Lak and Yui stood their ground, every muscle tensed and ready for the final clash.
They looked into the Queen's eyes—cold, hollow, and completely devoid of life.
Suddenly, a pitch-black field erupted around her, spanning a five-meter radius.
Without a second thought, Lak lunged forward, swinging his blade with all his might.
But the moment his steel entered that black void, the sensation changed.
It felt as if his sword was being sucked into an infinite, invisible vortex.
The void was rotating violently toward a bottomless pit.
Lak barely managed to wrench his weapon back before it was swallowed by the rotation.
Inside the black field, Queen Sharley stood like a statue.
She was indifferent to the chaos, as if the battle itself was beneath her notice.
"Lasers!" Yui shouted, firing a barrage of Photon Beams.
Unlike physical steel, the light-speed attacks managed to pierce through the black field.
However, one of the Queen's stone wings flared out instantly.
It deflected the beams with ease, scattering light across the room.
"Lak, it seems only light-speed attacks can bypass that pressure field," Yui observed.
"So we have to break her core at the speed of light?" Lak gritted his teeth.
"That's impossible. We can't move that fast yet."
Suddenly, a strange cracking sound echoed from within the black void.
The Commanders watched in shock as the Queen's massive ice wings detached from her back.
"Did my lasers do that?" Yui wondered, hoping for a dent in the defense.
But she was dead wrong.
The detached wings began to glow and shift, morphing into human forms.
One wing transformed into a girl clad in purple silken robes and sleek armor.
The other became a boy dressed in crimson battle gear.
"Who are they now?" Lak demanded, raising his sword.
"I am Saari, the defense of Kaien," the girl spoke softly.
"And I am Kaien, the attack of Saari," the boy declared.
Then, speaking in a haunting unison, they said:
"We are separate in body, but our love and our will to protect each other makes us one."
"Great. More annoying gimmicks," Yui sighed, though her eyes remained sharp.
"Let's end this," Lak growled.
Lak blurred into a flash movement, aiming a lethal strike at Kaien.
But Saari moved instantly to intercept, her defensive aura forcing Lak to retreat.
Kaien didn't give them a moment to breathe.
He slammed his palms together, summoning a localized blizzard.
The freezing gale tore through the throne room, obscuring everything.
Elysia quickly moved to shield Liuke from the storm.
Lak and Yui struggled to maintain their footing in the howling wind.
High in the air, Kaien released a swarm of jagged ice shards.
Saari, from a distance, used her hands to precisely shape and accelerate them.
They rained down like a lethal hailstorm upon the Commanders.
Lak's blade became a blur as he deflected the shards.
Yui used her lasers to vaporize the incoming ice in mid-air.
Realizing they were being out-maneuvered, Lak focused his Solar Energy to its limit.
Within seconds, he cranked the room's temperature to a staggering high.
The sudden heatwave made Kaien and Saari's frozen forms unstable.
Seizing the opening, Yui fired a continuous beam at the pair.
Saari scrambled to protect Kaien, her desperation making her forget her own safety.
That was the opening Lak needed.
He dropped into a low crouch, shifting his momentum, and vanished in a Flash Step.
A single, clean arc of heat-infused steel tore through Saari's core.
"SAARI!" Kaien screamed in agony.
His focus shattered instantly.
In that moment of grief, Yui's photon laser pierced through Kaien's throat.
The beam obliterated his core.
The two wings fell to the floor, broken and dying.
"Did we... lose so quickly?" Saari whispered, clutching Kaien's hand.
"Kaien, what is happening to us?"
"We still have one chance," Kaien gasped, looking at her with fading eyes.
"To keep our love eternal... and to protect the Queen."
In their final moment, Kaien and Saari leaned in for a kiss.
A primal instinct flared within Elysia.
Sensing a catastrophic buildup of energy, she grabbed Liuke and leapt.
They cleared the castle walls in a single, massive bound.
Lak saw the signs too; he grabbed Yui's hand.
He sliced through the massive stone wall with his sword and threw them both out.
The kiss triggered a massive surge of Black Aura that swallowed the entire castle.
A blinding flash followed, and then—BOOM!
The castle erupted in a colossal explosion.
The two wings had given their lives to take their enemies with them.
The shockwave rocked the entire kingdom, sending civilians into pure terror.
But amidst the dust and fire, a tragic reality remained hidden.
Commander Kling, who had just entered the castle, was caught in the heart of the blast.
He was gone.
As the smoke slowly cleared, Lak, Yui, Elysia, and Liuke looked back.
To their horror, the Queen's black field was still there.
It was untouched and unshaken amidst the ruins.
It was as if the explosion that leveled the castle hadn't even scratched her.