The sky had turned to ash.
Smoke coiled like serpents above the shattered clearing, where trees once stood proud and ancient. Now, they were splinters. Scorched bones of the forest. The earth was cracked, steaming, trembling.
And yet. At the center of it all he stood.
Vortan.
Unmoving.Unburned.Unbroken.
A smear of blood still lingered on his cheek, but his eye just.. one blazed like a sun devouring itself.
Rayan wiped soot from his brow, chest heaving. "He's still standing…"
"Then we bring him down," Malrick growled, voice ragged, his black blade humming with restless hunger.
Orien stepped forward, his cloak in tatters, frost trailing behind his feet with every step. He looked at them both. "Together. One strike. No holding back."
The three exchanged no more words.
They didn't need to.
They had fought beasts that crawled from voids between stars, but never had they faced something like Vortan, not a man, not a monster, but a legacy wrapped in flesh and fire.
Rayan lifted his blade.
Malrick whispered to his sword, and it answered with a snarl.
Orien raised both hands to the heavens.
Power surged.
The air trembled.The earth groaned.Time itself seemed to hesitate.
Flames coiled around Rayan like dragons waking from slumber. His eyes turned to molten gold.
Malrick's body shimmered with shadows, his very form flickering between realms. Every step he took was a cut in the fabric of reality.
And Orien his entire being became cold light. His breath froze the moisture in the air. His voice, when it came, was not his own but the song of storms remembered by mountains.
"Now."
They moved as one.
Three arcs.Three forces.Three fates bound into a single, cataclysmic strike.
The clearing lit up like the birth of a star.
Fire, ice, and void met in a singularity of purpose raging toward Vortan with the fury of all the ages.
And for a heartbeat just one
The world held its breath.
The blast hit.
The ground detonated.Mountains in the far distance quaked.Clouds fled.Birds fell from the sky in silence.
When the dust settled…
There was no clearing.
Only a crater.
Black. Smoking. Endless.
Rayan fell to one knee, sword buried in the dirt.
Orien collapsed, frost crawling up his arms as if devouring him from within.
Malrick stood, just barely, blood dripping from his lips.
And for a moment…
It seemed over.
Silent.
Finished.
But then…
A sound.
Not a groan. Not a cough.
A breath.
From the center of the ruin…
A figure rose.
Slowly. Almost reverently.
Vortan.
His clothes burned away. His skin cracked like old stone.But his eye still burning.
No words.
Just a look.
Of disappointment.
Of pity.
Of promise.
Then he smiled.
And the wind returned... cold and cruel.