The Runic Alchemist

When they reached above the battlefield, Lucian let herself out of his arms, then held her bloody sword in her left hand and lifted the dead Drakyn with her right hand to show everyone. Damian brought the air step platform even lower, keeping it at barely 2–3 stories in height. A wave of gasps and disbelief spread all over the armored tribesmen army. Damian heard the clatter of many men letting their swords and shields fall to the ground.

Seeing them, Maelor also used the waygate to come up, the princess and her group behind him.

"Enough!" Lucian shouted. "Your king is dead. Fighting any longer is meaningless. Killing the people of this city will not solve our issues. The city agrees to share half its food storage with all the united tribes. For letting this country come to such a point, the king will pay the price. From here on, he abdicates the throne to the one and only heir of this country — Princess Diana Valemont."

Lucian stopped for a second, unsummoned her sword, and grabbed the princess's hand, bringing her forward so everyone could see her face. Then she continued,

"Things will change. She will change them. Do not waste your lives. None of you can face me or the people who are with me."

She looked back at him and Sam. That was the cue. Sam activated his lightning form and rose higher, activating his lightning summoning skill. The darkened sky scared the tribesmen shitless. Damian also ascended a little. Coming beside Sam, he simply turned his face to the side and released a massive beam of hellfire — aimed straight into the air. Still, some embers fell down; people moved hurriedly out of the way.

That almost did the job. Slowly but surely, the tribesmen saw reason and moved back. For some groups, however, Damian and Sam had to give a bit more examples. The fear was the final nail in the coffin, but that wasn't the only thing — the faces of the tribesmen had fallen after seeing the Drakyn king's dead body. The news spread throughout the army that Lady Frost had killed him in a single duel.

Finally, after a year of siege, the tribesmen had gotten half the city's food storage and then left. Half of the alliance army had still remained outside the city walls, though. They only left after the princess had her coronation in a week. They all swore fealty to her, so did all the lords that were in the castle.

The king and some of his supporters had started to make trouble when the siege had ended, but Lucian, Sam, and Damian's presence closed his and everyone's mouth shut tightly. The princess swore to Lucian she would do a better job than her father. Everyone was counting on that. She even insisted on giving her late uncle a proper burial in the royal burial ground. The city went back to normal, and for the first time in a year, the large gates finally opened.

A lot of damage had been suffered by the country, but it wasn't crippling. The sun was bright and high. It seemed like winter days had truly ended, along with the long war. The second the rest of the tribesmen left — it was the day after the princess's coronation — a soft, radiating white door appeared near Lucian. She was with Damian himself in the cave, resting and healing from her injuries.

Seeing the door, Lucian looked at him and smiled. Damian also held her in his arms — that smile was such a killer. Minutes later, when they were dressed properly, he opened waygates to Sam and Maelor. It was time to leave.

The large clock still showed over 10 months and 20-something days available for Lucian — if she chose to stay here. None of them wanted to.

Damian had pocketed the white sword of the Drakyn that the priests had made after melting the metal-woman's limbs. He had even pocketed the king's own sword in the dark of night. Maelor was the guy blamed for it and politely thrown out of the castle — poor guy.

"Stay alert. Anything is possible."

Damian reminded everyone. They should technically appear back on the pigman planet, but since the original place from which Lucian had started her trial was a dubious one, no one could tell for sure where exactly they would end up. Just in case, Damian stored as many steel mana cubes as he could in his soulbound spear.

The way he held the spear had totally changed now. He kept finding himself staring at it with side-eyes in suspicion for no reason. Lucian too confirmed that her new soulbound sword did not "speak" to her. That was a relief.

Once again, all three of them held on to Lucian as they walked through the white door together. Light, then darkness, and then light again. Maelor fell down, Sam quickly grabbed him. Damian held Lucian — her mana signature had changed and the mana inside had become over five times as dense as before. Damian kept his eyes wide open, looking all around, even his mana sense going far and wide.

No one. There was no one around them.

They were in the middle of an ocean. It was around midday. Where exactly was this place?

Damian tried opening a waygate to Vidalia, and it didn't work. Then he tried Toph, who was on Earth — it worked. He did not go through it though, and closed it.

This had to be the pigmen planet. Before going back, there were some things he needed to do. He asked the others if they wanted to go, and all of them refused. All their runic tools were back. Damian activated the 13 mana cubes he had in his possession, including the sacrium ones. A wave of liquid mana was generated in a second.

Damian and Sam kept flying, picking one direction. Damian opened wormhole after wormhole, accelerating their speed of travel hundreds of kilometers every second. Soon they reached land — it was covered in snow. This had to be the north of pigmen city. Across the ocean was the lava zone according to maps.

They kept flying and soon Damian sensed the mana signature he was searching for.

The Demon Lord was still here.