The pile of white marble rubble didn't just shift; it exploded.
Blocks of stone weighing hundreds of pounds were blasted outward like shrapnel. A shockwave of golden light erupted from the center of the debris, forcing the Lionesses to shield their eyes and Titus to dig his heels into the cracked stone floor.
From the dust, Leopold emerged.
He had changed. The noble facade was gone. The velvet cape was shredded, revealing a body that had swollen with raw, chaotic Aether. His muscles were so dense they looked like twisted steel cables under his fur. His mane was no longer just black hair; it was wreathed in crackling, golden lightning.
He didn't look like a King anymore. He looked like a catastrophe.
"Titus," Leopold growled. The voice wasn't human. It was a vibrating sub-bass frequency that rattled Ren's teeth. "You punched me. You actually punched me."
Titus stood his ground, shaking the blood from his bruised forearm. "You were talking too much. I helped you stop."
Leopold's eyes were white voids of pure energy. "Kill them," he whispered. "Kill the fat one. Kill the boy. Leave the girl to me."
The Lionesses screamed—a collective, blood-curdling war cry.
Twenty of them charged at once.
"Get behind me!" Titus roared.
He stepped forward to meet the wave. It was like watching a breakwater get hit by a tsunami.
The first three Lionesses leaped at him, spears leveled. Titus didn't dodge. He caught the first spear in his bare hand, snapped it, and backhanded the wielder. He grabbed the second Lioness by her leather armor and threw her into the third.
CRUNCH. BAM.
But there were too many.
While Titus dealt with the front, four more flanked him. Swords slashed at his legs. Spears jabbed at his thick neck, looking for the arteries.
"Gah!" Titus grunted as a blade sliced deep into his thigh. Another pierced his shoulder.
He was a mountain, but even mountains erode. Bright red blood began to flow down his gray skin.
Ren was kneeling beside Kaira, twenty feet behind Titus. Kaira was conscious, but barely. Her arm was healed, but she was shaking, her energy reserves depleted by the trauma.
"He can't hold them forever," Kaira wheezed, trying to stand and failing. "There's too many. They're bleeding him out."
Ren looked at the giant. Titus was fighting with the desperation of a cornered bear. He swatted a Lioness away, but another bit him on the arm. He stomped on one, but two more jumped on his back, stabbing him.
Titus was dying for them.
Ren looked at his own hands. They were trembling. He felt weak, dizzy from healing Kaira. His stomach clawed at him, demanding food he didn't have.
Pain is just information, Kaira had said.
Energy is currency, the Wild Soul whispered.
Ren stood up.
"Stay here," Ren ordered Kaira.
"Ren, no!" Kaira reached for him. "You can't fight them! You have no armor!"
"I don't need armor," Ren said, his voice strangely calm. "I am the armor."
He ran.
He didn't run away. He ran directly into the kill zone.
Titus roared in pain as a Lioness drove a spear into his lower back. He reached back to grab her, but another Lioness slashed his hamstring. He stumbled, dropping to one knee.
"Now! Bring down the beast!" a Lioness Captain screamed.
They surged forward to finish him.
Suddenly, a small, frantic figure slid through the mud and blood, diving between Titus's legs.
Ren popped up right under Titus's armpit.
"Titus! Left!" Ren screamed.
Titus, reacting on instinct, swung his massive arm to the left, clotheslining a Lioness mid-air.
"Scribe?" Titus gasped, blood dripping from his nose. "Get back! You'll get squashed!"
"No!" Ren yelled. He slammed his glowing hands onto Titus's leg—right over the deep sword wound.
"Vitality Transfer!"
Blue light flared.
Titus flinched, expecting pain. Instead, he felt a rush of cold, invigorating ice water. The muscle fibers in his leg knit together instantly. The skin sealed. The pain vanished.
Titus stood up, his leg fully functional. He looked down at Ren in shock.
"You fixed it?"
"I'm the battery!" Ren shouted, dodging a spear thrust that aimed for his head. "You take the hits! I erase them! Just keep hitting them!"
Titus grinned. It was a blood-soaked, terrifying grin.
"I can do that."
The dynamic of the fight shifted instantly.
A Lioness leaped, slashing Titus across the chest with dual daggers.
SLASH.
Titus didn't even flinch. Ren reached up, touched the wound.
ZAP.
Healed.
Another Lioness stabbed Titus in the arm.
THUNK.
Titus grabbed her by the head and slammed her into the ground.
Ren touched the arm.
ZAP.
Healed.
They became a machine. A gruesome, biological tank. Titus was the turret, dealing massive damage. Ren was the mechanic, frantically running around the giant, ducking under swings, sliding through blood, patching holes as fast as they appeared.
It was exhausting. Ren's vision was swimming. Every time he healed Titus, he felt a piece of his own life force drain away. His skin was turning pale, his breathing shallow.
Keep going, he told himself. Don't pass out. If you pass out, he dies.
"Behind you!" Ren shrieked.
Titus spun, catching a Lioness mid-air. He threw her into the crowd.
"Good eyes, Scribe!" Titus laughed. For the first time, he seemed to be enjoying himself. He was invincible. He could fight without fear of injury.
But Leopold was watching.
The Golden King stood on the steps of the ruined gazebo, his eyes narrowing. He saw the blue light. He saw the boy touching the beast.
"The healer," Leopold whispered. "Annoying little insect."
Leopold crouched.
BOOM.
He launched himself across the battlefield.
He moved so fast that Titus didn't even see him coming. Leopold didn't aim for Titus. He aimed for the boy in the shadow.
"REN!" Kaira screamed from the sidelines.
Ren looked up. He saw a flash of gold.
Titus reacted. He couldn't stop Leopold, but he could intercept. He threw his massive body in front of Ren.
CRUNCH.
Leopold collided with Titus.
It wasn't a normal hit. Leopold's claws were glowing with golden Aether. He drove his hand deep into Titus's chest, piercing the thick hide, cracking the sternum, and barely missing the heart.
Titus gasped, his eyes going wide. The force of the impact drove him backward ten feet. He fell onto his back, shaking the ground.
Leopold stood over him, his hand dripping with Titus's blood.
"A shield is only as good as the material," Leopold sneered. "And you are soft, River King."
He raised his claw for the killing blow. He was going to rip Titus's throat out.
Ren scrambled over Titus's heaving chest. He didn't have a weapon. He didn't have a plan.
He slammed both hands onto the gaping wound in Titus's chest.
"MAXIMUM OUTPUT!" Ren screamed.
He didn't just give a little energy. He gave everything.
He poured his soul into the wound.
The blue light turned blinding white.
Titus gasped—a massive, drowning inhale. The wound in his chest didn't just close; it exploded with regeneration. The bone snapped back. The muscle wove itself together so fast it generated heat.
Titus's eyes snapped open. The pain was gone. Replaced by a surge of pure, primal power.
He reached up.
He grabbed Leopold's wrist.
Leopold's eyes widened. "What?"
"My turn," Titus roared.
Titus squeezed.
CRACK.
The sound of the Lion King's wrist shattering echoed across the amphitheater.
Leopold howled in shock and pain. He tried to pull away, but Titus—fueled by Ren's life force—held on.
"You called me fat," Titus growled, sitting up, dragging the struggling Lion with him.
He punched Leopold in the stomach.
It was a blow that folded the King in half. Leopold coughed bile.
Titus stood up, lifting Leopold into the air by his broken wrist.
"You called my friends pets."
He slammed Leopold into the ground.
WHAM.
The stone cracked.
"And you," Titus raised a massive foot, "ruined my nap."
He stomped.
Leopold rolled away at the last second, scrambling backward on three legs, clutching his broken wrist. He looked at Titus with genuine fear for the first time.
Then he looked at Ren.
Ren was kneeling on the ground, swaying. He was ghastly pale. His hair had turned white at the tips from the strain. He looked like a corpse that hadn't gotten the memo.
But he was smiling.
"He's… fully healed," Leopold whispered, staring at Titus's pristine chest. "Impossible."
The Lionesses had stopped fighting. They looked at their King, broken and retreating. They looked at the giant Hippo who refused to die.
"Lionesses!" Leopold shrieked, his voice cracking. "Kill them! All of them! Don't stop until they are paste!"
The pack hesitated. They looked at the unbreakable wall that was Titus.
"I SAID KILL THEM!" Leopold roared, golden lightning sparking from his mane.
The Lionesses tensed, preparing for one final, desperate charge.
"HEY!"
A voice cut through the tension like a razor.
Everyone looked toward the edge of the arena.
Kaira Vane was standing there.
She looked terrible. Her clothes were rags. Her face was a mask of dried blood. But she was standing.
And her right arm…
Her right arm was gone. Or rather, it was encased in a sphere of spinning, pressurized air so dense it distorted the light around it. The vents on her elbow weren't hissing; they were screaming a high-pitched, mechanical whine that hurt the ears.
She had been charging it. While Ren and Titus fought, while they bled, she had been diverting every ounce of her remaining stamina into her Impact Dial.
She pointed her fist at Leopold.
"You wanted a duel?" Kaira rasped. "Fine. Let's finish it."
She didn't aim at Leopold. She aimed at the massive, cracked stone pillar directly behind Leopold—the central support for the remaining roof of the amphitheater.
Leopold's eyes widened. "You wouldn't."
Kaira grinned.
"Mantis Style: ONE HUNDRED PERCENT IMPACT."
She punched the air.
She didn't create a shockwave. She created a catastrophe.
The blast ripped across the arena. It tore up the floor tiles. It vaporized the stone railing. It hit the central pillar with the force of a tactical missile.
The pillar disintegrated.
The massive, domed roof of the Royal Pavilion—tons of stone, steel, and history—groaned. Gravity took over.
"Run!" Titus yelled.
He grabbed Ren under one arm. He grabbed Kaira under the other.
He charged toward the jungle exit, moving faster than a hippo had any right to move.
Behind them, the roof came down.
CRASH.
The sound was deafening. Dust billowed out like a mushroom cloud. The screams of the Lionesses and the roar of the King were silenced by the avalanche of stone.
Titus didn't stop running until they were deep into the treeline, well past the border of the manicured lawn.
He finally skidded to a halt in a patch of ferns, dropping the two teenagers gently onto the moss.
Ren lay on his back, staring at the canopy. He felt like a husk. He couldn't move his fingers.
Kaira collapsed next to him, her arm smoking, her skin burned from the discharge heat.
Titus sat down, leaning against a tree. He was covered in blood—mostly not his own.
Silence returned to the jungle.
After a long minute, Ren whispered.
"Did we win?"
Titus picked a piece of masonry out of his shoulder. He looked back at the cloud of dust rising from the Lion's Court.
"We survived," Titus grumbled. "Which is better."
He looked at Ren. Then he looked at Kaira.
He reached into his satchel—which had miraculously survived the fight—and pulled out three squashed bananas.
He tossed one to Kaira. He tossed one to Ren.
"Eat," Titus commanded. "We made a lot of noise. The neighbors will be curious."
Ren peeled the banana with shaking hands. He took a bite.
He looked at his friends. The Tank. The Smasher. The Healer.
They were a mess. They were broken, bleeding, and exhausted.
But they were alive. And they had just dropped a building on a King.
Ren chewed slowly.
"I think," Ren said, a smile tugging at his lips, "we're getting good at this."
Kaira laughed, a painful, wheezing sound. "Don't get cocky, Scribe. You're still a sponge."
"A Tactical Sponge," Titus corrected, closing his eyes for a nap. "A very good sponge."
Ren closed his eyes, letting the sugar and the Wild Soul do their work.
They had passed the Green Zone.
Next stop: The Rust Hives.