The battlefield thundered with chaos. Citadel after citadel rained destruction, beams of voidfire hammering the terrain, carving rivers of molten glass. Yet amid the fury, one chain lay broken—its links drifting like shattered constellations.
Lyra's chest heaved, her aura flickering as she steadied herself. "One down."
"Then we make it all of them," Kaelen growled.
The shadow-knights surged again, a tide of steel and ash. Kaelen charged into them, his phaseblade blazing arcs of defiance, cutting paths for Rhyss's cannon fire. The mercenary grinned through the smoke, his voice booming over the din. "This is more like it!"
Ceyra, crouched behind crystalline barricades, fired volley after volley of energy shards, each one seeking the glowing joints in the knights' armor. "I can't hold them forever—Lyra, NOW!"
Lyra's hands trembled, her light stuttering. But as she looked at Kaelen—his silhouette blazing in the storm of enemies—something inside her steadied. Her fear turned into fire.
She summoned another spear of light and hurled it skyward. The second chain shattered with a deafening crack. The corresponding citadel screamed like a dying beast, its cannons faltering before collapsing into itself, drawn into the Black Sun's core.
The Echo-Lord's voice rippled through the air, fractured by rage.
"You dare unravel eternity? You are but sparks. Sparks fade."
The ground split open beneath them, and tendrils of shadowfire lashed out like serpents, trying to drag Lyra into the abyss. Kaelen sprinted, slicing through them one by one, his muscles burning with every strike.
"Not while I breathe," he spat.
A third citadel began to charge, its weapon glowing brighter than a star about to detonate. Rhyss's eyes widened. "That one will cook us all!"
"Then we stop it!" Kaelen roared.
Ceyra slammed her gauntlet to the ground, unleashing a dome of crystalline light that bought them seconds. Lyra raised her arms, pouring everything she had left into a final spear—this one brighter, heavier, laced with her very essence. She threw it.
The third chain shattered.
The citadel detonated, imploding in silence, its fragments swallowed by the Black Sun.
Kaelen turned toward the glowing rift at the center, locking eyes with the colossal figure forming inside. The Echo-Lord's form was no longer distant. No longer abstract. It was stepping through.
Its true body—vast, armored, crowned in collapsing suns—emerged, dwarfing even the citadels.
And it spoke with a voice that bled across time itself:
"No more games. Face me, Seedbearer. Face me, Kaelen. One of you will burn. The other will kneel."
The air itself froze as the duel they had feared—and awaited—finally began.