As lightning-wreathed clouds prepared to lay siege to the sky, an entity, its wings unfurled to their limits, tore through them and shattered their designs. It was fast; so fast that its sonic boom trailed its visual wake by five seconds. By the time it descended upon its mark, the mortals below had yet to fathom its arrival.
The black clouds hunting its trajectory were on the verge of overtaking it, yet the entity clad in sky-blue scales spared them no glance. Its golden eyes remained fixed upon another entity, one that battered the earth with every stride.
The entity, armored in black scales from head to toe, possessed a long tail, claws forged of three colossal talons, and a blood-red horn erupting from the center of its forehead. Its golden eyes were also locked on the sky; the two entities faced off beneath the gazes of the people watching them from atop the city walls.
"They are not all guilty! They do not have to die!"
Riding the fierce winds that swept over the city, the entity unfurled its wings as it spoke, anchoring itself in the void. Through the grace of the meager light piercing the clouds—which had morphed to match the hue of the entity on the ground—its shadow engulfed the entire city.
"They will die, down to the very last one!"
The voice spilled from the maw of the entity on the earth, yet it sounded as though the entire world roared in its stead. Earthen waves towering ten meters high crashed against the ramparts; branches from the encroaching forest morphed into spears and pulverized the stone.
"I will not allow it; I will not stand by and watch you become a butcher!"
The entity adorned in sky-blue scales roared; the black clouds that had comfortably besieged it until that moment failed to comprehend their demise. A maelstrom born of nothingness swept them away alongside the earthen waves.
Turning its gaze to the branches surging from the forest, the entity unleashed not words, but flames from its maw. The trees, enshrouded in green energy, stood no chance of enduring the inferno.
"You betray your family, me, our very kind. You shall perish alongside them!"
The black-scaled entity thrust its claws into the sky before plunging them into the earth; chaos ensued in the blink of an eye. Arrows forged of fire, earth, and flora launched toward the city; the earth itself seemed to comprehend its fury, mobilizing its entire arsenal to fulfill its master's will.
The ramparts folded instantly, melting away like snow before the spring winds, but the entity gliding through the sky had a riposte for this onslaught.
The purple luminescence coalescing on its wings descended upon the earth as a torrential rain the next moment; emerald wind blades and water droplets of equal lethal sharpness trailed closely behind.
While the elements—the progeny of nature—waged their war atop the ruined ramparts of the city where mortals fled in terror, divining the victor proved impossible. The mere shockwaves birthed from their collisions leveled every structure; stripped of their sanctuaries, the mortals began to perish one by one.
The entity observing the war from the heavens refused to remain a bystander; turning its gaze toward the sun—a celestial body forged of ten intertwined rings—it unleashed a piercing shriek.
The masses might not have comprehended this omen, but the entity sinking its claws into the earth knew exactly what was transpiring. It closed its eyes and channeled the blood-red energy hemorrhaging from its body through its claws and into the bowels of the earth.
Both entities executed their moves; the beam of light severing from the sun to descend upon the city, and the pillar of darkness piercing the earth were absolute proof of this. Two eternal nemeses, two ancient friends who owed their very existences to one another, clashed once more.
In honor of their reunion, the elements—the progeny of nature—bowed in submission. The earth fell silent, the fire quelled, the water stilled, the thunderous roars of lightning ceased, and the very air began to tear like a sheet violently pulled from both ends.
The war between the two entities had reached its absolute zenith. The victor would be determined at the climax of the struggle between two primordial powers.
Or so the mortals gazing at the heavens in hope believed—until an eight-pointed star formation, engulfing the entire city, manifested out of thin air.
The magic array, which imprisoned ten thousand souls at each of its vertices, vanished in seconds just as it had appeared; neither the heavens nor the earth harbored the terrifying entities any longer.