I won't fall for the queen who burned my world-Chapter 284: A queen who burns

Lucindra screamed as the blast of red fire slammed into her ribs, the force knocking her sideways into a half-collapsed column.

The stone cracked, groaned, and gave way, toppling dust and debris over her already scorched form.

Elysia didn’t wait.

She surged forward, flames licking at her boots, eyes blazing, breath sharp with fury.

Her magic responded like it had been waiting no longer restrained, no longer elegant. It was wild now. Ferocious.

"Touch her again," she growled, fire blooming in both hands, "and I swear, Lucindra, you won’t walk out of here."

Lucindra rose slowly, bloodied and furious, her red and black robes charred beyond recognition.

Her aura still crackled with corrupted shadow, but her movements had lost that refined grace. She looked human again flawed, rattled.

Vulnerable.

"You’re just a girl playing queen," Lucindra spat, flinging a lance of dark energy.

Elysia batted it aside with one arm, the fire curling around her wrist like a dragon’s tongue. The bolt disintegrated on impact.

"Then I’m a queen who burns," she said.

She attacked.

The ground split beneath her as she launched herself into the air, twisting with a kick that sent a fan of flame raining down toward Lucindra.

The heat warped the air. The walls screamed. Lucindra conjured a barrier of darkness too late—Elysia’s fire hit first, hard, shattering the shield and engulfing her again.

Lucindra choked on smoke, stumbling back, singed and gasping.

Elysia landed like thunder, her boots cracking the scorched floor beneath her. She advanced in sharp, brutal steps, tossing flame after flame—rapid, erratic, relentless.

Lucindra tried to teleport.

Tried.

Elysia’s flame caught her halfway through, interrupting the spell and forcing her back into visibility with a pained cry.

"You don’t get to run," Elysia snapped, voice rising. "You don’t get to call yourself her mother and then vanish! You don’t get to hurt her, or Malvoria, or anyone, and pretend you still matter."

Lucindra struck again, summoning black tendrils from the ground to lash at Elysia’s legs.

But Elysia had already jumped.

She soared over the attack, spun midair, and hurled a concentrated spiral of red flame directly at Lucindra’s chest.

It hit with an explosion that threw the older woman into a shattered pillar. Her back arched as she struck, breath torn from her lungs.

Dust clouded the room. Fire hissed. The ceiling trembled.

Lucindra coughed and rolled to her knees, armor half-melted, lips bleeding.

"I built this kingdom," she rasped.

Elysia landed softly on the balls of her feet, hair flickering with embers. "And you destroyed it."

Lucindra’s eyes flared with fury, but her hands shook.

Elysia saw it.

And pressed the advantage.

She rushed forward, fists blazing. She wasn’t aiming for death—yet—but she was aiming to end this. A punch to the ribs lit with flame.

A backhand across the face that sent teeth flying. A knee to the gut that doubled Lucindra over, only for Elysia to grab her by the collar and drag her to her feet again.

"You want a daughter?" Elysia snarled, slamming her forehead into Lucindra’s. "Then burn like one."

She flung Lucindra across the hall.

The woman hit the far wall with a dull thud and didn’t rise immediately.

For a moment, all Elysia could hear was the sound of her own breath, the slow crackle of lingering flame, and the distant boom of the castle groaning under its own magical weight.

Lucindra finally moved.

Barely.

She pushed herself up on shaking arms, one eye swelling shut, her mouth twisted in something between hatred and disbelief.

"You..." she coughed. "You shouldn’t be this strong."

Elysia’s flames coiled tighter around her body, responding to her rage like loyal sentries.

"You made Malvoria strong," she said softly. "I chose to be."

Lucindra tried to speak again.

Elysia didn’t let her.

She flung both arms forward, summoning a massive serpent of red fire that surged across the floor, jaws open wide.

The flame twisted and howled, hungry for its target. Lucindra barely managed to roll aside, but the fire caught her leg, singeing deep through cloth and skin.

She screamed.

But it was ragged now. Weak.

Elysia strode toward her slowly, the fire still coiling, dancing in her wake.

Lucindra crawled backward, one leg dragging uselessly, hair plastered to her bloodied cheek.

"You want to know why I’m strong?" Elysia said, stopping just short of her.

Lucindra didn’t answer.

"Because I had to be," she said. "For Malvoria. For Kaelith. For everyone who didn’t get the choice to walk away."

Lucindra tried to summon another spell. Her hand trembled in the air, crackling with broken magic.

Elysia stepped on it.

Lucindra cried out, breath hitching as Elysia leaned down.

"And because I have no room left for people like you."

Her fire surged.

Lucindra screamed again, this time raw and real, as Elysia’s magic surged through her with violent precision—no longer a blaze, but a punishment.

Lucindra writhed, pinned by flame.

Elysia stepped back only when she felt the magic in the woman’s body fray—like threads unspooling under strain.

Lucindra collapsed onto her side, coughing, smoke curling from her limbs.

The hall was silent again, save for the burning rubble and the rise and fall of exhausted breaths.

Malvoria was at the far end of the chamber now, pushing herself to her feet, blood along her jaw, but steady. She watched Elysia, not with fear.

With pride.

Lucindra rolled onto her back, one arm draped across her chest. Her gaze flickered to the ceiling, then to the crumbled wall.

And finally, to Elysia.

Her lip trembled.

Her voice cracked.

"Fuck off."

Elysia stood over Lucindra’s scorched body, chest rising and falling with every breath, red fire still burning in a tight ring around her feet.

Her skin was slick with sweat, her fingertips trembling not from exhaustion, but from the sheer magnitude of what she had just unleashed.

She had beaten her.

Finally.

Lucindra lay crumpled on the floor like a broken artifact, one eye swollen shut, skin burned raw in places, her once-pristine robes shredded and blackened.

She wasn’t moving anymore, not really. Just twitching occasionally. Her magic had dimmed to flickers, no more threatening than dying embers.

Elysia took one step back, her fire dimming slightly.

Malvoria approached her side, blood on her lip, blade still drawn. She looked down at her mother’s ruined form with no softness, no forgiveness.

Only the cold, clean stare of someone watching the death of a memory they had long since buried.

"Is it over?" Elysia asked quietly.

Malvoria didn’t answer.

Lucindra coughed.

It was a wet, broken sound. Her lips parted, cracked and dry.

But when she spoke, her voice was too calm.

"You really think... I didn’t prepare for this?"

Elysia froze.

Lucindra’s hand twitched. Her fingers curled against the ground.

Then the floor beneath her pulsed.

Once.

Twice.

Then broke open.

From deep beneath the stone, a surge of magic black and violet, threaded with red burst upward like a geyser.

Lucindra’s body lifted from the ground, spine arching unnaturally, her eyes snapping wide as they flooded with pure, blinding power.

"No—!" Malvoria started, but the spell was already activated.

Lucindra screamed, not in pain—but in release.

The sound shook the hall, shattered broken columns into dust, and sent Elysia stumbling back.

The air grew heavy, thick with dark mana, choking and electric. The walls flickered with unstable runes, and fire dimmed, suffocated by something older. freewёbnoνel.com

Lucindra’s body twisted midair, her arms thrown wide, her back arching further until it looked like something inside her was about to split free.

Elysia reached for her flames—

—but the room went white.

A massive pulse of magic tore through the space, sending both Elysia and Malvoria flying. They crashed against opposite pillars, coughing as the world tilted and spun. Cracks spread through the floor in spiderwebs. The ceiling groaned.

And in the center of it all Lucindra hovered.

No longer burned.

No longer broken.

She descended slowly, her feet not touching the ground. Her body was healed—skin smooth, wounds vanished, hair coiling around her like living tendrils.

Her eyes were no longer red. They were glowing violet, and vertical like a serpent’s.

Power pulsed from her in waves.

It wasn’t just dark magic.

It was old magic.

Forbidden.

Malvoria gritted her teeth, rising to her feet. "She... she bound herself to the palace."

"No," Elysia whispered, staring at the figure. "To something beneath it."

Lucindra landed silently, her robes now replaced with swirling shadows that moved as if alive, shifting between armor and cloak.

When she spoke, her voice was layered—hers, and something else beneath it.

"You want a queen," she said. "You’ll get one."

And with a snap of her fingers, every flame in the room went out.

Darkness swallowed the hall.

Elysia’s breath caught her fire refused to spark. The air was thick, suffocating, soaked in Lucindra’s magic.

She could barely see Malvoria across the shattered floor, her silhouette barely visible in the gloom.

Then Lucindra stepped forward, each footfall unnaturally silent.

"I am no longer bound by blood," she said, voice echoing in layered tones. "No longer mother. No longer mortal."

Elysia clenched her fists, willing flame to return.

Malvoria rose slowly, blade gleaming in the dark.

"Then we’ll kill you as a monster."