The masked gateman stared hard at Lola and Ralia Amia, his grip on the wand relaxing just slightly as a thought slithered through his mind like a serpent whispering promises.
> "Why am I scared? There are just two of them. The rest? Cannon fodder. I've faced worse."
His heartbeat steadied. Confidence surged through him like hot oil.
> "I have the bracelets. The magic-resistant ones. Even if they are powerful mages and they decide to throw their worst spells, they'll bounce off like raindrops on iron. They'll be stunned. Vulnerable. I could overshadow them both... no, I will."
A crooked smile spread under his mask.
Lola's brow furrowed.
Ralia Amia's orb pulsed once.
> "He seems to be smiling underneath that mask?" Lola muttered, her voice modulator thickening the words. "Is he... broken?"
> "No," Ralia said coldly, her eyes narrowing. "He's getting cocky."
With a dramatic flair, the gateman reached into his robe and pulled out two gleaming bronze bracelets, worn with time but pulsing faintly with etched runes. He snapped them around his wrists with a metallic click.
The moment they locked into place, a wave of magical repulsion shimmered outward—like an invisible dome resisting the very idea of enchantment. Ralia felt her Orb of Memories flicker, the resonance muting as if something were trying to choke it out.
> "Oh no…" she whispered. "Those are real."
The bracelets were infamous—crafted by one of the golden toad's most depraved arcane engineers. Their enchantment was unique: immunity to all ethereal, elemental, psychic, and magical attacks for thirty solid minutes. Even the strongest sorcerers couldn't pierce through the barrier.
But…
"Every monster has a leash." Ralia recalled the teachings of the Order of Liren.
And these bracelets had one.
After thirty minutes of protection, they would go dark. The user would need to pour a portion of their own mana into them for five full minutes to recharge. And during that time, they would be vulnerable—utterly human.
Unfortunately, most victims didn't survive long enough to reach that window.
The gateman took a cocky step forward.
> "You feel that?" he rasped. "That silence? That's your little glowing toy dying. That means no more memory tricks. No more illusions. No more sparkles or spirits or whatever girly tricks you witches rely on."
He lifted his wand again.
> "Now all that's left… is flesh."
He rolled his shoulders.
> "And I'm very good with flesh."
Lola's whip coiled like a viper at her side.
> "So," she said calmly, "you can't be touched by magic?"
> "Not a drop."
> "Good," she grinned beneath her mask. "Then I guess I get to beat you to death the old-fashioned way."
She took one step forward, cracking her neck with an audible pop.
> "And let's see if that bracelet protects your ego when I plant it in the dirt."
Behind her, the freed prisoners stood silently.
Watching.
Judging.
And for the first time, it wasn't just a rebellion anymore.
It was personal.
"Golden lights—Outburst!" the gateman roared, attacking without giving any warning.
His wand surged with blinding energy. A radiant sphere—pulsing and unstable—formed mid-air and detonated like a divine grenade right where Lola had stood a heartbeat earlier.
She dove, grabbing Ralia Amia and hurling them both sideways, tumbling hard against the dirt floor. The concussive wave licked their boots—but it wasn't them the blast claimed.
Behind Lola, two newly freed prisoners were too slow. They had been too confident, basking under Lola's protection that they never even had the thought that something like this could happen.
They hadn't even screamed.
Just a flash—and then nothing but dust and ash.
"No...!" Lola's voice tore out from her throat, raw and burning.
She whipped around, eyes wide as if she could undo what just happened by looking hard enough. But there was no miracle. Only two scorch marks on the ground where lives had once stood.
Her fists clenched. Her whip crackled with rising voltage.
> "For those two," she growled, her voice trembling with fury, "you'll die screaming. And I'll take my time." She hadn't come to drag them from one cage into another nightmare. She had come to save them—to break the chains, not bury the bodies.
One of the men… she remembered his face.
Just moments ago, his tear-filled eyes had lit up at the sight of his daughter—the reunion of a lifetime crammed into seconds. He had spoken of his renewed dreams which were: to show her the world beyond cages and chains, to raise her far from the swamp's rot, to find her a good man who'd love her the way she deserved.
None of that even mattered anymore...
Because, now—he was dust.
No farewell. No warning. Just a flash of cruel magic and the abrupt severing of a future not yet lived.
How fragile life is—a single heartbeat between reunion and ruin.
How Unpredictable Is Life Really?
Lola's jaw clenched.
This wasn't going to end in mercy.
This was going to end in fire.
The gateman laughed.
It was a low, arrogant laugh—the kind of laugh you'd hear from a man who's hurt many and never paid for it.
Then, slowly, deliberately, he ripped off his mask.
His face was a war zone of scar tissue. A long jagged slash stretched from the corner of his left cheek, across the bridge of his nose, and vanished behind his right ear. One eye gleamed unnaturally—an enchanted replacement.
"Now you see me," he rasped. "A gift from a girl who thought she could scratch me. Let's see what you've got, boy or is it girl?!.... Hehehe." He laughed mockingly...
Lola's grip tightened. Her teeth ground together.
"I'll rip that smug off your skull," she said, eyes narrowing.
She cracked her whip, the snap echoing through the smog-choked air. It sizzled with electric fury and sliced toward the man like a lightning bolt with teeth.
But he moved.
Effortlessly. Like a trained stuntman slipping through a routine.
He ducked, twisted, and rolled, the whip missing him by mere inches. He rose with the grace of a man too comfortable with violence.
Lola cursed under her breath.
> "Hmph…" she inhaled sharply, suppressing her frustration. Her heartbeat pounded like war drums in her chest.
Behind her, Ralia Amia steadied herself, the soft glow of her orb pulsing with quiet strength.
> "Don't lose focus," she murmured, her voice like cool mist against fire. "Burn too hot... and you burn out."
With a subtle motion, she released a calming wave of emotional energy—a balm of clarity, tempering the wildfire raging inside Lola.
But Lola didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
Her silence said everything.
> She wasn't burning out.
She was igniting.
And the man before her?
Was standing in the path of a storm that had only just begun.