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Boom!
The scorched earth erupted again, leaving a gaping crater in its wake.
Golden energy swirled violently, its sheer intensity threatening to annihilate everything in its path.
"Be judged!"
Kayle hovered high above, her piercing gaze fixed on Ryan—her opponent in this prolonged, exhausting duel.
She sensed it now. The strength behind Ryan's blade was fading.
His strikes no longer carried the ferocity they'd had at the start.
Instead, he leaned heavily on magic to empower his black blade, drawing less and less from his own physical strength.
They were fundamentally different.
Kayle's power, granted by the divine, suffused her very being, enhancing her speed, strength, and resilience beyond mortal limits.
Ryan, on the other hand, was just a mage.
His power came solely from the arcane.
The magic he once wielded so proudly had barely scratched her divine form.
Any initial disruption it caused, she had long since adapted to.
'This opponent is no threat.'
The only real nuisance to her was the swarm of dark orbs lingering in the sky. They bogged her down, slowing her movements every time she tried to close in.
But Kayle did not falter. Justice would prevail. She was a candidate for Aspect of Justice—a radiant enforcer of divine order.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Three arcs of golden energy slashed through the air, cutting into Ryan's form and sending up a large splash of water.
"In vain," Kayle muttered coldly.
Her expression stayed composed as she swung her holy blade again, releasing wave after wave of righteous fury.
Ryan's water-based ability no longer fooled her.
She had seen through it—a clever trick, nothing more.
It used arcane magic to absorb and redirect her strikes.
His magic could buy time, deflecting a few attacks at great cost.
But Kayle's power was relentless—an unending stream drawn from the celestial realm.
Ryan, by contrast, was bound by mortal limits.
He dodged with precision, his form dipping lower toward the ground.
Each golden arc passed narrowly by, missing only due to sheer agility.
Yet, even in the face of her onslaught, Ryan remained calm.
His expression was unreadable—no panic, no hesitation.
After sidestepping another streak of divine energy, a faint smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.
He chuckled.
"Kayle... What made you think you had the upper hand?"
Snap!
The sharp sound of his fingers snapping echoed through the battlefield.
Glowing blue runes ignited across the ground in an instant, spreading in intricate patterns.
They surged upward, surrounding the space where Kayle floated.
"Too slow," she scoffed, raising her blade—
Then her eyes widened.
A violent jolt tore through her body, divine blood boiling within her veins.
Pain lanced through her—a sensation she hadn't felt in ages.
Pffft!
Kayle coughed up blood, the crimson stain vivid against her radiant golden armor. Her glowing eyes flickered with disbelief.
"W-When!?" she gasped, voice tinged with fury and confusion.
But deep down, she already knew.
From the beginning, Ryan's magic had been slowly infiltrating her defenses, weaving into her essence like a virus.
She strained to lift her sword, but the runes paralyzed her.
Even moving a single finger felt impossible.
Her jaw tightened. Pain and frustration etched across her face.
She gritted her teeth, forcing her arm to move—
But Ryan didn't give her the chance.
Slash!
A figure in a white robe appeared behind her in a blur.
The black blade pierced her glowing armor, running clean through.
"Cough… cough…"
Kayle spat blood, the crimson streaking across her silver-white armor, staining its once-divine sheen.
In an instant, the tide of battle had turned.
Teeth clenched, Kayle endured the agony of the blade that had pierced her chest.
Her body began to glow gold, radiant energy surging from within in a desperate attempt to break free.
"When you thought this was a battle of attrition," Ryan said calmly, voice as sharp as his strikes, "your defeat was already sealed. War is never just a clash of weapons."
With that, he leapt back. His black blade dissolved into a swirling dark orb that unnervingly returned into Kayle's body.
This wasn't improvisation.
Long before this fight, Ryan and Syndra had meticulously planned for this moment.
The delays orchestrated by Swain and Darius weren't distractions—they were deliberate moves to turn this land into their stronghold—a battlefield tuned to Ryan and Syndra's perfect synergy.
From the beginning, Ryan had been infiltrating Kayle's form with moisture from the air.
Subtle bursts of magic early in the fight had caused minor disruptions to her divine structure.
Her guard lowered when she dismissed them as inconsequential, allowing more of his magic to seep in undetected.
Combined with close-quarters combat and Syndra's precise support, Ryan had counted on Kayle's righteous arrogance to blind her to the hidden threat.
And now, the final trap had been sprung.
"It's over."
His blue eyes glowed with arcane light as the runes beneath Kayle blazed brighter, the magic circle expanding to envelop her completely.
Golden radiance clashed with cascading water, the opposing energies grinding against one another.
But Kayle's divine brilliance flickered, slowly buckling under the strain.
Ryan remained composed. He knew she still had strength left for one final act of defiance.
But even that wouldn't matter.
Kayle panted, her once-majestic aura faltering under the pressure.
Though the wound through her heart hadn't yet killed her, the orb embedded inside was something far worse.
It wasn't just draining her energy—it was consuming her essence.
What unsettled her most was the orb's unnatural aura.
It didn't feel like ordinary magic.
It radiated a deep, oppressive purple light, primal and invasive—a force unlike anything she'd ever faced.
"Ahhh!"
With a scream that echoed across the ruined battlefield, Kayle unleashed a surge of power, momentarily shattering the runic binds.
Her divine form was in tatters. Blood spilled freely from her chest.
Her helmet had fallen away, and golden hair cascaded wildly around her shoulders.
Of her three radiant pairs of wings, one had vanished completely.
The others flickered dimly, their light unstable.
"Justice! Forever!"
With one final act of will, she turned into a streak of golden energy, hurtling toward Noxian stronghold like a falling star.
If she was going to fall, she would fall with vengeance.
But Ryan only smiled, his calm expression unchanged.
"Do you think trading your life for ours will work? You've dragged this out too long. The city's more than ready."
He rose into the air, carried effortlessly by a stream of water, watching as Kayle closed in.
Boom!
Her golden form crashed down just meters from the city's outer walls, but her divine explosion was halted by a shimmering blue-black barrier.
The shockwave tore through the sky, incinerating the land around her.
The resulting explosion gouged deep ravines into the earth, fracturing the already-scarred battlefield.
But the barrier held.
Noxus remained untouched.
Beyond the shield, the wilderness was wrecked—unrecognizable, turned into a jagged wasteland.
The ground cracked and split, trailing back to the remnants of Kayle and Ryan's duel.
And then… silence.
The golden light faded, spent and overpowered by the barrier, drawn from the floating castle hovering high above.
"Resorting to brute force while pretending to speak for the gods."
From atop the castle, Syndra gazed down coldly. Her expression was distant, impassive.
Below, Kayle lay broken. Her body was riddled with wounds.
She didn't even have the strength to rise.
With a single motion, Syndra raised her hand.
A black beam of energy erupted from the castle's base, striking the earth with terrifying precision.
It engulfed Kayle in a flash of dark light, forming a massive, translucent orb of energy—her prison.
The floating fortress descended, casting a long shadow across the battlefield.
The towering prison of water that had once loomed behind it began to collapse, its purpose fulfilled.