The Sovereign's foot touched the ground.
The world shuddered.
Kael blinked the blood from his eyes, the remnants of Relentless Form still flickering across his frame — tattered, pulsing, unstable. His right arm sagged slightly, dislocated from the earlier impact. His ribs throbbed with fractures that refused to reset.
Focus. Keep standing.
He charged.
Essence thundered around him as he initiated Deiclash Ascension again, lightning surging along his limbs, air warping from kinetic compression. He vanished—
—and reappeared behind the Sovereign, strike already mid-swing.
It stopped midair.
The Sovereign hadn't turned. Hadn't flinched.
His hand was simply there, fingers two inches from Kael's face. Holding Kael's wrist in place like it was an afterthought.
"Predictable," he said.
Then he moved.
Kael was hurled upward — no technique, just raw force. But it felt like a mountain had punched through his Essence. His back cracked against the sky itself, and before gravity could reclaim him—
The Sovereign appeared above.
One downward palm.
BOOM.
Kael crashed to the earth like a meteor, crater blooming beneath his broken frame. Pain lanced through his spine. He coughed, and blood filled his mouth.
Still, he rose.
He called the Codex again. A glyph-ring half-formed behind him—before glitching out. His Essence wasn't syncing.
Too damaged.
No. Not now.
The Sovereign landed calmly, brushing dust from his sleeve.
"You thought you had reached a higher plane," he said, walking toward Kael with divine stillness. "But all you've done is climb a taller pedestal… just to fall farther."
Kael launched himself again, using Voltbreaker Ascension—not for damage, but just to close the gap.
He unleashed a flurry of Storm-kinetic jabs, rapid and relentless.
The Sovereign moved like water over glass.
Every strike missed. Or was parried without effort. Or simply passed through illusions that weren't illusions.
Kael unleashed Gravity Bind to anchor the space—
—but the Sovereign tore through it with a blink.
A single open-handed strike caught Kael's chest and imploded him into the ground, his barrier fracturing as he struck bedrock.
ELANDOR
High above the towers of the inner sanctum, the Skyward Flame Barrier flickered.
The pulse of Essence that protected the city dimmed for a heartbeat. Then again.
Inside the main spire, Leiya sat by the resonance crystal, monitoring the Codex's connection.
She froze.
"No..."
The main glyph trembled, its edges distorting.
Arlon stormed in, armored and already laced with Stormsteel Essence. "What's happening?"
Leiya's voice cracked. "The barrier—Kael set it up to draw from his active resonance. It's faltering."
Arlon's face hardened. "He's losing."
A silence settled.
Then the whispers began.
From towers. From rooftops. From marketplaces where children paused mid-game. Eyes turned upward to the slowly blinking sky.
Citizens looked to one another, uncertain.
"The sky's… wrong."
"Wasn't it glowing a moment ago?"
"I don't feel the warmth anymore."
An old woman clutched her chest. "I remember this feeling… from the First Surge. When the world almost ended."
In the spire, Leiya trembled. "He's…" Her voice broke. "He's fading."
BACK IN THE CRATER
Kael couldn't see from one eye.
His left leg wouldn't respond.
He stood by sheer will.
The Sovereign approached slowly, arms behind his back. "You've always been the closest," he said, almost fond. "Every cycle, you scrape against the threshold. And in every cycle, you fall just before the final truth."
Kael summoned what Essence he could — sparks of lightning in one palm, traces of flame in the other.
He didn't speak.
I won't let this end here.
He launched Scorchbreak Drive from point-blank — the flame piston roared forward.
The Sovereign caught it mid-blast.
The essence rippled across his palm — and fizzled out.
"You are out of time."
Then came the Sovereign's counterattack.
A palm strike to Kael's ribs — Essence rupture.
A wrist-snap to the side of Kael's skull — balance lost.
A kick to the sternum — spine cracked again.
The Codex behind Kael shattered into sparks.
Kael fell to one knee.
The Sovereign's shadow covered him.
"This cycle ends now."