Damon stared at her for a moment.
"...Capture me?"
The words sounded absurd coming from Ivy.
Not because she wasn’t strong enough to try.
But because it was her.
The girl who had followed him through half the apocalypse. The girl who had nearly died beside him more times than he could count.
Yet as he looked into her eyes now, he found nothing of the girl he remembered.
"You’re serious," Damon said in a tone that sounded a lot like a question.
"I am," Ivy replied without skipping a beat.
Nyla stepped forward almost immediately. "Have you lost your mind?"
For the first time, Ivy’s gaze shifted away from Damon.
A faint crease appeared between her brows, as though she had only just noticed Nyla was there.
"Leave. This matter does not concern you."
Despite the fire burning in her eyes, there was something cold in her tone. Something that said her words meant more than just a simple suggestion.
Nyla frowned. "She went crazy..." Her voice was quiet, barely enough for Damon to hear and silently agree.
He wasn’t sure what happened, but it was pretty clear that Ivy wasn’t herself.
And as if to answer his thoughts, she suddenly spoke.
"I’m going to bring them back."
Damon stared at her.
"Bring who back?"
"All of them." Something flickered in Ivy’s eyes. "After I’m done with the ritual, every fallen Phoenix Clan member will get a second chance at life, a chance they deserve after decades of suffering."
’She wants to bring back the Phoenix Clan?’
But why?
It didn’t make any sense. As far as Damon was concerned, Ivy was merely a champion of the Phoenix Clan by chance. She had no real connection to them, she wasn’t even one of them.
At that moment, he thought he would take a quick glance at her status screen. He ignored the pointless parts and focused on a few things that made no sense, one of which was her level.
[Level: 196]
For a moment, Damon thought he had misread it.
He checked again, and again. just to make sure he was seeing things correctly.
The number remained unchanged.
’She’s higher level than me?" He blinked. "How is that even possible?"
The next line of text, however, was even more puzzling.
[Race: Phoenix]
Damon’s eyes widened.
His focus shifted between Ivy and her status screen as a slow realisation dawned on him. It seemed as though Ivy was more than just a simple champion. Both her level and her changed race indicated that there was something else at play, something he had no idea of, until now.
"What about the quest?" Damon suddenly asked. "There is less than a month left. If I don’t die, then everyone, including you, will die."
Ivy’s expression changed. It was hard to pinpoint what about it looked different, but something most definitely did change upon hearing his question.
"Two birds with one stone..." she murmured, as if speaking to herself at first before raising her voice to a normal level. "If you can save both the Phoenix Clan and all the humans around you, don’t you think you should?"
Damon’s eyes narrowed.
"You mean I should die so the others could live?"
How ridiculous.
Damon hadn’t spent all these months growing stronger, fighting for his life every day since the mana arrived, to now throw it all away in some cliche, novel-like sacrifice.
"I only need your mana," Ivy said.
A moment of silence passed between them, and a flicker of something resembling hesitation flashed in her eyes, only to disappear a second later.
"Whether you live or die after the ritual is no concern of mine."
Damon continued to stare at her.
A few months ago, those words would have been impossible to imagine coming from Ivy.
Though she would always appear cold and calculating, it was only a mask designed to hide how much she cared about those around her.
Back then, she would have moved mountains to protect the people she considered her own.
Now she was willing to sacrifice one of them.
Damon wasn’t sure what had happened to her after returning from the Phoenix Clan, but whatever it was, it had changed her.
Damon remained silent for several long seconds.
The more he looked at Ivy, the less he understood.
Her expression was calm. There was no anger or any other apparent emotion. Just a quiet certainty of someone who had already made up their mind.
With a slow realisation that there was no debating her decision, Damon activated Heavenly Comprehension.
Immediately, the information from the confines of the girl’s status screen began to flood through his mind.
He already had a basic understanding of how the resurrection technique of the Phoenix Clan worked.
Now all he had to do was to copy it.
Of course, it would not be as easy as taking a simple glance at her. He needed to get close, feel the way mana flowed through her body and reach for the threads of power responsible for the ability.
At the same moment, as if she was able to read his intent, an array of flames burst to life around Ivy, generating a suffocating heat which he had only felt from the Phoenix Clan leader herself, but stronger.
Beside him, Nyla staggered backwards, gasping for air.
"Move back," Damon said without taking his eyes off Ivy. "I’ll handle it from here."
Nyla hesitated for a second, but as another desperate cough for air escaped her lips, she listened and stepped several meters back.
Ivy’s fiery eyes met Damon’s cold gaze for a couple of seconds before the ground beneath the girl’s feet shattered, and she lunged forward at a speed she had never showcased before.
The distance between them vanished instantly.
A fist wrapped in crimson flames shot toward Damon’s chest with a terrifying force.
He twisted sideways at the last second, the strike missing by mere millimetres.
But despite the miss, the resulting shockwave from the move made the air explode, sending a wave of piercing wind through the field.
The shockwave passed.
Damon ignored the destruction around him and focused solely on Ivy.
The force behind the strike was enough to make most people despair.
But not Damon.
A faint smile carved across his face as he called for his sword.
"Good thing you can’t die," he said. "I won’t have to hold back."