Little Pink Starfish

Throughout the fight, Jishuka kept looking around in fear. Ishar at first thought he was being wary of him, but after seeing the magic pouring toward him and Jishuka’s attitude, he changed his mind.

It’s not that he’s not going all out.

Rather, he only uses subtle magic, deliberately avoiding flashy spells or revealing his true body, as if something might grab him by the back of the neck if he does.

Ishar could’ve made assumptions, but he wasn’t unaware that the combination magic Jishuka used could be more efficient and amplified.

He also realized it wasn’t that Jishuka didn’t use it because he didn’t know.

“That half-blood can’t find me.”

“…What?”

Half-blood.

That’s what dragons used to call Velloan.

When Ishar attacked Jishuka during a brief opening, a violent wind blew to push Ishar back. Ishar twisted Jishuka’s magic slightly and fired aura like an arrow through the gap.

With a thud, Jishuka’s arm was cut off. He didn’t show any pain.

Instead, he trembled, scanning his surroundings with a fear Ishar couldn’t understand. He was full of openings.

Ishar immediately closed the distance. With the feeling of slicing flesh, blood sprayed from Jishuka’s lower abdomen. Ishar’s eyes widened. Something was wrong.

Blood was flowing.

Even if it was cut with aura, a dragon’s self-regeneration shouldn’t allow this much blood loss.

The smell of blood soaking into the ground felt like it would paralyze his sense of smell.

“Next is definitely me. No… I won’t die like that… I’ll never die like that…”

At the same moment as the scream-like cry, Ishar saw it. The blood soaking into the ground and the blood still flowing from the wound moved like they had a will of their own.

‘Ancient magic…!’

Like something alive, Jishuka’s blood shot into the air, spread out, quickly took shape, and seeped into the ground.

A massive light rose behind Jishuka’s back. Soon, the light formed a complete shape too big to fit in his field of view, releasing explosive magical energy in all directions.

Like tangled threads, the flows of different magical energies quickly formed into a spell. Just from that, Ishar realized what kind of magic Jishuka was casting.

‘Wide-area attack magic.’

His instincts whispered. He shouldn’t be here.

But Ishar couldn’t obey that instinct. He had to destroy the magic Jishuka was casting.

If that magic activated, the wall and the territory beyond where Ishar stood would be turned to ash in an instant.

‘At this scale, the Duchy of Riccione would be gone. It might even reach Wyber and the western imperial capital.’

Thinking of the people living there, Ishar gritted his teeth. He could survive if he ran now. But that meant abandoning the duchy and the lives of countless citizens.

He made a decision in just a few seconds. He gathered all his aura, formed a massive spear of aura, and stabbed it into the center of the magic. Then he forced his own mana into reverse flow to scatter the flow of magic.

With a crackling sound, the huge sphere of light cracked like glass and collapsed like snow.

“…!”

He locked eyes with Jishuka.

Jishuka smiled with a terrified face.

‘No way…’

From the start, Jishuka had used the wide-area attack magic as bait, knowing Ishar would stop it.

And what he was really aiming for was the magic circle glowing red now revealed beneath Ishar’s feet.

Just as he tried to get out of the magic’s range—

“Gah!”

A horrifying pain started from his heart and sliced through his whole body, bending his back uncontrollably.

As he questioned his condition, he saw white tree-root-like structures surrounding him completely, endlessly reaching into the sky.

Jishuka’s magic.

Clutching his chest with one hand, Ishar tried to cut the roots. He barely scratched them. The part that had been scratched was soon replaced by new ones rising from below.

He tried again and again to swing his aura to break free from the prison-like structure, but the result was the same.

When he switched tactics and gathered the little mana he had left to cast a spell, the pain in his heart intensified the moment he moved his mana.

“Ugh…”

He couldn’t even breathe. Suffering in unbearable agony that seemed like it would never end, Ishar barely managed to support his collapsing body with all his strength.

‘Why now, why…!’

The aura in his heart began moving to drive out the remaining mana from his body.

As if it were the last chance, the aura rampaged wildly inside him. He tried to suppress it, but it felt as weak as a human trying to control the ocean.

He had already lost all control.

Unable to understand the sudden change, Ishar wondered—was it the prison surrounding him?

At that moment of doubt, he saw the white prison that had stopped moving as if it had finished growing—and suddenly realized.

Why hadn’t he figured it out earlier?

Jishuka’s blood crawling like a living creature. Ancient magic activated by feeding dragon blood. The clues were so clear.

“You fed dragon bones with your blood. Not just one or two.”

Now understanding part of the glowing magical formula embedded in the perfect white bars, Ishar bit his lip.

No wonder the aura inside him suddenly went wild and became uncontrollable.

It was an ancient spell using dragon bones fed with Jishuka’s blood as a medium—causing binding, curse, amplification, and confusion.

‘That amount of bone couldn’t be his own. Must be from corpses Kayedel failed to recover.’

The magic Jishuka used twisted and reversed the internal flow of forces like mana and aura.

If Ishar had been in his original state, he could’ve neutralized the spell before it damaged his body.

But—

After giving his heart’s mana to Velloan for so long, his body had become unstable. Now, trying to suppress rampaging aura while drained of mana, Ishar was heavily affected by Jishuka’s spell.

And then, a disaster he had brought on himself overlapped.

Three years without proper rest had finally caught up to him. His body screamed, convulsing and begging for help.

‘Shuzel was right.’

He had lost his cool over Velloan. Not just his cool—he had even forgotten his survival instinct. The old him would’ve at least brought Rekayan.

‘But even Shuzel, Aster, Rekayan, or Kayedel wouldn’t have helped.’

Fighting Jishuka made it clear. Only Ishar could face this dragon. Anyone else would’ve died a pointless death. In a way, he was relieved he had come alone.

“Huff…!”

Grabbing his chest, Ishar opened his mouth. He couldn’t breathe. His chest hurt too much to breathe.

He kept trying to control his aura, but the pain just kept getting worse. Not even a speck of aura listened to him.

He finally tried to force out all his mana, but the pain was so awful that he instinctively stopped. The collision between aura and mana made his insides a mess, and he began coughing up blood.

“I won’t die. Never. I’ll never die. Not like that, not in such a pointless display…”

Jishuka’s muttering, like that of a madman, came from beyond the white wall. It would’ve been nice if he at least explained what he meant.

“Ugh… haah… huff… cough…”

Every time he vomited blood, his vision blurred and his mind grew hazy.

His legs lost strength and he finally collapsed to the ground.

With a shhh sound, he sensed something approaching from above. Using the last of his strength, he barely lifted his head—and saw it.

The end of the white spike that had soared endlessly upward.

He thought it would crush him like a meat hammer—but instead, it stopped and slowly formed a shape.

It was a flower. A flower carved from white bone. Seeing the magic formula engraved on the petals, Ishar let out a hollow laugh.

‘He doesn’t plan to kill me easily.’

At that thought, a clear liquid formed like a droplet at the center of the flower and poured down on him.

The liquid soaked his entire body in an instant. It didn’t seep into the ground, but instead wrapped around him completely, blocking all his breathing. Until the last bit of air escaped his lungs.

“Emperor… if it’s you, the half-blood will accept the deal, right? Please… let it be worth it, please…”

As Jishuka’s pleading voice echoed like a prayer, Ishar thought,

‘What the hell is this bastard babbling about…’

But before he could say it out loud, his consciousness—and the world—were swallowed in darkness.