Nayla’s lips curved into a bitter smile as she reached to run her fingers through Sophia’s hair, but the smile froze, drained from her face in an instant.
The air shifted.
Her head snapped toward the direction of the divine plane’s focal point. The atmosphere itself warped— thin air trembling as if it were being pressed from the other side. Fine cracks etched themselves across the sky like jagged mirrors, each one shimring with pale light.
Then the cracks spread wide, the air stretching like jelly pulled too far.
The others noticed. The cultivators who had been in quiet ditation rose at once, their origin energy surging, weapons flashing into their hands.
The fire essence that had once seed like nourishnt now felt suffocating, as though it anticipated the birth of sothing dreadful.
The fabric of space tore open.
Through it forced a shape— wreathed in gold ashes and flas, a blazing wraith with the unmistakable form of a crow. Each flap of its molten wings scattered burning motes into the air, and the weight of its presence alone made the world tremble.
Nayla’s body moved before thought could catch up. Instinct roared, and the origin Energy inside her surged.
"Fire Crest— Sesa Seed Technique!".
Her jaw parted wide, and divine fire poured out in a shrieking curtain, the flas cascading like a tidal wave. Mid-air, the inferno fractured, splintering into countless embers— tiny, glowing sesa seeds— each one pulsing with violent intent. They sward, spinning like a storm, and hurled themselves against the golden crow.
The impact rang out like hail against tal. The air quaked under the collision.
For a breath, Nayla expected eruption. She expected her fire to detonate in a fury that would scorch the wraith into nothingness.
But no detonation ca.
The golden crow did not resist. It absorbed.
The sesa seeds vanished into its flas like sparks swallowed by a furnace. Its body blazed brighter, hotter, expanding with each particle of fla it devoured. Its three golden talons gripped the air like the earth itself, its molten feathers radiating waves of unbearable heat.
Nayla’s blood ran cold.
"Get back!" she roared, whipping around to Sophia, voice edged with command.
Her technique had been grade three— a level that should have been more than enough to obliterate any ordinary spirit or beast. For it to be consud so effortlessly, as though it were nothing more than kindling...
Her gut clenched. There was only one explanation.
It was stronger. Higher. A force above her grade.
Her gaze flicked to the others. Their weapons trembled in their hands, sweat breaking across foreheads not only from heat, but fear.
If the golden crow was truly a higher grade...
The chance of survival was no longer slim. It was zero.
The crow descended with a sound like molten glass fracturing. Its talons struck the ground, sparks hissing across the stone. Then, before their stunned eyes, its colossal body unraveled— golden flas shredding feather, bone, and shadow until all that remained was drifting ash.
The ashes twisted, condensed, folded inward.
In less than a heartbeat, a figure lay where the crow had been.
Cecilia.
Her body was naked, pale skin bathed in molten light, her chest rising faintly with shallow breaths. Her aura pulsed with golden fire— soaked in the unmistakable signature of the Golden Crow.
Nayla’s mind reeled. Was this the artifact? No— this was the spirit of a divine creature itself, fused into Cecilia’s very being.
Her shock lasted only a second. Duty snapped her back.
From her battle Suit pocket she drew two items. First, a handkerchief the color of night, embroidered with the Hearth-crest of the Kindlehart clan. She wrapped it tightly around Cecilia’s wrist, whispering words under her breath. The cloth flared once, tightening around the skin.
It was ant for suppressing curses. After her husband incident she always took one with her.
With her other hand she withdrew a vial, blowing its white powder across Cecilia’s chest. The powder shimred, dissolved, then glowed cyan, resonating with her soul. Nayla’s tense shoulders loosened a fraction. Relief surged.
"This is her". She breathed.
But before the relief could settle, the air scread.
Cracks webbed across the chamber like lightning frozen mid-strike. The space around them shuddered violently, rupturing in jagged lines. In seconds, the entire plane began to collapse.
The forceful tearing of space by the crow had destabilized the realm itself.
There was no ti for bla. No ti for panic. They had to escape— but her followers were already stumbling, faces pale, struggling to stabilize themselves against the quaking ground. They would only slow her.
And she knew— this wasn’t the kind of collapse one could outrun.
Her chest constricted as her mind flickered back to a month ago.
The mistress had summoned her in private, her voice heavy with foresight. "This realm will not be kind to my daughter. If sothing happens... you will protect her. Even at the cost of everything."
She had given Nayla one of the clan’s hidden techniques, a forbidden crest-art that demanded life itself as fuel. Nayla had trained in secret, forcing her body to withstand its pull.
But there was no denying it— if she used it to carry her entire entourage, she would not be able to withstand it’s effect. She could not carry everyone.
She could only carry three lives. Hers, and two others. No more.
Her decision crystallized in a heartbeat.
Cecilia. Sophia.
The others... she clenched her teeth. They would never forgive her. But she could not let the mistress’s lastborn die. Nor could she abandon her daughter.
She gathered Cecilia’s limp body into her arms, then reached out with her free hand to rest it on Sophia’s trembling shoulder.
Her voice wavered, only once.
"Forgive ."
The others stared, confusion dawning into horror. They began to shout, reaching toward her. But Nayla had already begun.
"Fire Crest— Dragonfly Release!"
Her body ignited— not in flas, but in fragnts of shimring light. Her form dissolved into a thousand tiny dragonflies, wings beating like sparks of glass. Cecilia’s unconscious form and Sophia’s startled body unraveled as well, their shapes scattering into the swarm.
In less than a second, three human figures were gone. In their place, a storm of luminous dragonflies swirled, their collective hum sharp and mournful.
The swarm scattered, flowing like liquid fire, surging toward the fractured exit of the realm.
Behind them, the rest of the cohort stood frozen— faces twisted in despair and betrayal— as the collapsing world roared like thunder, swallowing everything whole.
The swarm of dragonflies streaked toward the exit, luminous wings cutting through the chaos.
Behind them, the rest of the cohort scrambled in desperation, origin energy flaring as they threw every movent technique they knew into the collapsing void.
But the realm was no longer a place of rules.
A crack, jagged as lightning, lanced through the chamber. One man was caught mid-leap. For an instant his torso floated, suspended in the air, perfectly frozen like a painting in one dinsion— while his lower half simply slid away, collapsing wetly onto the shattered floor. His scream never ca.
The others fared no better.
A woman’s blade shattered into sparks before she did, her body splintering into a thousand motes of ash as a spatial fissure carved clean through her. Another Sorcerer tried to summon the power of his Avater only for the rift to fold his head sideways, compressing him into nothing.
One by one, they fell— cut down not by an enemy, but by the rciless jaws of collapsing space.
No resistance mattered. All were equal in the face of collapsing Space.
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[If you like the story please do comnt, it’s the only way I know if soone is reading it]
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