Nine knights rode hard across the cracked plains, their horses pounding the earth in a steady, thunderous rhythm.
Their armor caught the dying sunlight, gleaming in streaks of gold and steel as they pushed toward the distant silhouette of their empire.
But as the city walls came into view, the proud skyline they remembered was gone.
Thick smoke rolled across the horizon like a dark tide, swallowing towers and rooftops alike. It curled into the sky in twisting columns, dimming the light and turning the air heavy and hot.
The knights slowed their mounts, breath tightening as the heat brushed their faces, an unnatural, searing warmth that pulsed from the heart of the empire.
Flames flickered behind the smoke, casting wild, trembling shadows that stretched across the ruined gates.
The streets that once echoed with trade and laughter now lay buried under soot and silence. The air trembled with the faint roar of distant destruction.
One knight gripped the reins tighter.
"Whatever happened… it happened fast," he muttered.
Together, the nine riders exchanged grim looks, then urged their horses forward, plunging into the swirling smoke as the empire they swore to protect waited in chaotic ruin...
...The battlefield trembled beneath the serpent's writhing coils.
The two-headed monstrosity one side burning with rivers of molten red, the other shimmering with jagged frost lashed in fury, enraged by the destruction and rebirth of its lava skull.
Shards of freezing crystal sprayed the ground like stinging needles while glowing droplets of magma hissed and spat wherever they landed.
Akira staggered backward, gripping his ears as the serpent roared with two discordant bellows, one a deep volcanic rumble, the other a shrill icy screech.
Even he, the proclaimed master of sound, felt the noise vibrate deep into his bones.
"Ava! Logan!" he shouted, voice shaking the air. "Hold the heads off for me. I need time!"
Ava and Logan exchanged a short, wordless nod. The three had fought together for years even before the captain selection; one nod was all it took.
The serpent lunged again, both heads whipping opposite directions; lava to the left, ice to the right, forcing the trio to scatter.
The icy head snapped at Logan, frost trailing with each bite. At the same moment, the molten skull expelled a plume of fiery breath toward Ava, the heat bending the air around her.
Ava planted her heel and thrust out her hands.
A towering wall of water surged upward from beneath her, spiraling like a rising tide given the shape of a shield.
The lava blast struck it hard, steam bursting outward in a blinding cloud. Scalding vapor enveloped her, but she held firm, teeth clenched as she guided the water's shape.
"Logan! Go!" she shouted through the haze.
"Already on it!"
Logan sprang into motion, his footsteps igniting small bursts of fire as he ran. The ice head barreled toward him, its frost-laden breath freezing grass and soil in seconds.
Logan countered with a spin and unleashed a blazing arc of flame. The heatwave clashed with the serpent's cold exhale, sending ripples of mist spiraling upward.
The icy fangs snapped again, too close. Logan ducked beneath them, rolling across the frost-bitten ground, the freezing temperature prickling his skin even through his controlled fire aura.
He rose sharply, thrusting both hands forward. A column of fire blasted upward, striking the ice head directly.
The heat cracked its surface, revealing glowing blue channels beneath its crystalline skull, but the head recoiled only briefly.
The serpent hissed with both throats, annoyed and invigorated by resistance.
"Akira!" Logan called. "Hope your plan is worth the freezer burn!"
Akira didn't answer not because he didn't hear, but because he was focusing every fiber of his being on shaping sound itself.
He lowered himself into a crouch, palms flat against the trembling ground. Waves of vibration radiated outward small at first, then growing steadily.
The air around him began to distort, warping like the surface of a pond struck by a stone. Sound pressure thickened, condensing into layers upon layers of rising force.
But he needed more. Much more.
And Ava and Logan needed to buy him that time.
Ava emerged from the cloud of steam just as the lava head lunged again.
She flicked her wrist, turning her spiraling wall of water into long, fluid tendrils that wrapped around her arms.
With a sweeping motion, she cracked the tendrils like whips, striking the lava head across its glowing snout.
The water hissed violently on contact, exploding into more steam, but the force of the strikes staggered the beast.
"You want round two? Fine!" she yelled.
The serpent snapped its blazing jaws at her again. Ava sidestepped, sliding on a thin layer of water she conjured under her feet, speeding her movements like skating on liquid glass.
She skated around the serpent's left flank, firing concentrated jets of water at the creature's exposed molten veins.
The jets struck like miniature cannons , sharp, precise bursts of cold pressure meeting volcanic heat. The serpent recoiled again, shaking its massive body.
But this time, it didn't go after her.
It sensed something alarming,something dangerous coming from the center of the field.
Its massive body twisted as both heads turned toward Akira.
Logan saw the shift and shouted, "No you don't!"
A wave of fire erupted beneath him as he launched himself upward, propelled by his own flames.
He crashed down on the ice head from above, gripping one of the spine-like ridges along its skull.
The freezing cold tried to numb his fingers instantly, but he pushed through, channeling heat through his entire body.
The serpent thrashed madly, trying to shake him off, but Logan refused to budge.
"Yeah, look over here!" he taunted as he pulled his fist back. "Let's melt you properly!"
His punch exploded with fire as he slammed his knuckles into the skull. Cracks spider-webbed across the icy surface, glowing brighter with blue light. The serpent's roar rattled the ground.
The massive body twisted again, sending Logan flying off its back. He landed hard, sliding across the frost-coated earth but springing up almost immediately, fire already swirling around his fists.
"Come on then!" he yelled. "I'm not done!"
The ice head rushed him again with frightening speed, but Logan clapped his hands together, conjuring a whirl of spiraling flames.
He thrust them forward, creating a fiery vortex that clashed against the incoming blast of frost. The two forces battled, red and blue swirling violently as steam thickened the air.
Meanwhile, Ava summoned a massive sphere of water overhead shimmering, swirling, dense with pressure. She hurled it downward like a falling meteor.
The lava head roared and countered with a plume of molten breath, but Ava's water sphere slammed into its face with a deafening splash.
Steam erupted everywhere, obscuring the entire left side of the field.
"Stay down already!" she demanded.
But the serpent refused.
It reared back, lava dripping from its fanged jaws, eyes burning with fury. Ava braced herself, preparing for another clash, but something else grabbed the serpent's attention.
A pulse of immense sound pressure.
Akira.
The air around him rippled violently now. Dust lifted from the ground. Loose rocks vibrated until they shattered.
Even the grass bowed outward as if a storm wind were blowing from a single point.
Akira rose slowly, eyes focused, breath steady.
He clapped his hands together.
The resulting shockwave rippled through the entire battlefield.
Ava slid backward several feet. Logan lost his footing for a moment. Even the serpent recoiled, confused and angered by the invisible force pushing outward.
Akira stretched his arms apart, and between his palms formed a dense sphere of compressed sound, shifting, flickering, unstable, but filled with incredible power.
The pressure in the air around him climbed to a near unbearable level, causing Ava to cover her ears instinctively.
Logan grit his teeth, feeling the tremors in the ground.
"That's new," he muttered.
Akira's voice boomed, distorted slightly by the vibrations around him.
"Hold it—right—there!"
The serpent lunged once more both heads aiming for the kill.
Ava moved first, slashing the air with her water-coated arms. Blades of liquid shot outward, intercepting the lava head mid-charge. The water hissed and burst, but it pushed the head just off target.
Logan followed, leaping forward and crashing a flaming heel into the ice skull. Frost burst outward, and the head veered sharply, also thrown off balance.
Both attacks bought Akira the exact seconds he needed.
He thrust his hands forward, and the sphere of condensed sound shot like a cannonball of pure vibration, carving a jagged path through the air.
The serpent's central body twisted violently, trying to adjust, but the sphere slammed into the exact midpoint of its length the place where the two elemental halves met.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the world exploded with sound.
A blinding ripple expanded outward from the impact. The serpent's body convulsed, scales lifting as the vibrations tore through its core.
The tremendous sound wave blasted through the creature's inner structure, destabilizing both the molten and frozen halves at once.
Cracks raced along its massive form. The icy parts shattered like glass under stress.
The molten parts broke apart in chunks, glowing fragments scattered across the ground cooling rapidly as the sound pressure robbed them of heat.
A final pulse erupted from Akira's sphere, and the entire serpent split straight down the middle.
Both halves fell to opposite sides of the battlefield with earth-shaking crashes, torn cleanly through the center where its core once pulsed.
The heads flopped lifelessly, the elemental glow fading from their eyes.
Ava exhaled sharply, lowering her arms. "You did it…"
Logan approached, shaking frost from his sleeves. "Nice one, Akira. Remind me never to make you angry."
Akira staggered slightly; Ava caught him before he fell. He steadied himself, breathing deeply. The air around him gradually returned to normal, the intense pressure fading.
But then—
A faint rumble.
Ava's eyes widened. "Wait… is it—?"
One of the severed halves twitched.
A small, sickening squelch of regrowth bubbled beneath its surface.
Logan took a defensive step back. "No way. No way it survived that."
But it wasn't the whole serpent.
It was only one part—
A new lump formed at the end of the molten half.
A glowing sphere of magma reshaped itself into a skull.
The lava head regenerated.
Akira's jaw clenched. "…Of course it did."
The newly formed head lifted, dripping molten heat, eyes burning brighter than ever.
The battle wasn't over yet.
---
Then the regenerated lava head rose fully, molten light dripping down its jaw like burning tears. The glow in its eyes was different now sharper, angrier, almost feral.
Even split in half, with its ice half destroyed and the core shattered, the creature clung to life through sheer elemental rage.
Ava stepped forward instinctively. Logan raised both fists, fire swirling around them.
But Akira lifted a shaky arm.
"Wait…"
His voice trembled not with fear, but with focus.
Ava glanced at him. "Akira, you're exhausted. Don't push—"
"I have to," he said, staring at the regenerated head. "If it can still revive… then we end it here."
The lava serpent hissed, body half-functioning but still massive, dragging the molten half of its length across the ground. It inhaled deeply, the furnace inside its throat growing brighter.
Logan shouted, "It's going to breathe, scatter!"
They leaped apart just as a beam of molten fire carved across the battlefield, melting soil into glowing lines. The heat washed over them in a blistering wave.
Akira staggered but didn't run.
He planted his feet.
His breath steadied.
And the air around him once again began to tremble.
A faint thrum at first… like the heartbeat of the earth itself.
Then stronger.
Ava's eyes widened. "He's doing it again… but bigger."
Logan clenched his jaw. "He's going to tear his lungs apart at this rate…"
But Akira wasn't hearing them anymore.
He shut his eyes, palms tightening at his sides.
Sound gathered around him not as a sphere this time, but as a growing field of pulsing force that warped the space like heat waves rising from stone.
Loose pebbles jittered against the ground. Cracks formed in the earth beneath him as vibrations intensified.
The lava head roared and rushed toward him, dragging the half-serpent body, molten breath leaking from its mouth with every lunge.
Ava reacted first, summoning a massive stream of water that coiled like a serpent of her own. It slammed into the charging monster, slowing it, steaming violently as it collided with the molten skull.
Logan joined her, firing blazing blasts directly into the serpent's body not to harm it, but to divert its movement, forcing it to twist and stumble.
"Just hold it!" Logan shouted. "Akira, hurry!"
Akira's hands rose slowly, palms facing outward.
His eyes snapped open.
The vibrations reached a pitch where the air itself looked like rippling glass.
Ava and Logan both felt their bones tremble.
The serpent did too. It lifted its head, eyes narrowing, sensing something dangerous, far more dangerous than before.
"AKIRA!" Ava called.
"NOW!" Logan yelled.
Akira struck his palms together.
Not a boom.
Not a blast.
A silent pulse.
A shockwave that carried no sound at all, because everything around it was sound, compacted to the limit.
The pulse hit the battlefield like an invisible explosion.
A ring of distortion raced outward, bending light, rattling the ground, whipping wind in every direction.
Ava threw up her arms and Logan shielded his face, but the wave wasn't meant for them, it passed over their bodies like a rushing breeze.
But when it met the serpent...the creature froze mid-charge.
Its molten skull shook violently, the lava inside rippling like disturbed liquid. The light in its eyes flickered.
Its jaw trembled as if trying to roar, but no sound came out, Akira's pressure had crushed its voice before it formed.
The shockwave tore through its body not physically, but through every resonance that held its molten structure together.
The serpent's body buckled and convulsed, heat fluctuating wildly as its elemental energy destabilized.
Cracks of bright, blinding light split across its skull.
Ava stared, awestruck.
"…He's collapsing its energy."
Logan nodded slowly.
"He's destroying it from the inside."
Akira stepped forward, arms extended, palms still locked.
Sweat dripped from his forehead. His knees trembled. But he pushed, channeling every ounce of strength left.
The air around the serpent warped harder like a black hole of pressure sucking inward.
And then—WHOOOM
A second pulse erupted, focused entirely on the creature's skull.
The molten head imploded not with gore or fragments, but with a burst of pure elemental light, as if the heat holding it together collapsed into nothingness.
The entire molten form followed a second later, crumbling into steaming, harmless liquid stone that splashed across the battlefield.
No roar.
No final strike.
Just silence.
The serpent was dead.
Akira's arms fell to his sides and he collapsed to his knees, gasping.
Ava reached him first, kneeling beside him and supporting his shoulder. "Akira! Hey, stay with me. Are you okay?"
Logan approached, rubbing the back of his neck, staring at the steaming serpent remains. "Of all the insane things you've done, that one's top three."
Akira managed a weak smile. "Just… glad it worked."
Ava nodded firmly. "You ended it."
Logan smirked. "Yeah. You sound-crushed a monster made of lava and ice. That's not something people do every day."
Akira exhaled slowly, letting the last of the pressure fade from the air. The battlefield finally settled no more steam bursts, no more volcanic heat waves, no snapping frost.
Peace, at last.
Ava squeezed his arm.
"It's over."
Akira looked up at the sky, still breathing heavily.
"Yeah… it is."
Logan glanced at the cooling serpent remains and grinned.
"Let's hope it doesn't grow another head."
Ava elbowed him lightly. "Don't jinx it."
Akira laughed weakly.
For the first time in hours, the battlefield was quiet.
Truly quiet.