Supremus grows inpatient and risks using his powers on her, raising his metal hand, green light gathering around his fingers. His telekinesis reached for Lyra, for the locket, for his soul when a blazing yellow sword cleaved through his metal forearm. Sparks flew. The blade bit halfway through before stopping against majikally enhanced steel. The force of the blow spun him, nearly knocking him off his feet.
Koronos was already moving, already inside Supremus's guard, the Sword of Otepi singing with light. He didn't give speeches. Didn't threaten. He just acted and through the Bond, tells Shelove to stay back because Supremus is too dangerous and can hurt her easily.
For a moment, just a moment, the ancient god looked genuinely surprised. No one had struck him in ten thousand years. No one had dared. The blow was hard enough to cleave a horse in half. Supremus looked at his damaged arm, at the green fluid seeping from the wound, at the mortal who had dared to wound him. His eyes narrowed. "You will suffer!"
Here on Terra Primius, the low-majik world, Supremus was diminished. His great powers required channeling, focus, time; luxuries Koronos had no intention of granting.
Koronos had grown up here. Fought here. Bled here. He didn't need majik to be deadly: he needed muscle, bone, will, and steel. The majik word helped, but it was just a tool. He was the weapon.
Supremus tried to summon power. Koronos didn't let him. A slash forced him to dodge. A thrust made him parry. A kick drove him back. Every time the green light started to gather, the yellow blade cut it short, sparks flying from each massive impact. Supremus had no choice but to draw his own sword and he hasn't used it in ages.
The chase began.
They exploded out of the throne room, through halls, across galleries, into chambers never meant for violence. Koronos pressed the attack relentlessly, giving Supremus no room to breathe, no time to think.
The wreckage mounted. Columns toppled from Supremus's mighty blows that missed Koronos. Statues shattered. Tapestries burned where stray majik touched them from the brief moments when Supremus could channel his power for a tiny moment. Guards scattered or died in the carnage. Civilians fled. The king shouted orders no one heard.
Lyra watched, crouching beside her father's throne, the locket pulsing against her chest. She didn't understand what she was seeing, but she knew it mattered. She knew he mattered; the blue man with the glowing sword, fighting for something she couldn't name.
On the floor, barely conscious, Zeyzey's body screamed from the power that had torn through her. But her eyes were open. Watching. Always watching.
Koronos drove Supremus into a wall, the Sword piercing through his metal torso and pinning him to the stone.
For a moment, victory seemed possible.
Supremus laughed. A dry, scraping sound that chilled the blood. He pulled himself off the blade. The wound closed. The metal reformed. Green light knitted him back together. He wasn't healing, he was reconstituting.
Koronos struck again. And again. And again. Each blow wounded. Each should have been mortal. Each healed.
Supremus was always there. Always laughing. Always coming back.
Koronos stepped back, breathing hard, the Sword dripping with green fluid that evaporated before it hit the ground. He looked at the metal man, at the wounds that closed, at the eyes that burned with ancient hatred.
He cannot be killed, Koronos realized. Not like this. Not by me. Not by anyone. This is probably where I die. But his mind raced. The body was a shell. A construct. Something else must be sustaining him. Something hidden. Perhaps that something was vulnerable? His soul. Koronos could feel it now; an Everliving thing. Somewhere else. His essence was elsewhere. He must have figured out a way to put his soul somewhere; madness. That's why he couldn't die. That's why he kept healing. Where? Where did he hide it?
Zeyzey staggered to her feet. Every muscle screamed. Every nerve burned. But she was standing. She was always standing. Her eyes found Lyra, huddled against the throne, but that's not what caught her attention. The locket around Lyra's neck blazed in her witch-sight like a bonfire on a moonless night.
It was far beyond anything she'd seen in power level and spell structuring and complexity. Supremus's essence and lifeforce were unmistakable. And something else. Something she'd never seen before or even ever imagined. The locket was drawing.
Majikal energy flowed into it from the world itself, like a vast maelstrom in the sailor's tales, only instead of water being pulled in, it was majik.'Could this be why Terra Primius has such diminished majikal energy?' The thought flickered through her mind and was gone. There was no time for metaphysical analysis.
Supremus. His soul. That was it. That was the key. She moved toward Lyra, slowly, carefully, her hand outstretched. "Child." Her voice was rough, barely there. "Listen to me. I need that locket. Our lives depend on it."
Lyra flinched back, clutching it tighter. Stranger. Threat. Danger. Her eyes were wide, terrified.
Standing near, her father saw. Understood. Trusted something he could not explain. "Give it to her, Lyra!"
Lyra hesitated. One heartbeat. Two. Then she lifted the chain over her head and placed the locket in Zeyzey's waiting hand.
The locket pulsed against Zeyzey's palm. Warm. Alive. Ancient. Inside it: ten thousand years of grief and rage and madness. Inside it: the soul of the demigod who had ended countless lives.
For a moment, brief, cold, practical, the thought flickered through her mind: She could take it. Could use it. Could become something… else.
Then she looked at Koronos. Still fighting. Still bleeding. Still refusing to fall. She had made a choice in the cold snow of Bergia. A vow. She made it again. She would not fail. She would end this. She gripped the locket, felt its power.
Koronos and Supremus still clashed through the Citadel. The metal god laughed. The blue warrior fought on, relentless.
Zeyzey stood by the throne, the locket in her hand. Lyra watched with eyes too old for her years. The king, the guards, the chaos all around them.
Koronos didn't know she had it. Didn't know the soul-stone was in play. He only knew he had to keep fighting, keep pressing, keep Supremus focused on him.
He's out there, Zeyzey thought. Dying by inches. Buying us time. He doesn't even know what I'm holding. He trusts me anyway. He always trusted me, for reasons known only to him.
After quickly studying its majikal architecture, she closed her fingers around the locket and said to Daggeroth, Corvannafax, the king, Lyra, anyone listening, "I hold the fate of the Omniverse in my hands. And I know what to do with it… I think."