The Watcher reeled, cracks of light running jagged across its colossal form. The void-body pulsed like a wounded star, pieces of shattered stone falling from its limbs. For the first time since entering the Dominion, the heroes felt a glimmer of triumph.
But triumph was short-lived.
The Watcher's roar was no longer a voice—it was a cataclysm. The Dominion shook as though the entire realm might collapse into the abyss. Fragments of broken worlds collided in the distance, shattering into dust. Rivers of fire snapped like whips, raining embers across the sky.
Then the Watcher raised its arms high, both hands blazing with white fire and black shadow intertwined.
"This Dominion is mine," it thundered. "If I fall, then all shall fall with me!"
The Collapse Begins
The marble beneath their feet buckled. Islands of stone crumbled and plummeted into the abyss. The heroes scrambled to stay upright as the battlefield dissolved around them.
A chain of pure void lashed out, smashing through the platform and severing it in two. Rina and Lys were hurled one way, Thalor and Maren the other. Carlos barely caught the edge of a rising slab as it tore free and floated upward.
"Carlos!" Lys screamed, reaching out across the widening gap.
He stretched his hand toward her, but the chasm yawned wider, shadows rising like waves between them.
The Storm of Annihilation
The Watcher hurled its arms downward, and a storm erupted.Chains rained from above like falling spears. Shards of sky crashed into the fragments of the platform, each impact shaking reality itself.
Thalor raised his shield, holding it over Maren as a shard exploded against them, flames licking at his armor. He grunted, bracing against the force, refusing to fall.
Rina danced between falling chains, blades flashing, carving through shadows that threatened to overwhelm Lys. "We're not dying here!" she spat. "Not like this!"
Lys loosed arrow after arrow, each one glowing, each one striking against the storm—but for every shadow she felled, three more appeared.
Carlos, separated on the rising slab, planted his feet and lifted the Blade of Ascension. He could feel it burning hotter than ever, as though the weapon itself screamed to strike.
But the Watcher was not finished.
The Beam of Unmaking
From the cracks in its chest, the Watcher gathered power—blinding light and endless dark spiraling together into a single sphere of annihilation. It drew its arms back, and the sphere condensed into a beam so intense it tore the air apart around it.
The heroes froze. If that beam struck, there would be no fragments left, no platform, no hope.
"Scatter!" Thalor bellowed.
The beam unleashed. A torrent of light and shadow swept across the Dominion, annihilating everything it touched. Entire floating islands disintegrated into dust. Shards of sky shattered into nothingness. The marble platform cracked into a hundred pieces, many vanishing into the abyss.
The heroes barely survived—each diving aside, clinging to drifting fragments, their breath ragged, their bodies battered.
Carlos found himself kneeling on a shard no larger than a room, the Blade of Ascension flickering in his hand. Across the abyss, he could see the others—separated, scattered, yet alive.
The Watcher loomed above, glowing with fury, gathering power for another strike.
And Carlos knew: they would not survive a second blast unless they struck first.
The Final Choice
He rose slowly, staring at the blade in his hand. The white fire pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat, brighter and brighter. It was no longer just a weapon. It was asking something of him.
To end this, he would have to give more than strength.He would have to give himself.
Carlos set his jaw. "If that's the price, then I'll pay it."
He raised the blade high, its light flaring across the Dominion.
The Watcher roared and readied its second annihilating beam.
The final clash was moments away.