Chase shot forward, slipping between the attacks of his enemy.
"Two..."
He muttered, slashing upwards. Following shortly after, was a powerful kick to Rider's chest, sending him recoiling back as he swung his halberd in a wide arc of corruption.
Chase took the attack head on, lowering himself and slashing upwards, cutting Rider's chin as the flames continued to eat at his face.
Chase spun, quickly pulling his head to the side as a piercing attack of Rider's halberd narrowly whizzed past the side of his face.
Then he swung upwards, trying to knock the halberd out of Rider's hands.
His blade of flames stuttered as it met with the onyx polearm glowing with ethereal purple light, Chase spat blood, Rider growled in anger.
But Chase grabbed the halberd with his other hand.
Immediately, he felt the backlash of his glove meeting the instant force of corruption.
Screaming in pain, he gripped his trembling fingers around the halberd's handle.
Cracks began to rip apart the bones on his left hand, as his right continued to push the halberd upwards with the edge of his stuttering blade.
Rider screamed as flames crawled across the polearm, slowly creeping onto the skin of his arm.
The two stood before each other, Rider looking down at Chase enraged by the fact that he wouldn't just die to the mighty force of his corruption.
Chase looked up at Rider, remembering the face of Leander as his head had been dislodged from the base of his neck in front of all of the people he had spent his life caring for.
Screaming as his body cracked and crumbled from the corruption, Chase pulled the halberd from Rider's hand, throwing it aside as he slashed in anger at the legs of Rider.
His armor burnt with every strike that Chase landed, but he wasn't doing much better, realizing that he only needed sixty more seconds...
He continued to push Rider back, getting closer and closer to the steel sword that began to glow crimson at the center of the grand throne room shrouded in flames and purple haze.
Rider shot out another wave of corruption, ripping apart Chase's chest as his bones began to reveal from underneath his own flesh.
Reeling back, he held his arms out, letting flames take shape behind his body.
Looking up in horror, he felt flames lick his body, just as Sparky had once done to heal his terribly wounded leg.
The flames shot forward like extra limbs, tearing into Rider's own flesh as they faded away shortly after.
Chase dashed forwards, bracing his body, doing his absolute best to not let his own organs spill from his opened body.
The sword was now just behind Rider, but the mighty halberd was right next to it...
Chase dashed forwards again, sliding along the edge of a blast of energy that ripped his mask in half.
Grabbing Rider by the arm, Chase pulled down, yanking the king towards the blade.
Chase reached out, grabbing the handle of his steel sword as a slight hum began to fill their ears.
They were both kneeling on the ground, as Rider tried to pull Chase away from the sword and towards the halberd that was far too close to them for his own comfort.
Chase pulled back against the force, barely as the free bone of his finger wrapped itself around the leather handle of the blade, burning it on contact- Rider had dislodged himself from Chase's grip, grabbing the halberd and pushing himself up as he towered above Chase.
Chase gripped the blade, screaming as he transferred all of his energy into the catalyst of the ruin.
Rider swung down with the halberd, tearing straight through Chase's collarbone, and severing it from his left shoulder entirely.
Lowering his head over the loudly singing blade, as the crimson ruins around the room began to light bright enough to light up the entire kingdom of Equus with a crimson light.
He whispered with a grin.
"Underneath your very kingdom..."
Light erupted before Chase, as a terrible shockwave followed after...
...
Poppy, of House Aries...
Covering her eyes as she gazed upon the kingdom that had been bathed in a crimson light, she thought that she had been hallucinating as the walls simply vanished from her sight.
Neo started to yell as he sprinted towards Poppy, who was actively walking towards the bright godly light.
"Chase?"
"NO-"
Neo screamed, pulling her to the ground as a terrible shockwave erupted through the kingdom, ripping apart everything in its wake.
The air grew heavy, vibrating like a drumskin stretched too tight, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
Then a bright purple ball of light formed around the center of the evaporating kingdom, and only then- was the sound of the explosion heard around the entire Eastern hemisphere of the continent.
The light simply hovered there, as wind pushed Poppy further into the ground, dislodging trees from the ground around them.
Sound died first, replaced by a blinding white stillness, and then—
The purple light began to implode... And then it expanded into a second explosion that tore the ground of the kingdom out as it quickly travelled outward.
Purple lighting followed the shockwave like a nail in the coffin, ripping into what was left of the kingdom as it went.
Poppy stared in horror.
The entire kingdom...
Gone...
In the span of seconds, all that remained was a crater in the ground, where at its center...
A towering castle began to break apart, held up only by a sliver of the earth that reached up like a crumbling hand as pieces of it descended towards the bottom of the crater...