The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss-Chapter 135: Done for.

Aurora stood above the castle, floating just slightly off the tallest stone spire — not as a show of power, but because gravity had forgotten her presence. The wind ripped through her silver hair, snapping strands into the stormlight, like threads of silk unspooling from a god’s torn robe. She did not move. She did not blink.

Her eyes were closed — but she saw more than most men ever could.

The mana nerves beneath her skin throbbed with life, flickering like veins of starfire. They mapped the world around her, every flutter of bird-wing, every spark of a distant soldier’s torch, every scream still trapped in the bones of the earth. They told her things. Whispered truths. Warnings. Omens.

And now?

Now they screamed.

Not in pain.

Not in fear.

But in recognition.

The world was shifting again. Not yet broken. Not yet undone. But bending — bending toward a shape she had not dreamed, not planned, not prepared for.

"How long were you standing there?" she asked, voice low, steady — but laced with something sharp and old. Something older than kingdoms.

Henry stepped out from the shade of a crumbled arch.

Not the king of soft robes and sick chambers the court knew.

No.

This was the Henry she remembered. The one hidden beneath veils of weakness and diplomacy. The one he had always been — middle-aged, yes, but wide-shouldered and thick with power, his skin flushed with stolen vitality, his bones reinforced by years of dark experiments. He walked like a man who had finally stopped pretending to be harmless.

"It’s done?" he asked, his voice deeper now, raw and vital. Like it had been reborn in a furnace.

Aurora opened her eyes.

The wind paused.

Her gaze — twin abysses of ancient blue — snapped to his.

"Done?" she echoed softly. Her staff pulsed faintly, responding to the tremor beneath her words. "No. Not done. But we are past the point of return. This book..." Her fingers curled tighter around the carved wood, the runes glowing like veins in a dragon’s heart. "It still awes me with its wonder."

Henry stepped beside her, shoulder brushing shoulder. They stared together at the sky.

A sky too calm.

A sky waiting to be broken.

Aurora inhaled. The scent of ozone. Of prophecy. Of rain that never came.

"How much did you progress?" she asked. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom

He didn’t answer right away.

Then, slowly, he turned.

And his eyes — once gray, once mortal — were no longer either.

They burned.

Split down the center.

Red.

Cracked like glass bleeding firelight.

"I’m getting there," he growled. "This mana ..... it’s wild. Unstable. But it keeps me alive. It’s purging the sickness. Bit by bit."

Aurora tilted her head. Studying him.

Then smiled.

Cold.

Predatory.

"Good."

They stood like monuments. She, the ghost of thunder. He, the flame that refused to die.

"...It’s peaceful," she said after a long silence.

Henry nodded. "I’d like to keep it that way."

Aurora laughed quietly. A laugh like broken glass dragged across marble.

"As a king, you must..."

Henry finished it. "As a king, I must."

Another pause.

He looked out across the hills — across the valleys that once held peace, and now held only soldiers.

"The Empire is bleeding. Their unity fractured. Their empress is erratic, driven by rage. Their Primes are stirred, yes, but they’re few. We strike now — and we bury them before they even finish mourning."

Aurora turned her gaze on him fully.

She saw the war already playing behind his words.

But she also saw something else.

Fear.

It was buried deep. Wrapped in reason. Chained in strategy. But it was there. She tasted it like iron in the air.

"You fear them," she said.

Henry didn’t flinch. "I did."

Aurora arched one brow, voice quiet. "Still do."

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t have to.

That silence told her everything.

She had seen it before — in the eyes of great kings, and dying Demi gods.

The moment they stopped pretending they weren’t terrified.

"That fear brought us here," she murmured.

Henry nodded once. "My fear will lead us to victory."

Aurora chuckled again. A dead sound.

Then her staff sparked.

A flare of light burst through one of the runes. A pulse of heat. A message.

From the border.

From the east.

Her fingers closed over the flare, absorbing the knowledge directly into her veins. Her vision blurred for a moment. Her lips parted.

And then — stillness.

Her expression didn’t change.

Not much.

But Henry saw it.

A small, involuntary shift in her mouth.

A flicker in her brow.

"...What is it?" he asked, stepping closer.

Aurora didn’t speak at first.

She just stared at the horizon.

The horizon that no longer felt like a beginning — but a warning.

Finally, she whispered, "Victory, you call it..."

She stepped back. Her eyes distant. Her magic simmering under her skin like a storm waiting to break.

"But sadly, Henry... it seems you were outmatched."

Henry’s fists clenched. "What do you mean?"

Aurora handed him the scroll. It burned against his fingers as he opened it.

He read fast. Skimming words not meant to be read by mortals.

And then—

He stopped.

His breath hitched.

"...They’re already there?" he whispered.

Aurora nodded once. "Not just there. They’ve reached Kury’s lines. One hours ago. With a force unlike anything we’ve calculated."

"But—" Henry’s voice cracked. "We only confirmed the Empire’s southern mobilization yesterday."

"I know."

Henry looked up. "Then how?"

Aurora’s voice was barely audible. "Someone in the Empire... moved faster. Thought deeper. Saw further. Taking the whole sky as their own."

Henry shook his head slowly.

"Dragons?....they can’t be tamed...?—"

Aurora cut him off with a whisper.

"Not Dragons ."

Silence fell again.

Thicker now.

Colder.

Henry swallowed.

His voice turned hard. Bitter.

"Aurora, don’t play with me, just tell me what happened?."

Aurora nodded again. Her lips barely moved.

"Human ingenuity....."

They both stood motionless.

Wind coiling around them.

The scent of blood in the air, though no one had yet died here.

"It seems the empire had hidden something ...something dangerous." Aurora said softly. "They are trying to elevate to a new age...a new age where the empire takes all."

Henry’s jaw tensed. "A weapon..."

"No, it’s a flying mechanism of shorts...." Aurora corrected. "Carrying mages, fire mages to be exact...."

Henry gritted his teeth. ".....raining fire from above while our army suffer in land...."

Aurora didn’t smile.

Didn’t agree.

She simply said, "not suffer...Henry...suffering is for the living..."

The wind shifted.

The castle groaned beneath them.

Somewhere far away, a line of flame cut across a battlefield.

And in the shadows, the Book of the Damned whispered to itself, pages flipping without touch.

Reading futures.

Rewriting destinies.

"...casualties are in...," Aurora said.

Her eyes burned silver again. Her mind taking in the information like enhaling air itself. She paused, taking a hard breath in.

"Aurora..."

"Casualties recorded...." She voiced as she gulped "....nine thousand and still counting..."

"...."

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