Lukas and Selene barged into the training room, the heavy doors slamming against the walls as they entered.

The sight that greeted them was horrifying.

The training grounds had been turned into a brutal sight of a battle that had already long begun. Three masked figures, all of them bearing humanoid forms, had somehow found their way into this room. Two of them had already been reduced to mangled corpses, torn apart and left mutilated on the ground. Yet victory was far from secured, because the last of the hooded intruders still moved with ruthless speed. The last of them was locked in combat with Rosalia. The princess fought desperately, trying to create distance between the two but she was no match for her attacker.

On the other side of the room, the Royal Consort was bloodied but still standing.

Lukas did not hesitate. His instincts surged, carrying him forward before his mind had time to process anything else. Whoever these hooded enemies were, however they had managed to infiltrate this place—it did not matter right now. Rosalia was on the verge of being cut down and if he did not do something, he might not be able to keep the one promise that Magnus had asked to uphold just before his passing.

Just as Lukas closed the distance between them in an instant, the hooded figure abruptly shifted and turned away from Rosalia. With his hood shadowing his face, his arm snapped up. Lukas barely registered the motion before the man hurled something—not at him, but past him; straight towards his mother.

Selene had already been ready to leap into the fight, but the sudden move caught her off guard. His mother saw the object spinning through the air and her body reacted instinctively. The wyvern's hands rose but she had no time and no way to defend herself from what was coming.

Lukas' eyes locked on the projectile and recognition struck him like a bolt. Though the weapon did not look the same as the one he had seen in his past life, Lukas knew what it was supposed to be.

It wasn't made of steel or packed with gun powder.

No.

This magical grenade was a transparent, glass-like jar, and within it burned an unnatural flame. Hot, white fire pulsed and writhed inside, and the longer it spun through the air the brighter it seemed to glow. This was weaponry born of magic, not machinery—a vessel of searing destruction that would shatter on impact.

The thought of what it would do to his mother carved an icy pit in his chest.

Lukas did not have the luxury of thinking twice.

There was no time to decide what the right move was here.

So his body chose for him.

Lukas twisted violently, letting momentum carry him. The Draconic Flow roared through his veins, answering the desperate call of instinct. Flesh tore, reshaped, elongated. Scales burst forth across his arm, shimmering as the transformation overtook him; his body straining as it took on his full draconic form in an instant. Even before the change was complete, Lukas forced his body backward, backtracking across the space he had gained. His wings unfurled, his spine lengthened, claws sharpened as the shift consumed him. Lukas surged into position, placing himself directly between Selene and the burning jar. His body twisted one final time, bracing.

In that instant, Lukas was no longer simply her son. He had become her shield.

The explosion was deafening. The blast tore through the training hall with a thunderclap that rattled the very stone beneath their feet. Heat seared the air, white flame blooming outward in a violent flash.

But fire, no matter how potent, was still fire.

And Lukas Drakos was a Dragon Lord of Linemall.

The instant the inferno struck, the ancient Legacy awakened. The Robes of the Lord shimmered across his form, unseen until that moment, flaring like a shield of primordial power. The flames washed harmlessly over him, the enchantment granting complete immunity to fire's wrath.

Yet immunity did not mean the explosion was without cost.

The force alone struck him like a mountain collapsing onto his very body. His right wing, thrown out wide to shield Selene, bore the brunt of that force but it had not done any lasting damage to his physical form.

His ears rang so sharply it drowned out all sound, his vision awash with white and red from the sudden flash.

Lukas staggered. His knees buckled, and he crashed to the stone floor with a grunt, every limb struggling to remember balance.

Selene's hands were instantly on him, pulling, steadying, her face twisted with fear.

Lukas forced himself upright, teeth grit against the disorientation. But by the time his sight cleared, it was already too late.

The Mana from all around them had formed a shield to protect the princess at the last moment—fragile, desperate, not a work of Divinity but magic's response to Rosalia's sheer need to survive.

The final hooded intruder had broken through. The barrier splintered beneath the attacker's force.

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Rosalia faltered, caught between panic and exhaustion.

And then Lady Kaitlyn stepped forward.

The blade meant for Rosalia buried itself instead in Kaitlyn's chest.

The moment froze.

Lukas' throat ripped open with a scream, but he couldn't even hear his own voice over the ringing in his ears.

Fury ignited in him, a fire hotter than the magical grenade could ever burn. He moved forward, instinctive and violent. Lukas flung himself forward and crashed his body into the figure's; knowing that he could not use his Divinity here. Not after the oath he had sworn before stepping into the Ancestral Lands.

The hooded figure was flung across the chamber, smashing into the ground so hard that the stone floor cracked and caved beneath him.

But Kaitlyn was already falling. Blood spread across the white of her robes in sickening blossoms as she clutched the dagger's hilt. Rosalia caught the Royal Consort, lowering her down with shaking hands, tears already spilling down her cheeks.

"No…" Lukas' voice cracked as he stumbled forward.

Rage and desperation overtook him. Lukas shifted back into his humanoid form, every scale retreating, every claw pulling back into flesh. With savage momentum, Lukas crashed down onto the attacker, pinning him with his knee pressed hard against his chest. In this form, his weight would not kill him but it would be enough to make it hurt; make it hard to breathe.

His hand tore away the mask hiding the enemy's face.

And there he was.

Malrik, the Dragonborn of the Flames. Rysenth's most trusted advisor.

Lukas froze, confusion and fury boiling together until his body shook.

His hand closed around Malrik's collar, dragging him up so their faces nearly touched.

"Why?" he roared, voice hoarse with grief and rage. "Why would you do this?"

But Malrik's eyes told no story of remorse or reason. They were glazed, distant, as though he were half-possessed. And then, almost impossibly, Malrik grinned. It was a twisted, wicked smile that promised nothing but destruction. Lukas felt it before he heard it—the surge of magic swelling inside Malrik's chest, burning hotter with every heartbeat.

"House Ishtar sends their regards," Malrik hissed, his voice low and venomous, audible even through Lukas' ruined hearing. "Burn in the flames…and return to the ashes."

The heat beneath Lukas' grip would have been unbearable if not for the Robes.

Malrik was turning himself into a weapon, his Divinity igniting his very body. Now a living grenade, the same as the one he had hurled at Selene—only stronger, infinitely stronger than before. Lukas clamped down, throwing his full weight over Malrik, wrapping himself around him in a desperate attempt to contain the inevitable. The detonation came with the fury of a collapsing star. Fire, light and force threatened to engulf the room in annihilation.

But the Robes of the Lord flared to life once more, answering Lukas' call.

They did not only shield him from the flames—they drank them in, swallowing the raging elemental energy until it coursed through him like molten iron in his veins. It was not his fire, not a magic he knew or understood. It was not even his to wield. But what Lukas could do was listen to the very words he had told Rosalia just when she had begun her training: to guide it and redirect it elsewhere.

Lukas roared, a guttural sound that tore from both his human throat and his draconic essence, and forced the inferno downward. The ground trembled as the redirected explosion slammed into the stone floor. The chamber shuddered, cracks spiderwebbing through its foundations, the very earth groaning as it absorbed what would have torn the room—and everyone in it—to pieces.

When the smoke finally cleared, Lukas stood in the center of a smoking crater.

His chest heaved, adrenaline still burning through every muscle.

At his feet lay the ruined corpse of Malrik, the Dragonborn of the Flames.

The dragonborn's chest had been blown apart, his torso charred and broken beyond repair, but his face—enough of it—remained recognizable.

Lukas' ears still rang, drowning the world in a suffocating silence.

His thoughts blurred, half-lost to shock, half-fueled by the magic still coursing inside him.

Lukas stared down at the body of the man who had been Rysenth's most trusted advisor, now reduced to ash and ruin.

Then he turned—and the sight that met him wrenched the air from his lungs.

Selene and Rosalia were kneeling in a pool of crimson.

Lady Kaitlyn lay between them, pale as death, her eyes closed and her breath shallow.

Blood poured freely from the wound, staining the floor beneath her in dark waves. Rosalia pressed both hands against the wound, summoning mana in a desperate attempt at healing, but nothing she did was slowing the flow.

"No…" Lukas staggered toward them, each step heavy, his feet slipping in Kaitlyn's blood. He dropped to his knees beside them, shaking his head in disbelief as Selene shouted at the Lady Kaitlyn to stay awake, her voice raw with desperation.

Then movement caught his eye.

At the doorway stood Katrina Drakos, frozen in horror.

"Katrina!" Lukas' voice cut through the ringing in his ears, sharper than he intended.

Katrina rushed forward, panic in her face, tears already falling. "What happened? Is—is she-" Her words broke apart, her gaze darting past him to her grandmother laying in a pool of her own blood.

Lukas caught her by the shoulders, halting her before she could reach them. Her body trembled under his grip, struggling to push past, but Lukas held her firm.

"Katrina—listen to me!" His voice cracked with urgency.

Her eyes snapped up to his, wide with fear. "She's dying—"

"Do you trust me?" Lukas demanded.

Katrina hesitated, her gaze flicking back toward her grandmother.

Rosalia's frantic attempts to heal, Selene's cries to keep Kaitlyn awake and the spreading pool of blood—all of it was too much to even wrap her head around.

Katrina looked back to Lukas, searching his face, finding the same desperation but also an unshakable resolve.

"Do you trust me?" Lukas asked again. His voice was low, steady, though his insides churned with panic.

"Yes," she whispered without hesitation.

Because she meant it.

She trusted Lukas with her life.

And in that single word, Lukas knew what had to be done.

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