Then fragments of the evolution entry flashed before her, each one true now, not theoretical.
Oblivion Sight — perception dilates.
Herald Roars — destabilization resonance.
Abyssal Veins — damage bends away.
Harbinger's Pulse — the world stutters with each heartbeat.
She couldn't contain it anymore. Her roar turned into something else; something vast, echoing, impossible satisfying. The sound warped the air. Metal twisted and sang in sympathetic vibration to her heartbroken resonance. Before her raging power, the foolish Forje staggered back, his barrier flickering. "What—what are you becoming?"
Without a word, Idalia leapt through a portal, then reappeared slightly above his head, claws outstretched, screeching. "This is for Kelix!"
Forje howled, "You fools! All of you!" He thrust the dagger toward her throat.
It stabbed—
The blade warped from one entry portal and emerged from a second portal to strike at his neck. Forje threw himself to the side, barely evading his own dagger's wrath.
"You warped my weapon in that instant?" His eyes were wide with disgust and disbelief. "How?"
Idalia smiled, not with joy, but with terrifying clarity.
"I choose mine."
Her claws struck with {Claw Rend} as they tore through his infuriating barrier. The man before her frowned as she shattered the invisible shield. Suddenly his fist ignited with an orange flame, which he launched toward her face. Idalia barely registered it when her [Oblivion Sight] activated, conjuring a portal before her eyes. The man's fist sank into the portal and crashed against his own face.
"Agh! By the void—!" He staggered backwards, clutching his nose, but Idalia was ready for him. She dashed forward, her {Claw Rended} claws striking his leg and leaving marks. However, she quickly noticed that the cuts were shallow, as his pants were made from a material too tough to cut through properly. Time to improvise, she thought as she circled around him like a predator possessed. The man had already recovered and was pulling the trigger on that blasted Kelix-stealing weapon.
Again, she warped the bullet away with a portal, swift and clear, from her trajectory. Her blood boiled when the man spun just before it hit him.
"Insufferable beast!"
"My friend wasn't prey!"
She snarled, claws out, tail lashing. The combination of [Spatial Sight] and [Oblivion Sight] sharpened her senses to the microfractures in reality, revealing faint threads of space she could manipulate.
With a thought, she opened a portal beneath Forje's feet. The man stumbled forward… only to vanish, reappearing two meters above her head, his own dagger now stuck to the ceiling like a comet.
"You—impossible!" Forje snarled, fists igniting with fiery Sinastral energy. He hurled a wave of molten arcs toward her.
Idalia laughed a roar that made the chamber itself shiver. She tore open three portals in a triangle around him. The arcs bent, twisted, and tangled through the portals, ricocheting unpredictably. One struck a support beam, which shuddered and collapsed, raining debris. Another looped around and smacked Forje's own chest, making him stagger backward, eyes wide.
Not done.
She leapt, claws poised, and vanished into a portal, reappearing mid-air above the collapsing machinery. With {Herald's Roar} now resonating from her lungs, Forje probably felt his inner energy rhythm falter based on the squeamish look on his face.
"You think a little… roar… can—" he grunted, before she slammed down through a portal she conjured beneath his shoulder. The impact bent the ground, sending him tumbling across the floor like a ragdoll. His systems sputtered, armor plating sparking.
Idalia was everywhere and nowhere. One moment she was charging with claws extended; the next she warped sideways, raking his back with portal-assisted strikes, then twisting space so his own bullets looped toward him—parried unfortunately—embedding in a support pillar.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Forje wasn't defeated, though. With a grimace, he activated his personal field, forcing the space around him to stabilize. Portals distorted violently, throwing Idalia off-balance. Sparks erupted as she almost collided with a wall, but {Abyssal Veins} flared; damage bent away, her body shrugging off impact like it was made of liquid steel.
She roared again, [Portal Roar] beginning to manifest, heat flaring around her scales. The chamber trembled. The lights flickered, shadows stretching and twisting unnaturally.
Forje's own Sinastral fire erupted in waves to meet her, but each strike now entered her spatial web: bullets, fists, energy bolts all looping, rebounding, sometimes hitting him instead.
"Impossible!" he screamed, spinning, portal-redirecting a flaming dagger… only to have it deflected back with a subtle flick of her tail. One hand clutched his stomach as he staggered; she reappeared behind him in a blur of crimson and orange scales, claws sinking into the floor… which she warped into a temporary platform that catapulted her over his head for another overhead strike.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
The sheer absurdity of the battle made the laws of reality feel optional. Sparks bent around her, bullets folded space like origami, and Forje's fiery dagger spun like a pinwheel between portals, narrowly missing her tail… only for her to redirect it to singe his hair in a perfect ridiculous arc.
"You… you're becoming… a living apocalypse!" Forje spat through gritted teeth, staggering as the chamber itself shivered from her {Harbinger's Pulse}. Every heartbeat of her frustration and excitement now distorted space, mana, and metal alike. Even the walls seemed afraid.
Idalia's tail whipped again, opening a portal behind him, and with a roar, she slammed him backward by bending the space he occupied. His armor cracked, his boots scraped against nothing as if reality itself had been hollowed out for an instant.
She hovered mid-air for a fraction of a second—[Oblivion Sight] letting her see all the weak points of the chamber and Forje simultaneously— before spinning and striking from multiple portals in impossible angles.
Every attack left trails of yellow flame, sparks, and the faint sound of collapsing mini dimensions.
Forje, panting, bleeding, and scorched, managed a defiant grin. "You… are… chaos incarnate, little Rex… but I am… not finished…"
Before her next strike, he thrust a hand, releasing a pulse of Sinastral energy so dense it threatened to collapse the portals themselves. Idalia felt reality resist, warp, and push back; the very fabric of space snapping against her will. She gritted her teeth, eyes glowing, tail lashing, claws spinning in synchronized chaos.
"Tell me, little Liorex—before I end your life—who are you?" His eyes narrowed as he scrutinized her. "Based on the patterns of your scales, you're most likely one of Pawail's direct descendants."
Forje's energy slammed her against the floor, but Idalia raised her head defiantly against the crushing weight, declaring, "I am Idalia Idarift! Alpha Pawail's granddaughter!"
Forje grinned, a terrible and sinister smile. "Ah, good. I have a personal vendetta against him. I wonder how that cold-blooded monster would react to such a loss." His orange tinged-power surged, spiking to ridiculous heights as the chamber rumbled from the sudden force radiating from him. "You've granted me the ultimate opportunity to strike him down, you abomination!"
"Never!" Idalia cursed. A single word echoed in her mind as she ripped herself free, striking through multiple portals at once, combining claw, tail, and obliterated spatial folds:
"Revenge!"
The chamber erupted in chaos—portals opened and closed like pulsing eyes, and debris swirled in tornadoes. Forje dodged and countered with his flaming dagger and Sinastral blasts, but each strike risked backfiring through her countless micro-portals.
"You think you can intimidate me?" she shouted, tail lashing. "I choose my path!"
Forje lurched, trying to steady himself. "You think you understand power, little Rex?" he spat, voice trembling with a mix of fury and sorrow. "Do you know what your grandfather did? Do you know the cities he flattened, the lives he shattered? The Wanderans remember Pawail as a living nightmare!"
Idalia froze mid-leap. Grandfather…?
"You fought monsters," Forje continued, stepping through a glowing ring of his own creation, "but Pawail didn't just fight. He hunted. Entire cities… gone. Tens of thousands—obliterated in hours. I lost my best friend in those ruins. Saw him crushed beneath falling towers while Pawail roared at the sky, a tyrant mocking mortals!"
His eyes blazed orange as Sinastral energy spiraled harsher around him. "And now, here comes his spawn—or so you call yourself! Do you even feel the weight of your bloodline, little Liorex? Or is all you care about… fury?"
Yes, she thought, fury, rage, and choice. I decide now. Her voice trembled but rang strong.
"I'm not here to fall. I'm here to end this! Not for him… for Kelix… for everyone you've wronged!"
Forje's expression hardened, respect and disbelief flickering across his face. "Good. Let's see if you inherited more than the monster's appetite for destruction—"
Suddenly his face contorted with pain; Idalia's eyes widened. She struggled to process the sight before her. It didn't make sense.
"You dropped your guard, Forje."
That voice. Impossible.
She peered closer to see a familiar arm wielding lightning—that it was orange lightning piercing through Forje's chest. But it wasn't just any orange lightning; it was dancing around a small hand like a blade.
"C-curse you, Kelix!" Forje spat blood as the boy behind him angled his hand upward, searing through Forje's chest and shoulder. The man fell to one knee, wheezing and crawling away, dragging a delicious trail of blackish blood.
Kelix stepped forward, following slowly, his presence scorching the very air. Orange lightning coiled off him in arcs that traced his silhouette—alive, furious, and barely human. His eyes blazed bright enough to rival the lights gleaming from the machines.
But the strangest addition to his features, Idalia noticed, was the curved, bladed horn atop his forehead, accompanied by antlers on each side of his head.
"I've always been fast, lest you have forgotten," the gestured to the scar on his chest, "I call this form [Overdrive]."
Kelix vanished, moving faster than Idalia had ever seen him move before. His knee danced with intense lightning, crashing down on Forje's back. Then a brilliant burst of light illuminated the room as if a sun had exploded.
11 chapters ahead [or 5 weeks of reading time ahead of RR]. There's a poll available there to vote for a bonus side story, and it includes all members! That same poll will be posted here on RR tomorrow. Have a great one!