The second Alpha stalked closer, its movements deliberate, its eyes gleaming with intelligence that was far more chilling than brute savagery.

It circled them, its awareness precise as it studied their drained mana and bloodied frames.

Then it attacked.

The cavern shook as the monster lunged, its claws carving stone into shards. The cadets braced themselves, but within seconds, they realized this was nothing like fighting the E-Rank raptors.

Every strike was heavy enough to splinter bone through shields, every feint backed by experience that read their formations like an open book. The Alpha moved with calculated precision, testing their defenses with surgical strikes.

“Hold formation!” Helena’s voice rang out in the distance, though her own duel with the first Alpha kept her bound, fire clashing against claws in a relentless storm. She was an equal to that beast.

The cadets were on their own.

Marcus was the first to fall. He charged too close, hammer raised, and the Alpha swatted him aside like an insect.

His body slammed into the cavern wall with a sickening crack, crumpling in a limp heap. His mana shield flickered out, leaving him groaning and unmoving.

The Alpha’s head snapped toward Lyra next. Her sound waves rattled its senses, but it adapted instantly, its rage sharpening on her frequency.

With a terrifying burst of speed, it broke through the front line and struck her across the ribs. Lyra screamed as she was hurled backward, blood spraying from her lips.

She collapsed, clutching her side, unable to rise. Dark bruises already bloomed across her torso where claws had found their mark.

The remaining five fought with desperate coordination. Elena poured every drop of her mana into freezing the Alpha’s legs in place, shards of ice piercing deep into its hide.

Damon’s venom streaked across open wounds while Seraphina’s saber blazed with light that seared its vision. Kai blinked around its strikes, harrying it from impossible angles.

But even with everything they had, it wasn’t enough. The Alpha shattered Elena’s ice, tore through Damon’s poison fog, and nearly clipped Kai mid-blink.

Seraphina’s radiant blade faltered, her breathing ragged, sweat running down her bloodied face. Her celestial light dimmed as exhaustion claimed what remained of her reserves.

“Adrian—” she gasped, voice cracking with exhaustion. “Whatever you can do… we need it now.”

…

Adrian stood at the center, his chest heaving. He had used a third of his mana reserves, but he knew the truth, the spells he possessed weren’t enough. At best, he could wound the Alpha, maybe slow it down.

Killing it was another matter entirely.

Adrian’s mind fired with urgency. Thirty percent of his mana gone fighting that alpha.

The Source pulsed inside him, whispering truths.

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He considered, all this fighting, the countless spells unleashed by others today, had given him the principles behind their affinities. He could replicate any technique now, echo any spell. But replication alone would not suffice.

What he craved was not myriad lesser spells, but a single omnipotent attack.

“What use is endless variety, if none of it can finish this?” Adrian thought.

His mind sharpened under pressure. He remembered Seraphina’s stellar heat, which he had once woven into his fireball. He recalled Helena’s flames, refined and disciplined, pushing his fireball spell towards the threshold of D-Rank.

He thought of Kai’s distortions of space, of Lyra’s sound waves that unraveled structure, of Damon’s toxins that corroded from within, of Elena’s frost that froze matter at its core.

And then the thought came. Not many spells.

One spell.

Something impossible. Something only the Source could allow.

Adrian drew it together. The raw destructive purity of fire, amplified with stellar heat, the crushing inevitability of gravity, drawn from Kai’s distortions, the molecular stasis of frost to stabilize its frame, the resonance of sound to amplify force, and venom’s corruptive principle, to erode resistance.

Each concept layered into the next, stripped of waste, merged into a singularity of power.

Mana screamed through his veins. His body convulsed, blood spilling from his nose and mouth as every channel stretched beyond mortal capacity.

His vision darkened, yet his will burned brighter.

The spell materialized between his hands, a sphere of collapsing light and shadow, blue fire threaded with black veins of gravity, its surface vibrating with frequencies that tore the air apart. Space itself bent inward, the cavern trembling as if resisting its existence.

The cadets froze. Even Helena, mid-duel, stopped for a heartbeat.

Both Alphas hesitated, instincts screaming danger as they turned toward Adrian.

“What… what is that?” Seraphina whispered, her voice hollow with disbelief.

And then he released it.

The world slowed. The sphere drifted forward like the judgment of a god, its surface rippling with impossible energies that made the air itself weep.

Adrian’s vision blurred as blood ran freely from his nose. His legs trembled, but his will held the construct together through sheer force.

When it touched the Alpha, reality folded inward. Space compressed around the beast, gravity crushing its massive frame while stellar fire consumed what remained.

The monster’s body distorted, flesh rippling like water before collapsing into itself. Its roar cut short as its bones imploded into a singular point of annihilation.

Then nothing. The Alpha simply ceased to exist, not even ash remaining where it had stood.

Silence followed. Only the crackle of dissipating energy remained, echoes fading into the hollow cavern like whispers of something divine.

The first Alpha, witnessing its packmate’s obliteration, released a sound that was part howl, part terror. It backed away from Helena, eyes fixed on Adrian with primal fear.

Helena used the distraction, her blazing edge finding the creature’s throat in one decisive strike. The Alpha collapsed, but her gaze never left Adrian.

The cadets stared, wide-eyed, unable to speak. Seraphina’s saber hung limp in her grip, her celestial light flickering like a dying candle.

Kai’s spatial distortions wavered and collapsed. His mouth moved soundlessly, trying to form words that wouldn’t come.

Elena pressed herself against the cavern wall, ice crystals forming unconsciously around her feet. Her face had gone pale as winter frost.

“That spell…” Damon whispered, his voice hoarse. “That wasn’t E-Rank. That wasn’t even D-Rank.”

Marcus groaned from where he lay crumpled, struggling to sit up. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as he stared at the empty space.

“What the hell are you?” he breathed.

Adrian staggered, blood dripping from his lips, his body trembling from the strain. His mana was gone, every drop consumed by the impossible fusion.

But he remained standing, chest heaving, his eyes alight with the afterglow of the Source.

Lyra clutched her broken ribs, her sound-based senses still reeling from the spell’s resonance. She looked at Adrian like he was something alien.

The others looked at him with awe, fear, and something deeper. Recognition that they stood before something beyond their understanding.

Helena’s voice finally cut the silence, rough and unreadable. Her flames had died down, leaving only smoke and the acrid smell of burned flesh.

“That wasn’t simple mimic,” she said slowly. “Echo users copy. But this…”

His gaze swept across their faces, Seraphina’s wide eyes, Kai’s slack jaw, Elena pressed against the stone wall. Even Helena stood motionless, her sword still dripping with Alpha blood.

Adrian’s lips curved faintly.

Adrian whispered, before consciousness slipped away..

“When did I say Echo?”

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