The night air was thick, heavy with residual mana that clung to the ruined gardens like a shroud. Even in the midst of destruction, the faint scent of scorched wood and iron lingered, mixing with the sharp tang of lightning that crackled faintly in the distance.

  Dravien flexed the fingers of Argus’ body and immediately felt the strain of every spell he had cast in the past hours. The muscles were tense, bones protesting, veins like coiled steel beneath the skin.

  He had pushed this body far beyond its natural limits, bending it to perform feats that even the strongest human should not have survived.

  Warning.

  A sharp, almost clinical voice echoed inside his mind, interrupting his analysis.

  “WARNING: BODY AT 10% CAPACITY. MANA OVERBURN DETECTED. CONTINUED EXERTION MAY RESULT IN SYSTEM FAILURE.”

  Dravien’s brows lifted slightly. The notification felt almost… humorous. He was used to a body that could endure centuries of combat, one that had survived catastrophes that would crumble entire kingdoms. Yet here, in Argus’ mortal vessel, he was reminded of the limits of flesh.

  Still, he thought, a faint trace of amusement tugging at his awareness, this was nothing that careful management of mana and technique could not compensate for. Someday, he would make this body strong enough to handle him fully, but today was not that day.

  Argus’ voice, faint and nervous, murmured inside his mind. “Be careful. You’re pushing it too far… it’s not just your body, it’s mine too.”

  Dravien ignored the warning entirely, flexing his hand as mana coiled around his fingers like living threads. The world beyond the shattered hedges remained eerily quiet for a moment, as if holding its breath.

  Then the ground trembled subtly beneath him, a single figure emerging at the far end of the garden, the aura around him unmistakable.

  Lightning. Pure, biting, and alive, the air vibrating with power that made the hairs on Dravien’s arms stand at attention. Commander Vilangos had arrived. Dravien smiled at the sight, this one would pose a challenge.

  His armor gleamed faintly in the moonlight, but the glow of mana was what struck Dravien first—residual lightning flowing over him in precise patterns, boosting his already impossible speed. Every motion, every subtle shift in stance, radiated efficiency.

  Years of obsession and countless battles had hardened him into a weapon refined for destruction. Vilangos’s eyes locked onto Dravien with a mixture of fury and cold calculation.

  “I will have my vengeance,” he said, voice like a storm breaking. “For my father. I will obliterate the Ordanian throne. I will slaughter every last one who stands in my way.”

  Dravien tilted his head, a wry smile ghosting his lips. Slaughter the Ordanian kingdom? the thought echoed in his mind. Argus interjected from the shared consciousness, his voice sounded slightly panicked and confused. “He… the kingdom was usurped by him twenty years ago. Is he mad? Doesn’t he even remember his deeds.”

  Dravien’s eyes narrowed. That was highly unusual, his behavior right now suggested the involvement of some external factor. That part was guaranteed, one did not simply forget destroying a kingdom. He extended his will towards Vilangos and felt it.

  That subtle mental dissonance, the overconfidence, the unyielding obsession—it was unlike ordinary arrogance or passion. This was a mind-altering spell at work, complex enough that even he would have difficulty fully removing it without breaking the host.

  He felt the threads of manipulation woven deep, anchoring Vilangos’ will to a past narrative, bending perception and purpose without completely suppressing the force of his own intent. The entire observation was completed in about a second.

  A grin touched his lips as he whispered softly, more to himself than anyone else, “Interesting. I’ll have to study this one closely.”

  Lightning arced in a sharp, almost audible crack as Vilangos moved. “The Sky Splits!” he shouted, voice booming like rolling thunder. The clouds above twisted violently, the heavens tearing as if the night itself were being ripped asunder. Rows of atmosphere shifted unnaturally, golden and silver lightning flashing across the horizon.

  The strike was precise, intended to obliterate, to leave no margin for error.

  Dravien’s eyes lifted, darkness already forming at his fingertips, swirling into a shield that seemed to draw the night around him. “Dominion of the Unholy.”

  The darkness met the white-hot lightning in a clash that lit the gardens brighter than day, illuminating every fracture in stone and every twisted branch of the burned trees.

  For a moment, it looked as though the gods themselves had descended to the earth, the heavens splitting and reforming, a violent interplay of divine light and unholy shadow. The wind shifted violently, carrying the smell of ozone and smoldering mana, and Dravien could feel the thrumming energy of Vilangos’ aura pressing against his own.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Inside the shared consciousness, Argus muttered, awed at the display clearly, while assessing the situation. “That was…” His voice faltered as he apparently couldn’t find words to explain his thoughts.

  They exchanged spells repeatedly, moving in the blink of an eye.

  “He’s fast. Way too fast for you to rely on simple brute force… he’s clever as well. Our body is already drained, please think of something else quickly.”

  Dravien allowed himself a flicker of amusement. “I was hoping for a challenge.” The words were calm, but beneath them, every muscle of the borrowed body tensed, every strand of mana vibrating in response.

  Dominion of the Unholy had done more than counter the lightning—it had formed a protective sphere around his family, a subtle, unseen reinforcement of energy that repelled stray arcs. Argus’ mother and brother were shielded, unconscious of the precise nature of the dark barrier keeping them from harm.

  Vilangos moved again, a blur of speed, his own hands crackling with residual power, exploiting every ounce of the lightning to boost reaction and reflex. A sword emerged in his hand, visibly glowing with the sheer amount of mana contained in it. Lightning surrounded it, displaying it as if it were the weapon of Zeus himself.

  His strikes came in patterns, each one a test, each one forcing Dravien to think, adjust, counter, and react. His own sword, born of darkness and mana met Vilangos's sword continously.

  Minor cracks started appearing in it due to the sheer power of Vilangos’s sword. He hadn't been able to call forth much mana to pour in his own weapon due to his abysmal condition and now it was costing him.

  Dravien felt the strain. Every spell, every movement of the body beyond its natural capacity added to the pain, subtle at first, then sharper, a scream of muscles, tendons, and bones pleading for relief. Another system notification appeared, more urgent this time.

  “WARNING: BODY CRITICAL. MANA OVERBURN 50%. IMMEDIATE RELIEF REQUIRED.”

  He clenched his teeth, letting the pain pulse through him, acknowledging it but refusing to succumb. His mind drifted for a fraction of a second—an unusual, rare pause in combat—to reflect. This body, though exceptionally capable, was mortal. Its limits were being reached faster than he could mitigate. A subtle sting of humility touched him; even he could not bend everything to his will indefinitely.

  Lightning tore through the air again, Vilangos’s movements precise and lethal. “You will not stand in my way!” he shouted, and each syllable carried the weight of obsession, anger, and carefully twisted purpose.

  Dravien countered, sending a wave of shadow that collided with the lightning in midair. This is… impressive, he admitted inwardly. Even though the man was manipulated he could still feel the will of Vilangos. It was sharp with intent and vengeance. Devoid of anything else but his obsession and goal. Whoever put the enchantment must be one of the more powerful people in this era.

  He allowed a fleeting, uncharacteristic pang of emotion to surface. Admiration, yes. But paired with an acute awareness that if he overextended, if he miscalculated, he could fail. And for once, failure was a possibility.

  The clash of powers continued, the gardens no longer a mere battlefield but a testament to raw, elemental warfare. Sparks flew from shattered stone, lightning singed bark from the trees, darkness swallowed pools of light, and the very air seemed to vibrate in pain.

  Dravien’s awareness expanded outward, considering strategy, physical limitations, and Vilangos’s mental state. It was a complex, elegant, and subtle challenge that would have been thrilling in a controlled scenario, though it was quite terrifying in reality.

  At last, his own weakness grounded him as he realized the truth: he could not win in the current body. The combination of overexertion, injury to the vessel, and the adamantium-level mastery of Vilangos’s reflexes and battlefield mind made victory impossible without adaptation.

  It was an insult upon him, that's what it was. He was here losing to mind controlled puppet who had but a fraction of Dravien's power.

  He cast a final glance at the man, and a spell formed in his mind, a precise and devastating tool: Memory Rewind. Normally it was quite useful when someone wanted to remember their past. Dravien himself had used it multiple time over the course of centuries. However this was the first time he would use it in combat.

  The system notification popped quietly, almost respectfully this time:

  “MEMORY REWIND POWER AMPLIFIED. CONTROL AND POTENCY OPTIMIZED.” So, this was how the system had helped the mages of this era. This kind of spell optimization was exactly the tool that the heroes needed to end him.

  Although his original purpose had been to explore human emotions but right now, he couldn't help but be excited upon the prospect of using the system to attain new heights. He would surpass his previous peak and who knew what he could accomplish with this.

  Dravien didn't even need to say the incantation, its name was suffice. The spell was surgical, intentional, yet overwhelming in scale. It reached deep into the fibers of Vilangos’s mind, threading through memories, past and present, twisting perception, amplifying the experiences, making him relive everything, not just reality but perception. He muttered the words.

  "The Mind Unwinds".

  Vilangos’s aura flared, his expression sharp with confusion, then agony, as the first waves of memory hit. The man staggered, bolts of lightning crackling uncontrollably around him, his body straining to process the influx.

  Then Dravien let the memories fully flood him.

  Everything—the repeated conquests, the countless times he had believed himself to destroy the Ordania kingdom, the years of vengeance, the obsession, the people he had killed, the righteous purpose he thought he carried, all of it struck him at once.

  The buzzing in Vilangos's skull escalated, a relentless, high-pitched roar that threatened to fracture his mind. His eyes widened as vision blurred, reality folding inward, and for the first time in decades, he could not hold it together. The overwhelming power of the spell forced him to the brink.

  The buzzing in his mind now combined with the spell, his body trembled while blood exited his ears.

  Lightning arced from him uncontrollably, illuminating every detail of his body’s struggle, every shred of perception assaulted by the memories he had been made to live through. The pain was not just physical, it was mental, emotional, spiritual. His mind could not contain the totality of what he was seeing.

  And in the midst of it, one thing was clear to Dravien: even under mind control, even with every trick and manipulation, Vilangos's will had been extraordinary, unbreakable in its essence, and now fully exposed to the scale of his own obsession.

  The gardens trembled as the spell’s influence enveloped him, the night sky a chaotic mixture of darkness and lightning, echoing the mental storm raging inside the Adamantium commander.

  Far beyond the shattered estate, ancient arrays flickered to life.

  While in the gardens below, Dravien’s body finally gave way.

  His mind went dark before his knees even touched the ground.