Each swing of Ashrend carried the weight of Kael's fury, every strike dragging black arcs across creation, splitting void and matter alike. The Sovereign's halberd answered with blinding fire, every cut a command, every thrust a decree that sought to reassert his dominion over reality itself.
Yet the clash was not silent.
From below, Kael's companions screamed for him, their voices cracked and raw, though none dared step closer for fear of being torn apart.
Serenya fell to her knees, her slender hands clasped together though she had never prayed in her life. "Hold, Kael… just hold… you can't fall now." Her tears steamed against her cheeks, so close was the firestorm above.
Darius stood rigid, sword driven point-first into the ground to anchor himself against the quaking earth. His voice was a thunder all its own: "Don't you dare falter, boy! Break him—break him as he broke us all!"
Lyssandra shielded her eyes, her usually unshakable expression trembling for the first time. "He's fighting beyond human limits. He can't sustain this…"
But Kael heard them. Even amid the roar of destruction, their cries bled into his soul, each syllable a lifeline. He fought not only for vengeance or fury—but for them, for the fragile bonds that had grown from blood and chaos.
The Sovereign sensed it too.
"You cling to their voices?" the monarch spat, his flame-wrought crown blazing higher. "Mortals—weak, trembling mortals! They are chains around your throat. And I am the blade that will cut them."
With a twist of his halberd, he dragged a line of fire across the void, a single motion so sharp and vast it seemed to divide heaven itself. Kael raised Ashrend to block, but the impact threw him backwards, bones cracking, blood painting the storm. He crashed into broken stone, cratering it beneath him.
Gasps erupted below. Serenya screamed his name, Darius swore and moved as if to leap forward—only to be hurled back by a wave of stray fire.
The Sovereign loomed above the ruin, descending slowly, halberd burning with finality.
"Your storm ends here."
But Kael—battered, bleeding, body screaming with pain—rose again. Slowly, shakily, but with eyes lit by crimson fire.
And then, as the next blow gathered, something strange happened.
The world seemed to listen.
The storm did not fade, nor the flames. But in the silence between heartbeats, there was a pause. A gathering. A sense that both man and monarch were drawing their power to the very brink—one for tyranny eternal, the other for defiance unyielding.