High above the ruins, fire and thunder collided once more.
The battlefield, torn apart by fire and lightning, screaming with raw elemental force. Red and blue light clashed again and again, each collision shaking the air like the world itself was cracking.
As the fight raged on, the Flame Phoenix pressed its advantage. Its wings burned brighter than before, each slow flap sending out waves of crushing heat that bent the air and warped the clouds.
The Lightning Wyrm Dragon was being forced backward.
Its massive body twisted through the sky, coils snapping and recoiling as it tried to keep distance. Blue lightning still crackled along its scales, but the sparks were no longer steady. They flared, then faded, then flared again, like a heart struggling to keep rhythm.
Every clash now favored the Flame Phoenix.
The Wyrm lunged, releasing a storm of compressed lightning that tore through the sky like a net of thunder. For a moment, the Phoenix disappeared behind the blinding blue light.
Then the fire exploded outward.
The Lightning Wyrm was slammed backward, its long body spinning uncontrollably. Several of its scales shattered into pure energy, dispersing into the air like broken glass made of lightning.
Edward felt it instantly.
His connection to the Wyrm trembled, a sharp pressure pushing back against his sea of consciousness. His jaw tightened, but he did not look away.
Below them, the Duke hovered in the air, flames circling his body. His eyes followed every movement of the spirits, sharp and focused, but beneath that focus was something else.
Disbelief.
"...Unbelievable," the Duke murmured, his voice low, almost lost in the roar of the battle.
A High Mage.
That was what Edward was supposed to be. At the very start of the High Mage realm, no less. Strong, yes. Talented beyond reason, certainly. But still bound by limits that had existed for thousands of years.
And yet...
The Duke narrowed his eyes as the Lightning Wyrm twisted through another wave of fire, barely avoiding a direct strike.
"A High Mage’s elemental spirit," he said quietly, almost to himself, "is fighting an Archmage’s summon... and not being erased instantly."
That should not be possible.
Elemental spirits were reflections of their summoners. Their strength came from them. A High Mage’s summon, no matter how refined, should have been crushed the moment it faced a true Archmage-level summon.
Yet the Wyrm still moved.
"...How many times?" the Duke muttered. "How many battles has that boy already fought in his life?"
The Flame Phoenix screeched, its cry cutting through the air like a blade.
It dove again.
This time, it did not aim for the Wyrm’s head or body. Instead, it swept low, its wings carving through the air beneath the dragon. A massive wave of fire surged upward, slamming into the Wyrm from below.
The Lightning Wyrm roared in pain.
Its body was thrown upward, its lightning bursting outward in unstable arcs. The sky lit up as blue energy spilled like blood from a wound.
Edward’s mana surged as he forced more power into the summon, reinforcing the Wyrm’s form and stabilizing its core.
Above him, the Duke watched carefully.
"...He’s forcing it," Charles said, his voice calm now, analytical. "He’s pouring mana into the spirit faster than it can naturally recover."
He shook his head slowly.
"Brave. Foolish. Or both."
The Flame Phoenix did not give the Wyrm time to recover.
Its wings folded inward, flames compressing around its body until it became a spear of burning light. The pressure alone crushed the air, creating a vacuum that dragged many things into its path.
The Phoenix struck. The impact devastating.
The Lightning Wyrm was driven backward at terrifying speed, its body smashing through layers of clouds. A massive explosion followed, red and blue light colliding in a violent bloom.
When the light faded, the Wyrm was barely holding together.
Large portions of its body flickered, its form unstable. Lightning leaked from its scales uncontrollably, striking the air, the ground, anything nearby.
Valerius, still kneeling in the ruins below, felt the pressure of the battle.
"...It’s losing," he whispered.
Above him, the Duke straightened slightly, his expression settling into something cold and assured.
"Yes," the Duke said quietly. "It is."
His gaze then locked onto Edward.
"You’ve done well, boy," the Duke said. "Far better than you had any right to."
The Flame Phoenix rose high into the sky, flames spiraling around it as it gathered power. The heat intensified again, stronger than before, pressing down on everything beneath it. It dove straight down, wings spread wide, flames trailing behind it like the tail of a falling star.
The Lightning Wyrm tried to move. It roared, lightning surging as it forced its body to coil and twist, but it was too slow. Its weakened form could not keep up.
The Phoenix slammed into it head-on.
BOOM!!
The sky exploded.
A massive shockwave tore outward, flattening what little remained of the Vistro estate. Stone, ash, and molten debris were swept away as if they weighed nothing, erased by the violent clash above.
The Lightning Wyrm screamed.
Its body shattered—not all at once, but piece by piece. Scales broke apart into scattered bolts of lightning. Its head dissolved into raw energy, and at its center, the core flickered violently, barely holding its form.
Edward felt it like a blade through his chest.
His knees dug deeper into the ground as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. His sea of consciousness shook, waves crashing violently as the link to the Wyrm began to collapse.
High above, the Duke exhaled slowly.
"It’s over," he said, his voice carrying calm certainty. "An impressive struggle, but this was always the end."
The Flame Phoenix hovered before the shattered remains of the Wyrm, its wings burning brighter than ever. It opened its beak, flames gathering within.
One final breath would erase what remained.
But as the destruction continued above, Edward inhaled.
The breath was deep, slow, and deliberate, as if he were pulling the chaos of the battlefield into his lungs and forcing it in. For a brief moment, everything seemed to pause. The roar of fire, the crack of thunder, even the Duke’s overwhelming presence felt distant.
Then his mana erupted.
It burst out in a vast surge, rolling outward like a rising tide that swallowed the courtyard. The pressure slammed directly into the Duke’s Archmage aura, forcing it back for the first time since the battle began. The ground beneath Edward split apart with a sharp crack, then shattered completely, fragments lifting into the air under the sheer force of his release.
Edward pushed further. He forced his Sea of Consciousness to open wider than it had ever been before, ignoring the strain, ignoring the pain. Mana poured out in violent streams, flooding the space around him.
Then, suddenly the temperature dropped.
Steam hissed as moisture rushed into existence, drawn from the air itself. The raging heat around the battlefield was suddenly met by a deep, crushing cold.
The Duke’s eyes widened.
"...What?"
From the shadows beneath Edward, water surged upward as an oceanic force erupted, spiraling into the sky in a massive column of water. The flames around the Phoenix hissed violently as steam exploded outward, filling the sky with thick white clouds.
Within the rising water, a shape began to form as a deep, resonant sound echoed across the estate.
Scales appeared, sleek and dark, like shiny black glass in the moonlight. Fins spread out, slicing through the water easily. Its long, snake-like body coiled.
A huge head rose, its eyes shining with a calm, intense power.
A Leviathan.
*****************
A/N: For anyone asking, yes it was stated in the beginning Chapters that Edward has affinity with all the elemental laws, as he has comprehend all of them throughout his regressions. But why didn’t he use the water summon earlier? The water summon consumes more mana than the Wyrm, so it was always going to be used when the Wyrm has done much it could do, as Edward could maintain his mana for a finishing blow which is the Leviathan.