Boom—!
The two colossal Kings clashed again, shaking the heavens.
They had already collided countless times, each impact tearing down mountains and splitting valleys apart.
The Celestial Spirit King's armor was battered and cracked, golden plates dented and streaked with starlit blood, but the more wounded he became, the brighter his eyes burned. His strikes only grew fiercer.
Phatret had suffered far fewer injuries. The Star Spirit–infused equipment that covered his body had been reforged and strengthened once more, pulsing with stolen celestial power.
The Celestial Spirit King's greatsword swung in a blazing arc toward Phatret's head.
Enraged, Phatret did not dodge. Instead, he thrust his scepter directly toward the King's chest.
Clang! Thud!
The Salzburg Crown shattered, scattering fragments of starlight. Phatret's long hair came undone, revealing a faint mark across his forehead.
At the same moment, a beam of violet light burst through the Celestial Spirit King's chest.
"Why?!" Phatret roared, his voice echoing across the ruined peaks. His gaze swept the battlefield below, his army was in retreat!
He had accounted for the power of the Zodiac, yes, but with Antinous, and Hercules, under his command, his side should not have fallen so easily.
Then the earth trembled again.
A mountain collapsed behind him, and a deafening rumble made him turn.
There, bursting through the falling rock, was a massive mechanical serpent, using the mountain itself as a springboard.
It launched upward like a coiled spring, its fanged jaws yawning wide.
Ophiuchus.
"Impossible...Ophiuchus?!"
Phatret hastily raised his scepter horizontally. The Brandenburg King extended, thickened by starlight, barely holding back the serpent's bite.
The clash forced him backward through the air. Ophiuchus's tail struck the ground, carving a crater and triggering another quake that rippled across the valley.
No one even flinched; the battlefield had been shaking all day.
Only Yukino tilted her head skyward. "I didn't know Ophiuchus could be that strong…"
Lucy nodded slightly, eyes wide. Sagittarius and Gemini were terrifying enough in Erza's hands, yet Ophiuchus made them look tame.
"It's you?" Phatret finally recognized the figure standing atop the serpent's head.
Rhodes.
Of course Phatret knew Ophiuchus's abilities, but could a human truly summon her with such overwhelming force?
Ophiuchus's jaw snapped shut. A sharp twist of her neck, a metallic crack, and the scepter in Phatret's hands fractured clean in two.
Rhodes ignored him. His attention was on the Celestial Spirit King.
He had expected the King to be gravely wounded, but to his astonishment, the towering monarch was already back on his feet, wings of starlight flaring as if pain only fueled his might.
"A truly dependable ally," the Celestial Spirit King said, his voice steady but edged with pride. "Had you attended the last celestial banquet, you'd have known my friend's strength sooner."
Rhodes raised an eyebrow. "Need a hand?"
The King shook his head, smiling faintly. "I appreciate the offer—but it is a King's duty to strike down the rebel himself."
Then, turning to Ophiuchus: "Make full use of your partner's power, and bring victory to this battlefield."
"Yes." Ophiuchus's eyes gleamed; she watched Phatret warily as she slowly descended with Rhodes still standing atop her head.
Rhodes said nothing more. From his vantage point, the Celestial Spirit King didn't seem weakened at all, if anything, he looked stronger.
'A berserker type,' Rhodes mused. 'The more he bleeds, the more his strength surges.'
Phatret conjured another scepter, starlight twisting around his hand.
The Celestial Spirit King pointed his greatsword straight at him.
"Scepter of Justice!"
Phatret's fury only deepened. He stopped speaking entirely, his wrath channeled into ferocious strikes, light and darkness clashing in raw waves.
This time, Phatret was the one driven back.
As the number of rebellious Star Spirits dwindled below, his strength waned with every fallen servant.
No matter how stubbornly he resisted, he couldn't match the King's growing momentum.
When the final few traitorous Spirits were surrounded and subdued, the Celestial Spirit King lifted his sword high toward the heavens.
"All eighty-eight stars of the sky, shine and gather! Meteor Sword!"
A brilliant column of light descended with the swing.
Phatret raised his scepter to block, but it shattered instantly, breaking cleanly in two beneath the weight of the celestial strike.
The greatsword, blazing with the power of the stars, came crashing down on Phatret.
A blinding white light swallowed his entire form, pressing him out of the sky like a falling star.
Phatret fell like a meteor. His massive body struck the mountaintop, crushing it in a single impact, the peak collapsed, the entire mountainside caved in, and when the dust cleared, a vast crater lay carved into the earth.
The Celestial Spirit King's strike did not end there. The sword's energy ripped outward from the point of impact, splitting mountains, breaking rivers, and razing forests. The earth itself was torn apart for hundreds of miles, leaving behind a canyon that spanned the horizon.
Everyone who witnessed that godlike power could only stare in stunned silence before erupting into cries of awe.
The Star Spirits cheered, their victory ringing through the shattered valley.
Rhodes exhaled in relief. Thankfully, the entire hundred-kilometer area around them was uninhabited, the canyon had only torn through empty wilderness.
Then a stray thought crossed his mind.
He remembered Fiore Kingdom's Clover Canyon, a place said to have been formed by a legendary battle long ago.
So… would this land one day be remembered the same way?
He had just watched the birth of a legend, or perhaps, taken part in one himself.
The Celestial Spirit King descended, landing at the edge of the smoldering crater.
Inside, Phatret lay sprawled across the scorched earth, a deep, straight wound running from his chest to his abdomen. It didn't bleed; instead, it pulsed with alternating bands of light and darkness.
Nearby, the Throne of Justice, once a mighty scepter, lay broken in two. The Little Triangle belt around his waist had snapped apart, its fragments already dissolving into starlight.
Phatret coughed weakly. He no longer had the strength to stand.
Lifting his head with effort, he saw the Celestial Spirit King standing before him, sword planted into the ground.
The Zodiac were arrayed on either side of their monarch.
Behind them, Ophiuchus had voluntarily coiled her vast body smaller, resting quietly at the King's back.
Lucy, Yukino, Rhodes, Erza, and the other mages stood beside their summoned spirits.
Around them, the remaining Celestial Spirits gathered, not in rigid ranks, but naturally, shoulder to shoulder, some even embracing as they shared quiet laughter and relief.
Friends…
The word echoed through Phatret's fading mind. He remembered Aquarius's defiant words to him earlier, about friendship, about freedom.
The Celestial Spirit King's voice was solemn. "You've lost, Phatret."
"Heh…" Phatret gave a weak smile. "Lost again, have I?" He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, then snapped them open, fierce and burning. "But you haven't won either! I still have..."
BOOM!
Before he could finish, two immense mechanical dragons appeared, one blue, one green, each pinning down one of his arms with metallic claws.
Phatret froze mid-gesture, unable to complete the spell.
His eyes went wide as he struggled, but the dragons held him firm, his hands crushed immobile.
From above, Rhodes raised his hand. The Hextech Dragon and the Alchemical Dragon pressed harder under his signal.
"Sorry," Rhodes said evenly, "I have a bad habit of not letting enemies use last-minute trump cards."
He smiled faintly. "Learned that the hard way, from a self-destructing demon."
The Celestial Spirit King gave him a look, half-grateful, half-ashamed that he hadn't thought of it first.
Then, wordlessly, he raised his greatsword once more, and drove it through Phatret's chest.
The starlight flared, spreading across the fallen king's body in intricate runes and sealing incantations.
And then, in a burst of blinding radiance, both the greatsword and Phatret vanished together.