[POV Liselotte]

The air in the anatomical theater turned into a dense mass of screams and magical static.

The moment my feet touched the cold stone floor of the circular chamber, I knew the rules of the battle had changed. This was not a knight’s duel nor a border skirmish. We were standing at the epicenter of a sacrilege.

“Make way!” I roared, my voice echoing like a glacier splitting apart.

I surged forward, becoming a whirlwind of frost and dark steel. Varek’s followers, mages who had sold their loyalty for promises of forbidden power, tried to raise mana barriers, but my dark crystal sword cut through them as if they were silk curtains. Every strike I delivered left a trail of frozen air that immobilized my enemies’ feet before they could cast a second spell.

Behind me, the roar of battle was deafening.

Leah moved with a ferocity she rarely displayed, her fire and light magic illuminating the shadows of the chamber while Elliot and his black-cloaked guards formed a wall of steel to contain the tide of fanatics. For a moment, it seemed we had the advantage. The presence of the princess was a beacon; her magic was so pure that Varek’s followers recoiled, blinded by the radiance of the crown.

Then reality twisted.

I felt a dull vibration beneath my feet, a low-frequency hum that made the hairs on my neck rise. Suddenly the glow of Leah’s blade faltered. Elliot’s guards, who were about to launch runic projectiles, froze in place, staring at their hands in confusion. The air grew heavy, as if the ambient mana had been replaced with liquid lead.

“What… what is this?” I heard Leah gasp.

“My magic… I can’t channel it!”

I glanced sideways and saw the terror in her eyes. Around her, Elliot’s guards struggled with their spells, which dissolved into useless sparks before taking shape.

The inhibitor Maya and Elina had mentioned had been activated.

The magical network of the academy was being strangled, draining the strength of every being connected to the source of this world.

Yet in my chest, the cold continued to pulse with savage intensity. My mana, forged in the void and nourished by an essence that did not belong to Whirikal’s ley lines, flowed freely.

I was the only note still sounding in an orchestra that had fallen silent.

From his platform, Varek burst into laughter that scraped the air like sandpaper against metal.

“Look at them! Look at the great pillars of Whirikal reduced to powerless humans!” he roared, his face twisted in ecstasy. “The time of kings and princesses is over! Now begins the age of gods of flesh!”

Beside him, the shadows coiled and solidified into a figure that made my heart skip a beat.

A demon with skin dark as obsidian, nearly three meters tall, emerged from the void. His fangs were enormous, curving outward like ivory sabers, and his eyes were two pits of crimson hatred radiating an overwhelming physical pressure.

“Is this the resistance that worried you so much, human?” the demon asked with a guttural voice that vibrated in my bones. “They are pathetic. I smell fear and dead magic.”

The demon didn’t wait for a reply.

With a movement so fast I barely followed it, he leapt from the platform toward Elliot’s group. The guards, unable to reinforce their defenses with magic, were thrown aside like rag dolls. The demon was a mass of brute force and hatred, smashing steel shields with his bare hands and knocking down the strongest men of the regency with insulting ease.

“Fall back! Protect the Princess!” Elliot shouted, trying to intercept with his physical sword, but the demon swatted him aside with a backhand that sent him rolling across the floor.

“Enough!” Leah stepped forward.

Even with her magic sealed, her bearing did not falter. She gripped her short sword with trembling but determined hands.

“If you want the crown, you’ll have to step over me first, monster!”

“Leah, no!” I shouted from across the chamber.

I was only a few meters from the tables where Maya and Elina continued to groan in agony, but the path suddenly became impassable.

Just as I moved to intercept the fanged demon and save Leah, the air in front of me froze—but not by my will.

A second figure emerged from among the operating tables, blocking my path.

It was another demon, similar in build to the first but clearly of a different caste. A single massive horn grew from the center of his forehead, pointing toward the ceiling like a spear of obsidian. His fangs were shorter, but his gaze was far more intelligent—more calculating.

“You are not going anywhere, anomaly,” the horned demon said, extending a clawed hand toward me. “My brother will deal with the royal blood. I am curious to see what that ice of yours is made of—the one that refuses to melt beneath our suppression circle.”

I stopped abruptly, digging my heels into the stone floor.

Behind me I could hear the clash of battle—the shouts of guards, the sound of Leah’s steel striking the hardened skin of the first demon. Every fiber of my being wanted to turn and run to her, but the horned demon radiated an aura of danger I could not ignore.

If I turned my back, he would pierce me before I could take three steps.

“Move,” I said, as the air around my dark crystal sword began to crystallize into bursts of lethal snow. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

“Oh, I think I do,” the demon replied with a cruel smile. “You are the one who should not exist here. The piece that does not fit on the board of the goddesses. And that is why I am going to break you open to see what lies inside.”

I looked over his shoulder.

Maya and Elina were right there, only a few meters away, being consumed by the creeping black corruption. Elliot was trying to stand again, and Leah…

Leah was alone before a demonic executioner while her magic remained dead.

The fury I had been containing since we entered this bunker finally erupted.

It was not a burning fury.

It was absolute cold.

A void that threatened to swallow every light in the chamber.

“If you touch the princess, or if you let those girls die…” I began, my mana cracking the stone beneath my feet, “…I promise you that the hell you came from will feel like a warm memory compared to what I’m going to do to you.”

The horned demon laughed and lunged toward me.

At the same moment, the first demon roared and charged at Leah.

The final battle for the academy was no longer a matter of strategy.

It was a desperate struggle between the fading light and the ice that refused to die.

I was only a step away from the girls, but the abyss had placed itself in my path—and the only option left was to cut straight through it.

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