The tension in the air was no longer just a cold breeze; it was a physical weight, a suffocating pressure that made the stone walls of the keep groan under the stress. Red King and Glod stood at opposite ends of the crater they had carved into the floor, two titans breathing in the scorched air of a battlefield that was rapidly disintegrating.
Red King's eyes were no longer just human; they were two burning embers of crimson intent. He could feel the heat of his own blood rushing through his veins, a rhythmic drumbeat that signaled he was reaching the absolute peak of his G.O.D. output. He didn't wait for Glod to recover. He didn't wait for a sign.
"You think your diamond skin is a sanctuary?" Red King hissed, his voice vibrating with a frequency that cracked the nearby ice. "It's just a cage. And I'm about to melt the bars."
In a blur of motion that defied the perception of the naked eye, Red King launched himself forward. This wasn't just speed; it was a combustion. He pulled his right fist back, and the air surrounding his arm didn't just heat up—it ignited. The friction of his movement combined with his concentrated Urza created a swirling vortex of white-hot plasma around his knuckles.
"FIRE PUNCH!" The strike was a masterpiece of destructive physics. It wasn't a wide swing; it was a piercing, concentrated thrust. The moment his fist connected with Glod's chest, the sound wasn't a crash, but a terrifying hiss. The extreme heat of the Fire Punch bypassed the Diamond Sentinel's hardness by attacking the molecular bonds holding the crystal together.
Glod's black eyes widened in a rare moment of genuine agony. The "Unbreakable" Sentinel was sent hurtling backward, his diamond torso glowing a dull, angry orange where the punch had landed. He slammed into the far wall, the impact so great that the entire northern wing of the citadel shook. Glod slid to the ground, smoke rising from his chest. Large shards of charred diamond fell from his body, and for the first time, he looked truly injured. His breathing was heavy, a metallic rasping sound that echoed through the hall.
Meanwhile, miles away in the silent, ruined Throne Room, the Five-Armed Man remained a motionless observer. He stood over the pile of gray dust that was once Frostera the Duke, his five eyes flickering as if reading the very code of the universe.
Slowly, with a grace that felt predatory, he raised his hidden fifth arm. It was larger than the others, etched with glowing green runes that seemed to pulse with a life of their own.
"The cycle is never truly broken," he whispered, his voice a cold melody. "It only changes form."
From the palm of his fifth hand, a torrent of Green Flames erupted. This wasn't the celestial heat of the Divine Flames; this was a sickly, necrotic fire—the fire of Transmutation. The flames didn't consume the Duke's dust; they swirled around it, binding the particles together in a chaotic dance. Suddenly, the dust began to vibrate. It didn't melt or blow away; it started to coalesce, spinning into a dark, swirling vortex that defied gravity. Something was stirring within the ashes of the King—something that the Five-Armed Man was carefully sculpting with his emerald fire.
Back near the outskirts of the Prison-Keep, Team 5 was moving through a nightmare of white-out conditions. Lam led the way, his gauntlet acting as a radar to guide the terrified civilians through the blizzard.
"Keep moving! Don't look back!" Lam shouted, his voice barely audible over the howling wind. He looked at his energy levels—his tactical reserves were low, but his mind was still sharp. He could hear the sound of clashing ice behind them.
Asadullah and Krodh were acting as the rearguard, and they were busy. A horde of Icerian soldiers, desperate to stop the escape, was nipping at their heels.
"More of these ice-turds!" Krodh roared, his evil grin flickering through the snow. He swung a massive fist, his Dhonsho energy shattering an Icerian spearman into a thousand pieces. "They just don't know when to quit!"
Asadullah zipped past him, a streak of golden lightning that decapitated three Icerians in a single pass. "Save the chatter for later, Krodh! We need to clear a path to the transport ship or these civilians are going to freeze to death before we even leave!"
Asadullah's lightning flickered, his War-Drive hitting a fever pitch as he pushed back the wave of soldiers. They were fighting for every inch, protecting the lives of the innocent while their mentor fought a god in the center of the storm.
The scene shifted back to the heart of the keep, where the air was thick with the scent of ozone and burnt diamond. Glod stood up slowly, his body trembling. The Fire Punch had done massive damage; his left shoulder was cracked, and his chest was a map of thermal fractures.
"You... you actually hurt me," Glod whispered, a dark, viscous liquid leaking from his wounds. "A human... drawing the blood of a Sentinel. It's an insult I cannot allow to stand."
Red King stood his ground, his red cloak tattered, his own Urza levels dipping into the danger zone. He prepared to launch another Red Fury, but he stopped.
The world suddenly went silent.
Glod didn't move his feet. He didn't pull back his arm. Instead, the space around Glod began to warp and distort, bending like light through a prism. The Sentinel's black eyes turned a blinding, transcendent white. He settled into a stance that seemed ancient, his body vibrating with a frequency that didn't belong to this dimension.
"You are fast, Red King," Glod said, his voice sounding as if it were coming from every direction at once. "But speed is just distance divided by time. What happens... when I remove the time?"
In a move that defied every law of the L-Clan's physics, Glod unleashed his ultimate technique.
"THE FIST THAT SURPASSES TIME!"
Red King's eyes widened. In his mind, he saw the attack coming. He saw the trajectory. His brain calculated the dodge. But his body didn't move. He couldn't move. The attack was already landing before Glod had even finished the motion. It was a strike that existed outside the linear flow of the world.
CRACK-SHATTER.
Red King was struck directly in the ribs and shoulder. The sound was like a tectonic plate snapping. The force of the blow didn't just push him; it bypassed his passive Urza-shields entirely. Red King was sent skipping across the floor like a stone over a pond, crashing through the heavy iron doors of the keep and landing in the frozen courtyard outside.
He lay in the snow, his red cloak stained a deeper crimson by his own blood. His breathing was shallow, his ribs shattered, his right arm hanging uselessly at his side. The invincible Commander had been brought to his knees.
CLIFFHANGER:
Glod stood in the center of the ruined hall, but he wasn't celebrating. He began to cough, a violent sound that sent shards of diamond flying from his mouth. He fell to one knee, his body glowing with a dim, dying light.
To use a move that surpassed time, he had paid a catastrophic price. His Urza reserves had plummeted, losing 75% of his total energy in that single strike. He was bleeding from his joints, his diamond skin turning opaque and brittle.
Both the King and the Sentinel were broken, gasping for air in the freezing dark, while the shadow of the Five-Armed Man's green fire loomed over the entire valley.