Chapter 148 Bontah and Reyger

Chapter 148 Bontah and Reyger
Bailey 

I stand in the main hall of Junhera in wolf form, facing Alpha Vario across the stone floor. The air between us feels wrong the moment I lock my eyes on him. He smells like he’s rotting from the inside out. His dark, evil magic radiates outward in uneven waves that scrape against my senses. 

Vario moves first. He surges forward with brutal speed, and black force erupts from him in jagged bursts that tear into the stone where I was standing a heartbeat earlier. I twist away immediately, refusing to let him control the rhythm of the fight. 

I push into him and we collide hard—the impact throws me across the hall. Pain flashes through my shoulder, but I force myself upright before he can pounce. 

We circle one another, and I wonder why he isn’t using his magic on me. Most likely he thinks that I’ll be an easy target because I’m a smaller she-wolf. 

Vario comes straight at me, and I meet him head-on, snapping for his muzzle as he drives in. He twists and catches my neck with his jaws, and I shove back into him and bite down into his foreleg to break his grip. 

We stay locked close as he bites my neck while I rake my claws across his chest and shoulder. His jaws open wider, and I fear he may hit my jugular if I don’t pull away. 

Just then, Rian rushes into the hall with our warriors behind him. Vario looks up and lets go of my throat with his fangs for a fraction of a second, and I’m able to get away. Relief hits me so sharply it almost disrupts my focus.

“Bailey,” Rian calls through the link. 

Vario stares at Rian, and I watch a pulse of black force erupt outward from his beady red eyes. It isn’t directed at me. It spreads outward through the hall, and I watch as Rian and the others collapse where they stand.

Their bodies lock as if every internal system has been shut down at once. There is no struggle, no resistance, only sudden stillness where they fall. 

I gasp in horror, but I don’t have time to reach them. Vario turns fully back to me, and the air around him grows heavier, thicker with that same corrupted pressure, and I understand he is preparing to end this fight completely.

Heat erupts behind me as scarlet light floods the hall. Bontah, the Spirit of War, appears beside me, his presence burning red and enraged. The moment Bontah fully manifests, the pressure of Vario’s magic dies, and I see it when he hesitates for the first time since the fight began. It is small, almost imperceptible, but I see it clearly. 

That hesitation is enough to change everything.

I move, and Bontah moves with me. We strike Vario together, and the impact forces him backward across the hall. He lunges at me again, but Bontah’s scarlet force breaks his stride before he can reach me. For the first time, his control over the space around him begins to break.

Bontah and I rush Vario before he can even turn to retreat, and I drive my shoulder hard into his ribs while Bontah’s claws rake across his face. 

Vario’s head snaps backward. He tries to recover fast, but I’m already inside his space. I bite down into his foreleg and hold just long enough to disrupt his forward push before he tears free.

“He’ll be coming in high again,” Bontah sends me through the link. 

I drop underneath Vario’s bite. The cruel Alpha Vario’s jaws pass over empty air, and I rise into his chest at the same time, my bite catching under his jaw, forcing his head up and breaking his angle before he can clamp down.

Vario drives back in to recover, but Bontah and I circle him instantly. Then I surprise him again by knocking into his shoulder while my claws cut across his chest, forcing him to stumble mid-motion. 

“Don’t let him square up again,” Bontah shoots. 

Every move Vario makes, we’re one step ahead—shoulder, bite, claw—keeping him turning instead of attacking, never allowing him a clean line to commit.

He lunges again, full force, and we meet him head-on and turn through the impact, breaking his charge completely and forcing him down. I deliver the coup de grâce, ripping out his throat. 

He doesn’t get back up.

I stand over Vario’s body, breathing hard. Blood darkens the cracks in the floor beneath him. 

I turn to Bontah. “Why didn’t he use that evil power on me?” I ask. 

“Luna Gray, you’re a white witch. Dark magic can’t take hold of white magic. It can’t be used on you.” 

I turn, look across the hall, and my heart falls into the pit of my stomach. Rian and the warriors are still where they dropped. None of them move.

“How do we wake them?” I ask.

“We must call on Reyger,” he sends. “He’s the spirit guide of new life. He can break the paralysis.”

Bontah calls for Reyger immediately, and within seconds, the air in the hall changes. Emerald light gathers in the center of the room, not arriving all at once but forming piece by piece, as if the space itself is pulling something into shape, and then Reyger’s human-spirit form stands where nothing was before. Green light moves through him, flickering like flame one moment and then flowing like water the next. 

“Reyger, my mate and our warriors have fallen,” I send.

Just then, the healers and alchemists enter the room, watching in awe as Reyger and Bontah glow in red and green hues. Saja and Freida bow first, and the others follow their lead as Reyger floats over to the fallen warriors.

Reyger raises his hand, and the green light above the great hall unfolds into shifting visions of rebirth in all its forms—newborns drawing their first breath, seeds cracking open beneath warm soil, orchards overflowing with fresh ripe fruit, broken hearts mending, and empty villages filling again with life. The air fills with it, not as separate images but as one flowing force of renewal, drifting down in slow waves of light. 

Each vision settles into the fallen warriors like a breath returning to a body, sinking into their chests and spreading outward through muscle and bone. One by one, their bodies react. 

Rian is the first to rise fully, and the others follow, shaking off the paralysis as life reclaims them and brings them back to us.

Rian and I run across the hall toward each other, nuzzling into one another as soon as we meet.

“Bailey, you did it. You killed Vario,” Rian sends.

“We’ve defeated evil once again,” I reply.

We stand together in the center of Junhera’s great hall, both knowing there is still a great deal of work ahead of us, rebuilding and recovery, but the hardest part is over now.