Behelet's Will

The corners of its mouth, covered in fine dragon scales, tore back in a grotesque grin that reached its ears. Sharp, bone-white teeth interlocked.

Its crimson slit-pupiled eyes had long since lost all human feeling. Only slaughter and madness remained. An eerie pressure rose from it, the kind that came from a creature at the top of the food chain.

Crack—

A sharp sound broke the suffocating standoff.

As though the core of some precision alchemical instrument had failed, the invisible, supposedly indestructible barriers around the isolated space appeared. Fractures spread across them like cracks in a mirror struck by a heavy blow.

Weblike fissures raced outward. The lines of the spatial rules groaned.

"The energy node sustaining the spatial restriction... has collapsed."

Ronald, still seated calmly, spoke without a ripple of emotion, as though stating the inevitable result of an alchemical experiment.

He and Karos rose almost at the same time, their wizard robes snapping in the surging air.

"Haa—"

Karos slowly exhaled, releasing a breath heavy with long-suppressed rage and the urge to fight.

The immense mental force of a Third-Ring Wizard pressed outward from him like a volcano on the verge of eruption.

His rugged, commanding features looked as hard as carved granite. His hands hung at his sides, but a faint silver metallic sheen flared between his fingers, sharp enough to cut steel. It was the ultimate expression of his control over metal particles.

"Those Revival Society... bastards."

The last word came out like a curse forced through clenched teeth.

Neither man said another word. But their urgent, icy killing intent—their resolve to avenge the Thorn Ring and defend its honor—spread silently toward the crumbling boundary like a rising black tide.

Behind them, Baker, whose face had been pale, slowly opened his eyes.

The potion was