When the Fire Wouldn’t Stop

Shana felt like she was going to die on the spot.

While they were still inside the tent, Lucian had suddenly said they couldn’t delay any longer and had to deal with the rift immediately.

Then he scooped her up and started running.

Shana screamed at the top of her lungs.

“U-uaaah!”

Cradling Shana lightly in his arms, Lucian wrapped mana around his body like a shield and sprinted through the pitch-black darkness.

The scenery blurred past so fast it was impossible to make anything out.

The speed far exceeded human limits. It was faster than a carriage, and Shana panicked.

Startled by the pressure of the wind, Shana clung tightly to Lucian.

“L-Lucian! Do you really have to run this fast?!”

“The entire ground is contaminated with demonic mana.

Even bare skin touching it is dangerous.

We need to pass through this area as quickly as possible.”

Lucian’s voice was low and firm.

He tightened the arm holding Shana, pulling her flush against him without leaving even the slightest gap.

The sudden closeness made Shana’s heart drop, but the solidity of his body and the mana barrier surrounding her gave her an unexpected sense of stability.

In the end, Shana gave up resisting.

She wrapped her arms around Lucian’s neck, squeezed her eyes shut, and buried her face against his shoulder.

Fortunately, the rift wasn’t far from here.

Finding it wasn’t difficult either.

The bushes they ran past had already lost all vitality, dyed a deep black like the night sky.

Even the heavens had lost their original color, stained completely in an ominous crimson.

“…With things this bad, how can the heretics not notice anything?”

“Who knows. Maybe they’re too absorbed in their ritual to look around.

Or maybe they mistook this phenomenon for a divine descent.”

Lucian scanned the terrain as he ran.

At last, a massive black pillar came into view.

The rift.

It wavered as if alive.

Just looking at it made her stomach churn, triggering an instinctive sense of revulsion.

Countless monsters scurried restlessly around the jet-black pillar.

As they drew closer, their forms became clearer.

Wolf-like legs and sharp ears. Bodies far larger than ordinary wolves. Fangs jutting grotesquely from their mouths.

A pack of werewolves.

Powerful upper-tier monsters.

Soaked in black demonic mana, the werewolves emerged one by one.

At first, they looked like mere dozens of black dots.

But more kept appearing from beyond the hill, until the entire slope was filled.

Seeing the sight, Shana asked in a shaken voice.

“…Lucian. Were werewolves always monsters that came in numbers like this?”

“No. Looks like the intel was wrong. There are at least three times more than initially reported.”

“Three times more?”

Shana’s gaze wavered.

As if to reassure her, Lucian smiled gently.

“Don’t worry, Shasha. I’ll burn them all. Every last one hiding beneath that pillar.”

“…Really? You’re not calling for reinforcements? With this many—”

Shana stared ahead tensely.

Lucian erected a transparent barrier around her and carefully set her down inside it.

Yet he himself stood in the dangerous zone without any protection.

‘Coming here alone really was reckless.’

Monster outbreaks were like natural disasters that occurred across the empire.

There was no definitive countermeasure.

The only solution was to borrow the power of a mage like Lucian and destroy the black pillar.

The rift.

The monsters’ source.

Unless it was destroyed in one decisive strike, monsters would continue to spawn endlessly.

‘And that’s why Lucian, even while suffering from Mana Rejection Syndrome, had to push himself this hard.’

It wasn’t for nothing that he’d been deployed for three long years, fighting monsters without end.

“It’s fine, Shasha. Compared to the battlefield, this is nothing.”

“…Really?”

Hope returned to Shana’s eyes.

Lucian smiled calmly and extended his hand toward the werewolves’ den, focusing his mana.

Ancient words flowed from between his lips.

A small sphere of mana formed at his fingertips and rapidly expanded.

In an instant, a massive vortex of blue flame erupted around the black pillar.

Even from afar, the explosion whipped Shana’s hair violently.

“Ugh—!”

She squeezed her eyes shut and shielded her face.

The storm, which had begun so suddenly, ended just as abruptly.

Goosebumps ran over her body.

Shana wiped the cold sweat from her forehead, but her hands were shaking, forcing her to clasp them together.

Contrary to her earlier fears, hundreds of werewolves were erased without even a chance to resist.

They melted away inside the wall of flame, leaving not a trace behind.

‘…Incredible.’

It was something she never could have imagined during their academy days.

Back then, Lucian was already called a once-in-a-generation genius.

But she’d never seen magic like this.

“…That’s it?”

There was truly nothing to worry about.

So much so that it felt anticlimactic.

The tension drained from Shana’s shoulders.

She saw Lucian glance briefly in her direction.

Shana lifted her hand and waved slowly.

She must have been overly frightened due to her past trauma with monsters.

Now, all that remained was to destroy the rift itself.

The scattered remnants of the werewolves could be handled by the border guards.

Lucian had said so himself.

…But Lucian didn’t stop casting magic.

As if trying to erase even the corpses, he continued burning everything around the area.

Shana hugged her arms tightly.

She shouted for him to come back, but either he couldn’t hear her or he ignored it.

Lucian kept chanting, no longer even looking in her direction.

The blue flames surged like a storm, engulfing the remaining werewolves on the hill in an instant.

Black shadows collapsed without even a scream.

The flames intensified further, erupting like molten lava.

At last, they swallowed the black pillar whole.

The collapse of the pillar thundered across the land.

That was when Shana frowned.

‘…Something’s wrong.’

Everything seemed to be resolving smoothly, yet the number of monsters… wasn’t decreasing at all.

If anything, it looked like there were more.

‘He incinerated all the werewolves, and even destroyed the pillar completely.’

The moment the flames died down—

The ground began to shake violently.

At first, Shana thought it was backlash from the mana.

Then she realized the scenery itself was wrong.

Something was writhing in the ashes where the flames had gone out.

Shana sucked in a sharp breath.

From between the charred corpses and melted flesh of the werewolves, black, viscous masses began to crawl out.

They quickly took on the shape of new werewolves.

They kept emerging endlessly.

They were far darker, more grotesque, and far larger than before.

As if the previous werewolves had evolved one step further through death itself.

“…What is this?”

A sense of dread washed over her.

Shana stepped out of the barrier.

She needed to grab Lucian and run.

The wind blew.

The stench of blood mixed with burnt ash stabbed at her nose.

“Lucian!”

Hearing Shana’s voice as she ran closer, Lucian spoke without turning around.

“Shasha. Get back inside the barrier.”

“What’s going on?!”

There was no answer.

Shana saw his hand trembling.

Lucian had never once failed to answer her.

Not a single time.

She saw him grab his shaking hand with the other one.

‘Has his mana gone berserk?’

Uncontrolled mana surged violently.

His entire body burned like fire, his eyes dulled and unfocused.

‘W-What do I do…?’

That was when Shana noticed something behind the hill.

Another black pillar.

From it, monsters poured out endlessly, as if the dead were rising again.

“L-Lucian. We have to run—”

“…No.”

“Lucian, listen to me. You’re having mana intoxication—”

“…I have to destroy them all.”

“Lucian!”

“So that Shana doesn’t get hurt by monsters…It’s better if they’re all gone.”

Boom!

A deafening blast erupted.

Shana instinctively shoved Lucian away.

A werewolf’s claw burst out of the ground beneath his feet, barely grazing his arm.

Red droplets sprayed into the air.

Just before they hit the ground, Lucian pulled Shana into his body, shielding her.

Hundreds. Thousands.

Footsteps thundered across the earth.

Black shadows surged toward them like a living tide.

Lucian wrapped Shana in one arm and swung the other.

Flames erupted once more.

But this time, some monsters pushed straight through the fire.

With their bodies ablaze, the werewolves charged even more ferociously.

Shana screamed.

“Lucian!”

A third explosion tore through the air.

She felt his body tear away from hers.

Lucian hurled himself through the blue flames.

A sword of blue fire formed in his hand, cleaving a werewolf’s head apart.

But they didn’t stop.

Cut down. Burned.

They rose again like shadows.

“Lucian, stop—!”

“…I can’t.”

Before the words even finished leaving his mouth, Lucian staggered.

“Kh—”

A cough.

Blood splattered onto the ground.

His body tilted.

“Lucian!”

Shana caught him as he fell.

At once, a wall of fire, blue turning nearly white, rose around them.

The werewolves tried to break through, only to turn to ash, screaming.

Lucian covered his face with his hand.

Yet red liquid slipped through his fingers.

“Sha… Shasha. Don’t look.”

Lucian spoke with a deathly pale face.

Blood continued to seep from between the fingers covering his mouth.

“…Lucian?”