The Fallen Founder moved. It didn't glide this time; it charged, a silver comet streaking across the obsidian basin, its light-blade materializing in its hand, blazing with a new, intensified brilliance. It recognized me as a true threat now, an anomaly that had to be purged with overwhelming force.
I met its charge with my own. My feet didn't just carry me forward; the very ground beneath them seemed to surge, propelling me with a raw, geological power. The small stones and dust orbiting my body swirled into a chaotic, grinding shield.
We met in the center of the basin with a cataclysmic impact that shook the very foundations of the world. My magun cannon, now humming with the dense power of the earth, fired a single, massive bolt of concentrated rock and energy. It wasn't a Mana Shot. It was a seismic cannonball, a piece of the world itself given violent purpose.
The Founder's light-blade met my attack head-on. The sound was not the sharp crack of our earlier clashes, but a deep, world-shattering BOOM. Light and shadow, order and chaos, creation and destruction—all collided in a single, explosive moment. A shockwave, far more powerful than any before, ripped across the basin. The obsidian ground fractured, spiderwebbing out from our point of impact.
I was thrown back, skidding on my heels, the recoil shuddering up my arms. But this time, the Founder was thrown back too. It slid several feet, its silver form flickering, a deep, gouging scar now marring the perfect surface of its light-blade.
I had hurt it. For the first time, I had actually damaged the untouchable hero's ghost. A savage, joyless grin spread across my face. It wasn't enough.
From the corner of my eye, I saw movement. Elara and Miyuri, using the moment our clash had created, were scrambling toward the epicenter of the basin where Silas had fallen. Miyuri was already kneeling, her hands a blur as she set up the metallic beacon, its surface now glowing with an urgent, pulsing light. Elara stood guard over her, her hands glowing with violet energy, a fragile shield against the chaos we were unleashing.
Their mission, our only hope for survival, was happening right behind me.
And I didn't care.
My world had shrunk to a single, burning point of focus: the silver knight standing before me. The beacon, the reinforcements, the future of the city—it was all just noise. Background static. The only thing that mattered was the cold, hard knot of grief in my chest and the target that had put it there. The only thing that mattered was vengeance.
"You," I snarled, my voice a low rumble of shifting stone. "You're next."
I raised my free hand, palm open toward the sky. "Rise," I commanded, and the ground obeyed. Dozens of sharp, jagged pillars of obsidian erupted from the fractured earth, shooting up around the Founder, a cage of instant, deadly rock.
It moved with a speed that defied physics, weaving between the rising pillars, its damaged light-blade a silver blur as it sliced through the stone, turning the deadly trap into a minor inconvenience. But it was a distraction. While it was occupied, I was already moving, my feet carrying me across the broken ground with a speed I'd never possessed.
I fired the magun cannon again, not a single shot, but a rapid-fire volley of smaller, sharper projectiles. Shards of obsidian, like a shotgun blast of volcanic glass.
The Founder was forced to defend, its blade a whirlwind of light as it deflected the deadly shrapnel. I didn't let up. I was a storm, a force of nature. The ground was my weapon, the stone my ammunition. I pulled up slabs of the floor to use as shields, then shattered them into a thousand deadly pieces. I made the very earth beneath the Founder's feet tremble and crack, trying to break its perfect, infuriating balance.
For a few, glorious moments, I had it on the defensive. I was relentless, a whirlwind of borrowed power and raw hatred. I was everything I had asked the orb to make me.
But the Founder was still a Founder.
It adapted. It learned. It stopped trying to meet my raw power with its own. Instead, it began to flow. It moved like water around my attacks, its movements economical and deadly. It was no longer a knight; it was an assassin. It used my own chaotic attacks against me, using the pillars of rock I created as cover to close the distance.
It was suddenly there, right in front of me. Its light-blade, now fully repaired and glowing brighter than ever, came at me in a vicious, blindingly fast thrust.
I brought the magun cannon up to block, but the force of the blow was immense. The cannon was knocked from my grasp, sent spinning through the air. The blade's tip scraped against my chest, and a searing white-hot pain exploded across my torso. I looked down. A deep, cauterized gash was burned into my armor and the skin beneath.
I staggered back, clutching my chest, the pain a distant, secondary concern. The cold fire in my soul was the only thing keeping me on my feet.
"Kael, stop!"
Erina's voice, frantic and terrified, cut through my haze of rage. "It's too much! You can't beat it! The beacon is active! Reinforcements are coming! Just hold on!"
I glanced over my shoulder. The beacon was now planted, a single, metallic pillar pulsing with a brilliant blue light that cut through the grey gloom of the wasteland. A shimmering, translucent gateway, a tear in the fabric of the world, was beginning to form above it. They had done it. Our escape route was coming.
But I didn't want to escape. I wanted to finish this.
I ignored her pleas. With a roar that was more beast than man, I lunged forward, my fists now encased in jagged gauntlets of raw obsidian. If I had no weapon, my own body would become one.
It was a foolish, reckless move, born of pure, undiluted rage. The Founder met my charge with an almost contemptuous ease. It sidestepped my wild punch, and the flat of its light-blade slammed into my side. The impact was like being hit by a mountain. The air was driven from my lungs, and I was sent tumbling across the fractured ground, my stone gauntlets shattering on impact.
I tried to push myself up, my body screaming in protest. Every muscle fiber was on fire. My borrowed power was fading, the adrenaline of my rage leaving me drained and hollow. The black data-veins on my skin were flickering, my connection to the Founder's echo becoming unstable.
The Founder stood over me, its featureless faceplate looking down, its light-blade raised for the final, decisive blow. This was it. The price for my vengeance.
"It's over, Kael!" Erina screamed, her voice thick with despair.
The shimmering gateway above the beacon suddenly flared, stabilizing into a perfect, swirling portal of blue and white light. It was open.
The Founder paused, its head tilting toward the portal. It knew.
But it was too late for me. It turned back, its blade held high, ready to deliver the final, deleting blow.
Then, four things happened at once.
A massive, obsidian shield, larger and thicker than even Valerius's, materialized out of thin air between me and the Founder's blade.
A chain made of crackling, golden lightning shot out from the portal, wrapping around the Founder's sword arm, arresting its downward swing.
A barrage of pure, destructive fire, hotter and more intense than anything Erina could conjure, slammed into the Founder's side, forcing it to stagger back.
And a heavy, grounding presence, the familiar feeling of a mountain, settled over the entire basin.
The Founder was pushed back, its perfect stance broken, its killing blow thwarted. Standing between us now were four figures that had just stepped through the portal.
Three of them were strangers. A stern-looking woman whose eyes crackled with golden lightning. A grim-faced man wreathed in roaring flames. And a silent giant holding the obsidian shield. They radiated power on a level that made the Adventurer leader, Vulcan, seem like a novice. They were Founders.
And at their center, his dark hair unkempt, his eyes burning with a cold, focused fury, stood the Builder.
He looked at the Fallen Founder, then his gaze swept over the battlefield—the fractured ground, Silas's still form, and me, broken and bleeding on the floor. A deep, resonant anger, the anger of a creator whose works had been threatened and whose people had been harmed, radiated from him.
The cavalry had arrived. We were safe.
My body, finally recognizing that the fight was over, gave up. The last vestiges of Helias Rogue's power receded, leaving behind a profound, bone-deep exhaustion unlike anything I had ever known. The world began to swim, the edges of my vision turning dark.
I tried to push myself up one last time, to finish what I had started, but my limbs wouldn't obey. My consciousness was a flickering candle in a hurricane, about to be extinguished.
The last thing I saw before the darkness took me completely was the Builder, raising his hand, and the entire obsidian basin beginning to tremble and rise at his silent command.