The Plan In Motion: Will Magic Win or Beast.
The moment Vevil finished his incantation, his body began to… change.
His butler’s clothes tore apart as his frame slowly swelled—tendons rose like cables under skin. He screamed and wailed—raw and ragged, as if his body were being disfigured. This was nothing like the enhancement Marcus had used—something Krai had been familiar with. Mana still flowing into Vevil, but it was different; he wasn't just getting strong, his body was being reshaped.
That alone made this development alarming.
He let out one final scream, and dust exploded outward around him, setting the stage for his reveal.
Was it the scream that caused it? Or something else entirely?
Either way, this was not the time to analyze magic theory.
This was the time to stay alive.
The dust curtain tugged at our anticipation and anxiety, bringing them to their limits.
Vevil, ever the cocky man, waited to reveal himself. He wanted them to behold him slowly—to carve fear into our souls as his grotesque form emerged.
At last, the outline cleared.
A bulky, predatory form stood where Vevil had been—massive upper body with muscles packed so densely they looked ready to tear through his skin, lean, killing legs, breath hissing like smoke, as if his lungs themselves burned.
He was like a Code 14 truck.
Asahi’s eyes narrowed, breath held for a beat.
Beast Variation… He thought. That’s not just any enhancement magic.
He slid one foot back and reinforced the barrier behind him—quietly doubling the layer protecting the captives. Calm remained on his face while vigilance tightened behind it.
“Watch out!” Asahi shouted.
Too late.
In an instant, Vevil was in front of Krai.
A fist crashed into my face before I could even react. The world wheeled, as the ground hammered my spine. I slid, dug my blade into the dirt, and bled from the nose. Pain roared, disbelief tried to follow. I crushed it down.
Before I could rise fully, he was already there—ready with blows like iron hammers. I blocked some. Some landed, each one leaving a crater in my ribs.
The flow of the battle had reversed.
I had intimidated Vevil—but intimidation was not domination. That intimidation drove him to seek greater strength.
After a relentless barrage of fists, kicks, and blade strikes, Vevil left me lying face down in a shallow crater.
There was no change in the magic surrounding him. The Crimson Barricade was still hugging me warmly. If I were dying, the flames would have flickered and faded.
They did not.
I was down—but not finished.
I remained motionless, curled in a position one might mistake for death.
For a moment, Vevil tilted his head to the sky. Even in this monstrous form, he had enough sense to savor the moment. Or maybe he just wanted to taste victory before it went stale. Savoring the feeling of killing Reina’s prized pupil.
He was breathing heavily. This form clearly exacted a terrible toll.
“Ahh… man," I groaned as I pushed myself up, rolling my neck. "This Crimson Barricade really sucks.”
Fate—it seemed—truly despised Vevil.
Every attack had been lethal. Every blow had connected. And yet here Krai stood.
“I’m going to chew that grumpy old dragon up when I get back," I continued.
“Impossible!” he rasped. The new voice sounded like it would split his throat. “You shouldn’t be moving!”
I cracked my neck, as if this were nothing more than another harsh training session with Sir Marcus. All wounds were gone. Blood vanished as a golden light enveloped me.
I looked at him, then at the carved lines his blows had left in the dirt. My clothes were a mess—but my body was whole.
“You’re right,” I said calmly. “I underestimated you. Sorry about that.”
Vevil's stare hardened. “No… how are you standing?!”
This turn of events frustrated him so much.
“Ryu, I’m stepping in,” Asahi said, taking three steps forward—barrier still shimmering behind him.
“If you do that, who’s going to protect—” I frowned.
“Rita will handle it,” Asahi cut in. “You can’t take him alone. I’ll support you.”
“...Fine.”
He stopped at my flank—near enough to cover, far enough not to trip the rhythm. His presence smoothed the edges of my breath.
Vevil laughed—a wild, unhinged sound. Not at being outnumbered, but at fate itself. As if daring it to crush him.
“Fufufu… fuu—fufufufu!”
“Stay back,” I muttered to Asahi, not taking my eyes off Vevil. “My flames can carry on contact.”
“Hm.” He stepped a pace to the side—angle adjusted, margin maintained. Support meant don’t get in the way.
“Vevil,” I said, letting the calm carry. “You haven’t noticed, but my flames are eating your arms. Surrender, and we will heal you.”
His laugh strangled; he looked down—truly looked. The crimson heat clung to his forearms, chewing slowly inward. The sword in his hand was half gone. Only a hilt remained, gripped by habit and adrenaline.
Crimson Barricade’s secret wasn’t indomitable protection. It was a trade. You hit me in this state—you accept the terms of the flame.
Anything that touched me in this state inherited the flames—burned until nothing remained.
He stared at the ruin of his weapon. For a heartbeat, his face opened—and there it was:
Loneliness. Confusion. A life full of no one.
“Tell me, Krai…” his voice trembled a notch. “How does it feel to have… reliable people at your side?”
“Huh? Well—” I blinked.
“You say surrender, and you’ll heal me?”
He cut across my answer—voice wandering into a place I couldn’t follow. Maybe he wasn’t asking me. Maybe he was asking a life that never answered him back.
Vevil may have needed healing, but not of the body.
He coughed, blood splattered on his palm. Steam streamed off him, not from my flames, but from a body redlining beyond sense.
“Nothing can save me now,” he said softly. “The moment I used that enhancement, my fate was sealed.”
“No!" I snapped. "We can still help you. Please, put down your weapon!”
Mercy pushed through reflex, stirred by memories of a man who had once stood in our hall as family. Neither of us noticed how much of that memory we were carrying into this.
“Let’s finish this,” Vevil said.
He charged.
A rain of light swords speared down in front of him—Asahi’s magic, one I knew too well from the Mist Country. Vevil swayed between them—side-steps, bursts, a curve that danced with death. He cut left, then ran the line, closing from the flank.
The swords chased him, but couldn’t keep up.
We turned—and lost him.
“From the way you were worried about those flames,” his voice came from the dark, above Asahi’s blind spot—“they must be dangerous…”
“…Even to your allies!” he roared, diving.
“No, you don’t!” I shouted.
My legs coiled. The world narrowed to vector and distance. Emotion had shattered restraints.
I launched—felt the ground wrinkle underfoot and the air crush through my ears—caught his wrist before his flaming arm could claw at Asahi, and shoved him off-line. We crashed, rolled, and separated.
Wind rippled around Asahi’s barrier. He exhaled, a controlled breath. Thank you, his eyes said.
We surged up. Vevil coughed again—more blood this time. The beast’s muscles had begun to sag. His breath stuttered. He spat, tossed the useless hilt aside, and bared teeth like knives.
We collided a second time.
Steel cut fur. Claws scraped flame. My strikes started to land—not clean, not perfect, but enough. Vevil's feet dragged. The speed that had made him a nightmare bled away—spent heavily by cost and Crimson.
I was panting hard by the time we broke—my lungs hot and tight.
“Vevil,” I called through breath. “It’s over. You’re spent. Surrender now—you might still be saved.”
He stood there, thinner than before he’d begun, skin loose where monster mass had been. His head lifted with effort.
“Don’t give me that pitiful look,” he said. “I… will not surrender.”
I sighed with sadness.
“As much as I’d rather leave you to your fate,” I said quietly, “I’ll grant you death myself. Mercy and punishment, together.”
I sheathed my sword and pressed my palms together.
“You’ve become ruthless, Krai,” Vevil rasped.
I ignored him.
Zeraff’s voice crossed the back of my mind, from the day he’d taught me this in the cave.
☆☆☆
“Next, I’ll teach you the strongest attack a dragon possesses,” Zeraff said. “You lack control, so it will be dangerous—but it will benefit you in times of peril.”
☆☆☆
I closed my eyes. For a heartbeat, the fire inside me bucked, wanting to drown everything.
A flicker of hesitation slipped in—quick, human, honest:
If I fire this… There won’t be anything left to save. Is there any other path? I thought.
Then—
Mary’s face, Reina’s missing arm, Asahi’s steady hand, Vevil’s eyes—lonely,\ and twisted. The captives behind us. The lives beyond this night.
They all flashed before my eyes.
I drew a breath through my teeth and decided.
“Flames of the Dragon King that burn all to ash,” I recited. “Crimson flames that scour everything in their wake. I call upon the power of the Dragon Lord—Zeraff.”
A magic circle unfolded from my hands—wider, wider—etching the air in front with lines of radiant, merciless geometry. I opened my eyes.
“Farewell, Vevil.”
He drew himself up—whatever was left of pride settling onto a dying frame.
“AHHHHHHH!!”
Vevil charged into death, embracing his fate.
For an instant, the world slowed—fur lifted by wind, pupils slit and bright, breath pulling in for one last roar. I saw all of it—the cost, the choice, the ending.
I answered with mine.
“DRAGON BREATH!!”
The world in front burned.
Heat ignited the air and then the world—so blistering that everything in its path caught fire before the blast even struck. Vevil, the stone, the mansion’s walls—everything in line melted and roared.
Nothing remained but molten earth. The earth bubbled where it had flowed. Walls sagged, blackened. No human could survive that.
Behind me, Asahi’s breath hitched—the only break in his composure all night. He braced his barrier to shield the others from the shockwave, eyes reflecting the circle’s afterglow.
And I stood there, hands trembling—not from power, but from the choice.
