With the immediate timing, thought was a luxury Xerxes could no longer afford. All that remained was the raw imperative to move. His gaze swept left, and he strained the thought, "I need to match Thornfum's pace." And so he did, his limbs obeying the command.
Across the churned earth and scattered stone of the battlefield, Thornfum became a dart of joyous, terrifying motion. He displayed his pure anticipation for the glory that was about to be grasped. The dwarf's line of sight was fixated upon the two brothers. Axel and Abel.
They stood as mirror images carved from flesh and fury. Their hair was as black as a starless night, greased and swept back, with a few curly locks escaping, clinging to their sweated foreheads. They were shirtless barbarians, their muscles broad and defined.
The weapons that they wielded - great axes - were of a similar brutal make, though with Xerxes' keen eye, he could spot small distinguishable features that changed from axe to axe.
Thornfum darted across the battlefield in a sudden display of pure joy and anticipation for the glorious battles that were to come. His line of sight was directed towards the two brothers. Axel and Abel.
They immediately sensed the threat that was charging at them like a battering ram and immediately got into their stances.
A sigh, thin and weary, escaped Xerxes' lips, "Of course he goes for the biggest and scariest looking guys, what the hell." He immediately began running alongside Thornfum and the party, his boots pounding the earth in time with Thornfum's. He vowed to himself he would not be the same disorganised, floundering boy he was in the previous battle.
However, as he ran, a cold feeling coiled in his gut. The brothers would likely possess a chemistry that was almost inseparable. Yet, he didn't let this make him falter. After all, he had a few cards under his sleeve that he damned hope would be able to disrupt the brothers' rhythm.
Leiya and Claudia were shortly behind Xerxes, running to match his pace, but Xerxes barked an order, sharp and logical amidst the brewing chaos, "I need you and Leiya to contest the orb; the strength and points to gain from it are advantages we can't give up."
But the cunning Xerxes displayed didn't only belong to him. The battlefield was home to experienced fighters. Axel and Abel had roared the same commands to their own two mages, whose abilities remained shrouded in mystery.
Unlike the Embered Flames and The Brotherhood, Learna Lovett's entire party charged for the pulsating orb, adamant on grasping the upper hand as soon as possible.
Claudia and Leiya offered sharp nods, not wanting to waste any time, as it was a crucial measure. Every minute, the orb would pulsate with energy that could either give them an overwhelming amount of advantage with the points and the strength increase, or throw them into chaos with the weakness, if not in possession of it.
Before Claudia left with Leiya, she gave out one last request, that Xerxes was sure to hold onto, "When I give the signal, drop whatever you're doing and make your way to the orb!"
Heeding the advice, Xerxes carried on forward through the chaotic and ever-changing battlefield. Thornfum left the ground in a mighty leap that carried him towards the sky, his axe drawn back in a wide, glorious arc before he brought it crashing down with the might of a furious dwarf, eager to prove his strength.
Openly accepting the challenge, Abel and Axel spat out with a primal rage that shook the very air, "GIVE IT ALL YA GOT DWARF!"
Thornfum's axe met their own in a shriek of metal and earth. Crackles of raw mana and sparks of ignited flame surged from the impact, and Xerxes used the blinding, deafening distraction to slip like a serpent towards their left flank, towards Axel, to carve Morningstar into the man's exposed side.
Gripping the hilt with all of his might, channelling mana into the strike, Xerxes angled the slash true. The steel bit deep, carving through skin, fat and muscle. As he grew more accustomed to the swing of a sword through his experience, he could almost feel the wound himself, and it only invigorated his attitude towards battle.
Yet, what Xerxes couldn't have expected was the monstrous endurance of these barbarians, even with the slash that would have been detrimental to anyone else, Axel still stood broadly, his muscles bulging as he challenged Thornfum's assault, actually forcing him back despite the slash that he had received.
Axel's eye latched onto Xerxes, "You small little man, do you not see our bodies, we've been struck with worse, and that was only enough to make me jitter with excitement."
His hand immediately shot forward like an arrow, aiming for Xerxes' throat, which he successfully grabbed with the grip of iron. Grunting, he swung Xerxes around as if he were weightless, straight towards Thornfum, who had been swung back with the brothers' combined strength.
Quickly after, they barraged the two with various spells of earthen mana that tore from their hands, straight towards the two, as there was an explosion of rubble where the Emebered flames were.
A loud, booming laughter then erupted from them, as it was their turn to lead the attack. The two brothers then began charging towards them, not like men, but like bulls that had seen red, a twin avalanche of flesh and fury.
But Xerxes refused to be a victim anymore; he'd sworn to himself he would never again feel that crippling sense of weakness that shredded hope and confidence from someone.
Picking himself up from the dirt, tasting the blood on his lip, he snarled an order at Thornfum, "We aren't going to lose. Thornfum! Get your ass up and show me what a dwarf can do, after all the shit you gave me, I expect to see a legendary warrior, not someone eating the dirt!"
Thornfum began to rise, wiping a trickle of blood from his cheek with his thick forearms, "Ya' better bet ya' arse I ain't going down. I live for this. All I've eva' wanted to do is fight and forge, and if we don't win this, I can't do either. So come on, zombie lad, show me what an orc slayer can do."
Then, Xerxes began a daring practice. He activated three soul shards simultaneously, a skill he had practised in quiet hours but was far from mastering.
Though he knew deep down, in the core of him, if he wished to improve, if he wished to live up to a promise he swore to, he would have to take these risks. He would have to push himself further beyond.
He envisoned them all, Aya's gentle smile, Dorian's unyielding tenacity, Vanessa's safe embrace; he wanted to grasp it again so desperately that it ached him to the core.
With those thoughts fuelling him, his body began to gleam. A shimmering crimson from the orc's soul shard, a murky, potent emerald from the mana beast, and finally, a touch of sapphire from the wolf soul shard he had acquired in Layne.
Simultaneously, Thornfum's mana began to rise, and a palpable pressure in the air grew. His hands radiated a thick, brown aura that grew around them, coagulating until it was almost as thick and substantial as liquid earth.
There was a boom of wind that exploded outward by the two members of the Embered Flames, as they launched forward. Xerxes poured fire into his blade, and with a speed Axel had not yet witnessed, he swung the sword ferociously in a blazing arc too swift for the barbarian to parry.
"You taunted me for my previous attack, so tell me, Axel, how is the weight of this one?" Xerxes then released a plethora of magic he had been containing, as it engulfed Axel in a shimmering, burning ray of light, making the giant's knees buckle.
Abel looked towards his brother in that moment of shock, his eyes wide with agony, his gaze finding Xerxes, who stood over Axel, but Thornfum interrupted his train of thought. "Keep your big 'ead focused on me, ya' muscly mut!"
Thornfum threw a jab that seemed weak and unassuming, but that was only the start. Simulating the action behind him, a massive earthen construct, a giant fist of pure stone and soil, formed behind him and swung forward with clean, devastating force.
It caught Abel square, shattering his guard and sending him tumbling violently across the grass to crash into a thick tree, the trunk cracking and snapping under the impact.
The aura that was surrounding Thornfum's left fist slowly weakened, as it seemed to Xerxes that with this form of magic, he had a limit on how many times he could use the move.
High above, the voice of Daryul then screamed into the crowd, "Was it that decisive from the beginning? The Embered Flames have already proved they can be impressive with their incantationless mana, but Xerxes Draedon leading an assault with 3 soul shards...OVERKILL!"
The crowd roared in approval, and a wave of sound struck the battlefield. Xerxes stood up straight, dialling down the intense, draining output of mana. A moment of relief washed over him, the sweet knowledge that he could push himself to using 3 soul shards felt like a reward.
He looked to the crowd, saw their mouths agape, their eyes squeezed shut with tears of enjoyment falling from their faces. But then, a strange silence began to fall; the roar seemed to dim, but it was only to Xerxes.
"This feeling.." Xerxes murmured. It felt as if he was being swallowed by a gaping pit, falling into a void, which felt inescapable. No matter how hard he tried to claw at 'black' in the void, he couldn't rise.
It resembled the same sinking feeling he had felt when Yves had arrived, though he knew he wasn't here, something more immediate and devastating was.
In a sudden explosion of pure, concussive force, Xerxes raised his arms to shield his face as the two were pushed back with a force that radiated before them.
Unravelling himself from the ground, and somehow claiming Abel's axe as well, wielding one in each massive hand, he rose.
His teetering figure moved forward with an unnatural gait. His jaw hung open, slack, as if the man who had been there was gone, replaced by some other worldly being. His body exuded a punishing aura that washed over the crowd, really silencing them now.
Xerxes asked, the words feeling foolish even as they left his lips, "Are you still the same Axel?" It was illogical, but Xerxes had always been able to distinguish a key thing about a person. There seemed to be an individual signature in the way they fought, moved, breathed and now it seemed different.
In Xerxes' perception, it was as if two souls were now forged in the same flesh, the fear of the past was crawling to its surface, 'Could this be the chemistry that I was worrying about, one didn't need to have it with another person, but perhaps..'
Xerxes' eyes narrowed as he focused on the axes. 'The same distinguishable mark, the axes had seemed to be glowing, and the aura feels different, it's like he's activated a soul shard, it's not a physical chemistry their shared but one with their axe styles.'
Axel growled, "The dwarf is first."
Xerxes' voice cut through the air, with tension empowering his order, "Thornfum move!" and just as Xerxes' words tore from his throat, Axel bolted his speed near doubled.
But Thornfums reactions, honed for brute strength, were far slower than Xerxes' who was built for speed.
A sick sense of comedy writhed in Xerxes, 'I'm always the person who puts everything aside for others.'
Thinking back to Aya, and her elegance with wind, the lessons she gave surfaced in his mind. 'If you want to be as powerful as the wind, you must be as changing as it. You can not limit yourself to one singular part. After all, the wind is not singular; it can be, enforcing, defensive, blitzing - it's vast in it's nature.
And as the crowd watched, a miracle unfolded. Xerxes' fire began to retract, snuffed out not by failure, but by something being born. It was generally deemed impossible for a mage of his standing to unlock a second element, it always happened at tier 4.
However, Xerxes was no ordinary mage. He had unlocked his wind attribute at the fifth tier, granting him experience and a gift far beyond any ordinary mage at his level.
As Axel's axes were ready to close down on Thornfum, like the maws of a beast, Xerxes cut through the air. He used the gale forces to reinforce his movement, and from both of his hands he riled up copious amounts of wind, releasing a terrifying blast that threw both himself and Axel back by tens of feet.
Just as he was flying back, there was a witty observer, Claudia. Her voice cleaved through the air, a single, screamed command. "SWITCH!"
Trusting her judgement, he rotated his body mid-air, immediately heeding the call. His eyes searched for and found the orb, now only a few metres away from him.
He used the residual wind from his palms to propell him faster, as Claudia also raced to swap positions, and all that Xerxes could think about was thanking Aya for all the years he had spent with her, alongside studying her magic.
Xerxes then released all the remaining wind he had conjured, springing towards the orb. His hand reached out, stretching before anyone else on the battlefield could react. He had not kept track of time, but there was someone who was. Airi.
It was exactly before Axel's awakening, that she had mentally reminded him of the dwindling seconds, a prompt that had led to the very gambit he was in.
His fingers finally closed around the pulsating orb. A wave of energy then erupted outwards, strengthening the entirety of the Embered Flames, whilst washing over their competitors with a wave of debilitating weakness, which became obvious from the drop of mana pressure.
Xerxes voice, now ringing with absolute authority alongside his mana intensity being a testament to the advantage the Embered Flames had. He roared, "CLAUDIA! THORNFUM! FINISH HIM!"
With a 3 point advantage from taking the orb, and another point from taking out Abel, the Embered Flames led the fray, with 4 points and they were ready to unleash carnaige across the battlefield.