Warlock Ch 393. Choosing The Battlefield
Damian didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
But sothing inside him twisted.
She was right.
And he hated that she could see it.
"You're Kaelan, aren't you?" she said finally.
It wasn't a question.
Just a quiet truth.
Damian stared.
And then stepped back toward the rail.
"I don't know who that is," he lied.
Lysandra's smile was faint, tired. "Then keep running. But just know—I'm not chasing to kill you. I'm chasing because I think you might be the only one left who can stop what's coming."
He blinked behind the mask.
And then stepped onto the rail bridge.
The wind howled around him as the city's edge vanished behind the fog.
He didn't look back.
Because for once… he wasn't running.
He was choosing his battlefield.
The wood and steel beneath his boots groaned faintly, worn from decades of rain and disuse. Below him, the cliff dropped sharply into darkness, the trees far below barely visible through the haze. The scent of ozone still lingered in the air. He was past Haven's last periter ward now—out where even the city's watchers stopped watching.
But the footsteps kept coming.
He stepped off the bridge, cloak whipping behind him, and sprinted through the clearing. The light of Haven behind him dimd, swallowed by the rising mist and thick forest that pressed against the broken rail line. Trees towered like skeletal fingers, their branches clawing at the sky.
Damian dropped low behind a moss-covered rock and activated [Shadow Step].
He blinked twenty ters to the left, landing in silence.
Again—[Shadow Step].
Then again.
He moved through the fog like a ghost—no scent, no sound, no aura. The system bled mana with each jump, but he didn't care.
He needed space.
He needed ti.
And yet…
She kept finding him.
She didn't teleport.
She didn't fly.
She just tracked.
A flicker in the mist—silver armor glinting for half a second through the trees.
"Tch," Damian muttered, clicking his tongue. His voice ca out dry, low, laced with that sharp thread of frustration that ant he was starting to get annoyed. "I expected nothing less from a dragon."
He ducked under a low branch and vanished again.
[Shadow Step]
He couldn't afford to overuse it.
Not now.
Especially not when his mana bar hovered under 30%.
The next clearing opened wide, full of moss and cracked stones from a long-collapsed chapel. The scent here was different—older. Dust, buried stone, and faded magic that still clung to the air like a whisper of the gods who were once worshipped here.
He skidded to a stop behind one of the crumbled statues, breathing slow, calm.
If she wanted to keep chasing, fine.
But he wasn't going to play hunted forever.
He cast [Observation].
It pinged back faint traces—enough to show her general location, but not enough to make a move without giving himself away.
Still… too close.
She was tracking his steps. His mana. His presence.
She wasn't even using a spell for it.
She was feeling him.
A dragon's instincts.
That made her dangerous.
He clenched his jaw behind the mask.
No more hiding.
Not if she was already this far in.
Still crouched, he drew his fingers along the edge of the ruined stone beside him and pressed into the cracks, leaving a bit of blood behind. Old trick. Old misdirection.
He activated [Spectral Surge] and bolted through the opposite side of the clearing, looping wide—deliberate, calculated steps—making sure the mark behind him would be obvious enough to lead her astray for at least a second or two.
Just long enough.
He reached the forest edge, where the trees thinned into the rocky ridge sloping down toward the riverbank. That was his out. That water was deep. The current was fast. If he could leap from the cliff and survive the landing—
He stopped.
The wind shifted.
And then she landed.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just there.
A dozen ters ahead.
Her armor was scratched now. Dirty with soot from the earlier pursuit. But her eyes still glowed. Not with rage. Not with bloodlust.
With focus.
"I can still sll the city on you," she said, her voice calm and even. "And fear."
He didn't answer.
She took a step forward.
"I'm not here to kill you, Kaelan."
He didn't flinch at the na, but his grip on the Hellfire Spear tightened behind the cloak.
"I'm not Kaelan," he said, voice low.
Lysandra tilted her head, not quite smiling. "Then why do you keep running like him?"
Damian's silence was a wall she didn't bother trying to break.
"I know what they did to you. What they said. What they made people believe." She stepped closer again. "I watched it happen, you know. I watched them paint your death like justice. Just enough blood on their hands to call it truth."
Damian's pulse ticked faster.
"I'm not here to kill you," she said again. "But I am here for answers."
He finally moved.
Not toward her.
But away—faster than the eye could follow.
She blinked.
[Shadow Step]
This ti, he didn't blink from the ground.
He blinked above.
High. Into the trees.
Landed on a thick branch and vanished into the canopy.
But Lysandra was already moving, her gauntlets glowing faintly as the wind coiled around her boots and lifted her just enough to follow.
"You can run," she said, voice still calm. "But I'm not going to stop."
Damian muttered a curse under his breath and dropped into a low crouch. "Fine," he hissed. "Let's make this harder, then."
He threw a flare behind him—Arcane Disruptor—just bright enough to blind anyone looking straight at it.
The forest exploded in white light.
He didn't wait.
He sprinted again, weaving through the treeline until the brush thinned and the ridge opened below.
The river roared ahead. Cold. Fast. Sharp rocks glead under the surface.
But it was his best shot.
"Can't keep this going forever…" he muttered.
He tossed one last [Dark Bolt] behind him—just enough to slow her if she got too close.
Then he jumped.
The wind scread past him. Trees vanished. The cliff disappeared behind.
And then—
The plunge.
The water hit like a freight train—icy and brutal.
Everything spun.
And the current took him.
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