[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: Outskirts]

[Rumpelstadt Mines]

"Damn it… what the hell…" Ivan coughed out, voice rasping as he pushed himself up on shaking arms. The air was so thick with dust it felt like he was breathing ground-up stone. His lungs burned. His eyes watered. It was almost hard to tell if the world was still shaking or if that was just his nerves refusing to settle.

Beside him, Alexander remained upright—barely. Dust streaked across his face, his posture rigid, every muscle coiled. His eyes never once left Conroy.

Ivan blinked through the haze. The forest that had surrounded the mines was gone—not merely uprooted, but almost completely destroyed. Trunks were snapped clean in half, others speared into the ground like crude markers. The soil had been turned inside out, veins of darker earth exposed beneath spiderwebbing cracks that plunged into the depths.

Among the carnage lay bodies—Retorta Guild members flung like discarded toys. Some twisted in ways the human body was never meant to twist. Some impaled by half-shattered branches. One crushed so brutally that Ivan had to force himself not to stare.

His stomach churned.

Alexander shifted beside him, jaw tight. Even he looked unnerved—if not by the gore, then by the inexplicable force that caused all of it.

Another deep boom resounded somewhere beyond the treeline, the force rolling over them with intense pressure. It was followed by dull, hammering collisions—something powerful striking something equally powerful.

Alexander winced, hands instinctively rising toward his ears. "Fucking hell… that noise is—" He cut himself off, eyes narrowing again at Conroy.

Legatus Conroy stood perfectly still. Dust clung to his attire, a small tear marked his sleeve, but his posture remained disturbingly composed. Yet the faint tightening around his eyes and the set of his jaw betrayed it—he didn't know what was happening either.

"No," Conroy whispered to himself, barely audible. "I've a job to finish." His fingers flexed at his side. His gaze locked on the two with renewed focus. There was discipline in that stare. But also something else—perhaps his fear buried beneath a sense of duty. ("I will not disappoint my lady.")

He closed his eyes briefly, exhaled hard, and drew himself upright, reasserting control. "I hope," Conroy called out, voice carrying despite the lingering rumble of the ground, "you do not actually believe this destruction changes anything."

Alexander spat to the side. "Tch. Wouldn't dream of it."

His stance shifted—left foot forward, hands raised, not clenched but open, fingers angled like claws ready to cut.

Ivan swallowed, forcing himself to focus. His gaze drifted to a curved blade half-buried in dirt—a Retorta Guild weapon flung from its owner. He bent, grasping it. The metal felt strangely light in his hand.

"Let's… let's do this…" Ivan breathed, though the tremor in his voice betrayed both dread and resolve.

Alexander gave him a brief glance. "You sure?" he muttered. "This guy's a Legatus. We won't get away with playing nice. If we commit…" His throat bobbed. "…we're gonna have to kill him."

Ivan didn't look away from Conroy. His lips thinned. His grip tightened. But he said nothing.

"Kill me, hm?" Conroy let out a cold chuckle. "That is not something you shall be capable of."

A soundless pressure exploded outward from him—an invisible tide slamming into the air. Dust spiraled upward in a ring. Ivan's cloak snapped violently behind him. Alexander's hair whipped sideways. The outline of Conroy's form distorted under the twisting force—mana, dense and tightly compressed.

"A wizard, then…" Alexander muttered. His eyes narrowed. ("How the hell did he hide that much mana so damn well? Tsk… doesn't matter.")

Ivan braced. His heartbeat quickened. Conroy's presence felt like a grinding weight pressing against his ribs.

The Legatus raised his hand.

A glyph burst into existence—huge, circular and burning with churning orange flame. It wasn't stable; it writhed like it was barely containing the fire inside.

A roaring torrent of flame blasted outward in the next instance, a wave of heat so intense the air seemed to scream. The ground beneath the flames blackened instantly, molten lines appearing in their wake. The heat slapped both in the face long before the fire reached them.

Ivan stepped forward.

His breathing slowed.

His right eye began to glow.

Violet shifted to red and red deepened into a searing scarlet.

And in its center—

the black, broken crown.

His vision changed as the world sharpened. And there they were. Red threads—thin strands hovering above the oncoming inferno. Lines of fate? Probability? Possibility? He never fully understood them. He didn't need to.

He simply cut them.

The blade sliced through empty air—yet something ripped.

The fire, still meters away, suddenly detonated mid-flight, bursting outward in a violent scatter of embers. The inferno collapsed into swirling particles of mana that dissolved into the wind.

Conroy didn't flinch.

"I see," he murmured. "You are a Nil. Then it is exactly as my Lady foretold. A rather troublesome breed of ability." His shoulders squared slightly, power drawing tighter around him. "Still… it is not enough. Judging by your presence, you are only at your second stage of evolution. Any higher…" A faint smile curved his lips. "…and you would have defeated me already."

"That's still going to happen," Alexander growled.

Conroy tilted his head. "We shall see."

The tremors continued in the distance, each one louder and more violent than the last.

But Alexander didn't wait for another word to be exchanged. The moment his muscles coiled, then—without hesitation, without breath—he charged.

His footsteps were sharp, cutting through the scattered rubble beneath them, each stride punctuated by the rasp of his altered claws dragging streaks through the air. Conroy's eyes narrowed, catching the detail: Alexander's claws were longer, sharper, and carried a metallic sheen

The Legatus shifted his weight just slightly, enough for his stance to settle. "He's fast," he muttered under his breath. Not impressed.

The first swipe came in a blur of silver, Alexander's arm cutting through the air with a force that whistled. Conroy's body tilted back in a clean motion, the claw barely missing his throat. Another slash followed immediately, then another—Alexander attacking in a rhythm that felt half-instinct, half-rage.

Conroy slipped between the attacks with steadiness. His tail coat flicked with each dodge, his boots scraping lightly as he pivoted. His expression didn't twist as he remained almost calm, save for the incremental tightening around his eyes as Alexander's speed kept rising.

"Is this all anger," Conroy said under his breath as he slid under another slash, "or is there thought buried somewhere in that frenzy?"

He didn't get long to wonder.

Because Ivan appeared behind him abruptly, his blade came down in a clean vertical cut aimed for the Legatus's shoulder.

Conroy moved just in time, spinning out of the sword's reach, the steel carving a deep line into the ground where he'd stood only a heartbeat before.

Conroy exhaled slowly, irritation flickering across his face. "You two really do enjoy interrupting."

He extended his right hand toward Alexander. His fingers spread apart, each joint locking into place. The air tightened around his palm, compressing into something fierce.

Alexander's eyes widened, instincts screaming.

Conroy's palm ignited with a burst of lightning, violently bright—white at the core, blue at the edges. The force of its forming alone shook the dust around his boots.

Then it fired.

A spear of lightning launched forward, ripping through the air so fast the world barely had a moment to register it. The ground beneath its path scorched instantly, glowing lines carved into the ground.

Alexander froze, just for that blink—a realization that he wouldn't move in time.

But Ivan saw something the others didn't.

Just for a moment, thin as a hair—a red thread. A line running from Conroy's hand to the path of the lightning.

Ivan didn't think, he merely reacted.

He swung his sword, not at Conroy, not at the lightning—

but through the thread.

The moment the blade cut through it, the air seemed to shiver. The lightning veered—just slightly, impossibly—and slammed into the ground beside Alexander instead of through his chest. The impact exploded outward in a deafening crack, sending sparks scattering. The shockwave rippled through the air, pushing Alexander back a step but leaving him unscathed.

Conroy's eyes widened slightly.

"…Interesting," he thought quietly. Because his magic wasn't nullified, nor was it disrupted or diminished.

It simply… missed.

He watched the smoke curl from the scorched ground, watched Alexander regain his footing, watched Ivan lower his blade.

("That wasn't another coincidence. His Schema interfered. But not with my spell—with its path.")

His gaze settled on Ivan.

"Quite a curious Null Schema you have," Conroy mused. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. The remark landed in the air between them like an accusation. Conroy let that silence linger, as though studying what it did to their faces. "But odd," he continued lightly, "how my Pyrosophy was all but nullified… yet that lightning merely missed."

His eyes sharpened.

"Seems you alter the outcomes of things," he went on, "but only if those outcomes remain within the realm of realism. No absurd miracles. No impossible reversals." His gaze turn almost lazily toward the scorched ground where Alexander should have been dead. "My Pyrosophy wasn't nullified. I unconsciously poured too much mana into that attack, causing it to implode under too much fuel."

He said it almost reflectively, as though recounting a trivial mistake. The Legatus let out a slow breath, his posture composed, his voice even as he explained—not bragging or taunting, simply presenting the truth as he saw it.

Ivan's brows knit, tension pulling at the corners of his jaw. ("He figured that much out from just two uses of my Null Schema?")

A pensive expression took shape on his face—though he tried to bury it, Conroy's deduction pressed against him. His eyes drifted to Ivan's right eye—the red one etched with the broken crown sigil, faintly glowing.

"I imagine it's that limited because your evolution isn't as high," the Legatus hummed, sounding almost casual. "Quite the pesky Schema, I must say."

Alexander's patience snapped.

"You talk too much," he spat, his voice sharp. His stance shifted—ready to spring.

Conroy, unfazed, simply continued talking as though Alexander had never opened his mouth.

"It's a bad match for magic," he said matter-of-factly. "Our realm's magic does stem from quite the powerful source, you know. Structured and endlessly layered. And your Schema—" he nodded toward Ivan, "—is disruptive, yes, but not absolute. Versatility is all I need to beat it." He declared it with confidence, not arrogance. And confidence was far more unsettling.

Ivan inhaled slowly, keeping his voice steady. "It won't be that easy." But inside, tension coiled around him. ("I have an inkling as to my own Schema, but I've still yet to properly develop it… yet he discovered the basis so quickly.") His thoughts twisted, sharp and urgent. ("We have to finish this now. I can't risk Alexander going out of control just to beat him. I have to step up.")

Ivan's grip tightened on his weapon as he tried to steady his breathing.

Conroy, noticing the shift, tilted his head with a smirk.

"You look troubled," he said. "Almost as if you expected more time to experiment."

Ivan didn't rise to the bait. "You're analyzing me as though I am some subject, meaning you're underestimating me."

"Well," Conroy replied with a shrug, "you are interesting. And I don't often find interesting people."

Alexander growled, taking a step forward. "Continue running your mouth and—"

"And what?" Conroy interrupted, voice calm. "You'll lose control? What good would that do? You would merely put dear Prince Ivan in danger. Were it not for him, you would be dead moments ago."

Alexander's fists trembled—whether from rage or restraint was impossible to tell.

Ivan stepped slightly in front of him, his voice firm. "Alexander. Not now."

Alexander exhaled shakily, struggling to center himself. "I just hate the way he talks."

Conroy chuckled under his breath. "Most people who hate the truth respond like that."

Ivan's gaze hardened. "It just seems to be your arrogance speaking."

"No," Conroy replied softly, "This is merely the truth."

There was a brief, heavy silence.

Then Ivan spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. "You think understanding me gives you control over this fight."

"It does," Conroy answered. "Knowledge always tilts the balance."

"Not this time," Ivan said.

Conroy raised a brow. "Oh? And what makes you so sure?"

Ivan took one step forward, voice steady, and unflinching. "You're not the only one studying the battlefield."

That made Conroy pause.

Ivan continued, his tone deepening. "You talk like you've got us figured out. Like everything we are boils down to your magic and my evolution levels and predictable behavior." He shook his head. "But you've missed something."

Conroy's eyes narrowed slightly. "Which is?"

Ivan's answer came calmly. "You don't understand why we're fighting you. And that's the kind of ignorance that gets a man killed."

Conroy's lips tightened—not quite a frown, but the closest thing to irritation he'd shown yet. "You believe conviction will compensate for your lack of control?"

"No," Ivan replied. "But it will compensate for my fear."

Alexander glanced at Ivan, genuinely surprised by the honesty.

Ivan pressed on, "And fear—properly held—sharpens our intent. You aren't the only one who can read patterns, Conroy. I see things too."

"Then show me, Prince Ivan." The Legatus stated.

"I plan to," Ivan said.

Alexander stepped beside him, claws flexing, shoulders squared. "So do I."

For the first time, Conroy's expression shifted from mere curiosity to a much colder one. He drew in a slow breath. "Very well. If you both insist on making this difficult..." His mana began to rise again—"...then I suppose I'll have to escalate my approach."

Ivan's heartbeat hammered in his chest. ("This is it. No more delay. No more waiting for an opening. I have to act before Alexander breaks.")

The fight resumed.

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