Druvak took a low, grounded stance, his skeletal frame humming with concentrated divine energy. Every ounce of his being was focused, ready to react to the colossal threat before him.
Armaror stumbled forward, a grotesque parody of movement. His new, stitched-together body was a prison of flesh and power he could not yet fully command. Druvak's eyes, burning with blue flame, saw the weakness instantly. He did not hesitate.
'Raging Water Sword Style!'
A crescent wave of azure energy screamed from his broken blade, shearing clean through the serpentine lower half of the chimaera. The massive creature bellowed in surprise and pain, its upper torso lurching forward. Instinctively, a dozen tentacles shot out, wrapping around the hanging cage for support. The chains groaned but could not withstand Armaror's weight, and they snapped.
The cage plummeted, crashing to the stone floor and shattering its incubators, releasing a horde of shrieking, malformed chimaeras. In the chaos, Armaror's severed halves writhed, then pulled together, the flesh knitting back together with a sickening slurp.
Druvak was unmoved. The tide of abominations surged toward him. 'Gentle Wind Sword Style.'
He became a blur of motion. He fought the swarm. Each step was precise, each swing of his damaged sword economical and fatal. Chimaera after chimaera fell, dissolving into mist. But his focus on the smaller foes provided an opening for the titan.
Armaror's three heads focused, jaws unhinging. A torrent of raw, chaotic energy, a blend of bestial fury and demonic power, fused into one mass and fired.
The beam hit Druvak square-on.
He was blasted through the castle wall as if he were made of parchment. He tumbled across the battlefield, carving a furrow in the earth before skidding to a halt at the feet of his horrified army.
The sight chilled them to the bone. Their general, their unshakeable pillar, was broken. His armour was vaporised from the chest up, revealing his cracked and fractured ribcage. The sapphire gem at his core was spiderwebbed with fissures, its light flickering weakly. The rusted sword he had carried for aeons was now a molten, half-useless shard.
Geo, Mia, and Dire broke from the ranks, sprinting to his side.
"Master!!!"
They gently helped him rise. Dire's eyes locked onto the ruined sword, and his face crumpled in despair. His knees buckled; only Geo's steadying arm kept him upright. With trembling hands, Dire offered his own blade. "Master, take this. It is not your old sword… but it will serve you."
Druvak did not even look at the offered weapon. His gaze was fixed on the melted remnant of his oldest companion. His voice, though raspy, carried a profound, unwavering conviction.
"A weapon is not a tool. It is a piece of its wielder's soul. A soul cannot be replaced." He looked up, his blue-flame eyes meeting Dire's. "This blade was with me in joy and in strength. In weakness and in despair. When I was cast down, when all my other friends, family, and lovers forsook me, it remained. So tell me... how can I abandon it now in its moment of need?"
As he spoke, the blue flame in his chest cavity roared back to life, defiant and brilliant. That same fire ignited along the broken length of the sword, blazing with an intensity greater than anything shown before.
The moment was shattered by an explosion. The front of the castle erupted outward. Armaror emerged, a true nightmare given form. His three heads roared in unison, a hundred tentacle arms lashing out, pulverising stone and earth. Behind him, a legion of chimaeras spilled onto the field.
Mia's voice, sharp with command, cut through the din. "Mages! Archers! Ready your attack!" A symphony of spells and drawn bows answered her. "Now!"
A storm of fire and arrows rained down on the charging horde, blowing limbs from bodies and scorching flesh. But the chimaeras simply staggered, their wounds sealing shut at a visible, horrifying rate.
"Target vital points! Heads! Hearts!" Druvak barked, his voice regaining its steel. He turned to Mia. "Mia, you have command. I will handle Armaror."
"But Master, your weapon—!" she protested, fear for him warring with discipline.
"Trust your master." He placed a skeletal hand on her head, a surprisingly gentle gesture. Then his fingers touched the molten metal of his blade. I never wished to use this art. But you force my hand. He focused his will, the ultimate authority of a Master of Weapons. "Regrow. Take your sustenance from the essence of all I slay. Their iron blood, their shrieking souls, their very power."
'Raktrakshasa.'
He drew two fingers along the broken edge. The metal responded, not with repair, but with transformation. The melted shard elongated, reforging itself not with steel, but with condensed, dark crimson energy, drinking in the ambient light and hope.
Druvak stepped forward. Mia immediately shouted new orders, clearing a central path for him while directing the cavalry to engage the front lines.
A wolf-tiger chimaera pounced. Druvak sidestepped and the red blade hummed, slicing through its neck. A crimson vapour—the creature's life force—was violently sucked from the corpse and absorbed into his hungry sword.
He became a whirlwind of death. Each chimaera that attacked him did not just die; it was consumed, its essence fuelling the regeneration and growing power of the Raktrakshasa.
While he cleared the path, Armaror adapted. The flailing tentacles merged, coalescing into two colossal, muscular arms of immense power. One fist rose and slammed into the ground.
The earth shattered. A fissure raced toward the army lines. Druvak leapt over it, landing on Armaror's giant wrist. He sprinted up the arm and brought the red blade down in a devastating chop.
CLANK!
The sound was not of cutting flesh, but of a sword striking unbreakable stone. The skin had hardened to diamond-like density. Impossible! Druvak pushed off just as the arm morphed again, transforming back into a nest of tentacles that snared him in mid-air.
They constricted. The sound of breaking bones was deafening. Ribs snapped. The sapphire gem in his chest groaned, its cracks deepening. The blue flame within him guttered, growing faint.
Armaror hurled him into the ground like a discarded toy, then unleashed a point-blank trinity of energy beams from his three heads. The ground vaporised where Druvak lay.
Miraculously, he still lived. But he was shattered, immobilised, a king of battle brought to the ultimate humiliation. He could only watch.
Armaror's orc head turned, its gaze passing over the broken Druvak to the disciples fighting and dying for him. The voice that boomed out was thick with venomous triumph.
"You took my Drake from me. Now I will take your soldiers from you. I will make you watch. And then, only then, will I finally take your life."
"N-no... D-don't..." Druvak tried to roar, but it was a wet, broken whisper. He could not move. He could not fight.
He could only witness as Armaror's three heads craned back, jaws widening as they drew in immense, swirling vortexes of energy, a glow building to apocalyptic brightness aimed directly at the heart of his army.