Belamus was running out of options.
Every Black Golem he destroyed drained more and more of his strength. It wasn’t just the Shining Lance required to pierce their cores; it was the constant layering of physical enhancement, defensive barriers, and, when he failed to dodge in time, healing magic to patch up his wounds. There were too many of them, and no matter how many he took down, the tide never stopped. With each clash, his magical power bled away. Worse, recovery spells demanded the highest energy cost of all, and now, his reserves were dwindling at an unsustainable rate.
At this pace, he wouldn’t last long enough to finish them off.
Even if he somehow managed to defeat all thirty of Aled’s golems, there was no guarantee it would mean anything. Aled’s magical power reserves felt bottomless; his magical presence coiled in the air like a storm that hadn’t even begun to break. How much power does he still have tucked away? The possibility that Aled was merely toying with him, that he hadn’t yet begun to fight seriously, gnawed at Belamus’s gut.
He couldn’t afford to keep playing this game.
No more. I have to go after him directly. That’s the only way this ends.
As long as Aled stood untouched, the golems would keep coming. Belamus could feel it in the air that the creatures weren’t autonomous. They moved with unnatural cohesion, like puppets dancing on invisible strings. Cut the puppeteer, and the performance would stop.
Reaching him was another matter entirely. Aled had positioned himself with care, standing at the rear of the battlefield, cloaked behind an impenetrable wall of golems. He offered no openings, no distractions to exploit. Every move was calculated. Every angle covered.
So, for now, Belamus stopped trying to bring them down.
He shifted his focus—dodging, deflecting, preserving what little magical power he had left. The moment for striking would come. It had to. He just needed time to find it. All the while, his thoughts raced, searching for some overlooked weakness, some hidden angle. But nothing came. No plan that wouldn’t cost him everything before it even had a chance to work.
Aled’s voice rang out across the battlefield, mocking and measured. “You’re just going to dodge forever? How dreadfully boring.”
The worst part was that he was right, and Belamus knew it. If this kept up, his magical power would drain dry, and he'd fall before he ever reached his enemy.
He couldn’t afford to stall any longer.
Then, through the swirl of movement and chaos, a flicker of hope caught the edge of his vision: Navasha and the others had arrived. Somehow, against all odds, they had pushed through whatever enemies had been thrown their way and now stood ready to assist.
Aled’s gaze never left Belamus. He stood motionless, calm and focused, paying his surroundings no mind. It was a mistake, or at least, it might have been. If someone could strike from behind, if even a single attack slipped through, there was a chance it could end this. And even if it didn’t bring Aled down, breaking his concentration might be enough. A moment of distraction. A fracture in the perfect rhythm of his Black Golem control. That would be all Belamus needed.
He didn’t care if the attack failed to wound. As long as it pulled Aled’s attention away, even for a heartbeat, it would be enough.
The real question was whether Navasha and the others would understand what needed to be done. He couldn’t call out. Not without blowing any element of surprise. All he could do was meet her eyes across the battlefield, silently pleading: Don’t come this way. Go for Aled. Now.
Did she understand? Her expression was unreadable. If it had been Delarosa, maybe, maybe she’d have picked up on the unspoken signal. Navasha, though… she was unpredictable.
Without hesitation, she broke into a run.
“No clue what you’re planning,” she called out, voice bold and reckless, “but I’m going straight for the big guy’s head!”
So much for stealth.
Still, for all the chaos of her approach, her instincts proved sharp. She charged toward Aled with reckless abandon and, whether intentional or not, achieved exactly what Belamus had hoped for.
Aled turned. Just slightly. Just enough.
The golems’ movements faltered for the briefest instant.
Belamus didn’t wait. He dashed forward, slipping between the lumbering giants, weaving through the gap that had opened in the moment of hesitation. In the same breath, he summoned power from deep within, channeling the highest-tier light-element spell he had: Saint Breaker.
At close range, the blast surged toward Aled in a blinding arc of divine energy.
Aled’s response was fast, but not without panic. He called forth his own ultimate magic—Sandstream, an elite earth spell—and unleashed it with desperate force. There was no time to erect a barrier. Against a caster of Belamus’s caliber, even a magical shield would have been torn apart anyway.
The spells collided in a blinding clash of light and earth. Raw, opposing energies roared across the battlefield before canceling one another out, exploding into a flash that left both casters unharmed but breathless.
Then Aled moved to regain control of the golems, but he wasn’t fast enough. Navasha had already closed the distance, surging into his guard with shocking agility. Her blade came down in a sharp arc, aimed squarely at his chest.
Forced to react, Aled dropped the Black Golem control and turned his full attention to her. With a sharp incantation, he conjured a Black Sword, a weapon of jet-colored stone, forged from the same enchanted material as his Black Golems. Its surface gleamed with unnatural hardness as he caught her strike, blade to blade.
Aled had power, terrifying, overwhelming power, but when it came to swordplay, he was a rank amateur. Even with his body enhanced by magic, his form was clumsy, his movements shallow. And against someone like Navasha, who thrived in the chaos of close-quarters combat, that gap in skill became impossible to ignore.
She pressed the attack relentlessly, forcing him into a defensive stance. Every strike drove him back, and when he finally leapt away to regain distance, Belamus was already waiting. He fired a Shining Lance; he couldn’t afford to unleash another Saint Breaker so soon, but the holy spear of light still tore through the air with deadly force.
Aled threw up a magical barrier just in time. The lance shattered against it, the light scattering harmlessly. It lacked the overwhelming might of the previous spell, but it kept Aled off balance.
Then the others arrived.
Medello, Liza, Gregald, and Rumalus joined the fray, and Medello unleashed a wave of magic powerful enough to force Aled to shield himself again right away. It wasn’t just raw force anymore; it was pressure from all sides.
While Aled fended off Medello’s spells, the others closed in. Liza, Gregald, Rumalus, and Navasha fell into an impromptu formation, attacking in fluid, instinctive coordination. They’d barely fought together before, but their talent and experience spoke for themselves. Each of them read the battlefield with deadly precision, adjusting their positions and strikes as if they’d trained as a unit for years.
Aled struggled to keep up. Navasha’s blade slipped through his guard and cut into his shoulder. A hiss of pain escaped his lips.
“Ghhh—!”
His eyes, so steady moments before, now flickered with panic. And that moment, just one moment, was all it took.
Belamus and the others weren’t the kind to let an opening slip by. They pushed harder, faster, hammering their opponent with attacks to make sure he’d never recover his footing. Blades and magic poured in from every angle, relentless and unceasing.