The Siberian blizzard did not simply enter the throne room; it violently invaded it.
When Tsar Nikolai shattered the towering crystal windows with a single pulse of golden kinetic energy, the howling, sub-zero winds of the Black-Ice Barrens rushed into the opulent chamber. The pristine, polished black obsidian floor was instantly dusted with a layer of rapidly freezing frost. The sudden, violent drop in temperature caused the remaining golden light fixtures in the vaulted ceiling to flicker wildly, screaming in mechanical protest as the Citadel's failing power grid desperately tried to compensate for the breach.
Amani stood his ground against the freezing gale. His heavy Soviet winter coat snapped and whipped around his legs. In his right hand, the Space Shard pulsed with a brilliant, neon-violet light that pushed back the rapidly encroaching shadows.
"Kill the rats," Tsar Nikolai commanded softly. His voice barely rose above the howling wind, but it carried the absolute, undeniable weight of an emperor's final decree. "Leave the Fate Changer to me."
The three elite Praetorians of the Sun Guard moved with terrifying, synchronized precision. They didn't walk; their heavily shielded, pristine white-and-gold armor was equipped with advanced micro-repulsors that allowed them to glide smoothly across the frosted obsidian floor like heavily armed ghosts. Their massive plasma halberds ignited, filling the freezing air with the sharp, toxic scent of ozone and superheated air.
"They're mine!" Chacha roared.
The giant Swahili warrior didn't wait for the Praetorians to close the distance. He charged headlong into the absolute center of the massive throne room. The jagged ridge of golden, calcified bone protruding from his chest pulsed brightly, drawing on the residual Giza medical fluid pumping through his veins. He swung his massive Cryo-Hammer in a devastating, wide horizontal arc, fiercely aiming to sweep all three elite guards off their feet.
The lead Praetorian didn't try to dodge. He raised his crackling plasma halberd and brought it crashing down to meet the icy hammer.
The resulting collision was an apocalyptic explosion of absolute zero and superheated plasma. A massive, thick cloud of blinding white steam erupted in the center of the room, completely obscuring Chacha and the lead guard.
Through the thick vapor, the remaining two Praetorians flawlessly split their attack formation, entirely ignoring the giant and flanking outward to target the rest of the Swahili Pack.
One of them rushed directly toward Mariya Oktyabrskaya and Sia.
"Sia, get down!" Mariya barked coldly.
The grieving widow didn't retreat. She dropped heavily to one knee on the slippery obsidian, raising her heavy Soviet revolver with both hands. The elite Praetorian was gliding toward her at forty miles per hour, its massive halberd raised for a decapitating strike.
Mariya didn't aim for the heavy ceramic chest plate. She carefully watched the complex, glowing orange coolant lines rapidly pulsing beneath the white armor. She inhaled a sharp, deep breath of freezing air, held it perfectly, and pulled the heavy trigger exactly three times in rapid succession.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
The heavy, armor-piercing rounds flew with lethal, surgical precision. The first bullet violently shattered the Praetorian's right mechanical knee joint. The second severed the primary internal coolant line feeding the plasma halberd. The third struck the heavily damaged knee joint again, entirely blowing the mechanical hinge apart.
The Praetorian's leg suddenly buckled. The massive executioner crashed onto the black floor, sliding forward on its thick chest armor, carried by its own immense momentum. It came to a screeching halt mere inches from Mariya's boots.
Before the damaged guard could raise its heavy weapon from the ground, a streak of brilliant blue kinetic lightning zipped cleanly past Mariya.
Upepo came to a sudden, frictionless stop directly beside the fallen Praetorian. The fast speedster, relying entirely on his good left arm while his right remained in its makeshift splint, didn't hesitate. He vibrated his hand to a frictionless, hypersonic frequency and plunged it directly through the thick back of the Praetorian's heavy white ceramic armor, forcefully ripping the brilliantly glowing blue power core entirely out of its heavily armored spine.
The Praetorian's glowing golden visor flickered and instantly died.
"One down," Upepo smirked sharply, casually tossing the sparking core aside.
A deafening, earth-shaking crash violently echoed from the center of the room.
The thick cloud of steam heavily dissipated to rapidly reveal Chacha. The massive giant had violently driven the lead Praetorian to its knees. The heavy golden bone in Chacha's chest was glowing white-hot, physically absorbing the massive ambient heat from the guard's plasma weapon. With a final, terrifying roar, Chacha brought his massive boot down squarely onto the Praetorian's helmet, completely crushing the highly advanced ceramic plating flat against the obsidian.
"Two down," Chacha rumbled deeply, spitting a thick glob of blood onto the shattered helmet.
But the third Praetorian was already upon them. It had flanked entirely around the fighting, its brilliantly glowing halberd raised to violently impale Upepo from behind.
"Upepo! Behind you!" Sia screamed.
Sia violently threw her Staff of Life forward exactly like a heavy javelin. The heavy, polished wooden staff struck the elite Praetorian squarely in the chest. It didn't pierce the thick armor, but the absolute moment the ancient wood made physical contact, Sia poured the incredibly desperate dregs of her powerful life-magic directly into the weapon.
The ancient wood magically, rapidly sprouted. Massive, incredibly thick, twisting green vines heavily erupted from the staff, instantly wrapping themselves tightly around the Praetorian's armored arms, its thick neck, and its heavy plasma halberd. The vines rapidly hardened into an unbreakable, thick cage of highly petrified ironwood, completely immobilizing the guard mid-strike.
Upepo spun around, his eyes widening. He looked directly at the violently trapped Praetorian, and then up at the massive, intricately carved ribcage of the prehistoric Tundra leviathan hanging from the vaulted ceiling.
"Fore!" Upepo yelled happily.
He delivered a massive, hypersonic kinetic uppercut directly to the elite Praetorian's chin. The sheer, frictionless force of the blow launched the heavily armored, vine-wrapped executioner fifty feet straight up into the freezing air. The elite guard violently impaled itself directly on the massive, jagged bone spikes of the leviathan skeleton, hanging lifelessly from the ceiling.
The Sun Guard was broken.
But Amani wasn't watching the Praetorians fall. His pitch-black, violet-ringed eyes were locked firmly on Tsar Nikolai.
The Emperor of the Ice had not moved to help his guards. He simply watched them die with absolute, indifferent boredom. He smoothly descended the final steps of the dais, his flawlessly carved, marble-like skin glowing softly in the dim, flickering light.
"They were flawed machines anyway," Nikolai said softly, smoothly rolling his massive, golden-veined shoulders. "But you, Fate Changer. You are something different. You carry the stench of the cosmic Void."
Amani stepped forward. The Void Hunger inside his massive chest was absolutely no longer a quiet whisper; it was a completely deafening, demanding roar. It wanted to consume the burning light of the Gold Fragment heavily embedded in the Tsar's chest.
"Your empire is burning, Nikolai," Amani said, his deep voice overlapping with a terrifying, highly metallic resonance. "The Firebird is dead. The entire Vanguard is a bloody stain in the snow. And I am going to rip that shiny rock right out of your chest."
Nikolai's perfectly carved lips curled into a cruel, absolutely terrifying smile.
"Come and take it."
Nikolai didn't run; he violently exploded forward. The sheer, impossible physical density of his heavily augmented body, empowered by the Gold Fragment, violently cratered the heavily polished obsidian floor exactly where he had just been standing. He crossed the fifty feet separating them in a fraction of a microsecond.
Amani forcefully thrust his left hand forward, actively projecting a massive, hyper-dense gravity shield.
Nikolai's massive, indestructible fist collided directly with the invisible wall of spatial distortion. The resulting shockwave was utterly apocalyptic. It completely shattered the remaining polished obsidian floor tiles within a massive fifty-foot radius, violently throwing Mariya, Upepo, and Sia to the ground.
The massive gravity shield visibly buckled under the impossible kinetic weight of the Unbreaking Man.
"You rely far too heavily on weak parlor tricks, little boy!" Nikolai fiercely roared, pushing through the localized gravity field through sheer, brute physical strength.
He aggressively grabbed Amani directly by the heavy lapels of his Soviet winter coat and violently threw him across the entire throne room. Amani rapidly flew through the freezing air like a broken ragdoll, violently crashing directly into the heavy base of the massive leviathan-skull throne. The ancient bone violently shattered under the impact, raining jagged fragments down onto him.
Amani desperately gasped for freezing air, tasting fresh copper. His battered ribs felt like they were violently cracked. Before he could even attempt to stand, Nikolai was standing directly over him.
The Tsar brought his heavy, marble-like boot down in a crushing, massive stomp aimed directly at Amani's head.
Amani violently rolled to the right. Nikolai's heavy boot struck the black obsidian floor, violently punching a three-foot-deep crater directly into the solid rock.
Amani didn't try to put distance between them. He used his rolling momentum to forcefully spring directly upward, violently driving his knee into Nikolai's stomach, while simultaneously pressing the brilliantly glowing Space Shard directly against the Tsar's heavy chest, mere short inches from the burning Gold Fragment.
"Repel!" Amani violently screamed.
He didn't use gravity to crush; he used it to violently separate. A massive, heavily localized anti-gravity pulse exploded directly between them.
The concussive, massive force violently launched both men backward. Amani skidded aggressively across the heavily frosted floor, actively coming to a halt near the shattered crystal windows. Nikolai was thrown backward, crashing deeply through the jagged remnants of his own bone throne.
The Tsar slowly pulled himself out of the heavy wreckage. The arrogant smile was entirely gone from his flawless face.
Amani narrowed his burning violet eyes. He looked closely directly at the Tsar's chest.
Right exactly where the massive anti-gravity pulse had struck him, Nikolai's flawless, marble-like skin was visibly cracked. A single, thick drop of violently glowing, liquid golden blood slowly welled up from the hairline fracture and trailed heavily down his abdomen.
The massive Citadel's power grid fiercely, violently flickered again, actively dimming the massive lights to a sickly yellow.
"You're bleeding," Amani said softly, aggressively rising slowly to his shaky feet. "The massive Firebird is officially dead. Your internal power reserves are rapidly failing. You aren't indestructible anymore, Nikolai."
Tsar Nikolai looked down at the golden blood on his chest. His burning golden eyes widened in genuine, absolute shock. It was the very first time his flawless skin had been physically breached in over a century.
The shock instantly turned into a furious, apocalyptic rage.
"I AM THE EMPEROR!" Nikolai violently roared, his incredibly deep voice physically shaking the deep foundation of the massive spire. "I AM THE UNBREAKING MAN!"
The Tsar violently lunged again, abandoning all pretense of aristocratic, disciplined combat. He fought exactly like a violently rabid, wounded beast.
Amani met him in the absolute center of the room. He didn't use the Space Shard to cast defensive shields anymore. He fiercely channeled the incredibly heavy gravity magic entirely into his own fists, exponentially increasing the kinetic mass of his aggressive punches to thousands of pounds.
God and mortal violently collided.
The massive throne room became a violent blur of brilliantly glowing gold and neon violet. Every single time Amani actively landed a massive, gravity-augmented punch, a violently jagged spiderweb of fine, glowing cracks spread across Nikolai's marble skin, weeping thick golden blood. Every time Nikolai landed a glancing blow, Amani's fragile mortal bones violently groaned and heavily fractured under the immense, crushing weight.
They were violently tearing each other apart.
Nikolai violently caught Amani's wrist, his grip exactly like a violently tightening heavy steel vise. He actively pulled the Fate Changer forward and delivered an absolutely devastating, brutal headbutt.
Amani's vision violently exploded into blinding white stars. He staggered backward, completely disoriented, warm blood pouring profusely from his shattered nose.
Nikolai didn't give him a single second to recover. He violently stepped inside Amani's weak guard, fiercely wrapping his massive, golden-veined hands entirely around Amani's heavy throat. The Tsar lifted him completely off the ground, fiercely slamming him back-first directly against one of the massive, structural obsidian pillars holding up the vaulted ceiling.
"Your little rebellion actively ends right here, rat," Nikolai fiercely spat, the glowing golden blood actively dripping from his chin onto Amani's torn coat. The Tsar squeezed, slowly, methodically crushing Amani's fragile windpipe.
Amani fiercely kicked and violently struggled, his vision rapidly darkening at the fragile edges. He heavily dropped the Space Shard. The glowing crystal clattered loudly to the obsidian floor.
Let me eat, the dark Void Hunger violently screamed in his mind. Give me the reins!
Amani stopped struggling. He looked directly into Nikolai's fiercely burning golden eyes.
"Take it," Amani quietly whispered silently into the dark parasite in his soul.
Amani's eyes instantly turned entirely, terrifyingly pitch black. The neon-violet rings aggressively expanded, completely swallowing his pupils.
He didn't actively reach for his fallen crystal. Amani heavily raised both of his bruised, bare hands and placed them perfectly flat directly against the glowing Gold Fragment embedded in the Tsar's heavy chest.
He didn't aggressively use gravity to push or pull. He used the pure, consuming emptiness of the deep Void.
Amani violently inverted the highly localized space strictly inside Nikolai's massive ribcage. He rapidly created a microscopic, terrifyingly hungry black hole directly exactly behind the glowing Gold Fragment, completely isolating the ancient relic from the Tsar's biological nervous system.
Nikolai actively let out a sudden, horrific, deafening scream of pure, absolute physical agony.
The Tsar's indestructible heavy grip instantly released Amani's bruised throat. Nikolai violently grabbed Amani's heavy wrists, desperately, frantically trying to violently physically pull the boy's bare hands away from his chest. But Amani's dark grip was actively locked entirely by the immense, unstoppable gravitational pull of the deep Void.
"No!" Nikolai fiercely roared, his flawless, marble skin rapidly beginning to turn a sickly, highly fragile shade of dark ashen grey. "You absolutely cannot take the crown! It is mine!"
"It was never yours," Amani fiercely rasped, the Void completely overlapping his dark voice.
With a final, absolutely terrifying heavy roar of pure cosmic effort, Amani physically, violently pulled his hands backward.
The Gold Fragment—a violently jagged, utterly beautiful crystal of pure, intensely pulsating golden light—was aggressively, violently ripped completely free from Nikolai's flesh.
A blinding, incredibly explosive massive shockwave of pure, untethered reality violently erupted through the throne room. The sheer kinetic force of the massive separation threw Amani completely across the massive room, the glowing Gold Fragment clutched tightly in his heavy, bleeding hand.
He violently crashed directly into the freezing snow that had blown in through the shattered windows, fiercely gasping desperately for air.
In the absolute center of the massive room, Tsar Nikolai stood completely, physically frozen.
Without the limitless, regenerating massive power of the ancient Fragment, his heavily augmented biology instantly, catastrophically failed. The liquid golden veins spider-webbing across his entire body instantly turned completely, utterly black. His flawless, marble skin aggressively dried, loudly cracking exactly like old, entirely brittle parchment.
Nikolai looked directly down at the massive, dark, gaping hole in his chest. He actively looked at his crumbling, graying entire hands. He was rapidly aging entire centuries in a matter of mere short seconds.
"My... my empire..." Nikolai whispered weakly, his entire voice completely devoid of any power, sounding exactly like a frail, incredibly old man.
He actively took one single, trembling step toward Amani.
His brittle, petrified leg violently shattered under his own weight. Tsar Nikolai completely collapsed heavily to the obsidian floor. The sheer physical impact entirely caused his petrified, graying body to violently shatter into a million pieces of brittle, dark stone and fine dust.
The Unbreaking Man was broken. The Emperor of the Ice was dead.
The howling Siberian wind blew violently through the throne room, completely scattering the dark dust of the Emperor across the frosted floor.
Amani lay heavily in the freezing snow, his entire body trembling violently from the magic withdrawal. He slowly opened his hand.
Resting perfectly in his palm, actively pulsing with a warm, incredibly soothing light, was the Gold Fragment. The Fragment of Body.
"Amani!" Upepo yelled, sprinting heavily across the shattered room, actively dropping to his knees beside his brother. Chacha, Sia, and Mariya were directly behind him.
"I'm alive," Amani coughed heavily, weakly closing his fist around the golden crystal. "I'm alive."
Mariya Oktyabrskaya walked slowly to the exact center of the room, looking directly down at the small pile of dark ash that was absolutely all that remained of the man who had violently murdered her husband and ruthlessly enslaved her country.
She holstered her heavy Soviet revolver.
"The Citadel is officially falling," Mariya said quietly, looking up as the massive golden lights in the ceiling finally, permanently flickered out entirely, plunging the massive fortress into the dark. "Without the Tsar to safely regulate the Void-crystal, the spire will completely collapse."
Amani slowly pulled himself to his feet, heavily leaning on his brother and Chacha. He looked out the shattered windows.
Far in the dark distance, the massive Russian Armada was still violently bombing the Iron Nest. They absolutely didn't know their god was dead. The massive war for Russia was far from completely over, but the unbeatable crown had finally been shattered.
"Let's go home, Pack," Amani whispered, slipping the Gold Fragment safely into his coat. "We have an Armada to clean up"