The fracture widened.
What had once been sky and sanctum dissolved into a broken corridor of existence where law and chaos collided without restraint. Valderia trembled beneath it, continents groaning as if the world itself were struggling to remember which rules still applied.
Lumara struck again.
Entire constellations of golden sigils unfolded behind her, rotating with perfect precision. Each symbol carried command—gravity fixed, time anchored, reality enforced. With a single gesture, she brought them down like judgment.
The space around Kharos hardened.
Motion slowed.
Darkness crystallized.
"You will kneel," Lumara said. "As you did before."
Kharos did not kneel.
He **split**.
Not into bodies, but into intentions. Shadows multiplied, overlapping, rewriting position and direction simultaneously. Lumara's sigils locked onto targets that no longer existed.
> **"You mistake control for strength,"** Kharos said, his voice echoing from everywhere and nowhere.
> **"Strength is adaptation."**
The sigils detonated harmlessly, tearing holes through empty space.
Kharos surged forward.
Reality peeled away beneath him. His presence erased structure, dissolving Lumara's constructs on contact. Where he passed, laws unraveled and reformed incorrectly—gravity pulling sideways, time stuttering.
Lumara grimaced for the first time.
She raised both hands.
The sanctum behind her collapsed inward, feeding her power. Divine engines older than Valderia itself activated, channeling order directly into her form.
"Then adapt to this."
She **anchored** Kharos.
Chains of absolute law manifested—thicker, denser, layered with command upon command. They wrapped around him, piercing through shadow and intent alike.
For a heartbeat—
Kharos stopped.
Below, Lucien felt his breath catch. The blessing within him strained, unstable.
Adrien slammed a fist into the ground, cracking stone. "No—"
Ombre whispered something unintelligible in the dark.
Malrick watched silently, recording nothing, understanding everything.
Lumara advanced.
"You were necessary once," she said coldly. "Now you are obsolete."
Kharos lifted his head.
The chains **screamed**.
> **"Necessity never becomes obsolete."**
He pulled.
Not against the chains—but against **reality itself**.
The anchors tore free, ripping chunks of existence with them. Lumara staggered as feedback tore through her constructs. Blood—golden and burning—spilled from her lips.
Kharos struck.
A wave of void-force erupted outward, not destroying, but **unmaking**. Lumara's sigils failed in sequence, collapsing like dominoes.
She was thrown back across the fracture, crashing through layers of divine geometry.
The impact shattered the sky.
Valderia felt it as an earthquake that spanned nations.
Lumara rose slowly, breathing hard.
Her eyes burned—not with fear, but fury.
"So this is your answer," she said. "Annihilation."
> **"Correction,"** Kharos replied.
> **"Liberation."**
He raised his hand.
Darkness condensed—not chaotic now, but deliberate. Focused. Purposeful.
Lumara responded instantly.
She drew from **herself**.
Her form flared blinding white as she burned her own divinity to fuel a final defense. Wings of radiant law expanded fully, eclipsing stars.
Their next collision was silent.
Light and darkness met—and canceled.
The fracture convulsed violently. Space folded inward. Time fractured into overlapping moments. The world screamed.
Lucien collapsed completely.
Adrien roared in defiance, barely conscious.
Ombre vanished again, swallowed by shadow instinctively.
Malrick's mask cracked.
Above them, Kharos and Lumara locked in a deadlock—power grinding against power, neither able to overpower the other without catastrophic cost.
Lumara realized it first.
Her expression changed.
Not fear.
Calculation.
"If I fall," she said quietly, "this world falls with me."
> **"If you live,"** Kharos replied,
> **"it never truly lives at all."**
They pushed apart violently.
The fracture destabilized, collapsing inward.
Lumara retreated, tearing open a containment seal beneath her feet. Golden light wrapped around her, dragging her downward toward a sealed plane—prepared long ago.
"This is not over," she said, voice echoing as she vanished. "I will end you."
Kharos did not pursue.
The fracture began to close.
His presence receded slightly—not weakened, but restrained.
> **"Run,"** he whispered.
> **"It will not save you."**
The sky healed.
The world fell silent.
Lumiére burned below—not in flame, but in aftermath.
Lucien lay unconscious, blood streaking his face.
Adrien dragged himself to his feet, staring upward in awe and terror.
Malrick looked at the sky and understood one thing clearly:
This war had crossed the point of return.
And Lumara would not survive the next encounter.