The sixth shield held. Barely.

A thin, hairline fracture ran through it, glowing with an intense white-hot fluorescence that suggested the energy was still actively crackling within. The annihilation beam dissipated just a heartbeat before the shield completely failed, the remaining energy flickering out like a dying ember. Dominic lay there, face scorched and blistered from the assault, his ears ringing loudly with a piercing, high-pitched whine that drowned out all other sounds. His sword arm trembled uncontrollably, the muscles fatigued and numb, so much so that he couldn’t feel his fingers. He didn’t attempt to move.

The stone floor beneath him was cold and rough against his back, pressing into his shoulders and spine. Every shallow breath sent a sharp spike of pain rippling through his ribs, making each inhalation feel like a harsh stab. The coppery taste was thick and metallic on his tongue, a sickening reminder of his injuries.

Florence’s shadow loomed over him, cast by the flickering remnants of the failing shield.

She didn’t look well. The gash along her forearm still oozed blood steadily, darkening her sleeve. A charred, blackened burn marked her jawline where a beam had grazed her face at close range. The wing-strike across her ribs had torn through her tunic, exposing raw, bleeding flesh beneath, the fabric darkened and wet with blood and soot. Despite her wounds, she was standing firmly, a half-step ahead, halberd in one hand, the weapon’s gleaming blade catching the scant light. She looked down at him with the same sharp, assessing expression she’d worn the first time she threw him against a wall, her eyes glittering with both concern and hardened resolve.

She didn’t ask if he was okay. Her gaze fixed on the fractured shield, still flickering with faint, residual magic that shimmered like dying embers. Then her eyes shifted to Theresa, who was on one knee thirty feet away, both hands still extended. The gold trim of Astrielle’s Promise was entirely darkened, lacking its usual luster, as if drained of its divine light. Her face had taken on a pallid hue, resembling old parchment, wrinkled, dry, and faded.

A single nod was all Florence could manage; her strength was spent.

Theresa’s knees buckled beneath her. She caught herself with one hand on the cold stone, then slowly lowered herself the rest of the way, her movements sluggish and unsteady. The coat she wore pooled around her on the uneven stone floor, heavy and wrinkled. Her golden eyes remained open, but they were unfocused, vacant, visibility blurred by the deep depletion of mana, which was so profound it threatened to blur her very consciousness.

The angel was recharging, suspended in mid-air with an almost palpable stillness, slowly regaining its strength amid the surrounding chaos.

It floated approximately thirty feet away from the tumult, pinned in place by unseen, supernatural forces yet unmistakably alive. The severed wing Florence had torn at the joint hung limply, feathers disheveled and ragged, barely clinging to the tattered bone beneath.

A gaping, ragged hole in its face flickered with irregular spasms, the flesh around it twitching spasmodically as if haunted by residual pain. Inside, a dark, viscous substance pulsed sluggishly, visibly drained by the luminous beam that continued to draw energy from it with relentless precision.

The angel’s sobs resumed, wet, rasping sounds riddled with despair, punctuated by hiccups that echoed with unfiltered anguish, evoking something that hated existence itself.

Along its remaining wings, faint, bluish spots began to glow faintly, casting a dim, ominous light. These sparks gradually intensified, suggesting an ominous buildup of energy akin to a suppressed storm ready to break.

They had a thirty-second window, maybe less, to act.

No one voiced a word, but all eyes bore witness to this silent, desperate process of renewal, a ritual of untold stakes.

When the angel unleashed the annihilation beam, the dark substance within thinned and trembled. The core, its core, was inside, the very essence, the source of its supposed divinity. The wings, the beams, the body, the screams, everything was merely a hollow shell.

Theresa was the first to speak. Her voice was hoarse and fragile, barely above a whisper, yet steady with resolve.

"Florence. The wings."

"I’ll ground it." Florence spat blood onto the stone. It was dark, almost black, in the colorless light of the void. "You get him there."

"Dominic." Theresa turned her head. The movement cost her. Her golden eyes were dull with exhaustion, sunken in her pale face, but her gaze didn’t waver. "You’re the main attack. The bond is open. Use everything."

No discussion. No plan B.

Dominic gazed at the angel. Tears streamed down its face, mixed with shrill screams that echoed in short, wet bursts. It was the most terrifying sight he had ever encountered. His ribs felt fractured, agony pulsing from the countless individual fights that had left him battered. His right hand, his sword arm, was numb, useless. He was an E-rank summoner, standing defiantly before an abomination of SSS+++ magnitude, its grotesque form writhing with unnatural energy.

He nodded.

"I’ll need a running start."

"You’ll get one," Florence said.

She pushed past the forty percent threshold.

The seal sealing her raw power strained under the increasing pressure. Dominic felt it through the bond, a tense, pulsing sensation at the base of his skull. It was like a door being forced wider, groaning under the strain. Somewhere in the distant Thalassian Empire, a realm long dead for a thousand years, a doctrine that had once inspired demons of war recognized the danger: its inheritor was on the verge of doing something dangerously reckless.

Florence advanced into the second phase of her combat, activating Sundered Sky with deliberate intent.

Every blow she endured throughout the battle, the strikes from the phase one bosses, the relentless hammer swings, the grazing beam of light, the talon strikes, and the wing that had fractured her ribs, was transformed into kinetic energy. This accumulated power coalesced into a single, relentless surge of forward momentum. She did not break into a run; instead, the space between her initial position and the angel seemed to fold and collapse under the force of her will.

With a measured breath, she raised her halberd high overhead in a swift, two-handed arc. The air around her warbled with a sharp, tearing scream.

The first strike sliced through the air, severing two of the angel’s wing joints simultaneously. The delicate membranes fluttered and tore apart like soaked parchment. Violet light seeped from the gruesome wounds, casting an eerie glow. The angel’s screech reached a piercing pitch, shattering the surrounding stones and cracking the floor in a radial pattern outward from the point of impact.

With Hollow Step, she skillfully occupied the one angle the relentless wildfire couldn’t reach. The remaining wings flailed wildly, beams of fiery light firing in every direction, creating a storm of dark radiance that filled the space with a deafening, screaming heat. None of it touched her. She moved along a subtle, almost imperceptible path—the angle the angel’s own perception skipped. A flicker between angles, never where the beams were, always where they had just been, as if she blurred the line between reality and perception.

The curved, serrated edge of her halberd bit into the third wing’s delicate membrane, tearing through thin, iridescent layers that shimmered under the fiery light.

The angel’s taloned hand swung at her with brutal force, a powerful backhand capable of crushing a castle gate. She angled her body to meet it, taking the full impact on her reinforced pauldron. Metal screamed against flesh and bone as the blow drove her down a solid inch into the rough stone floor, cracks spiderwebbing outward from her feet like a web of fractures.

Seizing the moment, she used the impact to her advantage. Redirecting the kinetic energy flowing through her body, she channeled it down the halberd’s haft, transmitting the surge into the deadly spike at its tip, preparing for her next move.

She drove it through the angel’s foot and into the floor beneath. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

The angel was pinned.

It thrashed violently, the pinned foot tearing free as the membrane was ripped, audible and visceral. The fourth wing lashed out aggressively. She ducked quickly beneath it, already raising the halberd into a sweeping arc known as Sundered Sky. This strike targeted the base of the fifth wing. The severed membrane struck the floor with a wet slap, still twitching and spasming as blood and rot seeped from the wound.

The sixth wing struck her sharply across the ribs with brutal force.

She was propelled backward twenty feet through the air, the impact knocking her to the cold, hard floor. She rolled instinctively, momentum carrying her before her body fully registered the pain from the blow. Blood immediately oozed down her side, merging with the thick crimson flow of an older wound, a vivid reminder of the ongoing battle.

Her grip on the heavy, ornate halberd remained unshaken, fingers clutching the weapon with grim determination. Her face was etched with a stoic mask—no visible pain, just an unreadable, flat expression. It was the face of someone who had transcended mere pain, entering a state where injury was merely information to be processed.

Her eyes flicked to Dominic, urgency flashing behind them as she sought his response.

"Now! Go now!"