Croft’s pale reptilian eyes blazed with maddened fury as he thrashed against the Crown’s psychic hold. His claws scraped against the ice-coated stone, carving deep gouges as he fought to rise. The frost around his wounds crystallized, then shattered, then reformed, his body rejecting the damage, refusing to accept defeat.

"I... will not... be defeated by the likes of you!" Croft’s voice cracked, raw with desperation. "I am no longer human! I am a dragon! A TRUE DRAGON! I will make this world kneel before me!"

Adam’s crimson eyes, dimmed by exhaustion but still burning, fixed on the writhing form before him. His voice came out low, cold, carrying the weight of everything he had seen.

"You’re not a dragon. You’re not some majestic creature." He took a step forward, his wounded leg dragging. "You’re just a human. A pathetic, greedy human who couldn’t accept what he was."

Croft’s thrashing intensified, frost exploding from his scales in jagged spikes. "Shut up! SHUT UP! I am—"

"You’re a fraud," Adam cut him off, his voice sharp as a blade. "You should have been grateful for what you had. But you were greedy. You used other humans as sacrifices for your power. You lied to them. Tricked them. Fed on their gratitude like a parasite." His lips curled into a cold, disgusted sneer. "That’s not the act of a dragon. That’s the act of a monster."

Croft’s form flickered—the ice dragon wavering, the scales dimming. For a moment, the merchant’s weathered face surfaced beneath the frost, pale and terrified.

But the moment passed.

"NO!" Croft roared, his draconic features hardening once more. "I am beyond humanity! I am—"

"Shut up."

Adam’s hand rose, and prismatic light began to gather in his palm—rainbow radiance, bright and terrible, condensing into a sphere that pulsed with barely contained devastation. The Crown blazed on his brow, feeding power into the attack.

The ice dragon’s eyes widened. He could feel it, the weight of the light, the promise of annihilation. Death was coming.

"I won’t accept this!" Croft thrashed, his bonds cracking. Frost exploded from his body in a desperate surge, and the psychic hold of Domineering Will shattered. "I WON’T DIE HERE!"

Adam’s eyes narrowed. "Damn it. He still has strength left."

The Prismatic Beam sputtered and died in his palm. He leaped back, his wings beating once, carrying him out of range as Croft rose to his full height, his scales gleaming with renewed frost.

Croft’s chest heaved, his breath misting in the frigid air. His pale reptilian eyes, wild with fury and desperation, fixed on Adam.

"I am not weak anymore," he snarled, his voice resonant with borrowed power. "I am a dragon. And I will prove to this world that I am a majestic being!"

He turned.

His jaws opened, and frost gathered around his throat not to attack, but to consume. He lunged at the nearest body, a fallen soldier, frozen and broken. His fangs sank into the corpse, tearing flesh, cracking bone. He swallowed, and the frost around him intensified.

Another body. Another. He devoured them like a beast, like the monster he had become.

Adam watched, his crimson eyes cold.

"You... can’t be saved anymore," he murmured.

He turned his head, his mental voice reaching out to Ignis, to Lilith, to Isolde.

’Ignis. Get up. Take Lilith and Isolde to get out of here. Now.’

Ignis stirred, frost still clinging to her scales. Her voice came back, weak but defiant.

’Adam... what are you going to do?’

’The city is lost. There’s nothing left to save.’

Adam spread his wings and launched himself into the air. The wind caught him, carrying him above the burning city, above the frozen streets, above the bodies of the dead.

His hand shot forward, and dark energy gathered in his palm.

[Shadow Lance].

Croft’s body convulsed as Adam’s Shadow Lances pinned him to the frozen ground. Frost exploded from his scales in jagged, uncontrolled bursts his form flickering, the ice dragon struggling to maintain its shape. But even as the spears of darkness tore through his flesh, even as blood steamed from a dozen wounds, his pale reptilian eyes blazed with maddened defiance.

"No... NO! I will not end like this!" Croft’s voice cracked, raw with desperation, layered with the resonance of borrowed power that was already beginning to consume him. "I have sacrificed everything! My humanity! My soul! EVERYTHING!"

The frost around him thickened. The ice that coated his scales darkened, shifting from pale blue to something deeper, something almost black. His wounds, still bleeding, began to crystallize—not healing, but transforming. The flesh around them hardened, becoming something other than flesh.

[Skill Evolution Detected!]

[Permafrost Ascendancy → Apotheosis of Eternal Winter]

[Effect: The user’s body transcends mortal limitations. Wounds no longer hinder movement. Pain becomes irrelevant. The user’s ice attacks ignore 75% of the target’s defenses. The user’s presence alone freezes the air around them, dealing continuous frost damage to all beings within a 30-meter radius.]

Croft raised his head toward the sky—toward the burning heavens, toward the smoke and ash that blotted out the stars.

"I WILL BECOME A GOD!" His roar shook the crumbling buildings, shattered the ice-coated streets, sent fissures racing through the stone. "I WILL TRANSCEND THIS PATHETIC FORM AND BECOME SOMETHING GREATER! SOMETHING ETERNAL!"

The frost around him surged, spreading outward in a wave that swallowed the bodies of the dead, that consumed the flames still burning in the ruins, that turned the very air to crystals that hung suspended in the darkness.

Adam’s crimson eyes, fixed on the writhing form below, narrowed.

"No. You won’t."

He opened his mouth wide.

Prismatic light gathered in his throat—rainbow radiance, bright and terrible, condensing into a sphere that pulsed with all the power he had left. The Crown blazed on his brow. The souls of the dead screamed.

The Crown blazed.

The souls of the dead screamed.

Croft’s eyes widened. His transformation was not complete. He could feel it—the power slipping through his fingers, the evolution halting, the apotheosis failing.

"No... NO! I’M NOT DONE YET! I’M NOT—!" 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"THIS IS YOUR PUNISHMENT!"

"[Prismatic Beam – Full Release]."

The light exploded from Adam’s mouth.

It struck Croft’s chest, and the ice dragon screamed—a sound that was no longer quite human, no longer quite dragon, but something caught between. His scales cracked. His flesh burned. The frost that coated his form evaporated, then crystallized, then evaporated again.

The beam bored through him.

"I... I was supposed to... become a god..."

His form crumbled.

His scales turned to ash.

His body collapsed into cinder.

The light consumed everything—the dragon, the merchant, the man who had once been Alistair Croft.

The explosion was massive.

A pillar of rainbow radiance rose into the sky, visible from every corner of Kaelthar. The buildings that still stood crumbled. The streets cracked. The bodies of the dead turned to ash.

When the light faded, nothing remained.

And in that nothing, a city began to die.

Selena’s breath caught in her throat as she stared at the devastation spreading across Kaelthar. The sky above the city was a churning maelstrom of smoke and ash, punctuated by pillars of rainbow light that rose like the spears of angry gods. Buildings that had stood for decades crumbled into rubble. Streets that had teemed with desperate life hours ago now lay empty, coated in frost or consumed by flame.

Her bandaged hand, the stump where her fingers had been, throbbed with phantom pain.

But she barely noticed.

Her eyes were fixed on the sky.

A dragon circled above the burning city. Its black, silver-veined scales gleamed in the fading light. Despite its tattered wings, it flew steadily, its crimson gaze sweeping across the destruction below.

Behind it, the city burned.

Selena’s legs gave out. She sank to her knees on the cold stone, her bandaged hand pressed against her chest, her heart hammering against her ribs.

"Please..." Her voice was barely a whisper, cracked and desperate. "Spare us... spare those of us who remain... great one..."