The heat was intense. The shadow wall hissed and boiled away under the concentrated thermal energy released by the Efreetis' attacks.

Viren was forced to bail out. He leaped backward, abandoning his dignity for survival, as the fire turned the ground he stood on into molten slag.

He landed in a crouch, smoke rising from his singed coat.

He wasn't unharmed anymore. A burn mark marred his cheek, which made Viren's assessment of Reidar change again. But at the same time, he knew he was stronger than him from a physical perspective, although Reidar's mana was far bigger than his.

"You move well for a corpse," he said as he drank a mana potion.

"Between you and me, you are the corpse. Look at how pale you are! Oh, but… Is that blood?"

Viren touched his cheek. He looked at the blood on his fingers.

His expression shifted from cold detachment to anger.

"You think this changes anything?" Viren asked. "You scratched me. Congratulations."

He stood up. The surrounding shadows spiked, turning into razor-sharp needles.

"But you are running out of mana, Miller. I can feel it."

Reidar didn't deny it. Summoning this many high-tier creatures and keeping them active while casting debuffs and spells was draining him dry, even with his summons helping him in producing more titans, and even if he had more mana than Viren.

"You are not the only one with mana potions. And besides," he paused. "I have enough to bury you."

He pointed his wand at the man.

The Terran Bulwarks advanced. They made the ground tremble with each step they took, which was nothing short of an apocalyptic scene. The distance between them reduced with each step, and even Viren was not untouched by how terrifying that scene was.

The Spectral Legion poured over the ridge, filling the gaps left by the titans. They were not going to do much, but even a little was still better than nothing.

Viren scoffed. He swept his hand in a horizontal arc.

Shadow Wave.

A tidal wave of darkness crashed into the front line. The wave was ten feet high and moved fast. It hit the lesser summons first. The shadows passed through them and tore them apart.

Within seconds, thousands of them were gone, making Reidar have the urge to buy more summoning skills. The problem was that the mana cost increased with each tier higher they were.

The Terran Bulwarks groaned as the wave hit them, producing a sound like stone grinding against stone while the force spider-webbed cracks across their torsos.

As the wave tore at them, peeling away layers of compacted dirt and breaking chunks of earth from their limbs, twenty Bulwarks failed to withstand the pressure; they fractured from the inside out and collapsed into loose piles of gravel.

However, the others held their ground by digging their feet deeper into the earth, trembling yet remaining alive as the wave passed over them. Capitalizing on the destruction, Viren didn't stop but instead sprinted forward through the gap he had created.

The air screamed as a massive limb of knotted oak swept toward him with enough force to pulverize everything. Viren crouched.

The wind of the blow whipped his hair as the timber roared inches above his scalp, but he didn't lose a fraction of speed.

Momentum carried him beneath the monster, and he slammed his palm against the torso, feeling the bark bite into his skin as his fingers found their purchase.

Implode.

The Behemoth's chest imploded, breaking apart, and showering the air with splinters. The titan hit the earth, trembling the very ground Viren ran on, but he was already gone.

There was no resistance, only the feeling of inevitability as he carved a straight line toward Reidar.

Reidar summoned more creatures, but Viren didn't attack them.

He cast Shadow Step again, bypassing the summons entirely and appearing ten meters from Reidar.

"Got you!"

He raised his hand. A spear of shadow formed, aiming for Reidar's chest.

Reidar didn't have the agility to dodge a Level 335 attack at point-blank range.

Instead, he ordered a Terran Bulwark to Shield him, and he hid behind it.

The earth elemental threw itself in front of Reidar, turning its body into a wall of stone.

The shadow spear slammed into the Bulwark, and the stone exploded.

Shrapnel flew everywhere. A rock the size of a fist caught Reidar in the shoulder, spinning him around and knocking him to the dirt.

The pain flared, but it didn't come with the tear of flesh as Viren expected. Reidar was still here.

He watched the spear shatter and dissolve against his Bulwark and realized that his defense barely held.

He scrambled backward and rolled onto his back, his lungs burning as he sucked in air, trying to force it past the knot of panic in his throat.

Viren walked through the dust cloud. He looked annoyed.

"Stop delaying the inevitable," Viren said. "It's pathetic."

He raised his hand for another strike, but it was at that moment that he saw Reidar grinning.

"Look behind you."

Viren turned and paused, just to see the Cinderheart Efreetis, who had been repositioning while the mutant focused on Reidar.

The air around Viren detonated because of a localized combustion of the mana in the surroundings.

Viren screamed as the fire enveloped him. He cast Dome of Night, wrapping himself in a cocoon of darkness to snuff out the flames.

But the damage was done. The explosion had knocked him off his feet and done quite a bit of it. He was on the ground.

"Now!" Reidar shouted.

The Twin Boulderbacks converged. They didn't punch this time. They threw themselves onto the dark dome, piling on top of the Deacon with thousands of tons of living stone.

The ground shook as the pile and the weight grew.

Reidar lay in the dirt, breathing hard. His shoulder was screaming at him, and his mana was dangerously low.

But Viren was buried again. It wouldn't hold him forever. Maybe not even for a minute.

But every second Viren spent digging himself out of a hole was a second he wasn't trying to kill him. And right now, seconds were the only currency Reidar had left.

He tried to sit up, but his arm gave out. The rock that had hit him had done more than just bruise; he felt the grinding shift of a broken collarbone. His vision swam, gray spots dancing at the edges of his sight.

This was it. He had thrown everything he had at the Deacon—armies of skeletons, titans of stone and fire—and Viren was still just... annoyed.

The pile of Boulderbacks shuddered.

A beam of pure darkness shot up through the gaps in the stone, dissolving the granite into nothingness. The Dome of Night expanded, pushing the tons of rock aside like they were styrofoam.

Viren rose from the crater.

He wasn't calm anymore. His coat was gone, burned away by the Efreetis' skills. His skin was scorched black on one side, peeling away to reveal flesh.

"Enough games," Viren hissed. He extended his hand.

The shadows on the ridge—the ones cast by the rocks, the trees, and even Reidar's own body. They all surged toward the Deacon.

Reidar tried to summon a Terran Bulwark. A spark fizzled at the tip of his wand and died.

Mana Exhaustion.

The tank was empty. He had burned the last drop on the Boulderbacks.

Viren stepped forward. The shadows rose behind him, forming a jagged scythe that hung like an executioner's blade.

"You fought well," Viren said. "But you are still just a man in a cage."

The scythe descended.

Reidar stared at it. He didn't close his eyes. He thought of Marcus's voice, tinny and small, asking him to bring the big swords. Of Martha, waiting in a city he would never reach.

The shame was colder than the shadow magic. He had promised. He had sworn he was coming.

And he had failed.

The blade of darkness filled his vision, blotting out the sky. Then, a blur of silver flashed across his field of view.

CLANG.

The sound of metal striking something rang out, shattering the silence.

The shadow scythe stopped inches from Reidar's face, held back by a pair of crossed daggers sparking with lightning.

Reidar blinked, his brain struggling to process the image.

Lena stood over him, her knees buckling under Viren's strength, her arms trembling. Blood dripped from her nose, but her teeth were bared in a snarl.

And beside her, covered in dust and grime, stood Jake.

"Sorry we're late," Lena said, the strain clear in her voice. "Traffic was a nightmare."

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