Gunmage-Chapter 233: Unanchored

"Xhi! What the hell are you doing?!"

Xhi remained wholly unresponsive.

Realising that things had taken a turn for the worse, Lyra steeled herself... and screamed.

It was a soundless scream.

What followed was an annihilating wave of concussive magic force.

It tore through the entire arena in a brutal pulse, crashing into the walls with enough power to send deep echoes rebounding despite the heavy soundproofing.

Seats trembled. Wood cracked. The air itself seemed to shatter. Glass would have followed—if not for the arcane reinforcements built into the chamber, protection standard for a facility used to contain and train magic users.

In the midst of the reverberating, vacuum-like oscillations, Xhi still stood. Unaffected. Or rather, seemingly so.

Lyra could tell, because the force that had been binding her had vanished.

She didn’t hesitate.

Charging forward, her hair lashing out like living cords of fury, Lyra launched herself. Eyes locked onto Xhi.

A flick of the wrist from the priestess and a dense glowing red barrier pulsed into view.

The attack struck.

It shattered.

But the momentum behind it died in the impact.

Xhi didn’t flinch. Her gaze never left Lugh.

He remained still. Detached. The violence flaring at the edges of his vision registered no reaction.

His was a world locked inwards, sealed behind silence and turmoil.

He stuttered, barely audible.

"But... but... why do I still hear them?"

He clutched his head.

"Why do I still hear their voices? Why... why?"

"Distort."

Xhi spoke the word out loud. Her voice didn’t reach Lugh, but it echoed all throughout the training hall.

A barrage of magical detonations followed—massive, deafening. They shook the entire chamber to its foundations. Dozens of them.

Each impact was precise and controlled, erupting in a wide arc—but always, impossibly, missing Xhi’s position.

Lyra clicked her tongue. The air in front of her warped. A faint shimmer, a glitch in reality—and from nothing, an enchanted blade appeared in her grip, humming with power.

She grasped the hilt tight and kicked off the stone floor, sailing forward like a launched spear.

She didn’t get far.

Another warp tore the fabric of reality, crackling like splintering glass.

From the split emerged a beast. Three meters tall. The form of a wolf—but distorted and wrong.

Its fur was blacker than shadow, its body a blur of sinew and corrupted muscle. It had two heads, each sprouting four glowing red eyes, those orbs burning with a sickly intelligence.

Its claws scraped the ground—leaving molten gouges in the stone.

Then it moved.

It pounced, both mouths yawning wide, and released a searing, condensed stream of red flame—so intense it warped the air around it, carving lines of smoldering heat into the marble.

The floor beneath the beast blackened, blistered, and erupted. Wooden seats in the immediate blast radius burst into flame all at once, turning the lower rows of the arena into a pyre.

Lyra barely escaped.

Only by sheer reflex did she throw herself into a tumbling roll, singed but not cooked. She landed roughly, her hair tangled.

She took sharp breaths as her eyes locked onto the creature prowling forward, it radiated a corrupted aura pressing out like an invisible fog.

Lyra steadied her breathing. The battle was just beginning.

Knowing the girl was occupied, Xhi turned her full attention back to Lugh.

He was no longer clutching his head. But his eyes were unfocused. Like the remnants of a mind that hadn’t yet decided to return.

When he spoke again, his voice wasn’t panicked or scared.

It was cold.

"Why can’t I understand humans?"

Xhi chuckled.

She stepped closer. Her face brushed just past his. Her lips paused just before his ear, and she whispered—

"Oh my sweet, sweet Lugh... when have you ever understood humans?"

The air around them soured. Growing heavy and charged.

She continued in that soft, sultry tone, each word dipped in venom.

"Was it when you botched the spell? Killing thousands in Drakensmar?"

There was a pause. She tilted her head, lips curved into a faint smile.

"Or was it when you attracted monsters and refused to own up, leading to the death of most of the fleet?"

Lugh’s body trembled. His knuckles whitened.

Xhi laughed.

She continued, her whisper like poison.

"Was it when you ran from home to find shelter in the slums? Or when you decided that the poor lived too hard... so you ran again, and stowed away on that train?"

How she knew all of this didn’t even cross his mind.

Her words gouged holes in his head, widening splinters that had long been there.

They continued in the blissful quiet while just outside on the periphery, a terrible battle raged on.

Lyra was covered in blood, most of which was not her own.

Apart from the spreading black patches of necrotic flesh, one of the creatures head was completely severed, but this didn’t come without cost, Lyra’s left hand hung limp, leaving her to wield the blade in only her right.

Her hair had surged forth, a sea of auburn attempting to entangle, strangle or simply pierce through the great beast.

And still Xhi whispered.

"But you can’t be blamed for this, Lugh,"

She said, voice turning oddly gentle.

"Because of one person’s selfish designs, you were imprisoned. A child—an innocent—kept from living. Kept from feeling. No wonder you don’t understand people."

Then, her tone changed.

She pulled back, eyes narrowing.

"And yet,"

Her voice grew harsh.

"when you were granted power—power to choose your own fate—what did you do?"

Lugh looked up. There was confusion in his face.

She leaned close again. Her hand brushed through his hair, slow.

"Tell me, Lugh,"

She whispered,

"Why is Isolde still alive?"

The door to the training hall burst open.

A shriek of compressed air followed.

High-pitched. Piercing.

Then a lance—sharp and spiraling—streaked across the arena, trailing a violent sonic boom.

The air fractured. The impact radius expanded in a blast, annihilating anything unsecured. fгeewebnovёl.com

In the time it took to blink, the weapon was on Xhi.

She didn’t move.

But time did.

The moment around her slowed—slowed until it nearly stopped. The projectile dragged at a snails pace, caught in a world no longer synchronized with the rest.

"Dispel."

Xhi spoke the word with casual disdain.

And time snapped back.

The air lance collapsed, folding in on itself. It burst apart in a hurricane-like force.

Anything light was thrown. Anything unanchored was torn.

Lyra, barely upright after ending the beast, was swept off her feet, landing hard. Her blade clattered far out of reach.

She raised her head. Then let it drop again.

She wasn’t getting up soon.

In the shattered doorway, framed by wind and ruin, stood a figure.

An elf.

She wore a black short gown with blood-red trim, calf-high sandals of polished black gold.

Her flaxen hair was styled perfectly—impossibly untouched by the chaos.

She said nothing at first.

Then, her eyes narrowed.

Her voice came like a threat.

"What are you doing?"

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