Crack.

The sound echoed in the silent cavern. The giant egg shattered. Fenyra, who had been watching with anxious hope, froze in place.

Then came a sound of pure, heart-wrenching agony. A shriek of a soul being torn apart.

Her tears fell like rain, her small body wracked with sobs of grief and helplessness.

"Master, I'm begging you, please, save my mother!" she cried, her voice breaking. "If you save her, I'll do anything! Anything you ask!"

Orion could only shake his head, a deep regret in his eyes. There was nothing to be done.

Where the great egg had stood, there was now only a scattering of brilliant golden feathers and the stark, white skeleton of a phoenix, standing as if in defiance of death itself.

"Fenyra, my child, don't cry."

The voice was no longer cold. It was the voice of a mother who, having spent a lifetime wearing a mask of stern discipline, had finally let it fall in her last moments to speak gently to her child.

Orion had suspected as much the moment he'd laid eyes on the egg. The demigod Nyxira had likely fallen ages ago. The formation, the egg, had been a prison for her enemy, but also a life-support system for her fading will. She had held on for two reasons: to see Orric utterly destroyed, and because Fenyra had not yet been strong enough to survive alone.

The arrival of the Stoneheart horde had upended her long, lonely vigil, but it had also offered her a final, desperate hope. With her ancient enemy gone and a powerful, if ruthless, guardian found for her child, the obsessions that had anchored her to the world were finally resolved. Her last duty fulfilled, she let go.

Whoosh.

The air stirred. The broken eggshells rose from the cavern floor, and Nyxira's skeleton dissolved in a flash of golden fire, becoming a shower of divine motes. The light shattered and then fused with the golden feathers, which now floated in the air.

"Mother…" Fenyra's cry was a raw wound.

From the flames, a final sigh of release, tinged with a faint trace of hope, was the only reply.

A moment later, the fire died. The golden feathers, as if drawn by an invisible current, drifted toward Fenyra. They settled upon her, weaving themselves into her own plumage, forming a magnificent, shimmering tail of impossible length and beauty.

It was a mother's final gift.

Orion watched it all, a silent observer. The scene struck a chord deep within him. Suddenly, his thoughts turned to his parents—what had really happened back then, and why were there no clues at all?

When the last mote of light faded, Orion walked to Fenyra's side.

"Let's go," he said, his voice softer than usual. "For her, in her state, this was a release." He looked around the cavern, then back at the grieving phoenix. "This will still be your home. I will grant you this entire territory as your domain."

With her mother's feathers now part of her, the young phoenix's potential had skyrocketed. Orion could see it now—a clear path to the demigod realm in her future.

He made a silent apology to Soraya in his mind. The promise he'd made her would have to be broken. Good thing there was still one more Godforsaken Land to conquer.

"Really?" Fenyra whispered, looking up at him. "Thank you… Master."

Orion nodded. The raw grief in her eyes had begun to recede, replaced by something else. She looked back at her new, magnificent tail, but Orion knew she wasn't seeing feathers. She was seeing her mother.

"I will earn my honor, Mother," she chirped softly, a quiet vow.

Orion watched her for another moment, then turned and walked toward the cave passage leading out. They say a child only truly begins to grow after their parents are gone. He wasn't sure if that was true, but he knew there was only one way to avoid such final goodbyes.

Immortality.

A while later, Fenyra, having composed herself, emerged from the volcano's heart. Orion held out his hand. The small phoenix hesitated for a second before obeying, a flutter of wings bringing her to his palm. He looked at her closely. The sadness was still there, but now it was tempered with a core of hardened resolve.

After a moment's thought, Orion gently moved her from his hand to his shoulder.

"Fenyra," he said as they began to ascend. "I still have questions about this world."

"Ask, Master," she replied, her tone firm and respectful. "I will answer to the best of my ability."

Orion glanced at her, noting the subtle shift in her demeanor, but didn't comment on it. "You and your mother are phoenixes," he began. "So why did the Cretaceous beasts call her their mother deity? The intel I got said the beasts were born from the egg. A phoenix hatching dinosaurs… that doesn't add up."

"The Cretaceous beasts were not my mother's children, Master," Fenyra explained. "They were… a byproduct. As my mother broke down the demigod Orric's essence, she used it to gestate new life within the egg formation. Orric was their original ancestor. With him gone, no more can be created. The ones that remain must now breed on their own."

The words hit Orion like a physical blow. A sudden, catastrophic realization dawned on him. The Cretaceous beasts—the finite, irreplaceable resource of this world—were still locked in a pointless, bloody battle with his own troops back in the valley.

Every beast that died now was a direct loss to the Stoneheart horde.

Without another word, Orion's form blurred, and he shot back the way he came at impossible speed.

***

Silverwood Realm, Staghelm City.

The clash of magical formations reached a new crescendo. Demigod-constructs of pure magic, birthed from the real and mimicked matrices, clashed and annihilated one another in silent, brilliant explosions.

The sheer attrition was taking a toll on both sides.

"Still not enough?" Pontiff Valerius snarled, his face a mask of frustration. He thrust his staff forward, and twelve arcane seals of immense power materialized around him. With a flick of his wrist, he launched them like artillery shells at the Deputy Commander's formation.

On the other side, Edward didn't flinch. In perfect response, twelve defensive wards of identical magical structure bloomed into existence, intercepting and neutralizing each of the twelve seals.

Valerius's blood ran cold.

"What a mimic," he breathed, but there was no scorn in his voice, only a dawning dread.

It was one thing to copy their attacks. But this… this was a perfect, instantaneous counter. Edward wasn't just mirroring them anymore. He had completely reverse-engineered their Dodecahedron of Four Elements. He had mastered their own weapon.

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