The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss
Chapter 183 - 184: FIX HIM!!!

Chapter 183: Chapter 184: FIX HIM!!!

While they entangled with each other. Their was a sudden jolt. And then—-

Boooommm!

The aircraft jolted violently—like the wrath of some unseen god had cracked through the clouds and ripped the very air apart. Panels tore from the walls. Sparks sprayed like golden blood. Screams were drowned under the deafening roar of fire and ruptured steel.

The Empress slammed into the wall as the floor shifted beneath her, her arm instinctively reaching—but finding only empty air. In the sudden chaos, she was flung from Atlas, her shoulder bruising against a steel beam. Her breath was knocked out of her lungs.

He, too, was thrown across the corridor, and for a heartbeat, neither moved. The world spun.

"ATLAS!" Eli screamed, forcing herself up through the tilt of the deck.

He groaned. "I’m fine." But even that lie trembled on his tongue.

Blue fire danced outside the torn sky-window like a serpent of the gods. It raged like judgment, tearing through her fleet without mercy. Aircraft after aircraft ignited into blossoms of cerulean flame, falling like stars. Her fleet—her pride—was being carved out of the sky, her power shredded by a flame she did not command.

Her heart clenched.

’I relaxed for a few moments. A few fucking moments. That was all it took.’

{{{...my child is here...}}}

His brow twitched.

’.....read the fucking room!!!!...’ he beloud.

{{{....?}}}

She stormed toward the shattered window, ignoring the flicker of that cursed voice in her head. Her eyes widened. Below, rising from the ashes like a nightmare made flesh, was a massive creature—its scales dark as wine, its breath humming with violet heat.

A dragon. No—worse.

A purple one.

Its neck snapped up like a whip, and its jaws crashed through the lower decks of her vessel with such force the whole aircraft cracked like a bone under a giant’s heel. The ceiling above exploded in a burst of flame and splinters as the balloon engine—her last lifeline—was torn asunder.

"...don’t tell me..." she whispered, breath frozen as she turned slowly to look at him.

Atlas stood still.

Guilt carved into his expression like it had always lived there, waiting.

"...you..." she growled. Gazing at his face.

Crack!

The floor shattered beneath them. Wood and steel splintered like ice under foot. She fell with a scream caught in her throat, her limbs weightless. Wind swallowed her voice. The sky rushed up around her like a closing fist.

He leapt without hesitation.

No magic. No command. Just instinct.

"Quick!.....Give me your hand!" he shouted, stretching toward her as they fell like stars denied the sky.

Her hair whipped around her face, and for a brief second—only a second—he saw it. Her eyes. Wide. Wet.

"...No!!!" she screamed. Her voice cracked, raw with disbelief. "You planned this! Didn’t you!! Using me!!!"

"Idiot!" he growled back, pushing through the wind to catch her. "If I used you, why the fuck am I falling with you?!"

He caught her, forcefully so. Her fists pounded at his chest, but he didn’t let go. He couldn’t.

He wrapped his arms around her like a prison. Like salvation. The sky spun above them, then vanished as the ground screamed up to meet them.

"World understanding...silent lift," Atlas whispered through gritted teeth.

[world understan... Host is out of mana. Emperor Aura overused... Host is extremely weak. Mana nerves unable to diges...]

He spat blood.

"Fuck...." He voiced weakly.

Shhhhh.....

Dooooommmm!!!

They crashed.

The ground cracked, cratered beneath the force of his body shielding hers. A plume of dust and earth erupted into the sky like a funeral pyre.

Silence followed.

Silence... then flame.

Blue. It devoured the trees. It kissed the soil with hate. The scent of charred bark and burnt mana filled her nose. Her vision blurred as pain bloomed across her spine.

Eli blinked. Her breath hitched.

Her body ached, ribs bruised, but beneath her—something soft.

No.

Not soft.

Warm.

Alive?

"A...Atlas?" she called, her voice cracking as if her lungs had collapsed inward. Her knees scraped the dirt beside him, trembling. "Atlas!" she called again—louder this time, hoarse with dread, a scream buried in her throat.

He didn’t move.

Not even the twitch of a finger.

Not a breath.

The rain of blue fire raged around them like a falling sky, splinters of heat and ash sizzling against the broken earth. The world was coming apart in light and ruin, and yet all she could see was the stillness of his body—face half-buried in rubble, cloak scorched, blood pooling beneath his side.

She shook him violently, dirt and soot clinging to her skin. "Wake up, dammit," she whispered, her voice cracking again, "I didn’t ask you to save me—wake up!"

His body was warm. Still warm.

But not breathing.

She dropped to her elbows and pressed her ear against his chest. The fabric of his coat was wet—either from blood or the misting fire in the air—but she barely registered it. Her hair spilled over his torso as she listened, her eyes squeezed shut.

Nothing.

No heartbeat.

Her pulse roared in her ears, drowning out the fire, the screams, the distant clangs of soldiers dying in the sky.

"Your Imperial Highness!" came a voice—sharp, urgent, old. Merlin.

The mage raised his staff, forming a dome of cracking translucent wards above them. The air inside the shield felt hotter than outside, like a kettle left to boil until it screamed. "We have been attacked. You must escape at once!"

She didn’t hear him. Not truly.

His words dissolved against the wall of her panic. Her gaze stayed locked on Atlas’s face. His lips—always so tight with restraint—were slightly parted now, slack. His expression held no pride, no calculation. Just... peace. As if the war in him had finally gone quiet.

Her hand rose, trembling, and brushed the side of his face. There was ash on his jaw. Blood beneath his ear. Her thumb smeared it instinctively, as if cleaning him would wake him.

It didn’t.

A silence grew in her chest. A terrible, expanding void. It stretched its wings inside her like a dragon coiled in grief.

"He... he saved me..." she whispered—too quiet, even for herself.

He drew closer, his boots crunching glass and burnt grass. His shield shivered under the continued assault, but held—for now.

He knelt slowly beside her, not with haste, but with reverence. His old eyes, worn with centuries of watching empires rise and rot, focused now only on her expression. He saw something he had never seen in her—not during her coronation, not in the days of rebellion, not even when the Seventeen Primes bled for her name.

Not fury.

Not command.

But loss.

"...What happened to him?" he asked carefully, his voice gentler now, softer than magic, older than command. His fingers reached out, not for the prince, but for her wrist. Grounding her.

She did not answer right away.

Her throat worked, but no words came. Her mind was a field of ruined echoes

She blinked.

Tears—not many, but enough to shame a queen—rimmed her lashes.

"We...w...we fell," she whispered. "He... he saved me..."

Her voice broke on the last syllable.

Panic—true panic—coursed through her like acid. She shook him now, harder. "Don’t do this to me. Don’t fucking do this to me AGAIN!!!."

He had lied. Used her. Played her. Maybe. Probably.

And yet...

That memory surfaced—not now, not now—of them on the balcony, when he looked at her not like a rival, not like a queen, but like a mirror. His hand had trembled then. She thought it weakness. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was love. Maybe it was a lie.

Still—his hands had shaken.

The high mage placed a hand over the boy’s chest. His eyes flashed white.

Then, alarm.

"No heartbeat. Soul echo is fractured. He’s—he’s breaking apart."

"No," Eli snapped, grabbing his hand. "Fix him."

"Even if I could, the fire—"

"I said FIX HIM!"

Her scream bent the mana around them.

He winced. The dome shook.

"...Merlin.....Please...." She finally whispered.