dented and scorched, with fingers stiff and lifeless.

Silence rippled outward like an oppressive wave.

Every eye on that battlefield locked onto Valeria.

The Adventurers felt a tightening in their throats, a cold chill racing down their spines. It wasn’t just that she stood against them; it was the overwhelming killing intent radiating from her, so dense it felt almost tangible, like a suffocating pressure filling the air.

The black-clad knights, hardened warriors who had faced carnage and death without flinching, found their instincts screaming at them to retreat. Their muscles tightened involuntarily as they sensed a predator far beyond anything they had encountered that day.

Valeria remained silent, her head barely lifted.

And then she vanished. One moment she was at the center of the crater; the next, she appeared behind one of the black-clad knights. Her hand pierced through his back with brutal force, emerging from his chest as her fingers curled around something still pulsing.

It was a heart. It beat once, twice and then she crushed it. The sound was wet and final.

Before his body even hit the ground, she disappeared again.

The Adventurers stood frozen, their minds struggling to comprehend what their eyes could not follow.

They couldn’t see her move at all, there was no blur, no streaks, no trace, only the aftermath: another enemy downed, another gruesome sight left behind, a head rolling across the ground, a torso cleaved in two, a chest torn open before its heart could beat again.

She moved like death itself, silent and inevitable.

The black-clad knights attempted to regroup and form a defensive line, but terror shattered their discipline. Some turned to flee while others instinctively raised their weapons; yet none could track her movements.

Each heartbeat seemed to claim another life; every flicker of motion was followed by blood splattering across stone.

This wasn’t a battle anymore, it was execution.

Sage observed without expression, his eyes steady and face devoid of reaction as he took in the chaos around him. The emotional storm that had consumed him earlier faded away, leaving only cold clarity and quiet exhaustion deep within his bones.

He turned slowly from the massacre to focus on the man lying in the crater, the leader of the black-clad force, burned and battered, barely alive after being struck by Crimson Meteor.

The leader looked up at Sage with an expression caught between fury and dawning fear.

Sage lifted his staff. A small wind magic circle formed just above the leader’s neck, faint but precise, as runes spun slowly while mana gathered around them.

Sage met his gaze calmly and said in a steady voice devoid of triumph, “Now you know how it feels…to stand at death’s door.”

As realization struck him for the first time since battle began, terror flashed across the leader’s face.

The wind circle surged, slicing through the air with a sharp, invisible edge. In an instant, his head was severed from his body, rolling to the side as blood erupted in a violent fountain, staining the blackened earth of the crater.

Sage exhaled slowly, closing his eyes as he took a breath that trembled more than he anticipated. When he opened them again, the battlefield felt distant and muffled, like a scene viewed through water.

His body swayed slightly; his legs were no longer steady. The adrenaline that had fueled him until now was finally fading away, leaving only pain and exhaustion in its wake.

He took a step forward and then the world tilted. His vision blurred, edges dissolving into gray. The mage staff slipped from his grasp as he fell down on the ground.

As darkness crept in and swallowed his senses, one last image flickered through his half-lidded eyes: Valeria. She was no longer moving like a ghost across the battlefield but kneeling beside a small, still form…Mina.

Valeria cradled the girl gently, her massive sword abandoned at her side. Her expression was unreadable beneath layers of blood and fatigue. Sage noticed the faint rise and fall of Mina’s chest, shallow but steady.

Alive.

A faint smile touched Sage’s lips, barely there.

“Look, Mina…” he whispered weakly, his voice barely escaping as a breath. “I’ve taken revenge for you…”

Then darkness enveloped him completely and everything faded away.

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