THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS VIOLENCE THAT MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR SOME READERS.
Woewyn was silent. Not the peaceful kind of silence, the suffocating kind. Even the babies weren't crying. Even the wind didn't dare move. Every soldier stood carved from tension, held by a single thread stretched across an entire kingdom.
Zariel braced himself inside the Crucible, feeling the pulse of distant war rising like a tide. "Damon. Nyra. Please be strong."
THE BATTLEGROUND
A dead planet. Cracked and hollowed. A graveyard big enough to host a war. Damon stood ahead of the Tutors and the army, Daichi in full mythic wolf form beside him. He was towering enough to be ridden, silver-white, and rumbling with anxious power.
Damon stroked the fur on Daichi's muzzle. "You remember the attacks we practiced?"
Daichi huffed a sad wolf-bark. "Yes. But I wanna help you."
"It's fine, Daichi. I'll be fine." Damon reassured, petting Daichi with his palm and words.
"Don't die."
"I promise," Damon whispered. "Protect Nyra. No matter what. Okay? Don't kill any soldiers who hurt you. At least not yet, I'll deal with them for you when I get back."
Daichi felt proud and protected. He licked Damon's face lightly.
Nyra and Rika joined him briefly, Nyra blazing with fire through her veins, Rika's exosuit humming with lethal crimson light.
Nyra grabbed Damon's wrist. "I've pushed myself beyond my limit these last four days. I won't lose."
Rika raised her two blades. "I'm ready."
Damon nodded, heart pounding. He turned to Cythera.
"Kick his ass." Her small smirk was enough of an answer.
Draven landed beside him, wind swirling under his feet. "We'll bring her back," Damon said. Draven gave a single calm nod.
THE ENEMY ARRIVES
Velmira's army drifted down like a storm of falling shadows. Behind them were the Three Brothers. Fire, Earth, and Wind. Each one was a titan. Bravira stepped forward as the Fire Brother did the same.
"So... we meet again," he said with a sharp-tooth grin.
"This will be," Bravira growled, "the last time."
BOOM.
They punched each other in the face at the same time. A shockwave made a thin yet long split in the planet.
Silence.
Then, Commander Laros lifted his blade high. "For Woewyn… and for the Light that refuses to die!"
The blade dropped.
WAR.
SAME GROUND WAR — RIKA & NYRA
Both sides sprinted across broken earth, screaming, clashing. Suits flying in the air, sparks of blades enough to light clothes on fire, but two people began to dominate.
Rika shot forward, spinning mid-air, carving through a trio of enemy soldiers before landing on one knee. Nyra vaulted over her, slamming extreme fiery shockwaves into the ground that blasted men and ground beneath them backward like leaves in a hurricane.
They fought as one body.
Rika cut one female warrior down with a single clean arc of her blade. Nyra melted another man's visor with her bare hands, grabbing him and throwing him towards Rika, who diced him up for vultures of the cosmos. The smell of ozone and seared flesh filled the air as the visor turned to liquid slag.
Rika switched positions with her in mid-fight without needing a word. Nyra burned a path while Rika carved one.
A soldier grabbed Rika. She reacted instantly, blade out— Then paused when she saw the clothing-armour and a fist of light at her face.
"Rika?! Thank the Light—I almost killed you!"
"Solaren?" she exhaled, breathing heavily.
He burnt a hole through a man about to strike her. "Let's move!"
They plunged back in.
DAICHI & NYRA — STARFANG
Daichi had a man in his jaws, shaking him like a rag doll. The man's screams were the loudest in the war. Nyra ran towards Daichi as he flung the broken man away, crashing into a mountain. The wind that followed her was enough to send men flying, but with each step she took shot rivers of flame from her feet at enemies beside her.
She climbed onto his back, fingers digging into his fur as the battlefield trembled beneath them.
"Ready, boy?"
RRRRRHHHRRROOOO!! Daichi answered with a howl so deep it rattled stone and bone.
He bounded forward, four leaps, then airborne. Ice wolves formed beneath each paw. Nyra's fire spiralled into a large, bright lance above her palm.
"Pack Hunt: STARFANG BARRAGE!"
Daichi roared. The roar split into hundreds of spectral howls. A dozen ice wolves erupted from all directions. Nyra held Daichi's fur and bent to pick a man from Velmira's army mid-fight. She hurled her lance and the man right after, coating him in fire.
The ice wolves stopped in front of the enemy and immediately turned into spikes of ice that pierced suit and bone. At the same time, Nyra's fire had no particular shape, though a blinding fireball was at its core, flames bursting outward as black smoke billows up and debris scatters across the torn ground.
The two attacks spiralled together and erased a battery of Velmira's soldiers from existence.
Nyra pressed her forehead to the top of Daichi's while riding. "Good boy."
He huffed, proud. And they charged into the next wave.
EARTH BROTHER VS THORPAX
On a smaller planet, the ground convulsed. The Earth Brother rose like a giant waking from the world's crust. He formed the earth above him, moulding it into a gargantuan blade.
Thorpax soared upward and punched it, shattering it with his bare fists.
They collided mid-air— an immovable man vs an unstoppable mountain.
WIND BROTHER VS CYTHERA & VARNEX
Wind Brother unleashed a tornado of invisible blades.
Cythera conjured two massive glacial swords—each broader than a man, taller than several the Wind Brother stacked twice—spinning them to shield herself and Varnex. She lifted herself in a spinning tornado of water beneath her lower body.
The tornado moved her around—she shot forward, swinging one blade at his head, turning around him with the tornado of water beneath her.
He dodged, barely.
"I'll attack him from the inside!" She yelled. She opened her palm, sensing the water in his blood.
Then, the air boomed from how fast he moved, nearly deafening Cythera and Varnex.
Before she could recover, a hand grabbed her face. It was fast— Too fast. It didn't feel like he moved; it felt like deleting the distance between a predator and prey.
The Wind Brother lifted her, then began pulling her in two directions. For the first time since the war began, fear stabbed through her — cold, sharp, real. Varnex couldn't hear her scream, but he saw—
"CYTHERA!!!"
THE DUEL — DAMON VS VELMIRA
On a neighbouring broken planet, Damon stood alone, coat billowing like a cape. Velmira drifted down from the sky. Hands behind her back as if descending from a throne.
She scanned around him. "Where is Draven? I did not agree to fight a child."
Damon's grip tightened. Draven appeared behind him in a gust of wind.
"I'm here," he said.
Her smile bloomed, but Damon didn't wait.
"Let's end this quickly."
He crossed his arms—
BOOM
And launched. The ground was cracking violently beneath his feet. A spike almost hit Draven's face, but it stopped right before. Draven remained calm.
He fired twelve large condensed spears of pure light. Humming, curving, and flaring through the sky like newborn stars.
Velmira didn't move.
She raised her palm lightly, as if telling someone to stand up. A tiny dome of hyper-dense spinning wind enveloped her. The spears hit, but they shattered into starlight.
Damon clicked his tongue.
Velmira smiled. "Cute."
He rushed towards her with his blades spinning, creating rings of light around himself. The rings themselves fired arched slashes while the spaces between each ring fired several detonations of light.
She dodged, parried, and sidestepped every attack like she was dancing. Looking at her face through the debris, she was smiling.
Damon leapt back, and fire attacks rained from above. Velmira curved the air around one flame sphere— turned it into a vacuum— and sent it back at Damon faster.
He dodged by inches.
He unleashed everything he had. Light flares twisting like comets, blazing fireballs exploding into sunbursts, and a storm of attacks so dense the sky turned blazing white.
Velmira moved through them like she was stepping between raindrops. Four spinning circles of wind — one on every side of her — to shield herself from debris.
Damon sent an attack from above, where she didn't have a shield. She dodged, though it nearly grazed her cheek. She blinked, losing concentration for one second.
Damon instantly struck. Daggers raised high to smash down—
She tilted her head. "Impressive." And slapped him.
CRACK.
His vision blurred. For a heartbeat, he forgot where the sky was. Damon shot across the continent, crashing into the base of a mountain, carving a crater through its foundation.
VELMIRA VS DRAVEN
Velmira didn't even look back at Damon.
"Well," she said, "the distraction is gone. Now we can focus."
Draven stepped forward. "Velmira… please stop this."
She launched a punch first, forming a blade of emerald and black wind in her other hand. She attacked ruthlessly. But he blocked every strike. Never hitting back. Never even countering.
She saw it immediately. "You're holding back. Stop it."
Draven stayed silent, eyes searching hers like he wanted to save her with a glance. She jumped and kicked him across the face, blood spraying as he slid across the rock.
Draven wiped his lip and stood. He breathed once, then he moved. One clean, precise, unrestrained attack. He condensed wind between both his palms, then released it like a contained explosion set free.
Velmira flew and smashed into a different mountainside, stone exploding behind her. She wiped the blood from her lip and grinned.
"That's what I'm talking about."
She sliced a mountain that split clouds with a slap of wind, split it into dozens of sharp, pointed stones spinning in the atmosphere, and hurled them at him with additional razor wind.
Draven sprinted toward her. Jumping, sliding, and weaving between the deadly debris. One slice of wind hit him across the back, and blood arced through the air, but he rolled and stumbled and kept charging.
She charged too. Then they met and stopped.
Inches apart. Both in an attacking stance. But there was no killing intent. They stared into each other's eyes with dilated pupils and a sense of longing and love. Velmira softened, Draven melted.
A silent pause formed between them as they stared into each other's drowning irises. Velmira, for the first time since the beginning of this war, looked utterly lost.
Damon, far away, rose from the rubble. He sensed nothing lethal in either Ki.
"Did they knock each other out?"
He sprinted through the dust, ready to finish the fight. Then he saw it, Velmira's silhouette pressed against Draven.
Kissing him. Deep. His hands at her waist, one of her hands cupping the back of his head possessively.
Damon was still breathlessly stunned when her other arm deformed her sword and extended outward lazily. A single gust of wind fired like a cannon.
It slammed into Damon, blasting him away. He wrapped himself in Radiant Veil before it hit and mid-flight, barely staying intact.
In his mind: "ARE THOSE TWO REALLY DOING THAT RIGHT NOW?!" He expected a war, but he didn't expect that one of the weapons would be 'heartbreak.'
Velmira pulled away slowly. Draven's eyes were wet with conflict.
"Velmira… please stop."
She whispered, "I can't," and a fist of wind punched him away from the side, causing him to land beside Damon. Velmira was still in the same pose, but her eyes were closed.
Damon groaned. "What the hell is going on?!"
Draven wiped his mouth. "…It's complicated."