The capital was a ruin.
Smoke curled through broken towers, the air thick with ash and heat.
Flames licked the edges of collapsed streets, and the echoes of Viridion's fall still hung in the sky like a dying heartbeat.
The once-proud city now trembled beneath forces it had never imagined, as if the elements themselves had declared war.
At the center of the destruction, Kael stood, his cloak shredded, body streaked with blood, but his eyes burned with unwavering resolve.
Lightning coursed across his skin like living chains, illuminating the jagged ruins around him.
Across the courtyard, Charles staggered from the wound in his gut, blood painting his teeth in a macabre grin.
"You're stronger than the stories," Charles rasped, voice both mocking and admiring. "But strength alone won't stop me."
Kael's gaze sharpened. "You think you can measure me? You're just a man borrowing fire."
Charles lifted his hands, flames erupting in a spiral, coiling around him like a molten serpent.
"A man can burn the world if he knows where to strike."
The ground shuddered beneath Kael's step. Gravity itself bent beneath him, pressing down so heavily that even Charles's inferno wavered.
"You'll find I don't burn," Kael growled.
"I crush."
Then the world exploded.
Kael twisted his hands, forming a thousand swords from fire.
They spun in the air and hurled toward Charles, slicing through smoke and ash.
Charles twisted and dodged, summoning a mountain of fire to meet them head-on.
Molten waves surged through the streets, igniting rooftops, and sending debris raining down like deadly hail.
From the city streets, the army fought desperately.
Darius's battalion clashed with Obryxis, whose massive fists shattered shields and cracked the earth.
Spears struck stone-flesh, sparks flying, but the titan barely faltered. "Form the wall!" Darius roared, windlight flaring from his blade, cutting into the chaos around him.
Each shockwave from above sent soldiers sprawling, towers collapsing, streets splitting.
Aelina carved paths through Cryoveth's frozen storm, slashing jagged ice to carve safe corridors for fleeing citizens. "Keep moving! Clear the alleys!" she shouted, rain and ash mixing with frost and fire.
Kael's water orbs collided with Charles's flames overhead, creating scalding steam that swept down streets, forcing guards and civilians alike to dive for cover.
In the south, Commander William moved through shadows, his shadow-born blades severing sinews, driving Morvane backward step by step.
The Crimson Reaver's stench made men collapse in agony, yet the constant tremors from Kael and Charles's duel added a new terror.
Molten swords slammed into nearby walls, and gravity pulses warped the battlefield itself, turning streets into fractured obstacles.
The soldiers looked skyward, awe and terror wide in their eyes.
Lightning struck alongside fire; water collided with molten stone; and Kael and Charles moved across the ruined palace like living storms.
Every blow reshaped streets, every clash sent tremors through the bones of mortals below.
"They're… stalling," Aelina whispered, a chill crawling along her spine.
"The calamities… they're holding back."
The army realized a grim truth: their struggle was a shadow to the duel above.
The battle of mortals, fierce as it was, paled before the elemental storm waging between two titans.
Every shockwave from Kael's gravity punches, every wall of fire from Charles, dictated the battlefield itself.
Kael leapt through smoke, fist infused with gravity smashing against Charles's face and sending him skidding across shattered stone.
Charles rolled, summoning fire-arrows that pierced the haze, grazing Kael's armor and stoking his rage.
"Enough…" Kael growled, his eyes flashing. With a massive punch into the ground, gravity rippled outward, shaking the entire kingdom.
Towers buckled, streets split, and Charles faltered for a heartbeat, awe flickering in his bloodied grin.
Kael surged forward, blending fire and gravity in a storm of destruction, and their hand-to-hand combat began in earnest:
Kael sidestepped a fiery slash, pivoting to sweep Charles's legs from under him with a gravity-enhanced kick.
Charles twisted midair, elbow snapping toward Kael's chest as molten shards scattered like stars.
Kael grabbed Charles's wrist, spinning him into a ruined wall, slamming him down as fire arced from his blade.
Charles blocked a downward strike with a molten gauntlet, countering with a low sweep that threatened to unbalance Kael.
Kael twisted midair again, gravity lifting Charles slightly, then slammed both fists into his chest, sending him staggering back.
Each strike shook the earth, toppled towers, and sent stones tumbling into the streets below.
Rain began to fall, mingling with blood, ash, and steam, turning the battlefield into a chaotic maelstrom.
Victory seemed near. Kael, nearing his limits but still driven, pushed Charles to the edge.
Yet then a new, overwhelming presence tore through his senses a power massive and unique, surging from the ruins of the Great Tree beneath the palace.
And then it struck.
A wrenching force tore at Kael's chest, as though the heartbeat of the world itself had been ripped away.
His storm flickered, his blade trembled, and the very air recoiled around him.
"The Relic…" Kael whispered, dread coiling in his chest.
Charles's grin widened, blood dripping from his lips.
"Now you understand."
From the shattered Great Tree, a cry of anguish echoed through the kingdom.
Its roots convulsed, its glow dimmed, and deep within the trunk, a hand closed around the Prime Relic The Bow of Zephyros.
Charles rose, regenerating rapidly, laughter ringing through the storm.
Kael's rage surged like a tidal wave.
Sword drawn, he struck with killing intent, severing Charles's head in a single, precise arc.
The body fell, lifeless, while the hand lingered in Kael's grasp.
Rain poured from the clouds, the storm itself responding to their duel.
But Charles's voice, haunting and defiant, cut through the rain:
"You think the fight was here?" Flames lashed from his mouth, blinding Kael's vision.
"No, boy," he continued, laughter rising over the storm.
"The fight… is for tomorrow."
The capital trembled beneath the revelation.
Streets were rivers of molten rock and scalding water.
Towers had crumbled into jagged spikes.
Citizens huddled in debris as the army pressed on, weary but alive, carrying wounds, grief, and awe in equal measure.
Kael dropped to one knee, gripping the severed hand and feeling the storm flicker within him.
The stolen Bow of Zephyros pulsed with otherworldly power.
The Prime Relic had been taken a force that could change the balance of all five continents, now in the hands of an unknown thief.
Around him, the battlefield lay in chaos.
Obryxis roared as Darius's battalion hammered their attacks, Cryoveth's storm shredded streets, and Morvane was driven back by William's precise strikes.
The calamities, once restraining themselves, now surged with full force, holding the army in a delicate balance.
Kael's gaze lifted to the sky, where the storm raged with elemental fury.
Lightning clashed with fire, water collided with molten stone, and the battlefield itself seemed alive, trembling under the duel and the theft of the Prime Relic.
This was no longer just a fight between Kael and Charles.
It was the beginning of a war that would reshape the kingdom, the continents, and perhaps the very nature of the elements themselves.
And as the rain fell harder, the wind howled like a warning through the ruined streets, carrying a single, chilling truth: the fight was far from over.
The duel, the theft, the calamities all threads of a larger, more dangerous tapestry.
Kael had won the clash above the palace, but the war for the Prime Relic, and the storm that now gathered over the capital, promised a reckoning the world had never seen.
The fight of tomorrow had already begun.
To be continued.....