The hound seed more capable than any being that they ever encountered; they couldn’t find its weak point at all.
Lukas, still standing protectively over his mother, watched the carnage with wide eyes.
He could see the similarities now—between Jorghan and Hawkin’s fighting styles, between their forms, and between the way power moved through their bodies.
"Mom, Dad," he said quietly, never taking his eyes off Jorghan.
"Who is he? Really?"
The woman’s face had gone pale as death.
Jamie Moorne had backed away to the edge of the platform, his mind clearly struggling to process what he was witnessing.
Scarlett, still lying among the debris, had regained enough awareness to crawl away from the fighting. Her compulsion was breaking, shattered by the sheer overwhelming presence of Jorghan’s power. She looked at him with dawning recognition—this was the man who had saved her, who had promised to protect her.
But now he seed like sothing else entirely, sothing otherworldly and terrible.
Hawkin and Jorghan separated, Hawkin breathing hard.
Jorghan was not even sweating. He looked calm; his earlier anger had now converted into a subtle rage.
Hawkin’s golden armor was cracked in places, with blood running from cuts on his face and arms. The armor, which he thought was the strongest, was now breaking under Jorghan’s continuous assault.
Jorghan looked barely touched, his ancestral bloodline’s regeneration keeping him in near-perfect condition despite the intensity of the combat.
Hawkin’s breath ca shallow and ragged, eyes wide as the truth struck him like a hamr to the chest. He had underestimated Jorghan—terribly so. He had thought the boy was rely talented, another reckless prodigy who overreached his station.
But now... now he saw what he truly was.
The air around Jorghan rippled with pressure—his mana thick, dark, and alive, like a tide of crimson smoke coiling around him.
Hawkin could feel it.
That dreadful aura that reeked of blood and wrath. It wasn’t just raw power—it was heritage, ancient and sacred.
The Sol’vur clan bloodline.
He had failed to inherit it, no matter how much he trained, no matter how many rituals he endured. The blood of the ancients, the lineage that once ruled their clan with unshakable might—it had bypassed him.
All that divine potential, all that pride, had gone instead to this young man standing before him.
Jorghan.
Damn your son, Ser’gu!
The sa man who once stood in the great hall of the clan, fla-shaped sigils burning beneath his feet, his power radiating like a sun. The sa man Hawkin had sworn he would surpass one day.
And now the son stood before him, his aura a perfect echo of that sa infernal glory.
A slow burn began in Hawkin’s chest.
Rage.
Envy.
The sa corrosive fury that had eaten him alive for years now roared to life again. His nails dug into his palms until blood welled up from the crescent wounds.
It wasn’t fair.
He had clawed his way to the top—he had bled for his nine stars. He had sacrificed everything for a fraction of the power this young man seed to wield effortlessly.
And yet, even now, fate mocked him with its cruel symtry.
"Father and son," he hissed under his breath.
"Both the sa... both looking down on ."
The air trembled as Hawkin’s mana flared—violent, uncontrolled. His aura distorted, pulsing in erratic waves as fury and humiliation tore at his composure.
Jorghan’s eyes flicked toward him—calm, steady, almost pitying.
That expression, that infuriating stillness, made sothing snap in Hawkin.
He couldn’t stand it.
Not again.
Not another Sol’vur standing above him, making him feel small.
He gritted his teeth, veins standing out on his forehead, as his voice cracked with venom:
"You think you’re special because of that cursed bloodline? Because the goddess smiled on your father and spat on mine?"
His body trembled with raw emotion, the air vibrating around him as his control began to slip.
"I’ll show you, Jorghan. I’ll show you what a failure looks like when he burns everything that made him human!"
His aura exploded outward in a violent storm of black and gold mana, searing the ground beneath his boots. The dust whipped around them, and a rumbling sound echoed from the heavens above as two imnse forces began to clash—bloodline versus defiance, legacy versus resentnt.
Jorghan didn’t move.
He only lifted his gaze slightly, his expression still unreadable.
Right then, Jorghan saw it first as a sar against the sky—a ship, hulking and wrong, drifting down from the clouds. It did not belong to any design he knew; its silhouette cut the clouds.
Though, Hawkin did not wait for wonder.
He surged forward like a storm given shape, sword a black cot in his hands.
Jorghan t him, aura whipping out in a single, furious lash.
The air between them snapped.
Light bent.
Then, as if torn from so infernal banner, four wings unfurled from Jorghan’s back—great, molten-red appendages that seethed like flowing rock and hissed with every beat.
[Alae Excidii]
People who were watching from a distance saw Jorghan and his wings. They looked gigantic and majestic; he looked like a devil descended from the fiery depths of hell itself. The sight was both terrifying and awe-inspiring, leaving the onlookers frozen in place as the battle between Hawkin and Jorghan unfolded before them.
Hawkin rembered seeing those wings before, at the floating isles. But he didn’t linger.
Hawkin’s blade sang; steel t uncanny force.
Jorghan absorbed the blows, each strike a test he answered with cold rationality.
And the Bloodhound stood over the dead soldiers’ bodies, gazing towards his master.
He didn’t kill Caden and his mother, as Jorghan ordered him not to.
Those who watched their lord fighting the devil thought Hawkin stood no chance at winning.
And moreover, Jorghan was kept on absorbing the negative energy.
[MANA ABSORPTION STABLE]
[NEGATIVE ENERGY INBOUND]
He blocked, parried, pulled the sword from its arc, and caught the length of tal in gloved hands. With a single planted kick the weapon snapped, a clean fracture that showered sparks into the dust.
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