Kael's resonance. The center of the domain was a lilac vortex of fire located on the ground, which attracted everything around it. The battlefield turned into a set of floating rocks, all to be abducted towards the flaming center.
The speed of the suction was determined by proximity: the closer to the fire on the ground, the faster the fall; at the top, where the combatants were, the movement was slower but constant. Lilac-colored flames fell from the flaming sky at random, hitting the rocks and forcing them into the vortex. The atmosphere was engulfed by a windstorm and a gale of heat that illuminated the entire domain of Ganken, which was now collapsing.
Yue crouched immediately, unable to maintain her posture.
"She's the one with the least Dao left," Kimyo thought, watching his ally. "Her infinite resonance has consumed almost all of her reserves. Yue has never had large amounts of Dao since I've known her."
Kimyo realized the gravity of the situation: Kael's resonance was not only destroying the scenery, it was sucking the Dao from the captains continuously and, as a consequence, thermal energy was detuning the techniques they tried to formulate.
Draezen searched for Afro in the rubble to confirm that he had escaped and abandoned his companions. That's when he saw him: Afro was there on the edge, on top of a rock, getting up.
Draezen clenched his fist and shouted to Kimyo and the others:
"Retreat! Let's go!"
Kimyo, incredulous, replied:
"What!?"
"Retreat... we're not going to win!" Draezen insisted. "Look at us. If it weren't for our resonances, that guy would be worth all of us together! "
Ganken shouted shortly thereafter:
"Jump, Draezen! "
A lilac flame hit the rock where Draezen was, but he had already jumped to another. At that moment, he felt a sharp pain in his face; his mask was beginning to take its toll, consuming his conscience.
"Damn, we don't have much time... " he murmured.
Afro did not let them escape in peace. He came running, jumping from rock to rock with agility. He created a large sphere of energy and hurled it at Draezen. The captain raised his axe and struck the sphere.
BAM!
The explosion was violent and threw him backwards. The axe failed at the moment of impact due to interference from Kael's resonance.
On the other side, Ganken made a fire to cauterize the shoulder where his arm had been, drying the open wound. He, Kimyo and Yue started jumping towards Kael. The Lord stood motionless, eyes closed, arms forming a triangle that slowly closed.
As she ran, Yue analyzed the situation with the little consciousness she had left:
"It's a condition resonance…" she thought. "If the triangles he's gesturing close completely, it will coincide with the moment the last rock falls into the vortex. When that happens, we'll all be dead. It's a race against time: either we win it now, or time runs out for everyone."
Kimyo leapt into the air and unleashed a shower of swords at Kael. Tara stepped forward, creating an energy barrier that deflected the blades to the sides. Ganken attempted a final attack, leaping and spinning like a flaming meteor, but one of the lilac flames hit him squarely, pushing him into the depths of the domain. There, where the Dao was sucked in harder, Ganken's rock sped toward the vortex of fire on the ground.
Yue finally understood why Draezen had ordered the retreat: their Dao was running out. She crouched on the rock, feeling the mask begin to aggressively possess her consciousness.
Tara saw the opportunity. She reached out and used her power to pull the rock where Yue was standing directly towards her. Kimyo ran to stop it, but realized he would be too late. Desperate, he began the induction to activate his last reserve of power:
"Blade that the sky divides, in the void death resides,
Where the wire touches the light, fate is produced,
Cut the time, break the ground, resonance in my hand!"
The moment Yue's rock came close, Tara grabbed the captain's face and began a spell, forcing the mask to permanently stick to Yue's flesh.
"Resonance: Strange space! (infinite)" roared Kimyo.
BAM!
The clash between Kimyo's and Kael's resonance split the sky and earth in half. The impact was so violent that Kael fell to his knees, crouching from the effort, but he kept his hands steady. The triangle between his arms was almost closed.
The scene changed dramatically. Inside Kimyo's resonance, the ground ceased to exist. The environment became a total vacuum, where the only safety was the glowing squares that floated like platforms. Falling from one of them meant the end.
However, Ganken was in Kael's resonance, trying to climb the rocks, but he felt weaker and weaker. On the other side, Afro, who had been in Kimyo's resonance, found himself in a desperate situation: he was chained by heavy chains to one of the square rocks that was rapidly moving away from everything.
"What the hell is this?" thought Afro, struggling against his shackles.
Draezen, on another platform, watched coldly:
"The demons are sealed here... they perish here!"
Afro's rock accelerated toward the absolute void. He managed to break the chains with brute force and tried to jump back into the fight, but the rocks in front of him turned into thousands of blades. A rain of metal fired at him, destroying any way back. Afro was isolated in the square block, which began to shrink in size as it moved away from everything.
He had a desperate idea: to use the swords flying at him as support to jump. When he stepped on the first blade to propel himself, he realized his mistake. The sword was a phantom; his foot passed through the metal, was mutilated by the immaterial cut, and fell into infinity.
Without physical support, Afro released a soul. The spiritual projection propelled his body back to the remaining square. As soon as he landed, the chains held him again with greater force. The swords stopped firing and hung suspended in the air, all pointed at his chest, like a staged execution.
The square continued to shrink, becoming smaller and smaller, while Afro was carried into darkness, away from the skies and the gaze of Draezen, who watched him disappear into the abyss.
Draezen turned his back on the abyss. To him, Afro was already a dead man, sentenced to the void. The Captain concentrated what remained of his power and set out to face Kael and Tara.
Far away, Tara saw Afro disappear into the darkness.
"Master!" she screamed mentally, struggling to her feet as Yue, now completely possessed by the mask and transformed into a living demon, rose before her.
However, in the shrinking square, bound by chains and surrounded by blades, a bloody smile spread across Afro's face.
Afro was not there by mistake. When the Ganken Event Crater cracked in the final seconds of the previous fight, Afro made a decision out of pure instinct. He released a soul outside the resonance through the cracks of freedom before they closed.
While his physical body remained there, sealed and used as bait to hold Draezen's attention, his Soul was outside.
"I can't make infinite souls... I need to save energy for what comes next," thought Afro.
Outside, reality was a massacre.
Takamura was on his knees. The ground around him was soaked with blood. He was surrounded by a bunch of Daoists who advanced like vultures, only his right hand holding Afro's sword and raised in the air.
Takamura's vision was blurred; he was on the verge of exhaustion.
"Master... save my brothers..." he pleaded in his mind, feeling his life slipping away. "I think I'm going to die here."