CHAPTER 170: FUSION

Jae’s heart kicked hard against his ribs. His first thought wasn’t strategy—it was instinct, survival clawing at the idea. The words scraped raw against every instinct of self-preservation.

"Merge? With you?"

"Yes" the dragon replied. "However there is one major problem".

"What is it?" Jae asked.

"You’ve not fulfilled the requirements to be able to contain my powers, if we merge it could lead to your death".

Jae then remebered the missions the system had given him, he hadn’t yet slept with Mrs Lira and so he couldn’t absorb the dragon mana yet. "What happens if it goes wrong?"

The dragon’s gaze did not waver.

"Then you burn. Body and soul."

Jae swallowed hard, sweat rolling down his temple. No certainty, no safety. Just a risk bigger than anything he had faced.

He ran a hand through his hair, the nervous tick he could never shake. His pulse hammered, his body already screaming from the wounds he carried. For the first time, fear pressed close.

But then he looked at the ruin stretching around him, at the flashes of Elise, Byun, the academy falling into shadow. And his lips tugged into that thin, reckless smirk.

"...If the choice is burn or lose everything, then fine. I’ll roll the dice."

The dragon’s eyes blazed, the cracks along its scales flooding with molten light.

"Then step forward."

Jae did.

Heat swallowed him whole.

The wasteland cracked apart, light shattering through the shadows, and the courtyard rushed back into view.

He stood once more beneath the barrier, the Cult Master’s corrupted blade frozen mid-swing. But Jae was no longer the same. Golden fire roared across his body, brighter and hotter than ever.

Half his skin shimmered with scales that glowed like molten metal, burning every trace of shadow that touched them. His eyes burned with draconic light, sharp and unyielding.

The Cult Master hesitated, the mockery of a grin faltering for the first time.

Jae lifted his Dragonfire Blade, its flame now burning white-gold. His voice was calm, steady.

"Round two."

xxxx

The courtyard was already ruined when the battle truly began.

Walls that once framed the academy’s inner grounds had collapsed into broken heaps, their marble faces cracked and toppled in jagged angles like teeth knocked loose.

The cobblestone floor, once smooth and pristine, was split by violent seams where fire had scorched and shadow had clawed.

Smoke rose from shattered columns, mixing with the acrid haze of burned flesh and dissipating shadowspawn.

At the heart of that destruction, two figures clashed. Jae and the Shadow General met head-on, their struggle shaking the night itself.

Every strike carried more weight than stone could bear. When Jae swung the Dragonfire blade, the flames rushed forward in violent arcs, streaking through the dark like falling stars.

Each strike landed with explosive heat, sending waves of fire spiraling outward, burning through any lesser shadowspawn that lingered too close. The Shadow General answered with claws of writhing darkness, each sweep heavy with crushing power.

Where its strikes landed, the stone was carved deep, gouges spreading like open wounds in the courtyard floor.

When their blows collided, the shockwaves split the ground. Cracks raced outward in jagged lines, shaking loose bricks from the already fractured walls.

Dust and debris filled the air, cloaking the battle in a storm of gray.

The fight wasn’t clean. Jae pressed forward with sharp, relentless movements, forcing his body to respond faster than thought.

Each strike of his blade carried the burning edge of his will, the heat of his defiance. He had no choice but to meet the shadows head-on, every second pushing him closer to the edge of exhaustion.

The Shadow General’s form was a nightmare given shape, a body of shifting tendrils and jagged limbs. It never settled into a fixed shape. Its strikes bent at unnatural angles, sometimes lashing like a whip, sometimes crashing down like a hammer.

Every attack demanded instinct, not planning. Jae had to feel the intent in the air and move before the thought had fully formed.

Fire met shadow again and again. Neither side gave way. The courtyard became a storm of clashing forces, the air so charged it seemed ready to tear apart.

The flames burned outward, blistering hot, pushing the dark into retreat. Smoke and embers spun in furious eddies, searing away the remnants of shadowspawn not already erased by Tirel’s inferno or Yuna’s storms.

Yet the darkness answered in kind, a smothering tide that drew inward with suffocating weight, seeking to choke out every spark of flame.

Jae gritted his teeth and forced himself forward. His strikes pushed the General back, step by grinding step. The Dragonfire blade cut through its torso, splitting it apart in blinding bursts of light.

For an instant, the shadow seemed destroyed, the writhing body torn open. But the victory never lasted. The darkness folded inward, knitting itself together as though the wounds had been illusions.

Jae’s frustration burned hotter than his flames.

Then the General shifted.

Its body coiled low, the tendrils winding back like a predator preparing to strike. Jae braced for another physical assault, tightening his grip on the hilt. But the strike did not come for his chest or his limbs.

The shadow lunged directly at his mind.

The world wavered. Cold pierced through his skull like ice splintering into bone. The battlefield vanished in an instant, replaced by endless black.

An empty void stretched in all directions, limitless and suffocating.

The Shadow General’s voice filled it, not as sound, but as pressure

You are fire, but fire fades.

The words pressed against him from every side, not spoken but engraved into his thoughts.

You cannot win. You will burn out, and when you do, I will remain. Accept it. Become my vessel, and I will grant you eternity.

The voice did not speak once and end. It echoed, over and over, overlapping with itself until it became a wall of whispers. Each repetition hammered against his mind, threatening to drown out his will.

His grip on the Dragonfire blade trembled, his breath faltering.

And then he saw it.

A vision of himself, twisted. His body wrapped in shadow, flames snuffed out to embers. His red eyes dulled to hollow black voids.

His lips, no longer curved in defiance, but slack with submission. His arms moved not by his own command, but by the General’s will.

The image clawed at him. It felt real, as if it were already written in his future.

His chest tightened. A weight pressed on his shoulders, heavier than stone. For an instant, Jae felt himself slipping, the fire inside dimming under the pull of the shadow.

"No."