Chapter 450: Burst Mode

A tiny gap. A tiny mistake. Jules had to ride that mistake to the limit.

“J-just how thick are these clouds…?”

Kazi, what in the world was he? How did he do all this? Unfathomable lengths of grey surrounded her.

Feenie obeyed, rising up, up, up and then…

Ah.

Warmth swarmed over her. This was it. This was the sun. Seeing the bright comfort of orange light and then remembering how it felt…

“Finally…” Jules smiled and relaxed. “Take it all in, Feenie.”

The rain had weakened her to an unfathomable degree. Reaching this high took almost all over Feenie’s energy. After this final attack, she probably wouldn’t have the stamina to move.

Her hands came together. Casting buffs through incantations and magic circles. To be capable of strengthening their tamed companion with force of will and natural mana was another. “Burst Mode—activate!!”

Feenie’s wings snapped open, and in an instant, her entire body glowed red. Jules’ mana was a universal love. Every individual and every person had an element they were inclined to. Although the System broke down the barriers of the impossible and granted access to elements an individual ordinarily would have never conjured, that did not mean every individual with the System had equal proficiency or talent.

Through trial and error and the advise of her better, she learned she had no talent in elemental magic. Indeed, if not for the System, she would have been wholly incapable of wielding it. That was because her mana was utterly blank. A clean slate that was sensitive to emotion.

Positive energy that strengthened and renewed Feenie’s willpower. She would die for her master.

“Matty, are you ready?”

“What’s wrong?”

“When I say now, we jump.”

“Jump…?”

“Feenie is going to give everything she has. I’m pouring all my mana for one big boom!”

In Burst Mode, Feenie lost the details of her form and became an outline. A thing. A monster of fire rather than a beautiful shining bird. Its immense speed and strength combined with Jules somewhat amateur nature and, well, surviving the attack would be impossible. They would have to bounce.

Matty gave a nod. “I understand.” He wrapped his arms around her waist. “Remember, don’t hang on tight.”

“Heh, I won’t!” Jules’ gloved hands were open and stroking the head of the ever brightening creature. Redder, hotter, and stronger, a swirling bundle of fire that would only reach its peak once it struck something.

“Now! Raging…”

Whooom!

Faster than the eye could see, Feenie dived. Fire trailing behind it, its form seemingly breaking apart yet growing. This was it, this was their ultimate attack!

The Red Bake-kujira was in view.

“Inferno Blast!”

The chant roared amongst the wind. In the moment it was spoken, still fifty feet up in the skies, Matty held onto Jules tighter and then leaped back. Feenie kept going. It went from red to rouge. It went from powerful to mighty.

Hisssss!

The rain. The damn rain. It weakened its form. It was the cause of its weakening form.

Booker heard it before he saw it.

A sound like a comet tearing through the heavens, a roar that rattled bones, a pressure so immense that even the storm-wracked air seemed to bend away in fear.

He turned—instinct, something deep in his bones telling him move, move, move—

And there it was.

A streak of fire, no longer a bird, no longer a thing of beauty. Feenie had abandoned shape, abandoned form—what hurtled down now was pure destruction. He heard the echo of “Inferno Blast!”

Shit.

Booker kicked off the lake’s surface, water exploding beneath him as he skipped across like a stone, moving before thought could catch up. Faster, faster, away, away. Whatever Feenie was about to do, it was about to put the Emberhive bombs to shame.

The Red Bake-kujira saw it. Felt it. Tried to move.

Too late.

The attack came not with a sound but with silence.

For a single breath, the world seemed to stop.

Then—

BOOOOOOOOM!

The explosion wasn’t just fire. It was something greater, something primal. A core of heat so intense that it ripped apart the rain. Steam and light roared outward. The lake didn’t just ripple—it parted, the very water shoved aside by the sheer force of the Raging Inferno Blast.

The Red Bake-kujira was not dead. That damn bone might have been stripped of its ability to give birth but that did not weaken its integrity.

Feenie should have burned out.

Should have been nothing but dying embers in the wind after that first strike.

But she wasn’t.

Even as the explosion continued to rage, even as the sky itself trembled under the force of the impact, she turned.

Feenie did not fall. She did not land.

She looped.

A perfect arc of pure fire, twisting through the blackened sky, curling around the smoke like a falcon circling prey. The moment she reached the peak of her ascent—she dove again.

A second Raging Inferno Blast.

She wasn’t as bright this time. Not as sharp. The flames that had once been blinding were dimmer, hungrier. Jules and Matty were falling, still falling, and watching. The beautiful monster was that fast.

BOOM!

A second Raging Inferno. Not as catastrophic as the first, but still powerful enough to shake the lake, to cause the whale to momentarily drown.

The Red Bake-kujira writhed.

It was broken now—truly broken. The bone plates were cracked through, great jagged lines of ruin splintering across its form. The infernal heat had seared its flesh, melted parts of it into bubbling pools of red.

And yet—

It still. Would. Not. Die.

From within the smoke, its maw opened wide—Fire Annihilation Breath building. It was trying again, like it did with Booker. It was an instinctual thing, a knowing that this attack would end all of them.

Jules paled. “She’s got one last one in her. One more!”

Her hair whipped and she shut her eyes. Matty held onto her tight as they dropped into the lake.

Feenie’s connection to her master was strong. She knew she could not save Jules. She had to climb.

No arc this time. No looping back.

Just a straight shot into the heavens.

She rose higher than before—past the clouds, past the storm.

For the second time since the battle began, she touched the sun. And she burned. Brighter than ever before. And then—

One last dive.

Her final, ultimate attack.

A third Raging Inferno Blast.

This was it.

This was the end.

The Raging Inferno Blast descended.

Faster than the eye could track. Faster than thought.

The Red Bake-kujira tried to scream.

Tried to fire.

Tried to survive.

It failed.

The world ignited.

BOOOOOOM!

A third explosion, greater than all the rest.

And then—silence.

The lake, the storm, the sky—all of it stood still.

Feenie’s light flickered.

Flickered.

Flickered—

And went out.

The fire was gone.

And so was the Red Bake-kujira.

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