And so—with the boy gone—the White Lightning vanished.
No echo. No wind. No trace.
As if the world had swallowed the storm and sealed its lips shut.
The battlefield, once a symphony of agony and screams, was strangled by silence so complete it felt unholy. Like even the sky was mourning.
Aelar's hand reached into the emptiness, but there was nothing to grasp. Nothing—except a single strip of black cloth that fluttered into his palm like a funeral ribbon.
He fell.
Not like a warrior. Not like a hero.
Just a man—gravity claiming him gently, cruelly—as if even the earth knew it had taken something irreplaceable.
Lonor saw it all.
His jaguar form smoldered, smoke curling off his shoulders as he shifted back to flesh and breath. He stumbled a step backward.
"…What just happened?" he muttered. "Did… did he really die?"
He didn't need an answer. Not when Aelar hit the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Aelar's knees sank into the dirt. His body trembled as the last shred of cloth slipped through his fingers.
"He's gone," he whispered.
Lonor approached, careful like the world might break further if he stepped too hard.
"What do you mean?"
"The only way that spell could've stopped… was if he stopped casting Vital Surge… or ran out of mana."
Aelar's voice cracked like glass under frost. "He saw us. That's why he tried to redirect the Lightning. I know it. He didn't want us to get hit too."
His tears fell freely now, staining the cloth in his hands. "And when I looked… Vital Surge was gone. He… just let go."
He clutched the black fabric like it was a heartbeat.
"Icariel…"
Lonor's jaw tightened. He knelt beside his friend, placing a firm hand on Aelar's shoulder. The fire in his beast blood had nothing left to burn.
They weren't warriors now.
Just two men mourning a boy who had burned too bright for this world.
—
Not far, beyond the shattered field and forest stripped bare, the others felt it too.
The Lightning vanished. The cracks in the sky ceased. The scream of mana went still.
Virethiel's eyes narrowed. "I think… Aelar did it. The spell stopped."
Eldrin held Elif gently in his arms. Calvin knelt beside Elena's cold body, face pale as ash.
Tessara stood still, wind tugging at her robes. The soldiers—elves, commanders—emerged from the trees like ghosts.
They waited.
Eldrin finally broke the silence.
"With all due respect for what he's done—for all he's done to save us… who even was he? What was he?"
And that question clawed through every heart.
This wasn't just bravery. This wasn't training or luck. Icariel had done what history couldn't name. He had killed the adviser. He had eradicated the crogs—hundreds of them—without letting a single one breathe.
Had felled the abyssal invader who defiled their skies. Had broken the battlefield apart with a spell no mage had even conceived.
And that spell—no, that calamity—had turned a godless invader into dust.
If the world knew what had happened here, the lands would tremble.
Not at the enemy.
But at the boy who had become myth.
Virethiel stepped forward. Her voice was soft—but it carried weight like snowfall before an avalanche.
"I know you all have questions. So do I. Even I don't understand what he truly was. An irregular. Unknown. Perhaps even to this world itself."
The soldiers listened. Every head turned. Every breath held.
"But one thing is clear."
Her green eyes burned.
"He is the reason our tribe still stands."
They flinched—not from anger, but from truth.
"We are weak. Today proved it. We've grown complacent. Blind. We let a traitor walk among us for centuries."
She glanced down.
"But we were saved. Not by gods. Not by tradition. Not by strength."
She looked up again, and this time she said it with no hesitation:
"By Icariel."
The princess of the elves had spoken his name.
To call a human by name—especially from the lips of the Elven Princess—was no small gesture.
It was reverence.
"We who still breathe owe our lives to him. I don't know how he did what he did. He stood when we could not. He fought when no one asked him to. And he gave everything… so we could be here now.
"So we must honor it. And pray—truly pray—that he is still alive. If not… then let us remember him as the boy who turned back our death itself."
Her voice caught—just for a moment.
And if he returns… we will welcome him with the honor and reward he deserves."
She turned to the soldiers.
"Don't tell anyone. If word gets out, it could bring danger he's not ready for. He needs more than praise—he needs our watchful care."
The soldiers roared: "YES, HIGHNESS!"
And then—
A voice.
Small. Breaking.
"…Father?"
It was Elif.
All eyes turned.
In the distance, Aelar approached.
Lonor walked beside him.
And in Aelar's hands—
Only a single piece of cloth remained.
The cloth in Aelar's hands wasn't heavy.
But it might as well have been a body.
It hung limp in his grasp like a final breath, soaked with dust, streaked with bloodless ash. The last remnant of a boy who shouldn't have been involved… and yet had saved them all.
Elif ran to him first—silver eyes wide, her small form colliding into his side. "Where is he?" she asked, breathless, already knowing the answer.
Aelar didn't speak.
He couldn't.
His throat was iron. His grief a noose. He sank to his knees as if his bones could no longer carry the weight of everything that happened—or the silence that followed it.
Lonor said nothing. He simply stood there, eyes flicking between the princess, the soldiers, the girl—everyone looking for an answer no words could satisfy.
Virethiel took a step forward, her breath catching. "Warleader…?"
Aelar didn't look at her. His green eyes stared down at the black cloth, fingers clenching tighter.
"He's gone."
"He didn't make it," he said.
The words cracked open the air like frost beneath a blade.
Elif let out a small cry and buried her face in his chest. Aelar wrapped his arm around her.
The silence that followed was not shock.
It was mourning.
The kind that came too soon for a heart that never truly expected a miracle, but still wished for one.
[End of Chapter 73]