Chapter 53 - Scorched Birds

"What was that feeling I experienced? It was as if... a dragon had come back to life... Nghhk!" Igorus muttered to himself, sitting on the edge of his bed. The plan the queen had told him about still gnawed at him from within. He clenched his hands tightly over his thighs, he squeezed them so hard that eventually, his muscles went numb.

He rose, walked to the wardrobe, and pulled open the door. Hanging before his eyes was an intimidating bronze-colored armor, half-hidden in the shadow that covered it.

Igorus turned his head and looked toward his son, who was reading quietly in the living room. Then, glancing back at the armor, he whispered, "Forgive me, my son."

He lifted the armor from the wardrobe and leapt out the window, flying away into the dark.

"Dad..." Voidanos murmured, turning his gaze toward his parents' room, confused by his father's sudden, irrational departure. He gripped the edges of his book tightly, the pages bending beneath his fingers.

Meanwhile, in her office, Stravna was leafing through the archives filled with the records of soldiers from throughout the Dominion's long military history. Each parchment in that room, whose sole purpose was to preserve every soldier's documentation, contained meticulous details: name, surname, age, gender, family members, and all manner of personal information.

"This should be it..." she whispered to herself, pulling out a scroll marked with an old crest. "Eoran Magees."

It was the file of the father of Voidanos' personal tutor, a search she was conducting at the personal request of the General himself.

"Hm... It should be in this sector here," Stravna murmured to herself as she examined the index compass of the parchments, a device that showed the position of the person in question and the years they had served.

"Now, the war against the hybrids possessed by the demons' hatred took place about two hundred years ago... It should be somewhere around this parch. Ah, here it is," she said, spotting the parchment sealed with the name and title of Eoran Magees, Captain of the Fifth Battalion.

Stravna pulled the parchment from the shelf and sat down at the table to review it. Alongside the captain's general information were detailed sketches, portraits that illustrated his face as well as those of his family members.

"The General mentioned earlier that the Captain had a daughter... Yes, here it is. Criastine Magees. She must still be alive since there's no death record noted here. Aodhan Magees... Hmm, he's listed as well. Huh? How strange..."

She leaned closer, her eyes narrowing. "The Captain's son is recorded as having short brown hair and green eyes. But when I met him with the General, he had sky-blue eyes and soft, feminine brown hair. There's no indication that the Captain had another son, only two children. Very strange..."

"I'll have to go to the academy and search for a more specific document regarding Aodhan Magees," Stravna said quietly, closing the parchment. She returned it carefully to its shelf, then left the room, her footsteps fading into the corridor's echo.

Three hours earlier...

"Forgive me for using your power to bring us here, Voidanos," said the tutor as he and the boy stood upon a barren land, surrounded on all sides by vast chasms and canyons. "But today, we're going to do something completely different from our usual training sessions."

"It's no problem, Mr. Magees. We're in the Masrotai Canyons, right?" the boy asked.

"Yes. Today we'll be testing your physical strength, and your Fernia. Of course, your Fernia is on an entirely different level, so I don't think we'll need to train it much. There will be times when you'll have to fight using only your physical strength, when your Fernia runs out, or when you want to conserve it. There's no better environment for such a test than this, in my opinion," the tutor explained.

"So... you want me to fight you head-on, or—"

"I don't think that would be a wise idea. I'd probably need a replacement tutor if you did," the man said with an awkward laugh.

"Ah, right. Sorry, Mr. Magees," Voidanos apologized politely.

"The only thing I want you to do," the tutor continued, "is find a large open area within these canyons and strike it with your fist, as hard as you can. From the radius and diameter of the impact, I'll be able to calculate your exact physical strength, and we'll work on ways to increase the efficiency and power of your attacks. I trust I'm being clear."

"Yes, Mr. Magees. Perfectly clear," Voidanos replied.

He unfolded his brown wings and took off into the sky, scanning the canyons below for a suitable area. The tutor watched him silently, his gaze following the young man as he soared above the endless ridges.

"I think that spot over there is perfect, Mr. Magees!" Voidanos called out, pointing toward a distant plateau.

"Very well, Voidanos. Go ahead," said the tutor, remaining motionless where he floated.

Voidanos flew toward the chosen area and landed. It was a vast, empty expanse stretching for several square kilometers, accompanied only by the sound of the wind, a lonely whistle that spoke of a place untouched by life.

"Keep in mind," said the tutor, looking up at him, "that the soil of the Divine Isle is thousands of times denser and more resistant than the soil of the mortal supercontinent. What is merely destruction here could be fatal there. I'm telling you this so you understand the scale of your own strength, to realize just how monstrous the power of a living legend can be."

"Understood, Mr. Magees," Voidanos replied. He drew back his right arm, clenching his fist tightly.

He was utterly focused. In that moment, his eyes sought only destruction. His muscles trembled with anticipation, eager to witness the force they could unleash. The air itself grew heavy. The ground began to quake around the canyons, the sheer pressure from his tightening muscles causing rocks to vibrate and small stones to tumble into the depths below.

"Amazing," murmured the tutor, astonished. "He's causing this much damage with just the pressure of his muscles..."

Voidanos moved his arm forward slowly. The pressure alone carved a shallow crater beneath him, and then came the strike.

The impact was cataclysmic. The earth shattered like glass. Cliffs collapsed one after another like falling dominoes. A massive chasm tore through the land where his fist had fallen.

Voidanos hovered in the air above what was once solid ground, his right arm still extended, unmoving. A tremendous vibration rolled through the entire Masrotai Canyon system. The land was breaking apart as though seized by a godlike earthquake.

The tutor stared in disbelief as the ground beneath his feet vanished into the abyss.

"Terrifying... I never expected something like this," he whispered, barely trusting his own eyes.

A new, titanic abyss had been born from Voidanos' strike, a testament to his overwhelming power, a power that shattered the very logic of divinity itself. The crater stretched at least five thousand meters wide, and beneath it, an eerie darkness stirred, a darkness ruled by the power of Uanamangura.

In the present...

Aldes and Atbara were sprinting through the Guhojre Forest, heading toward the kingdom of Tamasi to meet with General Igorus regarding the execution of an urgent plan.

"We've made it," said Aldes as he and Atbara reached the fortified wall surrounding the city.

"Mr. Aldes, Mr. Atbara, the Queen has requested your assistance," said one of the guards stationed at the city's main gate, standing beside another sentinel.

"We just spoke with the Queen. We're supposed to meet with the General now," Atbara replied.

"The General? He just left the gates, and the borders of our nation," said the second guard.

Aldes and Atbara exchanged shocked looks.

"What the hell? We were supposed to meet him inside the kingdom," Aldes muttered under his breath.

"He said he needed to head into the forest to gather materials for the construction of the legion tents," the guard added.

"That bastard... Always trying to do everything himself," said Atbara, grabbing Aldes by the collar and breaking into a run.

"Atbara!? What the hell are you doing?!" Aldes shouted, startled by the sudden motion.

The two guards stood frozen, uncertain what to make of their abrupt departure.

"I'm going to use an unconventional method to reach the General. Hold on tight," Atbara warned.

"W-What?"

In the next instant, Atbara and Aldes leapt into the trunk of a nearby tree.

Suddenly, they found themselves within a vast corridor illuminated by streams of blue and green energy, pulsing and twisting along every surface.

"We can reach the General instantly through here," Atbara said, sprinting down the glowing path while still holding Aldes by his coat. "But it'll drain me far more than usual. Moving through this channel with two people isn't easy."

"So this is how you use the forest trees, huh? This world hides... so much more than it seems," Aldes whispered in awe as the two of them raced through the interdimensional pathway.

In an information chamber, an elderly angel sat in a chair, reading a parchment while puffing on a dark cigar.

"S-k-r-i-d-s. Skrids. Let's write that down... Skrids... What? Strivs? What are these supposed to be?" he muttered to himself, clearly filling out a word puzzle on the parchment.

"T and V... Tamasi and Valkyries... I give up. I'm done with these games. I'll call my wife, see what we're having for dinner," he sighed, reaching into a drawer and pulling out a communication sphere.

But before he could activate it, the sphere lit up on its own, someone was trying to contact him.

"Office of the Visionary Information Division. How may I assist you?" he asked in a flat, bureaucratic tone.

"Release them all," commanded a mysterious voice.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" the old angel asked, confused.

"It's an order from Eliael Frizina. Release all the visionaries, send them out of the nation," the voice repeated.

"I—I beg your pardon? Did you say an order from His Majesty Eliael? Do you have any idea how catastrophic it would be to remove all visionaries from our nation? Who are you? What nonsense is this?" the old man asked, his voice trembling with unease.

"Release. All. The. Visionaries. It's His Majesty's command. There's a parchment beneath your door containing the official decree," said the voice.

The elder froze. Slowly, he turned toward the door, and indeed, there it was: a parchment half-unrolled on the floor. Heart pounding, he pulled it inside.

It was genuine. A royal mandate, signed by Eliael himself, stamped with the seal of his authority: All Visionaries are to depart immediately toward the Dominion nation.

"T-This is madness... It's real. It's actually legitimate... tch!!" he hissed, slamming the connection shut. Without hesitation, he sent the command through the central sphere of the Visionary Sector, ordering every last one of them to depart in accordance with the decree.

Moments later, throughout the Guhojre Forest, hundreds of Visionaries soared through the sky at blinding speed, cloaked in secrecy.

"Hm? Who's that?" asked one of the leading Visionaries as he spotted a distant figure standing in the mist ahead.

"Damn it! A Dominion!" shouted another. "Groups One and Two, split up! Fly in opposite directions!"

The Visionaries scattered instantly, left and right in perfect formation, their coordination as precise as migrating birds.

But suddenly, a colossal wave of fire erupted, engulfing the entire sky. It towered hundreds of meters high, incinerating every tree and every trace of life beneath the Visionaries' wings.

"Evacuate! MOVE! SPREAD O—" The one shouting the command was cut off, consumed mid-sentence by the roaring inferno.

"AAAHHHHHHH!!!"

"NYAAAAAH!!!"

The wave showed no mercy. It swallowed them whole, one after another. They tried to flee at full speed, but the burning pressure of the heat itself melted some of them alive before the flames even touched them.

"Please! I'm a god! I'm not meant to—"

"Have mercy!"

"AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"

The Visionaries fell like scorched birds from the sky. None survived.

Only the crackle of the inferno remained, and above it, the thunderous beat of Igorus' wings echoed through the carnage, his eyes glowing like two red spheres in the heart of that blazing massacre...