Tunde found himself consciously grabbing the pieces of what was left of the blade given to him by the tyrant, his eyes fixed on the now healed form of Heito. Everything he had done until that point in the battle against the true beast now felt moot. If he had expected the tyrant to step in, to obliterate the form or ‘vessel’ as the wasteland king had described the Blazewing, then Tunde had merely been deceiving himself.

  Heito stared at him with inky dark eyes, somehow altered by whatever power the master ranker’s essence flame had used to regenerate his physical form. The cold yet powerful true beast was gone, and in his place was a bestial creature, merely chafing at the leash, his powerful wings beating up gusts of air.

  Heito—or rather, whatever he had become—shot at Tunde with a burst of speed, descending on him with the fury of a true beast. He roared in rage as the crystal blade once again stabbed into his body; in these helpless seconds, he was beast-stupid in sound and action, thrashing in the dirt.

  The blade came free, slick with the true beast’s blood, gobbets of Ethra-infused liquid sizzling on its crystal surface. Already, Heito was healing, reknitting, sustained by whatever metaphysical processes fueled his rage, both body and soul.

  The true beast grabbed the blade with a strength Tunde found himself contesting vehemently, snatching it away from his blood-slicked grasp and throwing the weapon aside just in time to meet its wielder.

  Tunde descended through the air with a silence that stank of false calm—as though he were a creature too enlightened to feel rage.

  They collided in the crater on the platform they had created. Around them, the columns of jade Ethra shifted and ground, drawing ever closer to both combatants with a slow, grating noise. The forces of the wasteland king were coming—Tunde knew that deep within himself. Heito saw this awareness dawn in his opponent’s eyes, could feel the hurried brutality in every swing of Tunde’s fist, each infused with Joran’s wrath.

  Tunde pounded at the form of the true beast with his imbuement technique, Ethra, and aura tearing chunks out of Heito’s body. The sound of every blow grew louder, but it wasn’t enough. Heito launched away, into the air, a crack of his blazing wings carrying him upward.

  The true beast knew he couldn’t hope to match Tunde in melee combat, not with the nearly unbreakable defense Tunde had, courtesy of Ethra sight. Tunde scrambled for any pieces of the shattered crystal blades he could find. His hands bloody, he gathered them, void forge rushing them before shaping them into a spear.

  This time, he glanced up at the flying, burning form of the true beast whose Ethra and aura blazed with a radiance that spoke of raw heat. There would be no chase. This time, Tunde would be ready.

  Cocking his hand back, imbued strength running through his veins, he threw the spear, still slathered in the blood dripping from his arm. The second he released it, it ripped through the air with a concussive drumbeat, tearing through the air with a screaming trail of raw aura behind it.

  The true beast rolled aside with the grace of a sky-born creature, dodging this streak of bladed intent. No, Tunde saw—not dodging. Faster than the true beast’s eye could follow, Tunde had recalled the spear back to his grip, his Ethra summoning the crystal and blood-stained weapon back to its owner. The true beast shrieked, hails of flames pouring down from the skies above in a shower of pure lethal, and burning projection attacks.

  The air around him lit up, the heat intensifying as Tunde dodged, allowing Ethra sight to guide his every move. Void realm took the worst of it, but some managed to pass through the dominion technique, stinging his skin. He waited for the right moment, watching as Heito tucked in his wings, his fiery aura surrounding his form in the shape of a bird.

  Tunde threw the weapon again, this time guided by the ever-watchful gaze of Ethra sight. The weapon once again ripped through the air with lethal intent. The true beast stretched out its Ethra-covered arm, burning bright orange and red with the intention of catching it.

  He clutched nothing but air as the force of a meteor struck him in the chest, arresting his movements and pinning him to the Ethra-stained ground. For several unreal seconds, the lord realm true beast was impaled in place, speared through the chest. There was no pain, only humiliation and shock.

  Heito freed himself in time to see Tunde ascending, leaving him behind. The true beast’s wounds closed, but slower, much slower than before. A roaring rage tore from his mouth as he watched Tunde ascend on his aura, despising his own weakness.

  Tunde observed the true beast from above, watching as Heito's body was sustained by the power of the wasteland king. He was akin to a puppet, kept alive by a greater power, his body already dead with his mind finding it hard to accept the fact while filled with a power far beyond his realm to withstand.

  Tunde’s eyes strayed once again to the jade tyrant who watched it all with savage glee, his eyes alight with sordid excitement that made Tunde’s stomach roil. This wasn’t what he wanted. Even if he had the intention of laying waste to the armies of the king, it would be on his own terms, not because some sadistic master ranker ordered it.

  And yet, here he was, at the mercy of the same being he detested. If only there was some way to get Heito to think, if only he could force the true beast back to his senses for a few minutes, to snap out of the maddened, bloodlust-filled creature he had become.

  But what were two lord rankers going to do against a master?

  It was a candid question that revealed to Tunde just how bleak his situation was. Even with the relic, a trump card he wasn’t willing to reveal just yet, not until he was sure of its effect against the tyrant or used it as a means of escape.

  Tunde opened his void ring, taking out a piece of Ethra-infused metal as the tyrant ‘ooohed’ above him in excitement. Pouring his stellar force concept through the metal, he found himself compressing its shape, forging it into the crude form of a blade.

  The two combatants went at each other, Ethra-infused sword clashing against deadly imbued claws. They became a blur to their surroundings, so swift were their attacks that their clashes sang a single extended note, a lasting ring without crescendo or diminuendo. It was beautiful—the ululating chime of pure, raw death. A masterpiece of combat in its purest form.

  But only one of them was near immortal. Tunde, failed by lord realm exhausting muscles, weakened by the constant battle without rest, began to slow. His thrusts turned to deflections; his hacks shifted to parries. He gave ground, at first by centimeters, then with greater steps. Through eyes tense with effort, Tunde saw, knew, that he was being driven back towards the cracked and caved platform where it had all begun.

  The true beast, even in his maddened state, saw it dawn on Tunde’s face, how the longer they fought, the weaker only one of them became. In the searing thresh that passed for Heito’s mind, the true beast knew it would come—any moment now—when desperation would force his opponent’s hand.

  Blade and claw clashed. They clashed. They clashed and clashed and clashed and then...

  Heito let the Ethra-infused blade run through him, taking it inside, his body inflated with the raw power of a master ranker, as it obliterated him from within. The power of the king fought back to keep him whole.

  He used the blow, feeding off the pain and craving the damage because it allowed him to get closer. Blood bubbled through the cage of the true beast’s teeth, the power that animated him revealing itself in the flow of lifeblood spilling from his mouth, but the true beast paid it no mind. In its blood-filled brain, it was worth it.

  A clawed hand snapped around Tunde’s throat. The other hand thrust forward with aura-covered claws, digging deep into the cultivator’s body. Tunde let out a terrible scream of anguish.

  Deep within the depths of the wastelands, there was a place that was not, in truth, a place. A sphere of debris coalesced to form a domain born of the will and power of the master that was the wasteland king. This broken bauble in the shape of a forgotten city lost to time had no name.

  It would have, at one time, belonged to some forces that had lived and died within the wastelands, but it had been taken by the king and transformed into something else, something almost alive with raw Ethra and power.

  It had been the birthplace of Heito, where his father, Kugan, had infused within him a part of his Ethra, his essence, or soul—if true beasts could be said to have one. It had also been the place where Haruka had imparted upon the young hatchling a measure of his power. It had been nothing but a drop, a single thing that was not a quarter of a quarter, and yet, that power had grown slowly within the true beast.

  Several years ago, a flicker of time in the grand scheme of things, Heito was forged along with Jana within the broken ruins of those grounds, honed to lethal perfection by his father, a lord rank at the time. Laced with ritualistic runes whose meanings were known only to the wasteland king himself, they were shaped to be a scourge on the enemies of the wasteland king, his cutting blade against the forces of the empire and humanity as a whole.

  It was these same memories that woke the true beast from his rage-infused slumber. His true self had sunk into that rage, but Tunde’s explosive twist of the crude blade that spilled blood tore the true beast’s arm from his throat with a deft twist of his hand and slammed a kick into his stomach, driving him away from his body.

  Tunde jerked roughly as the sword slid within his grasp, moving with miserable slowness. His guts tightened with exhaustion. His perfect features darkened with pain, and the true beast drank in the sight, fed on the sight of the cultivator’s-tired form, fed on the stink of Tunde’s rich, running blood.

  “I apologize…” Heito choked out, spitting bloody phlegm on the ground.

  It was a struggle for the true beast to speak, but a lifetime of pain echoed within the gaze of his now glowing red eyes.

  “It was not how I planned to end you, not like this,” Heito continued, retracting his claws as the cold calm yet bubbling demeanor of rage took shape, molding the true beast into the former visage he once had. “But die you will, all the same, human filth,” he snarled as he shot at Tunde.

  Tunde swayed, his eyes blurry, his heart pounding within those few seconds the true beast used to cross the space between them. His palm burned with essence flame infused with Ethra, the dark grey power expanding from his palm as Heito bore down on him.

  An explosion slammed into the chest of the true beast just as the clawed hands of the Blazewing dug deeply into his chest, close to scraping against his very heart. Stellar force erupted, tearing Heito off Tunde’s heavily bleeding body. The true beast’s chest caved in with explosive force, and Heito spat out blood.

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  Tunde’s heartbeat pounded loudly in his ears. His vision dimmed and narrowed, only to see the true beast slam against the crystalline walls with a thunderous crack. Heito’s wings hung limply as he fell to the ground.

  Tunde moved, his vision red, Ethra burning and coursing through his veins, begging to be released. He was up close and personal with the true beast, Ethra sight—or was it instinct? —guiding his movements. He drew as much blood from Heito as he shed himself.

  Every move was delivered with lethal intent, aiming to incapacitate or deny the true beast the chance to put him down first. His robes soaked with his own blood, his body screaming in protest as he drew even more Ethra through his lines, burning and stinging from within.

  He was an avatar of death, of blood, and of the sweet richness of battle. Heito, burning with otherworldly power, struggled to match the blows Tunde delivered. Where Heito’s claws dragged across Tunde’s skin, ripping and rendering flesh, Tunde’s dark fist delivered equal measures of devastating revenge.

  Blood for blood, flesh for flesh, the battle devolved from a show of skill to raw, brutal ferocity. Tunde twisted through the air, delivering a devastating kick to Heito’s skull. The true beast barely brought his hands up in defense. The imbued kick shattered Heito’s arms, snapping his head backward and sending his body rolling through the air, slamming into the side of the crystal walls of the chasm.

  “Not enough,” Tunde’s blood-filled mind said as he pushed on.

  His bones protested as his body actively fought to heal him, to stem the bleeding. He saw flashes of Ifa’s notifications, the blue-tinged screen flickering in and out of his consciousness, but he paid it no mind.

  Tunde reached for Heito with weak and breaking hands, feeling pathetic. His actions felt like the performance of a weakling. The true beast had started this despite his pleas, caring nothing for the truth, only wanting to end Tunde. Well, the dark fist wasn’t having that.

  But the sweet song of battle was slowly fading from his mind. The adrenaline rush drained away. Was this how it was going to end? Was this all the fight Tunde had left in his body?

  “Heito!” a loud voice echoed from above the chasm, coming from outside the tunnels, filling the vacuum between them with a rush of power. The jade tyrant snorted as if finding it amusing.

  Yumar. The first claw of the wasteland king had arrived, the Sandshard Highlord breaking through the walls of the crystal cavern in an explosion of power, appearing in his natural form.

  The broken true beast heard the voice break through his beaten body as Tunde’s hand closed around his neck. Bones shattered as he raised Heito up, his other hand forming a finely shaped aura blade the cultivator hadn’t even known he had perfectly formed. Tunde felt the full gaze of the Highlord true beast settle on him as he was violently ripped away from Heito.

  The first claw’s aura tore into his blood-soaked mind with agony. Tunde screamed, curling up. There was pure malevolence in the first claw’s presence, but above all, there was fear.

  “Get your hands off him, you—!” Yumar’s voice tore Tunde’s mind apart again, blood leaking from his eyes.

  Tunde’s reaching hands somehow closed on a fistful of hair that crowned Heito’s head. His body had closed the distance again as the pressure of the Highlord was cut off from him.

  “ENOUGH!” the tyrant’s voice thundered through the air, the aura around them growing green as he faced down the giant form of the Highlord true beast. “You dare?!” he added, seizing Yumar with a projected jade gauntlet that appeared out of nowhere.

  “No,” Yumar laughed as his body began to glow with golden yellow light, “he dares!” he answered, his voice laced with authority.

  From the Sandshard’s form came hundreds of lower-ranked Corespawns, falling into the chasm as they landed around Tunde and Heito. The true beast laughed. Tunde gripped the head of the true beast tightly. Heito realized, too late, much too late, what was about to happen.

  “Kill him, before—”

  Tunde snapped his neck in a shocking move, a lackluster death for an opponent of his level, as he tore the head off his shoulders.

  The Corespawns stared in horrified shock as Yumar roared in agony at the death of the Blazewing. The creatures attacked, even as the power of a second master filled the air.

  Words ceased to exist, replaced by pain that tore through his mind and those of the Corespawns around him, dropping them all to their knees. Real pain, a thing he thought he was incapable of experiencing with all he had endured, now stunned him with its ruthless and unfamiliar savagery.

  The first claw of the wasteland king roared with such force that the walls of the chasm and cave shook with a ripple of pure Ethra. The presence of the king grew stronger as the once jade-colored crystals around them began to glow with a tinge of yellow. The tyrant attacked in a blaze of green Ethra and aura, nearly blinding what was left of the Corespawns and Tunde below.

  A rift—no, a pathway—opened up as Corespawns poured out in dozens, all heading towards Tunde. He grabbed a blade from a dead Corespawn, opened his void space, and seized a tier 4 healing elixir before swallowing it in one gulp. Throwing the bottle aside, he barely gave it time to work before cycling his concept, dark grey Ethra running through his weapon haphazardly.

  Tendrils of Ethra spilled out as the dark fist couldn't care less if he was using the technique correctly. He was facing down multitudes of Corespawns rushing at him with projection techniques flying through the air. Void realm manifested, catching the attacks of numerous lord realm Corespawns coming at him.

  Their attacks neutralized, Tunde was within their midst, trusting Ethra sight and his imbued techniques to keep him alive as long as possible. He stared down inevitable death in the face, and yet, his heart thundered with the excitement of battle. This was what he had wanted when he went behind enemy lines, was it not?

  The thrill of facing down foes without a second thought, draining their Ethras thanks to the relic that melded with the subpar weapon in his hand. He was blood and gore incarnate, void forge manifesting as orbs and spears, decimating his surroundings. All he could see was blood, and blood, and more blood.

  The crashing of the battles above him was useless; two masters fought above the very chasm where he battled, their presences shaking the cave down to the foundations of the platform itself.

  Tunde tore his blade from the obliterated body of a Corespawn with a venom and earth concept, his body grappling, fighting, and absorbing the venom Ethra that hoped to end him from within. But Tunde stood defiant.

  Sharp claws swiped at his face as the creatures pressed in on him, braving his void realm that peeled away the safety of their imbuement techniques. He abandoned his own blade to summon his relic, the weapon taking the shape of the discarded blade.

  He tore away large chunks of stone armor from a Corespawn, bringing it to its knees before he removed its head with Joran’s wrath. Severed wings bled from another, feathers raining down. Never once did Tunde make a sound as the battle raged around him.

  A Corespawn cried out in the throes of death, a cry flavored by something other than rage, breaking through his addled brain for the first time since his battle began. It dragged him from the haze as he sent void forge orbs wreaking havoc around him, his eyes searching desperately for one of the tunnels that led to the now-dead guardian lairs.

  Slicing a large-scaled creature in two, he shot towards a tunnel he caught sight of, projection techniques flying through the air towards him from behind.

  ****************************

  Miria stood along with a few of the recently advanced adepts of Black Rock at the breached hole in the formation barrier that protected the entire settlement. Around her, the fires of battle raged, her whip-blade dancing in movements too quick for the eyes of the invading forces.

  Shadow’s Embrace cut down those who drew too close to her as she focused on her task with single-minded ferocity. An explosion of power and Ethra at her side dragged her attention to where Giselle swung her hammer imbued with her concept. The large weapon danced within her palms like it was as light as a feather, its heavy steel head crushing body parts and holding the lines.

  A lush, lime-colored power pulsed through the bodies of the battered defenders, healing them slowly, just enough to keep them going. Lady Ryka’s concept, while not mostly offensive, served as a lord realm Rejuvenant’s technique in battle. There had been reported breaches all around the formation as the master ranker of the Talahan clan held what remained of the barrier together.

  Frustration gnawed once again at Miria at the defensive tactics the master had ordered. "Let them waste their forces against our barrier,” she had said. Varis had simply ordered them in tandem to watch the barrier for any breaches and plug them long enough for the master to reshape it.

  It had been a sound tactic to most of the people of Black Rock, especially when they saw the arrayed thousands pouring down from the wastelands. But Miria saw better; she knew better. She had been out there, deep within the wastelands. And to some extent, Varis did as well; she could see it in his eyes when he spoke.

  There was a layer of thinly veiled restraint when he gave them orders straight from the master herself, as if he too chafed at the leash to be in battle. Slowly, the barrier had begun to retract, first staying close to the walls themselves, so close that the most determined of their enemies could touch it if they decided to risk their lives.

  Then came the retraction past the walls, the adepts fighting hard to keep the Ethra cannons going before finally sabotaging the priceless weapons bought in blood and sweat themselves. It had been a moment of clarity, of the impending doom that would befall them should they not act.

  Yet, hold, the master said.

  Miria remembered attempting to storm her way to the quarters of the master, rank be damned, before Lady Ryka and the rest held her back, barely. Sure, she might get wiped out like a grease stain on the ground, but she would say her mind.

  That was all that mattered.

  Any hope of Tunde being alive had been quenched, and a grim gloom had settled upon the entirety of Black Rock as every cultivator realized that they too could die under the continuous onslaught of the wasteland king. His presence in the golden-colored distance reminded them of their inevitable fate.

  He and the giant form of the Sandshard that glowed with the pressure and aura of a Highlord, a constant reminder that both sides were tied when it came to the highest of their cultivators. Then something changed—a power painting the far distance within the wastelands green, stealing the attention of the king and his Highlord.

  First came the confusing disappearance of the Highlord Sandshard and a large portion of their forces, simply melding away back into the wastelands. The master had ordered their entire forces to be on guard, earth affinity cultivators warily watching the very ground beneath them in case of some sort of underground attack.

  The power only grew brighter and brighter, drawing even the attention of the king himself. His power, extending towards the vicinity of Black Rock, waned, allowing the master to take absolute control of the area, raining down her wrath on the forces of the king around the settlement.

  Still, the master ordered them to remain within the relative safety of the barrier, biding their time as the king handled whatever power seemed to threaten his realm. Dragging her mind back to the battle around her, Miria stepped backward, her dominion technique Midnight’s Veil shrouding her surroundings and disorienting her enemies.

  It was easy work dispatching them from that point, projection techniques cutting into each other in their bid to find her within the shroud of inky shadows. Cutting down the last of their numbers, an explosion of power came from the distance as the forces attacking them paused.

  Miria turned her gaze to the skies. In the distance, from Black Rock itself, a column of black flames wreathed in white lightning manifested, darkening the skies above. The air felt hot and smelled of rain as the Talahan master appeared, clad in midnight armor, an intricately beautiful bow in hand. She drew the strings, and every instinct within Miria’s body screamed danger.

  “Forces of the empire,” her soft yet powerful voice burned in the air with raw power, “now is the time,” she said as she released the arrow of Ethra and aura from her bow. It left a trail of raw flames in the air as it flew straight at the wasteland king, whose burning presence had dimmed somewhat in the distance, the emerging green light in the far reaches of the wastelands waxing stronger.

  Miria watched as Giselle exploded into movement, crushing Corespawns around her. Harun appeared out of nowhere, thin lines of water blade techniques slicing through the flying Corespawns and the true beasts leading them in the air.

  Varis appeared suddenly, one hand on her shoulder as she froze, shock in her eyes. “Lead the armies,” he ordered as he took to the air, swinging his blade in a circle. Lightning wreathed in flames spread out in an obliterating circumference, ripping through anything flying in the air as Miria blinked.

  Shock, surprise, and then rage went through her in quick succession. The heirs of the great clans had taken to the battle, intricately powerful techniques weaving around them as they stuck together, just as they had from the beginning of the war.

  A spray of blood that swirled around a figure revealed Sera, blood-red eyes glowing as she stepped through the torn and shredded bodies of two Corespawns, the serrated blade that had once been midnight in her hands.

  She paused at the sight of Miria, Giselle catching up to her, as well as Harun, as they watched the heirs move towards the battle. Miria cracked her neck as she spoke, “You know what to do,” she started.

  Sera licked the jagged edges of her blade. “Begin,” she whispered as they melded into the chaos of the battle around them.