Two hundred meters above the blood-soaked plains, the wind on the Great Barrier was vicious.
It howled across the indestructible white stone, carrying the bitter scent of freezing rain and distant ash.
Vane kicked a loose pebble over the edge.
He watched it plummet into the dark abyss, his chin resting heavily in his remaining hand.
His right arm, heavily bandaged into a crude stump by Darius, throbbed with a dull, nauseating rhythm.
"I'm bored," Vane announced to the empty air.
Darius didn't even turn his head.
The massive Earth Prince was sitting cross-legged on the stone, his eyes closed, focusing his remaining mana into maintaining the thick obsidian plug that sealed the centipede's breach.
"You just lost an arm, nearly got eaten by a giant rotting bug, and watched a reinforcing army get vaporized," Darius grunted, his voice deep and irritated.
"How in the hell are you bored?"
"Because we are missing the finale!" Vane complained, throwing his head back against the parapet.
"Aurelius and Ignis are down there hogging all the glory.
Do you know how many Elven maidens would have swooned if they saw me surfing on a wind current right now?"
"Zero," Kyanos rasped from the floor.
The Ice Prince looked terrible.
Without his frozen armor, his skin was an angry, blistered red.
He was huddled inside a heavy thermal cloak Darius had salvaged from a dead scout.
"You don't surf, Vane," Kyanos coughed, shivering violently.
"You just float around and complain.
Besides, women prefer men with two hands."
Vane gasped, clutching his chest in mock offense.
"That is a low blow, Kyanos! Even for a half-melted popsicle!"
"Both of you, shut up," Darius commanded.
Darius opened his eyes, his heavy brow furrowing as he looked down over the edge of the wall.
The fires on the battlefield below were dying out.
The horrific screams of the Elven vanguard had faded into a strange, unsettling quiet.
"The perimeter is too quiet," Darius muttered.
"I can't feel the tremors of the Elven infantry anymore.
Ignis either wiped them all out..."
"Or they retreated inside," Kyanos finished, forcing himself to sit up.
He looked toward the colossal trunk of the Whispering Hollows looming in the distance.
"Aurelius is in there."
Vane stopped kicking pebbles.
The sarcastic smirk vanished from his pale face.
"Alone," Vane whispered.
Down in the mud, the air was thick with the stench of ozone and scorched earth.
Valerius trudged through the cratered ground, his boots slipping in the wet ash.
Every step sent a jolt of agonizing pain up his spine.
The violet sparks of electricity that usually danced effortlessly across his armor were now just pathetic, sputtering static pops.
He was completely drained.
A few paces ahead of him walked Malakor.
The Prince of Shadows moved without making a single sound.
The mud didn't squelch beneath his boots.
The wind didn't rustle his cloak.
It was as if the physical world was actively avoiding him.
The absolute darkness veiling half of Malakor's face seemed to drink the moonlight.
"Hey," Valerius called out, his voice a raspy croak.
Malakor didn't stop, but his head tilted slightly to the side, signaling he was listening.
"Are you... actually in there?" Valerius asked.
He wiped a mixture of sweat and blood from his unswollen eye.
"Or did she completely take over?"
Malakor finally stopped.
He turned around slowly.
The black ash smeared across his pale cheeks starkly contrasted with the terrifying void consuming the left side of his head.
"I am here, Valerius," Malakor said.
The voice was his, but it lacked any baseline human inflection.
It sounded like an echo coming from the bottom of a dry well.
"What does it feel like?" Valerius asked, taking a hesitant step closer.
He gestured vaguely toward the darkness.
"Absorbing a core like that. Absorbing her."
Malakor looked down at his own gauntleted hands.
The metal was stained with dried Elven blood.
"It feels cold," Malakor answered flatly.
"It feels like falling backward into a pit that doesn't have a bottom.
You just keep falling.
The light gets smaller, but it never completely disappears.
It just stays out of reach."
Valerius shivered.
It had nothing to do with the night air.
"Does it hurt?"
Malakor slowly reached up, his fingers brushing against the ash of Vespera smeared on his cheek.
"No," Malakor whispered.
"It doesn't hurt anymore. She is quiet now."
Valerius stared at his brother.
He wanted to crack a joke.
He wanted to say something stupid and arrogant to break the suffocating, depressing gravity anchoring them to the mud.
But the words wouldn't form.
"Save your breath, Valerius," Malakor said, turning his back and resuming his silent march.
"Your core is shattered.
We need to reach the Hollows.
Aurelius is going to need us to clear the stragglers."
Valerius gritted his teeth, forcing his exhausted legs to move faster.
He dragged his feet through the mud, following the walking void toward the shattered Obsidian Gates.
Inside the ground floor of the Whispering Hollows, panic was a physical contagion.
The grand causeway, usually a pristine avenue of polished marble and glowing flora, was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with thousands of Elven defenders.
A young spearman stood in the third rank of the vanguard.
His hands were shaking so violently that the metal tip of his spear rattled loudly against the wooden shaft.
"Stop shaking, boy," a veteran swordsman hissed next to him.
The older Elf's face was scarred, but his eyes were wide with poorly concealed terror.
"I can't help it, sir," the young spearman whispered, his breathing erratic.
Sweat poured down his face despite the cool air of the Hollows.
"The gates... they just crumbled.
The Titan is dead.
He killed the Titan."
"Hold the line," the veteran commanded, though his voice cracked on the final word.
"We have the numbers.
He is only one man.
The mages will break his armor.
We just need to hold him in place."
The young spearman swallowed hard, trying to slow his racing heart.
He looked nervously toward the rear of the courtyard.
Sitting casually on a chunk of shattered black obsidian was a bard.
Melodius was completely ignoring the thousands of terrified soldiers forming a barricade in front of him.
His head was bowed, his dark hair falling over his pale, blood-stained face.
His long fingers lazily plucked the silver strings of a bone lyre.
Pluck. Thrum.
"Why is he playing music?" the young spearman asked, his voice trembling.
"Why isn't Prince Melodius standing with us?
Isn't he going to fight?"
"Don't look at him," the veteran snapped aggressively, grabbing the boy's shoulder and physically jerking him to face forward.
"Do not look at the bard. Keep your eyes on the gateway."
The young Elf gripped his spear, staring into the dark, swirling dust of the ruined Obsidian Gates.
Clank.
A heavy footstep echoed through the cavern.
The entire Elven army stiffened.
The war rhinos in the backline huffed nervously, their heavy hooves scraping against the marble.
Clank.
Through the settling dust, a silhouette emerged.
He was a towering wall of pitch-black metal.
The Dark Mantle armor absorbed the bioluminescent blue light of the Hollows, rendering him a walking shadow.
Through the narrow slit of his visor, two golden eyes burned with the intensity of a dying star.
Aurelius dragged his massive broadsword across the polished marble.
SCREEEEECH.
The horrific sound of heavy steel carving into the stone sent a collective, agonizing shiver through the Elven ranks.
Orange sparks flew from the friction, illuminating the cold, emotionless metal of his greaves.
"Archers! Draw!" an Elven commander screamed from the high roots.
Aurelius didn't stop walking.
"Fire!"
A massive volley of steel-tipped arrows rained down from the canopy.
They struck Aurelius's armor, pinging harmlessly off the enchanted metal like hail on a tin roof.
He didn't even raise an arm to guard his face.
He closed the distance.
"Vanguard! Brace!" the veteran Elf roared, slamming his heavy shield into the ground alongside hundreds of others, forming an impenetrable wall of steel.
Aurelius stopped dragging his sword.
He gripped the heavy leather hilt with both hands, twisting his torso, and swung.
He didn't use a magical core move.
He didn't summon fire or lightning.
He simply used the sheer, horrifying kinetic mass of his own strength.
The broadsword slammed into the shield wall.
CRUNCH.
The impact was like a cannonball striking glass.
Five heavy steel shields violently buckled inward simultaneously.
The Elven soldiers behind them didn't even have time to scream as the kinetic force shattered their arms, ribs, and spines in a single, devastating fraction of a second.
Aurelius stepped into the gap he just created.
The young spearman shrieked, lunging forward blindly with his weapon.
Aurelius didn't even look at him.
He simply raised his left armored gauntlet, caught the wooden shaft of the spear, and jerked the boy forward.
Before the young Elf could process what was happening, the heavy iron pommel of the broadsword smashed directly into his face, instantly crushing his skull.
The boy went limp, dropping into the expanding pool of blood on the marble.
"Kill him! Swarm him!" the veteran screamed, wildly swinging his blade at the Crown Prince's neck.
Aurelius ducked underneath the wild swing.
He drove the tip of the broadsword directly up through the veteran's breastplate, piercing his heart and lifting the Elf entirely off his feet.
With a casual flick of his wrists, Aurelius tossed the dying veteran aside like a piece of garbage.
He stepped deeper into the formation.
It was a meat grinder.
Aurelius moved with cold, mechanical efficiency.
Every swing severed limbs, crushed armor, and ended lives.
He didn't shout.
He didn't display anger.
He just slaughtered them with the apathetic precision of a butcher working on a carcass.
Blood sprayed across the pristine marble.
Severed heads and broken weapons littered the causeway.
The Elves tried to surround him, thrusting dozens of spears at once, but the Dark Mantle armor deflected every blow.
Aurelius spun, a dark whirlwind of steel, bisecting three soldiers at the waist in a single rotation.
Through the chaos, the screams, and the metallic din of absolute butchery, the faint, melodic sound of the bone lyre drifted through the air.
Pluck. Thrum.
Aurelius drove his metal boot into an Elven mage's chest, caving it in, and stepped over the twitching body.
He raised his golden eyes toward the far end of the courtyard.
Melodius was still sitting on the rubble, playing his song, watching the Crown Prince carve a bloody, unstoppable path directly toward him.
"It's just the dawn of dusk".... Uncle Sloth.