Utterly devastating.
The throne of Mirage Castle was in the way of her throw, so the spear shattered it first. There was a deafening boom as it broke the sound barrier, as well.
And then, there was a flash of light.
The spear Effie had thrown seemed to teleport from one place to another in the blink of an eye, causing a small hurricane to explode in the vast throne room. It breached the distance between her and the homunculus...
And struck it right in the middle of his chest, throwing the creature back a great distance and impaling it on the wall.
Effie, meanwhile, let out a pained cry and collapsed to the floor. She had put all her remaining strength into that one throw, and the rebound was simply vicious.
She was pretty sure that her wrist was broken. Her shoulder was dislocated. Her muscles were a thing of the past, and the floor beneath her feet was covered by a net of cracks.
But the homunculus...
‘Is that thing dead?’
Effie groaned and picked herself off the floor.
---
In the Jade Palace, Jet assumed her human form and entered the great hall, looking up at the immense circle of the shattered window with a lost expression.
However, her shock only lasted a few moments.
She sighed deeply.
The dragon was gone... and Kai was gone, as well.
That meant that her friend and companion had just sacrificed himself. Perhaps he would be able to survive, but it was highly unlikely... at best, he would be able to lead the Cursed Devil far away.
At worst, he would only be able to buy her a few moments.
So, she could not waste these precious moments. They had been bought at too high a cost to be squandered because of emotions.
Gritting her teeth, Jet turned and rushed toward the Gateway. Behind her, Fiend cautiously glanced inside the hall, turned his head this way and that, then finally followed her.
‘Look at me, usurping the Jade Palace...'
Jet had been the government envoy to Clan Song once. Who could have thought that she would be claiming their Great Citadel as her own one day? Life was truly unpredictable.
Death was unpredictable, too, so Jet's existence was bound to be full of surprises. Reaching the Gateway, she concentrated on tethering herself to it. The process of anchoring yourself to a Citadel was instinctual to all Saints, and only slightly different from placing a tether — which all of them learned as Masters. However, it was a bit more complicated if there was already a Transcendent ruling the Citadel.
In that case, one had to destroy their tether first and overwrite it. That took time and concentration, not to mention power.
So, Jet was full of cold apprehension as she concentrated on destroying the tether of whoever it was that had taken the Jade Palace from Kai... by the feel of their tether, it was probably Seishan, but Jet wasn't sure. All she was sure of was that if the dragon came back before she finished, she would be immediately and irrevocably destroyed.
But the dragon did not come back.
In fact, there was no sign of it by the time Jet finished connecting herself to the Jade Palace.
The Spell whispered into her ear, and she felt a latent connection to the Citadel take hold in her soul.
The Jade Palace was hers.
Jet remained motionless for a few moments, then turned to Fiend.
"Guard this place well. Alright? Guard it with your life, if need be — for as long as you can."
He stared at her from below, then clacked his metal fangs and breathed out a plume of flame.
"Wretched!"
Jet blinked.
Was that ear-piercing metallic screech the little devil's voice?
Since when could he talk?
She smiled faintly.
“Yes, indeed. It's quite wretched... all of it.”
As the smile drained from her face, Jet threw one last look at the broken window, at the vast sky beyond it.
Then, she pulled on her tether.
Conquering Ravenheart was not the only thing Cassie had asked of her. In fact, the complicated part was only about to begin. As Fiend hid himself in the shadow of the Gateway, Jet crossed the realm boundary and appeared in the waking world.
She appeared in NQSC.
And when she did, Cassie's powers reached the great city, as well.
---
In the sky above the sprawling cityscape of Ravenheart, a breathtakingly radiant white dragon was chasing one with scales the color of midnight sky. As it did, the flakes of ash swirling in the air froze and fell down like hail.
People below pointed at the sky and shuddered as a terrifying cold permeated their bodies.
Kai was flying faster than ever before, pouring all of his willpower and determination into only one thing — speed. The Cursed Devil was immeasurably stronger than him, larger than him, fiercer than him. But it was not faster than him, and that was what Kai had bet his life on. But even if he was wrong, he would have still made the same choice.
It wasn't even worth thinking about. The scope of the threat Asterion posed was not only dire... it was absolute. It was utter destruction of humanity — of everyone Kai knew and loved, and everyone he had never met.
But even worse than that was the fate they would all have to endure before being destroyed.
Kai had gotten front row seats to what Asterion's power did to people. How it twisted them and made them into something that they were not. It was an ugly and repulsive atrocity, one that might have been even worse than what the Dreamspawn had in store for the world, in the end.
No one deserved to live like that before they died.