There was no chance of victory anymore.
The Eastern Leader was no longer the same creature that had once chased them mindlessly through the labyrinth. Ashar had awakened something within him, and he had returned as an entirely different being.
The Eastern Leader pursued them again, but now life followed in his wake. Along the path of his movement, plants burst from the ground, trees rising in seconds, their branches heavy with seeds that scattered and sprouted even more life.
"Do you see now?" the Leader laughed. "Do you see what I have become?"
Issen did not even try to aim an arrow in the chaos unfolding around them.
The Eastern Leader's ability had become the ability of nature itself.
What could they possibly do against such a creature?
And yet they had no choice but to keep fighting.
Maereth threw up a barrier, blocking the Leader's path for a brief moment. The three of them leapt upward into the newly grown forest, climbing through branches that had not existed seconds before.
They hid among the trees, waiting for even a single moment of distraction so that Issen could strike another energy point.
But there were no openings.
With his new serpent body, the Leader moved with a fluid agility that made his attacks impossible to predict. And it was not only his form that had changed.
His mind had as well.
He was no longer a mindless beast.
Now he was calm, calculating, rational.
There was no way to fight him.
"Why will you not climb down?" the Leader asked calmly. "All you need to do is worship me, and I will be content to leave you alone."
"Why would we worship you?" Maereth replied.
"Look around you," the Leader said. "Do you not see perfection in all my works?"
From his vantage point, Issen finally saw a possible opening. His heartbeat slowed without effort as he drew back his bowstring, preparing the shot as though it were the last arrow he would ever fire.
But the birds attacked him.
"Raizo of the Shadow Clan," the Eastern Leader said, turning his gaze toward him. "I have heard of you before. Tell me, how do I appear to you now? Do I not resemble the one you worship in your darkest moments?"
"You resemble nothing that I follow," Raizo replied. "To me, you are only imperfection."
"Then you do not see the beauty and order around you."
"I see everything you have made," Raizo said, "and all I see is chaos."
For the first time, the Eastern Leader glanced around at the world he had created.
Only now did he notice the living creatures struggling miserably around him. The birds that flew through the air screeched in agony. The beasts fought each other to the death. Even the trees bent and twisted as they grew, some withering while others burst uncontrollably from the ground.
"I am supreme!" the Eastern Leader screamed. "There is no one else but me!"
Structures erupted from the earth, altars, pillars, mountains tearing through the ceiling, each one overflowing with uncontrolled life.
"You call this perfection?" Raizo asked. "It's disgusting."
The Eastern Leader screamed again.
Now the birds and beasts of his creation swarmed toward the three of them, leaping forward and tearing at their bodies.
"Why are you provoking him?" Maereth shouted.
"Because he can't control this power," Raizo replied. "The longer this continues, the worse his condition will become. And he will keep pushing it, so long as we make him feel that he is not a god."
Maereth cloaked them in invisibility. They dropped from the trees into the chaotic forest below, staying just outside the Eastern Leader's path.
"If I am not supreme," the Leader cried, "then I must be a reflection of the Supreme!"
"If you were truly a reflection of anything higher," Raizo replied, "it would only be to drag that higher being down into the dirt. Create as much as you want. You are nothing."
The Eastern Leader screamed again, and suddenly tree roots burst from the ground, wrapping around their legs and trapping them in place.
As they struggled, the Eastern Leader slithered toward them.
"Why will you not worship me?" he demanded.
"Because you are blindness," Raizo said. "Only a fool worships something that merely reflects its own deficiency. You are not of Axios. When you die, it will be as if you never existed."
As they watched the Eastern Leader's rolling, unfocused eyes, Issen and Maereth suddenly understood what Raizo was doing.
"You're nothing!" Issen shouted.
"Yeah," Maereth added. "Who's going to worship a nothing like you?"
The Eastern Leader stopped moving.
For several seconds he remained completely still, his mouth closed and his eyes rolled back into his head.
"I am supreme," he whispered. "I am perfect… I am… I am…"
Then something changed.
The Eastern Leader's body began to crumble.
His flesh dissolved into dust, scattering away as if carried by the wind. The forests, the mountains, the birds and beasts, all of it collapsed into a dark mass and faded into nothing, as though none of it had ever existed.
"What just happened?" Maereth asked quietly.
"I don't know," Raizo replied.
"Your plan worked quite well," a voice said behind them.
They turned.
The Supreme Leader approached slowly.
"You drove him into madness and rendered him worthless," the Supreme Leader continued. "And so I had no choice but to erase him. After all, he was one of my creations."
"Is… is that really you?" Issen asked.
"I assume the Soldiers I sent down here are now dead," the Supreme Leader said calmly. "As are the Clan members we were tracking. A pity. They might have provided useful information about the Hawk of the Shadows."
"You killed one of your own Leaders," Maereth said. "One of your own kind."
"No," the Supreme Leader replied. "He was not the Eastern Leader. He was merely one of my projects. As you can see, the project itself remains unfinished."
He looked down at the dust where the creature had been.
"Still, it is impressive that you discovered and exploited its weakness. I will remember that for my next experiment."
Raizo vanished in a burst of flame and reappeared behind the Supreme Leader.
"Hand of God!"
"It is too late for that."
In the next instant, something like a passing wind swept through Raizo's body.
His flesh and clothes vanished.
Only a skeleton remained, collapsing to the ground.
It happened so quickly that Issen and Maereth could not even react. They stood frozen.
"At any moment, I can release toxins into the air and destroy you in the same way," the Supreme Leader asked calmly. "Now tell me where he is,"
Neither of them answered.
"Very well."
From behind the Supreme Leader, another figure stepped forward.
An old man, bald, with only one eye.
"Kareth?" Maereth said, her voice breaking.
"Just give him what he wants," said Kareth, "They're not the monsters we thought. We've been wrong this entire time."
"As you can see, I have spared your friend," the Supreme Leader said. "I would prefer to resolve this matter amicably."
He looked at them both.
"So let us settle this here and now, shall we?"