Novel Full Chapter 1544 Stepping Up
Chapter 1544 Stepping Up
Serika watched Isara Blackveil step out of the smoke and felt the woman’s mana pressure hit her like a wall.
It was immense. Level 70, and this one wasn’t a specialist built around a single trick. Isara’s chains reformed in the air around her in a golden lattice that moved like a living thing, each link pulsing with stored energy, and her hollow eyes swept the basin with the measured calm of a woman who had survived ambushes from forces far more dangerous than three girls beneath her level.
She’d already adapted even before being ambushed, for she felt that the ambush was here. She knew what was coming.
And she’d walked in anyway, because she was the kind of officer who didn’t run from a fight she intended to win.
Serika had read this woman’s file three times before the battle. General Isara Blackveil, Level 70, six hundred years of service under the Ravenshade banner. The intelligence briefings from the Consortium labeled her a binding specialist, and that was true the same way calling a siege engine a piece of wood was true. Isara’s chains could lock down multiple high-level targets simultaneously, but that was the leash she kept herself on when she fought alongside others. When she fought alone, the chains became offense, defense, mobility, and area denial all at once. She’d held a mountain pass against an entire company for two days once by turning the terrain itself into a cage, and the soldiers who’d survived that engagement described a woman who fought like a fortress that could also chase you down.
The Reina woman and the other assassins were scalpels. Drekken was a wall. Isara Blackveil was a war unto herself, and she was the one standing across from Serika.
‘Good.’
Serika, Vex, and Kitsara stood across the basin floor. Twenty-five meters of scorched dirt and settling debris between them and the chain specialist.
‘She’s the hardest, most complete enemy here. That’s why I’ll take her on.’
The thought settled in Serika’s chest alongside the fire that lived in her bones, answering every breath with a low, steady burn. She’d been the Flaming Sovereign once, ruler of the Fire Nation in Zhenwu, a woman who’d commanded armies, broken sieges, and earned her title through decades of war fought with nothing but her fists and the flame that lived inside them.
And since crossing worlds to follow Quinlan, she’d been content to stand behind the others.
She could fight. She’d always been able to fight. But Serika had always been better at lifting others than claiming the light for herself.
She could fight. She’d always been able to fight. But Serika had always been better at lifting others than claiming the light for herself.
Thyra’s voice drifted through her memory, warm and amused and completely at odds with the fist currently burying itself in Serika’s solar plexus.
‘You’re doing it again, sweetheart.’
Serika had been on her back in the training chamber, gasping, ribs screaming from the fifth knockdown in as many minutes. The First Human Woman stood over her with her hands on her hips and a smile on her face that somehow managed to be both maternal and merciless.
‘Doing what?’ Serika had wheezed.
‘Pulling your fire. You threw that combination at half power because you were worried about overextending. You know what overextending looks like on a battlefield, darling? It looks like winning.’
Another punch. Serika blocked it, barely, and the force of it drove her across the chamber floor with her heels carving lines in the stone.
‘You ruled a warring nation. You commanded soldiers. You broke fortress walls with your bare hands. And now you’re in a group of women a tenth your age but sporting ten times your recklessness, and you’ve decided your job is to support them?’
‘They need -‘
‘They need you to stop being modest.’ Thyra’s knee caught Serika in the ribs and sent her tumbling. The First Human Woman followed, relentless. ‘Modesty is a luxury for peacetime. Your husband is building a war on a scale you’ve never seen before. He needs generals, not wallflowers. And you, my love, are a general who’s been pretending to be a foot soldier because she thinks the other girls deserve the spotlight more.’
Serika had spit blood and risen to her feet because that’s what you did when Thyra knocked you down. You got up. She hit like a woman who’d been alive since the dawn of the species and had spent every century of it learning new ways to make the lesson stick.
‘What if I’m not enough?’
Thyra’s expression had softened. She’d crossed the distance between them and cupped Serika’s face in hands that were calloused and warm and impossibly gentle for someone who’d just cracked two of her ribs.
‘Sweetheart. You crossed worlds for him. You left behind a throne, a nation, everything you’d built, because you believed in a man who was still figuring out who he was. That’s not the choice of someone who’s “not enough.” That’s the choice of someone who burns so bright she scares herself.’
She’d kissed Serika’s forehead.
Then she grinned.
‘Now get up and hit me like you mean it. If you hold back one more time, I’m telling your friends that you cried during training.’
‘I did not cry!’
‘Maybe so. But I can lie if I want to.’
‘What?! You would stoop so low…? I thought you were a warrior.’
‘As Hanae often says, honor has its place but it isn’t everything… Life can be so much easier if you don’t live an arbitrarily strict life, my love. Explore the world, explore yourself, explore the people you love… Do whatever makes you happy.’
The primordial human chuckled. ‘And telling your friends that you cried like a baby might just make me happy. What are you going to do about it?’
‘I’m going to wipe off your annoying smirk!’
Serika’s fists had ignited. Thyra’s smile had widened.
The memory cooled into focus, and the heat of it mixed with the Solar Fist burning in her chest as she looked at Isara Blackveil across the basin floor.
Vex shifted beside her, hand resting on her sword hilt, red pentagram eyes already analyzing the chain formation. Kitsara stood on her other side, three tails swishing lazily, head tilted with the amused curiosity of a foxkin who treated every fight like a particularly entertaining puzzle.
“Vex. Kitsara.”
Both women kept their eyes on the enemy, but paid attention to their friend.
“Yes?”
Serika’s voice was calm and absolute. “Follow my lead.”
Vex’s eyebrow rose a fraction. In every fight they’d had, Serika had deferred. She’d supported, flanked, followed. She’d never once asked to lead.
The Hexwitch was quiet for a half-second, then a slow grin pulled at the corner of her mouth.
“About damn time, General Serika.”
“Ooh,” Kitsara purred, ears perking. “Bossy Serika. I like it. You can try femdomming Quinnie together with me, then we can yelp and cry together as he spanks obedience into us. That’s my favorite foreplay, it gets me really horny-”
“Kitsara, you’re our distraction.”
“Aye-aye Ma’am!” Kitsara’s tails curled with delight as she saluted.
“Vex, her chains are mana constructs, yes?”
“Yep~” Vex confirmed, the tattoos along her forearms beginning to glow faintly. She didn’t need to be told what Serika wanted from her. “I’ll take care of it.”
Vex drew her sword with a ring of steel. “Don’t die on me. I can’t become the hag of the harem.”
“You’re older than me.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No!” Vex growled and stomped all at once.
“… Okay.”