The sky above Osoroshi did not just darken; it curdled.
High across the continent, in the pristine air of the Motherland, the A.N.T. legions were still boarding their heavy cruisers—massive iron birds that would take days to traverse the distance. But Harold, the Supreme Commander, was not bound by the friction of the world.
He stood upon the launch platform, his eyes focused on a singular point on the southern horizon. A low hum, like the vibration of a thousand tuning forks, began to emanate from his skin. Suddenly, a blinding, solar-white light erupted, shrouding his form until he was a silhouette of pure radiance.
In a crack of displaced air that shattered every window in the capital, Harold vanished. He did not fly; he translated. He was a photon made flesh, a streak of celestial judgment moving at 299,792 kilometers per second. To the world below, he was merely a gold-white needle stitching the sky together for a fraction of a heartbeat.
Back in the violet miasma of Osoroshi, Mikaela felt the strain of the Elemental State. Her translucent skin pulsed with a frantic, blue light. She realized the stalemate with the Three would eventually drain her core.
"I'll make it rain," she whispered, her voice sounding like grinding glaciers.
She raised her crystalline hand toward the bruised clouds. High above, the moisture in the atmosphere didn't just freeze; it crystallized into thousands of long, needle-thin blades of ruby-tinted ice. They hung in the air for a breathless second before descending with the velocity of falling stars.
The Three scrambled. Elara, the Dirge-Mother, spun her bone-baton to create a sonic dome, but the blades were too numerous, too heavy. One of the ruby needles found a gap in her funeral veils, piercing her shoulder.
The effect was instantaneous.
The blood in Elara's veins didn't just stop; it turned into jagged shards of ice. The frost spread from the wound like a crystalline virus, turning her skin to porcelain in a second. Her scream was cut short as she became a statue of frozen grief. She tipped backward, and the moment her icy body touched the ground, she shattered into a thousand jagged fragments of meat and glass.
"Her blades..." Vane the Alchemist stammered, his mask splattered with frost. "They turn you to ice the moment they pierce your skin."
Mikaela stared at her hands. Even she hadn't known the lethality of her new state. The Elemental State wasn't just magic; it was the power to rewrite the biology of anything it touched.
A sudden, violent pressure descended upon the battlefield. It wasn't the cold of Mikaela or the rot of Osoroshi—it was the weight of a star.
Kael felt a prickle of heat at his back. He spun around, his hand instinctively igniting, but he stopped mid-motion. Standing behind him, draped in a cloak that seemed to be woven from the sun itself, was Harold.
The Supreme Commander didn't look tired. He didn't look angry. He looked disappointed. The light slowly faded from his boots as he touched the grey soil, the mud beneath him instantly drying and cracking from his sheer presence.
"Stop this at once," Harold commanded. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried the weight of the entire Sixteen Kingdoms.
Kael stood his ground, his Emperor State flaring in defiance against the Supreme Commander's aura. He had been caught off guard by the speed, but the shock didn't last. For five years, Kael had known that the path of the Sovereign and the path of the Supreme Commander were on a collision course.
Harold was the status quo. Kael was the revolution.
"You're late, Harold," Kael said, his smirk returning, though his eyes remained sharp and predatory. "The liberation is almost complete."
"This is not liberation. This is a massacre," Harold replied, glancing at the shattered remains of Elara. "You have broken the covenant of the A.N.Ts. You have acted as a rogue yourself."
Kael shifted his weight, his golden mana beginning to braid with the ruby-mist of the battlefield. He had practiced for this in the dark of the Forgemire nights. He had wondered if he could ever stand against the man who was considered a god.
"I knew this day would come," Kael said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous rasp. "I just didn't think it would be so soon. But why wait for the future when we're both standing in the dirt today?"
Harold sighed, his hands remaining at his sides, though the light around him began to hum once more. "You are a child playing with the fires of an empire, Kael. Do not make me extinguish you."