CHAPTER 366: THE SNAKE’S END

She knew asking this of Cassius was like walking a blade’s edge and he would never agree easily. Yet when her eyes locked with his, full of unwavering resolve and the desperate determination to share his burden, the sharp lines of his fury faltered. Against his better judgment, he relented.

Arabella let out a small breath of relief, though her chest still ached with the storm of worry twisting inside her. She reached for his hand, her touch felt feather light, and whispered with a gentleness that softened even her own trembling heart.

"I’m only taking the smaller part, Cassius. The rest... I’ll leave to you."

Cassius exhaled sharply, pressing one hand to his temple as though her words struck deeper than the battlefield’s chaos. His other hand snapped upward, intercepting the serpent’s lunge. Fangs never met flesh, its skull slammed into a conjured barrier so dense it recoiled with a piercing shriek, its massive body flung backward like a rag doll.

His gaze, molten with restrained anger, flicked back to her. "This will be the last time."

Arabella’s lips curved into a fragile smile, warmed by the grudging protection hidden in his voice.

Then he straightened, shoulders squared in defiance, his brows furrowed as if scolding her one last time. "Remember, Arabella— run. The moment you must, you run."

Arabella nodded firmly and turned her gaze toward Alice.

She knew that even after the barrier weakening, it would still require a large amount of force to cut through the snake’s scales and skin. She would have to muster all the power she has to severe the snake’s neck but what kind of magic would fulfill the needed requirement?

As she watched Cassius flying above the sky, reaching out his hand to bring Alice far away from the mass of people, she heard the voice of a person speaking from behind her in ragged breath and sure enough when she turned around, she found Noah who was bleeding from his chest.

Her hands quickly moved to stop the bleeding but Noah swatted her hands aside, a force that rather felt gentle than dismissive.

"Don’t waste your magic to me," Noah clicked his tongue as blood now spill from the corners of his mouth, "Use light magic and mix it with fire magic. The magic spell, I’ll tell you how to spell them."

Arabella looked at the snake and studied it, genuinely giving her insight, "Light magic and fire magic won’t be sharp enough to cut through the scales and its bone."

"Yes but when mixed together the fire would move as fast as light magic and burn deep enough to severe the nerves cleanly, allowing you to cut through the snake’s neck in such a small window of time without failing," Noah explained before falling to his knees and Arabella could only help him stand a little.

"Are you giving up?" Arabella narrowed her eyes at Noah. The question cut deep, and his face twisted as if she had just driven a blade into his chest.

"A child like you shouldn’t speak so much nonsense," Noah retorted, his voice rigid, almost brittle. But Arabella only sighed. She knew well enough, the soul within Noah was not truly his own. He was a vessel, a shadow of another.

And yet, despite having already faced death once, Arabella still found herself prioritizing others before her own life. Even if it meant carrying the burden of silence. Even if it meant dying again.

"The people you left behind will grieve once more," she said softly, truth woven in every word.

Atlas...

She remembered his face the moment he discovered the truth, how utterly broken he had looked. His sobs had echoed through her, carrying with them a pain that no wound could compare to. He had wailed like a man whose heart had been torn in two, and though time had dulled the edge, it had never healed the wound.

Even now, whenever Atlas’s gaze fell upon her and Cassius together, Arabella caught it, that flicker of sorrow, the abyss in his eyes. He masked it well, but she could see it: the weight of knowing that the one person who had meant everything to him was beyond his reach forever.

Like Cassius, Atlas had only ever given his heart to one woman. And like Cassius, he valued her happiness above his own life.

Arabella could not imagine what expression Atlas would wear if he woke once more to the cruel news of Circe’s death. As a friend, as someone who had seen his heart shattered once already, she could not bear the thought of watching it break again.

"I am selfish," said Noah with a small smile, "A selfish person like I am would rather leave then being left alone. It’s quite fortunate that you still haven’t learnt that feeling and it would also be best if you don’t understand it."

There was sarcasm in his tone but Noah seemed sincere with his wish that she wouldn’t have to go through what he already did.

"Now it’s time for you to focus on what you must do," Noah redirected Arabella’s gaze, his fingertip lifting toward Alice, who writhed in her monstrous serpent form.

Cassius had already dragged Arabella toward the shattered head of the room, where the serpent’s thrashing had knocked over a towering statue. The force had sent it crashing through the window behind, stone exploding outward before scattering into jagged ruins across the floor.

By now, both vampires and humans had converged in the hall, instinctively separating themselves into a circle. They pressed back from the serpentine horror at the center, huddling at opposite ends. Malvo and Helena commanded order with sharp authority, stationing guards—fangs and mortals alike, along the perimeter. Swords flashed as they shielded the circle from raining debris and the beast’s sweeping strikes, forming a fragile wall between chaos and survival.

Cassius stood at the forefront, his gaze unwavering. Once certain no one else would be caught in the creature’s wrath, he turned inward, gathering power. His sword hummed with the weight of his will, the air around it trembling. The demonic force within him had always been there, a dark inheritance coiled like a predator in his veins. Yet only after his encounter with Bubbly had he begun to grasp the true depth of it, how far his reach could go, how much ruin his hand could bring.

Now that power poured into the blade, concentrated, boundless, enough to erase kingdoms, enough to unmake existence itself, should he command it.

He hurled the amassed power toward the serpentine’s head, yet the beast did not recoil. Its jaws split wide, fangs gleaming, as though it meant to swallow his fury whole.

But then Cassius saw it. Deep within its throat, a sphere of blinding light churned, pulsing with destructive force. The serpent wasn’t defending. It was answering.

The air quaked as the sphere burst forward. Cassius’s instincts screamed. He vanished from his perch in a streak of shadow, reappearing just as the beam tore past him.

Where he had floated moments before, nothing remained. The wall bore only a blackened crater, a perfect circle seared into stone, the edges still glowing with heat.

Cassius clicked his tongue, irritation flashing across his face as he felt the serpent gathering power again. In the same heartbeat, his figure blurred and vanished, reappearing to the left just as another torrent of light ripped through the air.

The beast gave no pause. It spewed blast after blast, its throat glowing like a forge with each strike, chasing him with a predator’s fury. Cassius darted through the collapsing chamber, his movements precise, his cloak trailing shadows as walls split and stone shattered under the unrelenting force.

By the time the serpent’s attack relented, the once grand hall was unrecognizable. Half the ceiling lay in ruin, nothing but an open, jagged space scorched black where he had stood only moments before.

The serpentine itself wasn’t a creature that could generate such magical power endlessly and in time it finally hits the limit and became sluggish. Once it saw Cassius in front of its eyes, the serpentine snapped its mouth but the ball of energy on its throat dwindle until it had extinguished in front of its own eyes.

A panicked expression echoed on the snake’s face as its wide green eyes immediately resulted in snapping and trying to eat Cassius alive with its mouth while using its tail to swept him across the ground, attacks that Cassius was far too familiar with and so easily, he had avoided all the attacks.

The snake cried out, a guttural hiss that rattled the broken chamber, its body twisting in frustration as Cassius vanished from sight.

Then, suddenly, he was there again, right before its face, smirk carved across his lips like a blade.

"Don’t expect an easy death."

The creature froze. Its eyes flared a violent purple, reflecting the impossible radiance that bloomed from Cassius’s palms. The energy pulsed and roared, so fierce it disintegrated the last shreds of his gloves, baring his hands to raw light.

The purple hue flared brighter, sizzling against the serpent’s scales, its face fizzling as though the very matter of it could not exist in Cassius’s grasp. The beast writhed, hissing, choking on its own fury.

Alice’s scream tore through the chaos. She spun, desperate to flee, but no matter how far she tried to run, the weight of his power pressed her back, locking her in place like invisible chains.

Then Cassius loosed his hand. The energy exploded forth, a torrent of purple fire and crackling ruin, streaking straight into the serpent’s face.

The impact split the air with a deafening roar.