Chapter 1287: She Stood Before the Blade
Andona watched for a moment.
A dragon and a giant moth kept circling each other in the air, looping and looping with no real progress.
She didn’t jump into that pointless chase. Instead, she turned and went to clear out the turrets below.
A golden blade swung toward the nearest laser device.
But right before the edge touched, Andona realized the "turret" wasn’t made of normal metal at all.
The entire structure was densely packed with tiny insects.
They bit into each other and locked together, their bodies forming the barrel, the supports, even the energy conduits. If Andona kept the strike going, she’d wipe out a huge number of them in one slash.
And Ethan had said it before they moved in.
The priority this time was suppression.
Not slaughter.
Andona stopped her sword in time.
She abandoned the turret and stepped alone on holy light, closing in on the giant serpent.
Around the serpent lay a scattering of translucent white scales.
One shed scale in particular was enormous, its edges still showing the torn marks of separation.
The serpent itself lay on the ground, alone.
Its massive body was coiled weakly, and parts of its newly grown scales hadn’t fully hardened yet. The harsh holy light hit its eyes, forcing it to lift its neck with obvious effort.
It looked up at Andona in the air.
Red light flickered in its eyes.
Violent power kept spilling out of it, pressing curved grooves into the earth around its body.
"What... are you...?"
The serpent’s voice was faint.
But the red glow only deepened.
"Go. Now!"
Andona didn’t move.
She raised both blades.
The golden edges crossed in front of her chest, Light Force streaming down along the steel-like glow. Facing a serpent sliding deeper into madness, she needed to take away its ability to resist first.
Andona swung.
Two arcs of golden swordlight cut down from above.
The moth saw it clearly.
It deliberately lured Seraphina to the far side—then snapped around and dove in alone, putting itself between Andona and the serpent.
Its wide wings spread.
The thin membranes connecting wing and body stretched with them, forming a soft barrier that covered the serpent completely beneath its body.
The golden blades were already on top of it.
The moth didn’t retreat.
But just as the strike was about to hit the membrane, the serpent on the ground suddenly opened its mouth.
It didn’t bite at Andona.
It clamped down on the descending golden blades.
Swordlight drove into its jaws, Light Force colliding violently against scale and fang. The serpent endured burning and cutting, still tightening its bite, swallowing the two energy blades deeper and deeper as if it could choke them to death.
Andona’s arms were yanked downward by the pull.
She hadn’t expected the serpent to stop the attack like that. Her body dropped a short distance before she steadied herself.
Ethan walked down from above, stepping across fragments of space like stairs.
A white energy sphere was already forming in his palm.
He took in the messy tangle between the serpent, the moth, and Andona—and didn’t strike immediately.
Seraphina finally caught on.
She abandoned the chase. Her huge dragon body turned and shot straight at the serpent’s neck.
Her head dropped low.
A blast of searing dragon breath poured from her mouth, slamming into the scales of the serpent’s throat.
Boom!
Fire rolled across the scales.
The serpent released its bite from the pain, and Andona’s golden blades snapped free.
But the moth didn’t take the opening to attack Seraphina.
It lunged toward the serpent’s neck instead.
Those wide wings beat again and again, smothering the dragonfire clinging to the scales. Flames licked the edges of its wings, leaving charred black scars, but it didn’t stop.
Ethan watched that, his brows twitching.
Did it seriously not care about pain at all? Not even after getting caught in the serpent’s teeth?
But Ethan wasn’t here for their messy love-hate drama.
He just needed control.
The white energy sphere finished forming in his hand.
Lightning on its surface tightened and compressed, its internal structure shifting toward something meant for restraint, not raw destruction.
Whatever you are—
Get down.
The moth had just beaten out the last patch of flame when it felt a force that made its whole body go rigid.
Patterns on its wings flared at once.
It snapped its head up, staring at Ethan in the air.
Then it abandoned the serpent completely. Wings pulled back, and it shot toward Ethan in a straight line.
Andona saw Velmira charge Ethan and reacted on instinct—an attack on her master.
All ten pairs of her golden wings flared. Light Force poured from her shoulders into her arms. The blade in her right hand detached and became a straight lance of gold, stabbing into the space between Ethan and Velmira.
The edge tore through the air, closing the distance in a blink—
but Velmira didn’t attack.
Right in front of Ethan, she folded her broad membranes inward. Her massive insect body shrank with it. Wings, feelers, and shell turned into flowing points of light, recombining into a humanoid figure.
Velmira stopped opposite Ethan, serious-faced and openly nonhostile.
Only then did Andona realize she’d misread it.
She lifted her hand to call the blade back, but the stored power had already fully discharged. The attack’s path was locked—there was no stopping it with simple control.
Behind them, Seraphina lazily raised a finger.
Holy light spread from her fingertip.
It didn’t intercept the blade directly.
It seeped into everyone’s hearts first, smoothing down the tension and battle-mad agitation like a hand pressing out wrinkles. When the golden edge touched that light, it slowed... and finally stopped beside Velmira’s shoulder.
Down on the ground, the serpent—Shedra—was affected too.
The red in its eyes didn’t disappear completely, but its body stopped thrashing. The power leaking off its scales began to draw back in, and its massive tail settled to the earth for the first time in a while.
Ethan studied the human-shaped Velmira with open interest.
White lightning was still crawling over his hand.
Arcs gathered around his fingertips, compressing into a tighter and tighter sphere. The pressure coming off it made Velmira’s breathing stiffen, the words she wanted to say catching in her throat.
She stared at the white orb and couldn’t speak.
Ethan waited a few seconds, then sighed.
If he wanted her to talk normally, he couldn’t keep waving something like that around in her face.
He lifted his hand and pressed the energy sphere into his chest.
White lightning dove into his body and spread through his limbs. Ethan’s body began to break apart from the edges, turning into black particles—until, in Velmira’s shocked stare, he vanished completely.
The next instant, the scattered particles gathered again.
Head, torso, arms, legs—reforming in order—until Ethan stood there again without a scratch.
A full magic trick: from nothing to something.
Velmira stared for a long moment, lips parting slightly, like she still hadn’t processed what she’d just seen.
"Talk," Ethan said, rolling his wrist.
"What is it?"
He glanced at the chaotic battlefield around them, his tone almost casual.
"I’m not that busy right now. I can hear you out."
Velmira finally snapped back to herself.
She pointed down at the serpent, then turned and looked toward the distant mountain peak.
"You’ve probably already met her."
"Her name is Shedra."
Worry bled through Velmira’s voice.
"Every time she sheds her skin, she loses her mind and enters this kind of frenzy."
She looked back at Ethan.
"I’m Velmira."
"Shedra can’t control herself right now. I was afraid you’d wipe her out completely, so I came to stop you."
Ethan waved a hand.
His eyes were clear—genuinely baffled that Velmira would even think that.
Did he really look like the kind of person who casually massacred the innocent?
And holding a dangerous energy orb wasn’t... perfectly reasonable?
"Got it," Ethan said.
He glanced down at Shedra.
"So are you staying here, Velmira?"