CHAPTER 200: CHAPTER 201: I AM PROUD

He cast another defensive spell on Eli, a shimmering shield of azure light that wrapped the Eli like a cocoon, anchoring her to the rocky outcrop below. Her eyes were wide, brimming with questions and terror, but Merlin only gave her a tired smile—one that tried to be reassuring and failed. "Stay here... Eli," Merlin said, his voice low, gravelly with exhaustion, but firm—a command carved from decades of discipline.

The wind howled around them, ripping through the shattered mountainside like a living thing. Merlin’s boots left the ground, mana coiling around him like a serpent, lifting him higher, above and beyond, toward the heart of the storm. Toward her.

Toward Aurora.

The very air grew heavier the closer he came. Mana thickened like blood in water. His limbs trembled, not from weakness but from memory. A storm was raging around him, but another one raged inside—older, quieter, more dangerous.

He didn’t care about Princess Lara, her blue hair whipping in the wind as she floated nearby, her blue eyes wide with something deep. He didn’t care about Devid, the loyal guard, hovering at her side, sword drawn, face a mask of grim resolve.

They were shadows, silhouettes without weight. Mere echoes. The world narrowed to one figure ahead of him—his heart pulling forward like a compass drawn north. The reunion crackled with unresolved energy, electric with things left unsaid. His breath hitched.

"...Aurora..." he breathed, the name trembling from his lips like a prayer pulled from under rubble. She emerged from the chaos, her silhouette cut cleanly against the maelstrom—cloak fluttering like a raven’s wings, white hair now streaked with silver, her face lit by lightning flashes, beautiful and stern. Her yellow eyes glinted, hard and unreadable, but her lips softened into a smile. A flicker. A whisper of the girl she’d been.

That smile—a blade honed over years of solitude.

"Master..." Aurora’s voice reached him, steady but carried on a strange wind, both sweet and mocking. "It seems you’ve lost some teeth..."

A strange laugh caught in Merlin’s throat—dry, cracked, almost bitter. "Battle wears us all," he murmured. "Aurora... why don’t you come back?"

The words tumbled out, raw, vulnerable, stripped of pretense. "It’s been years... years, I tell you." He hovered before her, a relic of the past pleading with the future. His hands trembled—not from the storm, but from her closeness, from the ghost of their bond.

She didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, Aurora tilted her head, the wind carrying the faintest fragrance of jasmine and ash—familiar yet foreign. Her gaze pierced him. She knew. She’d always known what he would say. Because she remembered him clearly, perhaps more clearly than he remembered himself.

’You always ask me to come back... You never asked why I left.’

But she didn’t speak those words.

Her hand rose, and with it, the storm changed. The air crystallized. Merlin’s instincts flared, too late.

A lattice of freezing mana wrapped around him—ice sculpted into chains, locking his limbs mid-air. His breath fogged instantly, the temperature plummeting like a memory of winter long buried. He struggled, mana pulsing in reflexive bursts—but she’d prepared for him. She always did.

"Master..." Aurora’s voice now held steel beneath the sorrow. "We are at war. You taught me better than this. You taught me not to hesitate... yet here you are." yellow gaze met his, unwavering.

He was still trying to catch up.

’How long had it been since she surpassed me?’

Merlin smiled faintly through the frost creeping along his beard. "Hacking the casting of thousands of mages and now freezing me with my own spell..." he said, almost admiringly. "You’ve grown strong."

The pride in his voice was real.

But so was the regret.

Aurora didn’t flinch. "Strength was never the question," she said. "It was always about choice."

His fingers twitched. A motion spell sparked—then broke apart like glass. He tried again. And again. Each one fizzled. Useless. His brow furrowed.

"...What?" The whisper escaped him before he could stop it.

She’d rewritten his technique. Bent it into something sharper. Stronger. Hers.

Lightning flashed, painting her face in stark contrast—shadow and brilliance. She looked like a queen of storms, a daughter of fury and fate.

"Just stay there, old man..." she murmured, her voice taut with fatigue and fury alike.

A book floated to her side—dark leather etched with sickly green runes. It hovered like it breathed, its presence more felt than seen. The mana around it twisted unnaturally, an aura that made even the thunder grow quiet.

Merlin’s chest tightened.

"No... That book... ’That’s not possible.’" He froze—truly froze now, not from her spell but from recognition.

"The Book of the Damned," Aurora confirmed, her voice proud, unwavering. "It chose me...."

Merlin’s breath caught in his throat. The relic he had hunted for centuries, the tome whispered of in forbidden tongues, rested gently in her hands—as if it belonged.

"...Of course, Aurora," he said at last, and there was wonder in his voice, mingled with pain. "You’re more brilliant than I ever was... You always were."

Her hand brushed the book’s cover. A subtle tremor ran through her fingers.

.

.

.

Somewhere, far below, lara dove like a hawk toward the battlefield—her blade glinting, her fate written in blood. Aurora didn’t even turn to command her.

"There she goes..." Aurora muttered, half-amused, half-weary.

Her gaze shifted to Devid.

"Devid," she said. "The aircrafts. Handle them until I let this bind drop." She hesitated. "I can’t hold this forever."

Devid saluted mid-air, his armor humming with embedded flight sigils. "Understood." Then, without hesitation, he shot into the storm, a lance of silver heading for the enemy skyships that still loomed like metal gods.

Aurora turned back to Merlin.

"My job is only to hold you, Master," she said.

But her fingers trembled slightly.

He noticed.

He always noticed.

"You think this is enough," Merlin whispered, his eyes never leaving hers. "But war is a teacher, too. You’ve only learned half my lessons." His fingers twitched once more.

’...three....two...one...haha.’ Merlin thought. The waiting period for his spell finally finished. It had prolonged because of the scumbag loki. But it was okay. It’s done. His latest spell. His latest power.

Cracks splintered through the ice like veins beneath skin. She gasped. Just for a heartbeat.

His mana was rising again.

More than rising—boiling.

Aurora clenched her fist, the Book of the Damned pulsing with dark rhythm. Her other hand shook violently, threads of crimson magic binding around the lattice, reinforcing her trap. Sweat ran down her temple, freezing into slivers the moment it touched air.

"Stay. Please," she whisered.

A slip.

She caught it too late.

Merlin’s gaze softened, that flicker of memory behind his eyes returning again. The girl with ink-stained fingers and starlight dreams, who once asked him if fire could be taught to heal.

"You’re still in there," he murmured.

"No," she said quickly. "I’m not."

Silence.

Then the crack of ice again—louder. The very clouds above them seemed to ripple from the pressure. Her mana strained to hold, the feedback threatening to collapse the spell.