Chapter 99: Grimoire X
The arena quaked as the titan dissolved, its grand theatrics discarded. What remained was no illusion of golden wheels or false suns — only the raw, suffocating presence of Vex himself.
The undead creation loomed at the center of the battlefield, rebuilt from splintered bone and black fire. Its furnace-heart pulsed once, and the air turned heavy with despair.
Aria stumbled, clutching her chest. Memories not her own bled into her mind — failures, betrayals, losses she had buried. Her knees buckled as if the weight of regret alone was enough to crush her.
"Aria—!" Fenric’s silver flames flared, forcing back the choking miasma. He knew the trick now. Vex wasn’t trying to burn them — he was breaking them from within.
Laxin snarled, chains rattling in defiance as he wrapped them around his arms. His eyes flickered with half-remembered faces, voices from his past whispering accusations. His chest tightened, but his grin sharpened.
"Nice try, bones. If guilt could kill me, I’d be dust already."
Vex moved. No theatrics, no false suns — just raw speed. Its skeletal frame blurred, and the furnace flared as it slammed a claw at Fenric. Silver wings of flame unfolded, catching the blow, the impact shaking the arena with a sound like steel screaming.
Fenric slid back, boots carving lines into the ground. His breath came hot and sharp, silver eyes narrowing. "Stay sharp. His power eats at the heart, not the flesh."
Aria forced herself upright, her grimoire blazing. Vines shot upward, spearing toward Vex’s chest — but the undead twisted unnaturally, letting the thorns pierce only smoke. Its hollow eyes locked on her, furnace glow intensifying.
Her arms faltered again. Blood ran from her nose as phantom voices whispered: You’ll betray them. Like everyone else. That’s who you are.
"Shut up!" she roared, slamming her palm into her book. The vines detonated into flame, forcing Vex back a step. Her breathing was ragged, but her eyes burned with fury.
Laxin’s chains lashed out next, glowing with blood-red sparks. They coiled around Vex’s arm, biting deep into bone. He roared, yanking with both arms, dragging the monster down to meet his eyes.
"You don’t get to puppeteer me. I write my own sins."
The furnace flared brighter, golden-black fire searing along the chains. Laxin gritted his teeth, muscles straining as the links burned into his flesh — but he held on.
Fenric seized the opening. He spoke the Dragon Tongue in a single, clipped command.
"Raen Drath!"
A silver-white flame erupted from his palm, crashing into Vex’s exposed chest. Bone cracked, fire burst, and the furnace flickered violently.
For the first time, Vex staggered.
But even broken, its voice came — calm, cold, and jagged like glass dragged over stone.
"You resist... but your hearts are already mine."
The furnace pulsed again, a wave of despair slamming across the arena.
Aria screamed, Fenric’s flame guttered, and Laxin’s chains snapped under the pressure.
The true battle wasn’t just strength. It was whether they could hold themselves together when Vex tried to tear them apart from the inside.
The pulse of despair crashed through the arena again, stronger this time. Vex’s furnace glowed like molten obsidian, and its hollow gaze fixed on Aria and Laxin.
"You feel it, don’t you?" Vex’s voice was low, almost intimate, curling around their minds. "The fear. The doubt. The betrayals you cannot forget... the failures you cannot escape."
Aria clutched her grimoire to her chest as whispers of every misstep she had ever made slithered into her mind. Faces she had tried to forget flickered in the shadows, accusing, mocking. Her knees shook.
Laxin staggered, chains falling slack around his arms. Memories he had buried clawed their way back — friends he couldn’t save, promises he had broken, choices that had condemned innocents. His jaw tightened, but he couldn’t stop the pang of guilt pressing down like a weight.
Fenric’s eyes glowed silver, calm and unshakable. He stepped between the pair and the furnace-heart of Vex, his voice a low anchor.
"Focus. He can reach into your hearts, but he cannot touch your will if you refuse to hand it over."
Aria’s breaths came in jagged gasps. She tore the grimoire open wide, glyphs lancing outward in defiance.
"Get out of my head!" she shouted, flames wrapping around her like a protective cocoon. But the whispers continued, infiltrating every memory. You’re weak. You’ll fail them. You’ll fail yourself.
Laxin’s hands shook as he gripped his chains, sparks flicking as he tried to lash them at Vex. Each strike faltered midair, slowed by his own hesitation. The monster’s laughter was like grinding stone against bone, gnawing at his confidence.
"You cannot protect her," Vex whispered, its tone gentle, almost affectionate, and the lie stung. "You are too weak... too late... too broken."
Aria’s green fire sputtered. She sank to one knee, her mind caught between fury and despair. Laxin’s chains fell entirely slack as the pressure pressed down, dragging him toward a crushing sense of inevitability.
Fenric’s gaze sharpened. His voice cut through the mental fog, precise and unwavering:
"Laxin! Aria! You are stronger than this! Stop letting him define your limits!"
The words struck like silver daggers. Aria’s fingers clenched the grimoire tighter, pulling herself back from the edge. Laxin’s eyes flickered, and he forced himself to his feet, chains humming again with controlled tension.
"You... you’re not getting me," Laxin growled, though his voice was rough with strain. "I... I decide what I can handle!"
Aria roared in unison, flames and vines surging forward. She focused not on Vex’s form but on her own strength, on every scar and lesson that had brought her here. I am not weak. I am not yours.
Vex’s furnace flared violently, sensing their resistance, pushing harder. Shadows of past fears slithered around them, trying to choke, to twist their senses. But Aria’s fire clashed with them, burning away illusions; Laxin’s chains cut through the creeping darkness like sharpened steel.
Fenric stayed steady at their side, a living bastion. His presence alone created a space where the despair could not fully reach them — a pillar they could rally around.
Together, they staggered but held. Vex snarled, furnace burning black-gold, realizing brute fear alone would not win.
The battlefield trembled with the unspoken truth: this fight was no longer about destruction. It was about endurance, willpower, and the courage to stand even when the mind itself was under siege.
Aria’s fire flared higher, Laxin’s chains glowed hotter, and Fenric’s silver mantle blazed unwavering.
The mental battle raged on — invisible, suffocating, and relentless — and for the first time, Vex had to contend with their resolute hearts.
The oppressive aura of Vex’s furnace pulsed again, but now the trio’s defiance rippled through it like a stone thrown into dark water.
Aria’s green flames twisted into serpentine shapes, writhing like living guardians around her. The whispers still came, but each time they tried to crawl into her mind, they were scorched before they reached her thoughts. She snarled, voice raw with strain and determination.
"I’m not a ghost of my mistakes. I’m me, and I fight!"
Laxin’s chains rattled with renewed ferocity, sparks flying as they lashed outward, slicing through the black-gold shadows Vex conjured. Memories of failure tried to anchor him, but he countered each one with a sharp, biting retort to himself.
"You’re not real! I’ve survived worse than you!"
Vex recoiled slightly, furnace flaring with black fire, eyes narrowing. Its voice dropped to a growl, twisting the air around them with psychic pressure.
"You think your resolve is enough? You cannot resist your own guilt, your own fear... your own weakness."
Fenric stepped forward, his silver flames radiating outward like a shield. The Fairy King Ring pulsed with blinding light, and each step he took fractured the black-gold miasma, leaving trails of raw, unmarked void in his wake.
"Your illusions are empty. Our hearts... are ours to command!"
Vex lashed out, claws sweeping through the trio, each strike carrying not just physical force but an invisible, corrosive pressure meant to pry open their minds. Aria twisted aside, vines flaring to intercept, and Laxin’s chains caught the edge, sparks scattering. Both staggered under the assault, but neither fell.
Sweat and blood mixed with arcane energy as Aria’s flames and Laxin’s chains intertwined in a synchronized defense. Every shadow Vex conjured, every whisper it sent, they met with a counterstrike: green fire that burned away doubt, chains that shredded mental attacks like tattered parchment.
Fenric’s silver aura widened, and with a single command of the Dragon Tongue, the furnace of Vex shuddered:
"Raen Torah! Luxa Eryl! Thar Drath!"
Fire, light, earth — a triad of precision assault. The strike was surgical, slicing through not just Vex’s physical form but the tendrils of despair it wove into the battlefield. Vex roared, furnace flickering erratically, its usual mental manipulations faltering as cracks appeared in its psychic defenses.
Aria let out a fierce scream, focusing on the void inside herself rather than on the specters Vex projected. Her fire erupted outward in a torrent, striking at the furnace’s aura, forcing Vex back a step for the first time with visible strain.
Laxin roared, yanking his chains in a wide arc that cleaved through shadow apparitions, his hands blistered but unrelenting. Every link screamed with defiance, every strike a testament to his unwillingness to bend.