Chapter 118 Blood of Despair

Chapter 118 Blood of Despair
Lulu
“Elijah…”
Pure rage, regret, and despair scorched every last bit of my mind. Seeing Elijah’s tiny fingers slip out of my weakening grip, tears streamed down my freezing cheeks.
I collapsed onto the stone floor, completely helpless as blood kept oozing from the slash on my back. My whole body was shaking—Malphas’s curse was creeping through every single muscle and vein.
\[Lulu, Elijah’s running out of time!\] Pyrrha’s voice echoed inside my head, laced with panic.
I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing Pyrrha’s fire to spark back up. I refused to die here.
Using what little strength I had left—even through the agonizing pain—I forced myself onto my knees and dragged my body up. Red blood clashed with the black magic Vane had spun around me.
Opening my blood-soaked hands, I channelled everything I had into my claws, ready to tear him apart with fire.
“I’m not dead yet, Sorcerer. Don’t you dare underestimate… a Wolf!” I screamed.
Vane didn’t even flinch. With a cold, utterly dismissive glare, he slammed his staff onto the ground. His massive serpent whipped its tail around—a beast weighing tons.
That single tail-swipe batted my fire claws away and caught me head-on, throwing me back so hard I cracked the stone wall behind me.
Scott’s wolf roared in sheer fury.
Seeing me lying there battered, Scott—in his full wolf form—recklessly leaped across the rubble. Without giving a toss about his own skin, he launched himself at Vane just to distract him and buy me enough time to reach Elijah again.
But before Scott’s claws could even touch Vane’s robes, Borg, who had just hauled himself up from Dylan’s water blast, stepped forward with glowing eyes.
"Useless wolf!" Borg snarled.
With a flick of his wrists, Borg let fly a torrent of pitch-black fire mixed with fast-moving shadow chains.
The chains caught Scott mid-air, binding his joints and shattering his spine. Scott crashed down onto the stone floor with a heavy thud, completely paralyzed.
Right at that second, Sariel stepped out from the shadows. Even though her chest had been torn open by Caspian’s claws earlier, Sariel wore a sly smirk as she wove a high-tier illusion spell.
In an instant, the air around Caspian froze and distorted.
Over at the center of the altar, things were spiraling into absolute disaster. Malphas sneered, seeing all of us cornered. Gathering what was left of the dark energy in the room, he closed in on Elijah’s unconscious body.
Malphas raised a hand wrapped in dark magic. Without a second thought, he breached Elijah’s physical form, shoving his siphon magic inside the little lad to force control of his mind and finish the delayed ritual to steal his elemental heart.
Watching my little boy’s body start to quiver from Malphas’s dark magic made my heart shatter. I hammered my bloody knuckles against the stone floor, tears of pure desperation blurring my sight.
"No... please... anyone..." I sobbed, my voice raspy as I cried out the most desperate prayer from the depth of my despair. "Wherever you are... whatever power can hear me... please save Elijah. Save my pup!"
As if the heavens themselves answered a broken mother’s cry, a deafening, majestic roar shook the entire mountain.
The stone roof above the altar smashed into pieces. Massive chunks of rock and a blizzard of ice caved in. Out from the thick dust cloud, a familiar red-scaled dragon burst into the room, flapping its massive wings.
“The Red Dragon…”
And right there, standing tall on the dragon’s neck, was Niobe, brimming with fierce determination.
"Take this, you filthy Sorcerer!" Niobe yelled.
Without missing a beat, Niobe ordered the Red Dragon to unleash an ancient, scorching torrent of flames straight at Sariel.
That pure dragon fire—something Sariel had never felt before—instantly set the illusionist ablaze. She shrieked in agony as the fire consumed her magic, instantly breaking the blinding spell.
The darkness trapping Caspian suddenly vanished. The moment his senses returned and he saw Sariel writhing in pain, engulfed in flames, Caspian didn't waste a split second.
With an Alpha roar that tore through the air, Caspian dashed like lightning and slashed Sariel’s throat open with his water claws, putting an end to the illusionist once and for all.
Seeing the chaos, Aelen—the necro-chemist from Vane’s inner circle—stepped out from the altar’s shadows. The skull and snake tattoos on his neck glowed a deep blue.
Using his unique ability, Aelen started draining the dense stream of Levithaqua magic that Dylan was casting from afar.
Aelen refracted the stolen power into a high-pressure, transparent shield around Vane, shielding him from any outside attacks while Vane ordered his giant snake to finish off the rest of us.
"Don't think you can control the field, Aelen!" Niobe snapped.
Niobe jumped down from the dragon’s back. As a fellow Siphora, she activated her body's absorption magic.
She drew the extreme heat from the Red Dragon into herself, then focused and fired that pure dragon energy into a single beam that hit the core of Aelen's shield head-on.
Aelen’s magic flow was thrown completely off. At the exact same time, Dylan—finally free from Aelen’s siphon—let out a massive roar.
Dylan raised both hands, pulling up a massive tidal wave from the melting ice.
The combined force of Niobe’s dragon blast and Dylan’s wave slammed straight into Aelen, shattering his shield and sending him crashing hard into an altar pillar.
Shield down. Aelen out cold. Vane was left wide open with nowhere to hide, while his giant snake roared in desperation.
The cold blood in my veins suddenly went ablaze. The rush of adrenaline mixed with the rekindled elemental fire inside me completely burned away the dark poison on my back. The path to save Elijah was wide open.
I launched myself off the ground, sprinting through the rubble and flames. The Red Dragon lowered its left wing toward the floor, almost as if inviting me to take control of this aerial fight.
With one solid leap, I scrambled onto the Red Dragon’s thick, burning scales.
I grabbed its glowing reins and stood tall atop this fiery masterpiece. From up high, my eyes locked dead on Vane and his massive snake as it started slithering up toward us.
\[Can you feel your blood burning again, Lulu?\] Pyrrha stoked the fire within me.
“Right now, Luna!”