Chapter 168: Crimson Requiem

Westin crumpled to his knees, his body screaming with pain from every nerve ending. His shield, hastily reconstructed, flickered weakly around him—a translucent bubble that barely contained his trembling form. His mana reserves were dangerously low, the dregs of his power barely enough to maintain even this pathetic defense.

’That woman... she’s insane,’ Westin thought, his breath coming in ragged gasps. ’I never imagined she could pierce my defenses. My barriers are supposed to be absolute. Decades of refinement, and a dragon-girl with nothing but brute force—’

His eyes darted across the battlefield, taking in the carnage. Ellen’s body lay crumpled in a heap, her limbs bent at unnatural angles, her eyes still open and staring at nothing. The threads that had killed her were already retracting, glistening with blood in the morning light.

’Ellen’s dead. Derek is still fighting that monster, but for how long? We’re losing. This fight—we can’t win.’

The thought crystallized with cold clarity. Survival instinct overrode pride, overrode duty, overrode everything.

’I need to retreat. Regroup. Warn command about what we’re facing. If I can just—’

"Heh." Ignis’s voice cut through his desperate calculations, dripping with smug satisfaction. She approached slowly, flames still wreathing her body, her draconic features fully manifest. "How’s my fire? Pretty strong, right?" She cracked her neck, the sound sharp in the sudden quiet around them. "Too bad you’re still standing, but my final attack will turn you to ashes. Completely."

Westin’s blood ran cold. ’She still has mana left for another attack? After that sustained siege—how is that possible?’

His mind raced, searching for an escape, a spell, anything. The translocation pendant hung uselessly against his chest—still recharging from the last emergency use. His staff was shattered. His barriers were failing. And the dragon-girl was advancing with murder in her slitted eyes.

’Damn it, I need to—’

A sharp, searing pain erupted in his back.

Westin’s eyes went wide. His mouth opened, and blood poured out—thick and dark, spilling down his chin as his body registered what his mind couldn’t yet accept. He looked down, and there it was: a slender, pointed limb emerging from his chest, glistening with his own lifeblood.

"A-agh...!!" The sound was wet, choked. He tried to turn, to see, to understand.

Behind him, a soft, melodic voice drifted like poisoned honey.

"Nice expression."

Westin’s vision dimmed. The last thing he saw was the pale, beautiful face of the spider-woman, her crimson eyes watching his death with serene satisfaction. Then darkness claimed him, and he crumpled forward, the limb withdrawing from his chest with a wet, sucking sound.

Ignis stared, her flames flickering as the dramatic moment she’d been building toward was abruptly stolen from her. Her jaw dropped.

"Ehhh?!" She stomped forward, pointing accusingly at Lilith. "Hey! Lilith! Why’d you kill him?! I was about to incinerate him! It was MY turn!"

Lilith examined the tip of her limb, now dripping with Westin’s blood, with mild interest. She flicked it clean with a casual gesture, then turned to Ignis with an expression of serene innocence.

"You were taking too long," she said simply. "And he was about to escape. I could see it in his eyes—the calculation, the surrender, the retreat. He was already gone; he just hadn’t moved yet." She tilted her head. "Would you prefer I let him flee so he could return with reinforcements?"

Ignis’s mouth opened and closed several times, like a fish trying to argue with a cat. "That’s... but... I wanted to BURN him! With FIRE! My fire! It would have been AWESOME!"

Lilith’s lips curved into a small, amused smile. "You can burn the next one. If you’re fast enough."

Ignis’s flames flared with indignation. "That’s not the point! You steal my kills!"

"I secure victories," Lilith corrected smoothly. "There’s a difference."

Before Ignis could retort, a thunderous impact drew their attention back to the main event.

Derek’s axe met Adam’s scaled forearm in a shower of sparks, the impact jarring up both their arms. For a moment, they were locked together—predator and predator, neither willing to yield an inch.

Then Derek’s eyes flickered.

Just for an instant. A glance past Adam’s shoulder, toward where the rest of his forces had been fighting.

’Damn it...’

The thought crystallized with terrible clarity. ’At this rate, we’re all going to die.’

’This is bad. This is really bad.’

Adam didn’t miss the flicker. His crimson eyes narrowed, and a cold smile crossed his features. "You’re distracted."

His fist shot forward with just pure, brutal force amplified by Draconic Might. It caught Derek square in the chest, just below the sternum.

WHUMP—CRACK!

Derek flew backward, his body carving a trench through the frozen ground before slamming into a boulder hard enough to crack it. He slumped there for a moment, vision swimming, before forcing himself upright.

Blood dripped from his mouth, dark and thick. He could feel it—the wrongness inside. Something had ruptured. A lung, maybe. Or something deeper. His enhanced aura had absorbed the worst of it, but not enough. Never enough.

’Internal damage,’ he assessed clinically, even as his body screamed. ’I’m not walking away from this. Not unless—’

Adam approached slowly, deliberately, savoring the moment. "You let your guard down. Careless for a commander."

Derek straightened, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. The motion was steady, controlled—a warrior’s refusal to show weakness even at the end. His eyes, when they met Adam’s, held no fear. Only resolve.

"I won’t die," Derek said flatly, "until I’ve killed you."

Adam’s smile widened, taking on a wild, almost feral edge. "Good. Because I’m not letting you run."

The air between them grew heavy. Derek’s aura, already blazing, suddenly surged.

It wasn’t like before—not just reinforcement or enhancement. This was something else. Crimson light poured from his body in waves, wrapping around him like a second skin, sinking into his flesh rather than just coating it. His muscles bulged violently, as if something inside was trying to tear its way out. Veins stood out against his skin like rivers of fire. His bones creaked audibly as they thickened, reinforced by power that was never meant to be contained in mortal form.

[Aura Overdrive].

The technique was forbidden for a reason. It didn’t just enhance—it restructured. Muscles reconfigured themselves for maximum explosive output. Bones grew denser, more flexible. Reflexes sharpened to preternatural levels. Every cell in his body was being pushed far beyond its natural limits, flooded with power that should have taken weeks to channel safely.

And it was killing him.

Derek could feel it—the burn, the tear, the slow unraveling of his own biology. His heart pounded irregularly, struggling to keep up with demands no heart was meant to meet. His lungs burned with every breath, oxygen conversion pushed to impossible efficiency. His nerves screamed with the feedback of senses operating at ten times normal capacity.

But he didn’t care.

Because for the next few minutes—maybe less—he would be faster than anything on this battlefield. Stronger than anything that had ever hunted him. And that monster, that thing that had killed Ellen and Westin and who knew how many others, was going to learn what a human looked like when they had nothing left to lose.

Derek’s eyes, now glowing with the same crimson light that suffused his body, locked onto Adam’s. His voice, when it came, was deeper, rougher—the sound of a man whose vocal cords were being reforged even as he spoke.

"Let’s end this."

He moved.

The air itself seemed to scream as he crossed the distance in less than a heartbeat, his axe already swinging in an arc that should have been impossible, aimed at Adam’s throat with surgical precision.

Adam’s instincts screamed. His scaled forearm snapped up, meeting Derek’s axe in a desperate block.

CRAAAAACK—BOOM!

The impact was unlike anything before. Adam felt his scales crack—actual fractures spider-webbing across the reinforced surface where Derek’s blade bit deep. Pain lanced through his arm, hot and sharp, as the edge kissed flesh beneath the armor.

’He broke through my Aegis!?’

There was no time to process. Adam’s other hand shot forward, void energy already coalescing. "[Tempest Sovereign]!"

The vortex of cutting wind and crackling lightning erupted at point-blank range, slamming into Derek’s overcharged form and hurling him backward. He crashed through a boulder, then another, before finally skidding to a halt in a spray of shattered stone.

Adam glanced at his forearm. Blood welled from a shallow gash where Derek’s axe had found purchase. His scales were already regenerating, knitting back together, but the fact remained.

’He’s faster. Stronger. His aura—he’s burning himself alive just to match me.’ Adam’s crimson eyes tracked Derek’s rise from the rubble. ’And it’s working. My Aegis nearly failed. If that axe lands clean...’

Derek was already moving again.

He came on like a crimson comet, his axe trailing an aura so dense it seemed to leave afterimages in the air. Each step cratered the ground beneath him, raw power bleeding from every pore. His eyes, blazing with that same murderous light, never left Adam’s face.

"NOWHERE TO RUN, MONSTER!"

The axe descended with a cascade of them. Overhead chop, horizontal sweep, rising diagonal, reverse grip thrust—each one flowed into the next with impossible speed, the weapon itself seeming to multiply as aura trailed behind every motion.

Adam flowed like water, serpentine grace meeting desperate fury. He ducked under the first, twisted past the second, caught the third on his reknitted scales with a shower of sparks. The fourth—the thrust—slipped past his guard, the tip scoring a line across his ribs.

More blood. Another wound.

’If that hits me properly, I’m done.’

Adam’s mind raced even as his body moved. Mirage Cascade blurred him into three afterimages, each one darting in a different direction. Derek’s axe carved through two of them before he realized they were fakes.

The real Adam materialized at his flank, Prismatic Beam already gathering in his palm. He didn’t aim for center mass—Derek’s aura would absorb that. Instead, he targeted the legs.

[RAINBOW LANCE]!

The concentrated light shot forth, blindingly bright, and struck Derek’s left knee.

Derek roared in fury. His aura blazed brighter, the beam scattering against it like light through a prism. But some of it got through. A fraction. Enough.

His knee buckled. Just for an instant. Just enough.

Adam pressed the advantage. Pressurized Spines launched from his scales in a spreading volley, aimed at the ground around him. Shattered stone exploded upward, creating a cloud of debris that momentarily blinded even Derek’s enhanced senses.

Through the dust, Adam came.