It wasn’t a cross, it was... someone carrying an injured person on their shoulders?
Julius made an unintelligible sound of confusion and surprise, the kind of noise that escaped when the mind struggled to process something completely unexpected.
It was the unmistakable mana of his father.
The energy signature was impossible to mistake... But feeling it here, now, in this desperate moment, seemed like wishful thinking made manifest.
Dragarion emerged completely, carrying Zhao with the casual walk of someone who had never experienced the need to make haste before.
But there was something strange that Ren recognized immediately thanks to Mooshito’s analysis.
The professor had an extreme case of mana poisoning; not only were the energy lines in his body visibly damaged, but he also showed severe signs of medicine toxicity.
The damage was extensive and systematic, the kind that accumulated over months of exposure beyond what any normal tamer could safely endure. Ren could see how Zhao’s mana channels had been stretched beyond their natural limits, creating micro-fractures that would take careful healing to repair.
Ren managed, just by looking at him, to realize that Zhao had been taking a dangerously elevated amount of anti-mana poisoning medicine for a long time. Surely due to finding himself in a concentration ring too high for him, even being a double tamer.
The irony was bitter... a teacher who had spent years warning students about the dangers of mana overexposure, like he did in his first expedition, had been forced to endure exactly that fate in service to his kingdom...
♢♢♢♢
Ravenspire’s Gold ranks fled in terror upon realizing who they were really dealing with.
The power ring was now completely beyond their possibilities.
But the main group didn’t pay attention to them.
Tears fell from Julius’s eyes, but his face didn’t change. He only looked at his father with that impassive expression he had perfected over years of disappointment and abandonment.
Dragarion gazed at him while descending casually, and with one hand pulled something from his destroyed "expedition clothing": the now crumpled letter that Julius had sent with Zhao.
"It’s a low blow using ’her’ words to make me stop my mission," Dragarion commented with a smile that seemed casually cheerful, as if discussing mild weather.
Everyone looked at him with different expressions. Most showed automatic respect, but Ren felt more than anything curiosity before the imposing figure.
Despite not being dressed at all like a King, wearing barely some stained and torn skins, he had a mana signature that imposed without doubt the sensation of absolute Royalty.
It was like being in the presence of a force of nature that had decided to take human form.
"I don’t know why you continue with the obsession of that mission," Julius told him, keeping his voice controlled though emotion leaked through the careful modulation. "But things here, in ’your kingdom’, are about to disappear if you don’t do anything."
Dragarion casually invoked dragon horns and beard, partial transformations that made the air become denser with power.
"Yes, I’m already getting an idea of things," he nodded, evaluating the situation with ultra-fine senses. f|re(e)web.n\ovel. (c)o.m
He passed Zhao’s unconscious body to Julius.
"Heal him if you can," he said with the same casualness. "I was going to return to try and save him anyway... He saved me first so I owe at least that, and inside the wooden chamber we created he didn’t have more than a few weeks left before mana consumed him. But I don’t know if a normal healer will be able to handle so much accumulated damage."
Dragarion was making the mood weird with his completely casual and relaxed demeanor, as if everything around belonged to him by natural right.
He was at the absolute peak of power, though he seemed unorthodox for a king.
Julius knew him perfectly...
This battle junkie was more like a reformed thug with a good attitude who liked to play hero, but who didn’t pay too much attention to protocols or political subtleties.
At least he was on the side of justice, but operated completely outside the stress that affected everyone else. It was simultaneously reassuring and infuriating... salvation was about to be delivered by someone who seemed incapable of taking anything seriously.
Dragarion, now with free arms, looked at Larissa, Sirius, and Selphira.
Larissa would have hugged him with affection but was asleep... So he approached those he referred to as "the mute and the old woman".
"My favorite people!" he laughed exaggeratedly while hitting Sirius’s shoulder several times with pats that would have knocked down any normal person.
He realized that both were almost completely without mana.
"It must have been a hard battle," he commented, and his face changed to something slightly more serious, the first crack in his casual demeanor.
He looked at the ring on Selphira’s hand and told Sirius: "I see things were desperate for you to lend it."
Sirius, still with poker face, nodded silently.
Already more than 2000 Yino soldiers had crossed the bridge and established positions within Yano territory. Although they couldn’t march in too large quantities because they were limited by the bridge’s width, in a few hours tens of thousands would be marching freely through Yano.
It was truly the end of the kingdom.
Venmont charged an enormous attack from his dominant aerial position, purple and golden energy accumulating around his mutated form like a miniature storm.
The power buildup was visible and terrifying.
Arturo shouted to all earth and wind tamers from his elevated position, his voice amplified by beast techniques to reach all defenders.
"Maintain defense until we tire him out! Give everything you have!"
Empty words to boost morale... The Wyvern’s mana didn’t feel much smaller than before.
He transformed to the maximum possible with his Qilin, golden horns sprouting from his forehead while earth power flowed through him toward the castle’s structures. He was trying to reinforce every wall, every tower, every foundation as much as possible.
The effort was heroic... and futile.
Soldiers responded immediately, channeling their own remaining reserves to strengthen the massive barrier protecting them. Dozens of earth tamers worked in perfect coordination.
But the Wyvern’s attack kept growing.
And growing.
The sphere of destruction Venmont had been accumulating promised to vaporize not only the castle, but all soldiers in the surrounding area.
The energy concentration was visible from miles away, a miniature green sun of malevolent intent.
Arturo looked upward, calculating in his final seconds whether their defenses would be sufficient.
They wouldn’t be.
It was the end.
Until a meteor descended from the sky and struck it.
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