Ervin's knee hit a stone. Blood ran down his arm in a steady stream, sizzling when it touched the lightning still sparking around his fingers. His fortress lay in ruins, pillars shattered, the crater a smoking pit.

Across from him, the winged commander spread his wings again. Blackened. Ragged. Yet they spread. Violet fire rekindled along their edges. His voice was hoarse but steady.

"You will not cage the sky."

Feathers ignited, hundreds of them, violet razors ready to descend.

Ervin's chest heaved. His veins screamed. He tightened his grip.

["If I fall first, the line breaks."]

The duel surged again.

★★★

Vael bled.

Every breath dragged fire through his ribs. His right dagger was chipped, his left slick with his own blood. Across from him, the scaled brute laughed.

Two axes whirled in his hands, each swing strong enough to split wards, stone, and bone in a single motion. He had chased Vael across half the battlefield already, carving trenches where his strikes landed.

Vael slipped aside from another blow, shadows flickering, his body blurring into smoke for a heartbeat before solidifying again. The brute's axe skimmed his side anyway, carving a line deep across his hip.

Vael staggered. Then vanished.

He reappeared at the brute's back, blade driving toward the gap beneath his shoulderplate. The brute twisted. Steel rang. Sparks spat.

Teeth bared, eyes burning, the brute grinned.

"Good. Faster."

★★★

Elara coughed blood into her hand.

Her palm still glowed gold, light spilling through cracks in her skin. Around her, dozens of bone-masks whirled in orbit, their mouths opening in whispers that gnawed at her flesh, her mind, her soul.

"You do not belong," the voices chorused. "Return to nothing."

Her knees buckled. The ground cracked beneath her. But her light did not fade. She pressed her bleeding hand to the dirt, golden veins running outward.

Flowers bloomed. Brief, fragile, beautiful.

The masked woman across from her raised her pale hand. The flowers withered instantly, crumbling to dust. Bone-faces screamed louder.

Elara's eyes burned, tears streaking blood down her cheeks.

"I belong here."

Her light flared again.

★★★

Ren's fog thickened.

Every swing of the armored giant's sword carved a void through it, the steel refusing erasure, cutting reality clean each time. Sparks of existence burst with every clash.

Ren's body shook with the strain, black veins crawling further up his arms. The fog bent, but it did not break.

The commander stepped forward, obsidian armor unmarked. His voice was as flat as his presence.

"You are nothing."

Ren's lips curved into the faintest smile.

"Then nothing will be enough."

Fog surged like a tide, swallowing both of them whole.

★★★

The battlefield shook.

Four duels burned across it, each one dragging the line closer to collapse. Above, the King's flagship still watched, silent. The war had narrowed to these moments.

One of them would fall first.

★★★

The sky split.

Ervin forced his body higher, lightning propelling him until the air itself burned in his lungs. The winged commander was already there, violet feathers wheeling around him like a storm of blades.

They collided midair.

Lightning struck feathers. Fire met fire. Wind cut wind. Each clash blinded the battlefield below in white and violet. The two of them moved too fast to follow, shapes tangled in stormlight, every impact throwing echoes across the ruined land.

But Ervin felt the cracks. His veins were tearing. Mana bled from him as surely as blood.

The commander knew it. His eyes were cold, precise. Every beat of his wings loosed more razors, endless, inexhaustible. His voice rang above the storm.

"You will collapse before I tire."

Feathers closed around Ervin again. A cage. A noose. The sky turned into a prison.

Ervin's chest clenched. His body could no longer hold the full weight of five elements. The balance was gone. Each channel burned raw. His vision blurred red.

But his mind sharpened.

["Not balanced, then. Sacrifice."]

He drove lightning through every nerve. The pain nearly blacked him out. His arm locked. His veins burst. Sparks sprayed from his skin.

He let the other elements go. Fire. Wind. Earth. Water. All collapsed inward.

Only lightning remained.

The storm swallowed him whole.

★★★

On the ground, Vael ducked another sweep of the brute's axe, the blade slicing through three ruined walls at once. Dust showered down.

The brute pressed forward, tireless, laughing, every blow an avalanche. "Run, little shadow. Run."

Vael spat blood and did not run.

His dagger gleamed once, shadows curving around the edge like liquid night. He darted in, faster than before, blade aimed for the throat.

The brute's axe met it. Only to cut empty smoke. Vael's body was already gone, reforming at the brute's flank. His second dagger stabbed deep into the joint of the brute's knee.

Blood sprayed.

The brute roared, twisting, swinging wide. Vael vanished again, a blur of black. The duel pressed tighter, the brute slower now, his grin still there but edged with fury.

★★★

Elara screamed.

Light flared from her chest, golden veins tearing wider across her body. The bone-masks shrieked back, dozens of voices echoing in endless curses. Her skin split where their whispers touched. Her blood burned against her own light.

The masked woman raised both hands. Masks whirled like a storm, their mouths opening, spewing darkness that ate the golden flowers from root to dust.

Elara planted her palm again. Her voice broke.

"Then I will make more."

Golden roots burst through the cracked battlefield. New flowers sprouted, thousands this time, blooming even as they withered instantly. A cycle of death and birth ignited beneath her hand.

Her ribs shattered. Blood ran from her eyes. Still the light rose.

★★★

Fog churned.

Ren's hand caught the commander's descending blade. The steel cut his palm to the bone, but the fog did not yield. It wrapped the sword, bent it, smothered the sound of steel.

The commander forced down with impossible strength, the ground beneath them fracturing in silent quakes.

Ren's arm trembled, bones creaking under the pressure. His breath came slow, measured, black veins thickening across his neck and jaw.

"Your blade cuts existence," Ren murmured. His fog coiled tighter, a serpent around steel.

"Then I will erase existence itself."

The void deepened, swallowing light, swallowing sound, swallowing everything.

★★★

Above, Ervin broke his cage.

Lightning exploded outward from his body, each pulse tearing feathers to ash before they could touch him. His veins shredded. His skin cracked. Blood streamed down in blackened trails.

The commander's eyes widened once. Too late.

Ervin was already there.

His body blurred through the storm, lightning chaining across the sky, one hand clamping around the commander's throat. His other arm burned, veins open flame, lightning fused into the bone itself.

"Fall."

The word was a whisper. The storm answered.

Lightning struck. Not from the sky, but from within Ervin. It surged point-blank, detonating through his arm into the commander's chest.

Armor shattered. Bone splintered. Wings tore apart in a burst of violet fire. The scream that followed was lost in the thunder.

The commander's body convulsed, light pouring from his mouth, his chest collapsing inward as lightning hollowed him out. His eyes went dark.

They plummeted.

Ervin did not let go. He dragged the corpse down with him, lightning still chaining through it, burning until nothing remained but ash.

They hit the ground like meteors. The crater split wider, dust blasting outward. When the storm cleared, only Ervin stood.

Barely.

His arm hung blackened and limp at his side, flesh scorched beyond recognition. His breath came ragged, shallow. His vision swayed.

But his feet did not fall.

The ash that had been the winged commander scattered on the wind.

One down.

★★★

The battlefield stilled for a heartbeat. Mages on both sides turned to see. Another commander erased.

Then the chaos resumed. Vael's clash rang steel against steel. Elara's light burned through the dark. Ren's fog swallowed all sound.

But above them all, Ervin's lightning still flickered.

Broken. Bleeding. Unyielding.

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