Ren's voice cut across the hush, low, sharp, carrying through smoke and ash. Nyxa whispered something inside him.

"Then let the war remember why it fears us."

The pause shattered.

The Council's fallen. The commanders are broken, scattered, none left to challenge him directly. The battlefield still smolders, smoke curling over a land carved by gods and mortals alike.

The King watches. Silent. Immense. Power enough to unmake worlds. But here, all eyes turn to one.

Ren stands alone. Cloak tattered, flesh scarred, but unbowed. The black-blue fog coils around him, alive, thrumming with hunger and authority.

He breathes once. The battlefield listens. The King stirs.

The battlefield fell silent, all eyes on Ren. Broken commanders, scorched earth, and smoke curling across ruins could not touch him. Cloak tattered, flesh marred, black-blue fog thrumming with a life of its own. He was the center, the axis around which war itself tilted.

From the depths of his mind, a presence stirred. Dark, endless, impossible to ignore.

"He is not the sum of his strength," the voice whispered, low and infinite. "Watch the sway, the hesitation. The King believes in dominance, in fear. You will bend him, fragment him, erase him in pieces. Let me guide you."

Ren's eyes narrowed, fog tightening. The King loomed ahead, immense, his shadow stretching across the battlefield like a storm incarnate. Yet Ren saw it differently now. Through Nyxa's voice, through the abyss within. Weak points, patterns, overextensions, breaths between movements.

"Do not hesitate," Nyxa hissed, "or the world will drown before you strike. One strike, one unraveling… and he is undone."

Ren inhaled, letting the fog surge, coiling faster, heavier, alive. Every shattered wall, every crater, every scarred spell on the ground became part of the battlefield he controlled. The King moved, and Ren's eyes followed, pre-empting every swing, every shift, every pulse of mana.

"Erase him from the top down," Nyxa whispered, "from the aura, the presence, the intent. Make him nothing. Your fog is not just absence. It is authority. You are at the end of this war."

Ren's hand lifted. Black-blue tendrils shot outward, the fog reacting instantly to the guidance of the Abyss. The King's massive form faltered under its pressure, the aura bending, lines of power unraveling. The battlefield trembled, the armies holding back instinctively, sensing the unmaking in motion.

"Now," Nyxa breathed, "all in a single motion. Let him understand the power of darkness."

Ren stepped forward, fog exploding outward like a dark sun. The King's shadow buckled, the sky twisting in reaction. The world seemed to scream as the first strike of the final reckoning landed.

The black-blue fog surged outward like a tide, the air itself curling into void. Ren's first strike had landed, but the King did not stagger. Only a shift. A subtle compression of the aura around him—announced the response. The shadow of his presence grew heavier, denser, pressing against Ren's fog as though trying to smother it before it could act again.

From within the Abyss, Nyxa's voice hissed, low and razor-sharp.

"Do not clash blindly. Watch him breathe, watch the rhythm of the world around him. His strength is raw, but it is not infinite. You must fracture, not destroy, first."

Ren adjusted, fog coiling tighter, fingers flexing as black tendrils writhed like living serpents. The King's first counterattack came not as a single swing, but a cascade—strikes of raw mana, auric pulses that rolled over the ground, shattering craters, splintering stone walls, forcing Ervin and Vael to step back instinctively.

Vael gritted his teeth, dragging the last of his strength into shadow to dodge a wave of energy that would have cleaved him in half. Elara's golden light flared, thin yet stubborn, pressing against fractures in the terrain as soldiers scrambled to stand. Her light stabilized what the King's shockwaves tried to undo, and for a heartbeat, Ren's eyes flicked toward her. A silent acknowledgment passed between them: we are all barely holding.

The King's roar was low, omnipresent, not sound but pressure. The aura around him warped the air, bending space like water in a storm. Each movement he made shredded gravity itself, tugging the battlefield as though trying to erase it from existence.

Ren moved next, careful, calculated. Fog surged along the ground, erasing points of impact before the King's aura could anchor them. Shadows curled around his feet, feeding off the Abyss, twisting in anticipation. Nyxa whispered again, guiding, instructing:

"Your strikes must be precise. Do not waste the fog. Find the seams in his presence. Break him slowly, piece by piece."

The King struck. A hammer of pure mana, massive, with intent to crush. It tore through the void, slicing a crater into the earth where Ren had just stood. But Ren's fog anticipated, folding the strike into nothingness. The collision screamed. A shockwave of absence devouring presence and yet, the King advanced, undeterred.

Ren's pulse thrummed in tandem with the fog, a heartbeat that mirrored the battlefield. Every step, every twist, every coil of darkness calculated, adaptive, alive. He struck, black tendrils whipping at the King's legs, seeking to destabilize, to sever the flow of movement. The King countered effortlessly, massive hands gripping air, tearing tendrils apart, shrugging off a strike that would have ended a lesser being.

Nyxa's voice whispered, a cold caress in his mind:

"Good. He underestimates you now. The next moment will be critical. Hold your center. Your fear feeds him if you falter."

Ervin's storm of elements flared, lashing at the King from the side, forcing him to shift, even momentarily. Vael darted through shadow, cutting at the King's armor where it flexed, but even his precise strikes only left shallow scars. Elara's golden light stitched the battlefield together, giving Ren the narrowest of openings, and he surged.

Black fog exploded around the King's form, snapping like chains, pulling at him, tugging at the edges of his presence. For a heartbeat, the King's massive silhouette faltered, then roared, a sound that shook both air and mind. He struck again, harder, faster, relentless.

Ren staggered under the pressure, but his eyes burned, fog coiling higher, denser, thrumming with Nyxa's guidance. Pain lanced through his chest and limbs. Every scar, every wound is a reminder of what he must endure. He would not yield. He could not.

"The battlefield bends to him, Ren," Nyxa whispered, dark and infinite.

"You bend him. Make him falter. Make him bleed from inside and out. One strike at a time."

And Ren stepped forward, fog erupting like a storm unleashed, not to destroy, but to unravel. The King's first test had begun and the slow, grinding war between fog and shadow, erasure and absolute presence, stretched onward, infinite in tension, endless in danger.

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