The Obsidian Gates were no longer a barrier.
They were a graveyard of shattered black glass.
Ignis stepped over a jagged chunk of the ruined gate, his heavy boots crunching against the pulverized stone.
The ambient, sickly-sweet blue light of the Whispering Hollows spilled out onto the mud, illuminating the absolute carnage left in the wake of the breach.
He didn't stop moving.
"Form a barricade! Do not let them cross the threshold!" an Elven captain screamed from the inner causeway.
A line of fifty heavy infantrymen scrambled over the rubble, desperately locking their enchanted steel shields together to plug the gap.
Ignis exhaled.
A plume of white-hot steam escaped the vents of his cracked visor.
He tightened his grip on the hilt of the Crimson Blade.
He didn't run.
He just lowered his stance, dragging the superheated tip of the katana across the shattered obsidian.
HIIISSSSSS.
The heat instantly melted the black stone into a glowing, molten trench behind him.
"Spears!" the Elven captain roared.
Dozens of magically reinforced wooden spears thrust outward, a lethal wall of spikes aimed directly at Ignis's chest.
Ignis swung.
He didn't aim for the Elves. He aimed for the weapons.
A horizontal arc of raw, blinding plasma erupted from the Crimson Blade.
The thermal wave slammed into the barricade.
The enchanted wooden shafts didn't just break; they instantly vaporized into clouds of choking black ash.
The steel tips melted into useless droplets of liquid metal before they even touched the ground.
The Elven infantrymen shrieked, dropping their glowing, superheated shields as the metal blistered their hands right through their thick leather gloves.
Ignis stepped into the chaos.
He moved with brutal, mechanical efficiency.
A swift vertical slash bisected a screaming swordsman.
A backhanded thrust drove the glowing katana straight through the breastplate of the captain.
Ignis ripped the blade out, kicking the dying Elf down the rubble.
"Hey! Save some for the cripple!"
Ignis glanced over his shoulder.
Valerius was dragging himself up the slope of shattered obsidian.
The Prince of Thunder looked absolutely pathetic.
His dark armor was scorched and dented inward.
He was leaning heavily on a stolen Elven spear, using it like a crutch just to keep his balance.
"You look like a corpse, Valerius," Ignis grunted, casually backhanding an advancing Elf with his armored gauntlet and shattering the man's jaw.
"Stay back. You don't have the mana to fight."
"I don't need mana to be annoying," Valerius spat, coughing violently.
Blood splattered against the black glass at his feet.
"Besides, I couldn't let you have all the fun."
An Elven archer, perched on a high, petrified root inside the Hollows, drew a bead directly on Valerius's exposed neck.
Twang.
The arrow tore through the air.
Valerius was too exhausted to dodge. He didn't even try.
Before the steel tip could pierce his throat, the temperature on the causeway plummeted.
The arrow simply vanished.
It didn't shatter. It didn't deflect. It ceased to exist.
Ignis and Valerius both turned.
Malakor stepped through the shattered gates.
The Prince of Shadows was a walking void.
The left half of his face and torso was completely consumed by absolute, light-eating darkness.
The bioluminescent blue flora of the Hollows actively dimmed as he approached, the ambient light being sucked violently into his corrupted aura.
The Elven archer on the root frantically knocked another arrow, his hands trembling.
Malakor didn't look up.
He simply raised his darkness-shrouded hand and pointed a single finger at the archer.
A condensed spike of pure void erupted from the shadows beneath the root.
It drove upward, impaling the archer through the chest and pinning him to the wood.
There was no blood.
The void instantly cauterized and absorbed the wound.
The archer went completely limp.
"Show-off," Valerius muttered, leaning heavily on his spear.
Ignis stared at Malakor.
The Prince of Fire's jaw tightened beneath his helm.
He could feel the raw, unnatural cold radiating from his brother.
It was actively fighting the intense heat of the Crimson Blade.
Ignis had seen Malakor do terrible things, but this was different.
This wasn't shadow magic. This was erasure.
"Malakor," Ignis said, his voice flat. "Are you in control of that?"
Malakor stopped beside them.
His single visible violet eye looked at Ignis.
It was completely dead, devoid of the sharp, tactical cunning that usually defined the Fourth Prince.
"I am," Malakor whispered.
The voice sounded like two people speaking at once—one male, one female. Both entirely hollow.
Valerius shivered, gripping the wooden shaft of his spear tighter.
"Creepy," Valerius coughed, forcing a strained, bloody smirk.
"But effective. Let's stick together. Aurelius already went deep. We need to clear the main causeway so he doesn't get flanked from behind."
"I will clear it," Malakor said.
He didn't wait for a response.
The walking void stepped forward, descending the pile of rubble and stepping onto the pristine, blood-stained marble of the inner courtyard.
Thousands of Elven defenders were waiting.
They had formed a massive, curved phalanx, heavily reinforced by mages and heavily armored infantry.
"Kill the dark one!" a general commanded.
A volley of destructive magic—fireballs, concentrated wind blades, and jagged ice spikes—rained down on Malakor.
Malakor didn't break his slow, rhythmic stride.
The magical barrage struck his body and was instantly swallowed by the darkness.
The fire was snuffed out. The ice disintegrated. The wind died.
The Elven mages gasped in sheer, paralyzing horror.
"My turn," Malakor whispered.
He slammed his hands onto the marble floor.
A tidal wave of absolute darkness exploded outward.
It rushed across the polished stone faster than a galloping horse.
The front line of the Elven phalanx didn't even have time to raise their shields.
The darkness swept over their boots.
"AAAAAAHH!"
Screams of unimaginable terror echoed through the Whispering Hollows.
The Elves trapped in the darkness didn't just lose their sight; they lost their senses.
The void actively consumed their mana, their heat, and their sanity.
Soldiers began blindly swinging their swords in the pitch-black, butchering their own comrades in sheer panic.
"Push!" Ignis roared, refusing to let Malakor carry the entire burden.
Ignis charged into the chaos.
He used Malakor's wave of darkness as cover.
He became a streak of crimson light cutting through the void.
He didn't use wide, flashy arcs anymore. He used precise, lethal thrusts.
He drove his katana through an Elven breastplate, pulled it free, and spun, decapitating another soldier in the same breath.
The heat of his blade cauterized the wounds instantly, leaving the air smelling heavily of burnt meat.
Valerius hobbled behind them, staying strictly within the safe path Ignis was carving.
An Elven swordsman, blinded by the darkness and driven mad by panic, stumbled out of the void directly in front of the exhausted Lightning Prince.
The Elf raised his blade wildly.
Valerius didn't have the mana to spark. He didn't have the strength to block.
He simply gripped his stolen spear like a javelin and drove it straight upward, burying the steel tip directly underneath the Elf's chin and up into his brain cavity.
The Elf went rigid, his sword dropping to the marble with a loud clatter.
Valerius groaned, using his body weight to push the corpse off his weapon.
"I really... hate... physical combat," Valerius panted, pulling the spear free with a sickening squelch.
"Then walk faster!" Ignis yelled, kicking a burning Elven corpse out of the way. "We are losing momentum!"
The Tamaskrit trio formed a brutal, unstoppable wedge.
Malakor was the shield, absorbing the magical artillery and plunging the defenders into blind, chaotic panic.
Ignis was the spear, a relentless engine of thermal destruction carving through the heavy infantry.
And Valerius was the anchor, watching their flanks and using brutal, desperate tactics to dispatch anyone who slipped past his brothers.
They were outnumbered a hundred to one, but the Elves were breaking.
The sheer psychological terror of fighting a man made of fire and a man made of absolute nothingness was too much.
"Hold the line! For the King!" an Elven loyalist screamed, desperately trying to rally the fleeing soldiers.
Ignis locked eyes with him.
The Prince of Fire dug his boots into the slick marble and lunged, closing a thirty-foot gap in a heartbeat.
He slammed his armored shoulder directly into the loyalist's chest, throwing him to the ground, and drove the Crimson Blade straight down through the man's throat.
Ignis stood up, ripping the katana free. He was drenched in blood and soot.
He looked down the massive, sprawling causeway.
The path ahead was littered with hundreds of bodies, but the main Elven force was actively retreating deeper into the roots of the Whispering Hollows, fleeing from the three monsters guarding the gates.
"We broke the outer defense," Ignis panted, his chest heaving.
He wiped a streak of blood from his cracked visor.
Malakor stood silently beside him.
The void around him receded slightly, revealing the pale, ash-smeared face of the Prince.
He looked exhausted, his violet eye drooping.
Valerius limped up to them, dragging his spear.
He collapsed onto the polished marble, sitting heavily among the dead.
"Finally," Valerius groaned, dropping his head back and staring up at the bioluminescent canopy miles above them.
"Can we just take a five-minute break? My legs are literally turning into jelly."
Ignis looked at his youngest brother, then back down the dark, massive corridor leading into the heart of the Hollows.
Somewhere deep inside that colossal tree, Aurelius was fighting a war of his own.
Ignis tightened his grip on his katana.
"No breaks," Ignis said, his voice a low, hard rumble.
"We keep moving...
We finish this tonight."