The mouth of the cave was not a mere entrance; it was a throat of stone, cold and damp, swallowing the survivors whole. Fear, heaviness and metallic smell, clung to the Acolytes as they crossed the threshold into the absolute dark. One of the Nuns, her white habit stained with the history of the mountain, stepped forward and whispered an incantation. From her fingertips, magical fireflies bloomed, spirits of light that danced against the walls, casting long, shivering shadows that seemed to mock their every step.
Suddenly, the ground vanished. The group tumbled into a deep, jagged hole, sliding through the guts of the mountain until they landed in a hollowed out cathedral of earth. The chamber was vast, several stories tall and many more wide, smelling of ancient soil and fresh blood.
At the center stood a throne of tangled vines, and upon it sat a figure that seemed to drink the very light from the room. It was Lálú, the King of Deceit. He was pitch black, a silhouette cut out of the night itself, his skin a shifting tapestry of deep reds and blacks. There was no sun here, yet every face was illuminated by a sickly, pulsing red glow emanating from the cave walls—a light of unknown origin that turned the air into a haze of blood.
The battle did not begin with a roar, but with a whisper. Lálú did not move from his throne; he merely gestured, and the air itself turned into a weapon.
"Strike as one!" Boss screamed, his voice cracking.
The survivors unleashed a barrage of divine and technological fury. The Nuns fired their kinetic pulses; the Watchmen threw everything in their arsenal; Ashy emptied his revolvers into the dark. It was a storm of fire and lead. But Lálú simply dodged and redirected the attacks. The attacks reached him and vanished, as if hitting a mirror that led to nowhere.
Then, he moved.
He was a blur of darkness, a phantom that struck before he appeared. One by one, the groups began to fall. The Monks were the first to be crushed under the weight of his localized gravity. The Watchmen were scattered like leaves in a gale, their tactical precision rendered useless by Lálú's illusions as he plays with their minds. Boss and the Looters fought with the desperation of cornered rats, but Lálú played with them, making them strike each other in a haze of confusion.
The cavern echoed with the sound of snapping bone and the groans of the defeated. The Nuns were silenced; the Watchmen were broken. One by one, the mighty were brought to their knees until only the core circle remained: Lena, Maya, Markas, Hind, Jog-Jog, Arike, and Solon.
They were losing ground. Maya was bleeding from a deep gash in her side; Jog-Jog's gauntlets were cracked and sparking. Even Lena's electricity seemed to dim in the presence of the King of Deceit.
Arike, her floating hair glowing with a frantic, lime-green light, saw a thread of truth amidst the illusions. "I've got you now!" she yelled.
She lunged forward, her bare feet barely touching the crimson-lit ground. With a scream of effort, she reached into the darkness that was Lálú's chest. Her hand disappeared into the void, and with an epic, soul-rending wrench, she pulled out Lálú's soul. It was a jagged, screaming thing of golden-black light.
Lálú collapsed. The red glow of the cave flickered. A heavy, hollow peace settled over the room.
"We did it..." Markas gasped, leaning on his Evangelist blade, his breath coming in ragged hitches.
But Solon did not lower his sword. He stared at the crumpled form on the throne. His ancient eyes, which had seen the depths of hell, saw the lie.
"You're not him," Solon whispered, his voice a low growl of realization.
As if in response to his words, the body on the throne began to twitch. The soul Arike held vanished like smoke in a hurricane. Lálú or the thing inhabiting the body rose. The vessel was just a shell. A new, more terrifying power unleashed itself, a pressure so great that the very walls of the cave began to crack.
Lálú moved with a speed that defied physics. He bypassed Solon and struck Arike with a fatal, concentrated burst of chaos. The impact was deafening. Arike was sent flying across the cavern, hitting the stone wall with a force that shattered the rock.
As she fell, the lime-green light died. The divinity receded. Her magnificent robes faded into tattered cloth, and her floating hair fell flat against her head. She had timed out. The Orisha had been forced back into her mortal shell, broken and unconscious.
"Arike!" Jog-Jog roared, but Lálú was already upon them.
Solon became a whirlwind. He was omnipresent on the battlefield, a silver-black streak that intercepted every blow intended for his wounded friends. He fought with a strength that didn't seem to tire, his giant sword clashing against Lálú's shadow-claws in a spray of sparks. He wasn't just fighting; he was protecting.
With a grunt of immense effort, Solon swung his blade, creating a shockwave that pushed Lálú back. Seizing the moment, he gripped a giant boulder, a piece of the mountain itself and shoved it across the floor. The stone slid with a thunderous roar, creating a makeshift barricade that covered the wounded Acolytes and his friends.
"Tend to her!" Solon commanded, his eyes never leaving the King of Deceit. "Hide. This is no longer your fight."
He stood alone in the red-lit clearing, the only thing standing between his family and the void.
From within his mind, a voice resonated, the soft, worried tone of his twin. "Solon, be careful," Kai whispered.
Solon tightened his grip on the hilt of his blade, his muscles coiling like serpents. "I will," he replied, his voice a promise of blood.
He unleashed a new kind of power a cold, silver radiance that began to bleed from his skin, challenging the red glow of the cave. The real war for the mountain had only just begun.