Druvak takes a low, grounded stance, his skeletal frame humming with concentrated divine energy. Every ounce of his being is focused, ready to react to the colossal threat before him.
Armaror stumbles forward, a grotesque parody of movement. His new, stitched-together body is a prison of flesh and power he cannot yet fully command. Druvak's eyes, burning with blue flame, see the weakness instantly. He doesn't hesitate.
'Raging Water Sword Style!'
A crescent wave of azure energy screams from his broken blade, shearing clean through the serpentine lower half of the chimaera. The massive creature bellows in surprise and pain, its upper torso lurching forward. Instinctively, a dozen tentacles shoot out, wrapping around the hanging cage for support. The chains groan, but cannot withstand Armaror's weight, and they snap.
The cage plummets, crashing to the stone floor and exploding its incubators, releasing a horde of shrieking, malformed chimeras. In the chaos, Armaror's severed halves writhe, then pull together, the flesh knitting back together with a sickening slurp.
Druvak is unmoved. The tide of abominations surges toward him. 'Gentle Wind Sword Style.'
He becomes a blur of motion. He fights the swarm. Each step is precise, each swing of his damaged sword economical and fatal. Chimera after chimera falls, dissolving into mist. But his focus on the small fry provides an opening for the titan.
Armaror's three heads focus, jaws unhinging. A torrent of raw, chaotic energy, a blend of bestial fury and demonic power, fuses into one mass and fire.
The beam hits Druvak square-on.
He is blasted through the castle wall as if he were made of parchment. He tumbles across the battlefield, carving a furrow in the earth before skidding to a halt at the feet of his horrified army.
The sight chills them to the bone. Their general, their unshakeable pillar, is broken. His armour is vaporised from the chest up, revealing his cracked and fractured ribcage. The sapphire gem at his core is spiderwebbed with fissures, its light flickering weakly. The rusted sword he has carried for aeons is now a molten, half-useless shard.
Geo, Mia, and Dire break from the ranks, sprinting to his side.
"Master!!!"
They gently help him rise. Dire's eyes lock onto the ruined sword, and his face crumples in despair. His knees buckle; only Geo's steadying arm keeps him upright. With trembling hands, Dire offers his own blade. "Master, take this. It is not your old sword… but it will serve you."
Druvak doesn't even look at the offered weapon. His gaze is fixed on the melted remnant of his oldest companion. His voice, though raspy, carries a profound, unwavering conviction.
"A weapon is not a tool. It is a piece of its wielder's soul. A soul cannot be replaced." He looks up, his blue-flame eyes meeting Dire's. "This blade was with me in joy and in strength. In weakness and in despair. When I was cast down, when all my other friends, family, lovers forsook me, it remained. So tell me... how can I abandon it now in its moment of need?"
As he speaks, the blue flame in his chest cavity roars back to life, defiant and brilliant. That same fire ignites along the broken length of the sword, blazing with an intensity that is greater than anything shown before.
The moment is shattered by an explosion. The front of the castle erupts outward. Armaror emerges, a true nightmare given form. His three heads roar in unison, a hundred tentacle arms lashing out, pulverising stone and earth. Behind him, a legion of chimeras spills onto the field.
Mia's voice, sharp with command, cuts through the din. "Mages! Archers! Ready your attack!" A symphony of spells and drawn bows answers her. "Now!"
A storm of fire and arrows rains down on the charging horde, blowing limbs from bodies and scorching flesh. But the chimeras simply stagger, their wounds sealing shut at a visible, horrifying rate.
"Target vital points! Heads! Hearts!" Druvak barks, his voice regaining its steel. He turns to Mia. "Mia, you have command. I will handle Armaror."
"But Master, your weapon—!" she protests, fear for him warring with discipline.
"Trust your master." He places a skeletal hand on her head, a surprisingly gentle gesture. Then his fingers touch the molten metal of his blade. 'I never wished to use this art. But you force my hand.' He focuses his will, the ultimate authority of a Master of Weapons. "Regrow. Take your sustenance from the essence of all I slay. Their iron blood, their shrieking souls, their very power."
'Raktrakshasa.'
He draws two fingers along the broken edge. The metal responds, not with repair, but with transformation. The melted shard elongates, reforging itself not with steel, but with condensed, dark crimson energy, drinking in the ambient light and hope.
Druvak steps forward. Mia immediately shouts new orders, clearing a central path for him while directing the cavalry to engage the front lines.
A wolf-tiger chimera pounces. Druvak sidesteps and the red blade hums, slicing through its neck. A crimson vapour, the creature's life force is violently sucked from the corpse and absorbed into his hungry sword.
He becomes a whirlwind of death. Each chimera that attacks him doesn't just die, it is consumed, its essence fuelling the regeneration and growing power of the Raktrakshasa.
While he clears the path, Armaror adapts. The flailing tentacles merge, coalescing into two colossal, muscular arms of immense power. One fist rises and slams into the ground.
The earth shatters. A fissure races toward the army lines. Druvak leaps over it, landing on Armaror's giant wrist. He sprints up the arm and brings the red blade down in a devastating chop.
CLANK!
The sound is not of cutting flesh, but of a sword striking unbreakable stone. The skin has hardened to diamond-like density. 'Impossible!' Druvak pushes off just as the arm morphs again, transforming back into a nest of tentacles that snare him in mid-air.
They constrict. The sound of breaking bones is deafening. Ribs snap. The sapphire gem in his chest groans, its cracks deepening. The blue flame within him gutters, growing faint.
Armaror hurls him into the ground like a discarded toy, then unleashes a point-blank trinity of energy beams from his three heads. The ground vaporises where Druvak lies.
Miraculously, he still lives. But he is shattered, immobilised, a king of battle brought to the ultimate humiliation. He can only watch.
Armaror's orc head turns, its gaze passing over the broken Druvak to the disciples fighting and dying for him. The voice that booms out is thick with venomous triumph.
"You took my Drake from me. Now I will take your soldiers from you. I will make you watch. And then, only then, will I finally take your life."
"N-no... D-don't..." Druvak tries to roar, but it's a wet, broken whisper. He cannot move. He cannot fight.
He can only witness as Armaror's three heads crane back, jaws widening as they draw in immense, swirling vortexes of energy, a glow building to apocalyptic brightness aimed directly at the heart of his army.