Saturday, July 30, 4 S.E.

  Leonidas met them with the force of an avalanche.

  His blade slammed into Aylar’s with bone-shaking force, and the Swordmaiden gritted her teeth against the impact's power as she bore its brunt, sliding backward along the cracked manastone. At her sides, her companions split apart; Parnym’s power already flowing into her, Synthra, and Bardulf to enhance their abilities while the Shadowblade and Sorceress darted around to flank.

  Her husband’s helmet shifted to track them, and Aylar triggered her [Chivalric Charge] in truncated distance before he could act, smashing into him blade-to-blade with a surge of [Coup de Force: Premier] to keep his attention on her while her companions did their part. [Radiant Celerity] filled her a second later in tandem with the charge, and she felt her Agility and Dexterity attributes ratchet up by 35% with the ability.

  Speed and aggression had always been her mainstay, even after becoming Queen, and she wielded both with surgical precision as she pressed the attack. Leonidas was stronger than her in a direct confrontation; she knew that, but Aylar was faster—an advantage she used with every iota of her practiced skill as she wove through her husband’s attacks.

  Each swing of his [Archon’s Psiblade] was potentially lethal, a coruscating arc of red following the sword as he sought to inflict wounds to slow her, and only her speed kept her safe. She couldn’t match Leonidas in pure skill expression with a blade, nor brute force—but she could, with care, keep him from turning that strength on anyone else.

  Long enough, hopefully, for them to do something in turn.

  Leonidas’ helmet shifted back to her, and Aylar felt her heart stutter.

  [Psionic Force] assailed her a second later, Leonidas long-since past the need for physical gestures, and Aylar gritted her teeth against its suppressive force. They were still within the same Venerate rank, with her husband only a few levels above, but the sheer pressure of his Psi was enough to bring the taste of copper to her tongue as her body screamed under the power.

  Before her husband could press his advantage, Aylar activated both her [Radiant Shield] and [Blinding Flash], reducing the direct effect of his kinetic suppression and momentarily obscuring his vision even through the safety lenses of his helmet. Her Alteran Longsword shimmered a moment afterward as she layered [Lumenkill Swordforce] over the blade the way Leonidas himself had taught her, and re-engaged when her husband recovered.

  Bardulf came in from the side at the same time as Leonidas and Aylar traded blows, and she felt as much as saw the grief on his features as he wielded his daggers, activating his [Backstab] ability to strike at Leonidas’ [Archon’s Warplate] with shadow-shrouded blades capable of piercing the soulbound armor.

  The man who had been King was not so easily surprised, however.

  [Psionic Force] manifested in a tangible shield around his spine, and Bardulf’s daggers were sent screeching away by the field of power, diverted from their strike as the Shadowblade grunted in mirthless amusement. Even during their sparring over the years since the Rite, Leonidas had always been preternaturally talented in taking on multiple foes, and it only added to the tragedy of the moment—he should have been their final bastion against annihilation, not the herald of its coming.

  “Clear!” Synthra’s voice called a second later, and Aylar used another [Blinding Flash] as she threw herself backward with a [Chivalric Charge], while Bardulf vanished with a use of [Shadowstep], leaving Leonidas momentarily dazed once again as a blossom of intense cardinal flames exploded over his form from Synthra’s Infernokill Pyrebloom Draconic Art.

  Aylar narrowed her eyes as the flames washed over Leonidas from the ground, and then gritted her teeth once more at a pulse of pressure from within the inferno. Synthra’s draconic powers had grown hot enough to melt steel in seconds, but there was no part of Aylar that believed it would be enough to stall their husband—a doubt that was proven true a second later when the flames abruptly blew apart amidst a discharge of scarlet energy.

  Leonidas’ [Manastorm Pinions] erupted from his back in a wash of cataclysmic power, and the Archon launched himself upward like a bullet, flaring the wings at the zenith of his leap and lifting his left hand. Aylar’s instincts screamed at her at the same time as Synthra screamed a warning, and she triggered her [Chivalric Charge] again to bolt from where she stood, not a moment too soon.

  The manastone where she’d been standing imploded, cracking into nothingness as tectonic power obliterated it in an expression of reality-defying aetheric force. Cataclysm Mana surged around Leonidas in a storm, and her husband cut his right arm sideways, obliterating another swathe of the arena floor in a demonstration of overwhelming power.

  The world is one with the Cataclysm, and the Cataclysm is one with the world.

  The words played through her mind in a remembered mantra as Leonidas proved the truth of them: wielding the very might of Terra itself in eviscerating material that the System considered nigh-unbreakable. Manastone grew stronger the longer it was saturated by mana, and yet Leonidas had torn it apart like it was paper.

  Aylar snapped her head to Parnym and raced toward him as an idea formed in her head, half-desperate, half-strategic. Her pace was increased substantially by her [Radiant Celerity], and she snatched the Mender’s arm as she raced past him, half-carrying and half-dragging him with her as the Haelfar yelped in surprise.

  “Aylar?!”

  “I need a surge!” she said urgently, her eyes returning to watch Leonidas as he engaged with Synthra and began exchanging beams of cataclysmic lightning to counteract the Sorceress’ explosive discharges of draconic flame. “Quickly!”

  “How long?” Parnym asked determinedly.

  “As long as you can give me!”

  The Mender nodded once, and Aylar deposited him onto a ‘safe’ part of the Arena, arresting her momentum in a three-meter slide and pointing her left hand indicatively at Leonidas as Synthra kept their husband distracted.

  Ideation and Intent whirled within her, and Aylar triggered her [Duelist’s Mark] and [Battle Rhythm] in the same moment, filling her mind with overwhelming clarity at the same moment as Leonidas became ‘locked in’ to her awareness. The Mark’s effects would give her preternatural accuracy to predict the Archon’s movements, especially useful against his [Manastorm Pinions] as they bore him aloft.

  A moment later, mana flooded her body in a wave as Parnym activated his [Resource Surge] and she felt herself erupt with internal strength.

  “Bardulf!” she shouted. “Get ready!”

  No answer came from the Shadowblade, but Aylar didn’t need one.

  Above them, Synthra and Leonidas duelled with waves of flame and lances of scarlet lightning, battering at one another as the Sorceress wove through his attacks with her draconic wings at full extension. Of the two of them, Synthra was the more talented in the sky, but Leonidas’ own prowess was not far behind, and they were fighting on a knife’s edge as they exchanged blows powerful enough to level city blocks.

  Aylar’s eyes locked in on her grief-maddened lover with grim resolve, and she summoned the welling power within her the way he had taught her years prior, focusing her [Radiance Core]’s power into a single point within her palm. How many hours had they spent training? How many weeks of him guiding her, step by step, to master the abilities he’d pioneered during his nightmare on Elatra?

  Aylar felt tears burn her eyes, but refused to let them claim her.

  He would expect this from me, she reassured herself; this is a Queen’s duty.

  Power coalesced in her palm fully a moment later, and Aylar let out a wordless cry as she unleashed it, focusing her Light Affinity into a blink-fast strike of [Lumenkill Hyperlance], precisely as Leonidas had taught her.

  The beam crossed the intervening distance between her and the Archon with the speed of light itself, not so much striking him as it did connect with him at near-instant speed. One moment, Leonidas was veering away from a billow of flames, the next a blinding explosion erupted from his warplate, and the fallen King of Dawnhaven smashed into the manastone below with the force of a meteor.

  Aylar was not foolish enough to believe the strike was enough, but it gave them a window.

  A window that Bardulf exploited a second later.

  The Shadowblade appeared within the dust and smoke of the impact almost at the same second as Leonidas cleared it with a slash of his blade, harnessing gale-force winds with all the ease of the System vector he’d become. Nature itself responded to his Core’s demands, and Aylar watched as Bardulf surged once again toward Leonidas’ spine: blades extended to end his best friend with a look of self-loathing resolve on his features.

  The blades connected with an audible scream of metal, and Aylar’s hope skyrocketed for a moment when they did.

  Then, a second later, her belief turned to dust.

  Leonidas vanished from where he stood, moving with an acceleration of momentum that defied all sense of reason, and reappeared behind Bardulf in a flash-burst of scarlet lightning.

  Spatial displacement? How Attuned has he become?!

  The Archon’s sword seemed to sing as it moved, and Aylar’s lips opened in a wordless shout as she triggered her [Chivalric Charge] atop her enhanced speed, even knowing she’d be too late.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Leonidas’ sword punched through Bardulf’s ribs in an explosion of power.

  The Cataclysm impaled his best friend without a flicker of hesitation.

  Aylar crashed into the fray a second later as Synthra swooped in from above, roaring her anger and pain at their husband while the Sorceress’ hands burned with dragonfire.

  Leonidas responded with another spatial warp, vanishing—blade and all—before he could properly finish Bardulf, and meeting Aylar’s charge head-on. His blade sang with destructive intent as it swung toward her, and Aylar met his swordforce with her own, detonating a wave of impact force that shredded manastone around them and cratered the arena floor. Blood filled her mouth again at the impact force, and she flash-tiggered [Radiant Restoration] on herself by instinct.

  Her body moved by rote as much as by intention as she fell into a rapid exchange of blows with Leonidas, momentarily matching his strikes hit-for-hit with a ring of steel and wave of seismic discharges that tore apart the arena around them. Even forgetting their Venerate rank power, the sheer level of Attunement Leonidas had achieved with his [Cataclysm Core] reflected into the world around him—sundering earth and obliterating air pressure with every blow.

  Aylar felt her ears pop, her breathing grow strained, and pushed through it all.

  Parnym raced past them toward Bardulf in her periphery, and Aylar acted before Leonidas could, pivoting her position and forcing him to meet her with his back to the momentarily exposed Mender as the Haelfar sprinted to save the downed Shadowblade.

  “This is pointless, Aylar,” Leonidas said a moment later, his voice still calm, barring the faint edge of frustration in its expression. “This whole fight, this whole reality, is pointless. Why are you struggling against the inevitability?”

  Aylar didn’t respond immediately, focusing on keeping her husband at bay until she carved open a window to breathe with a localized blast of [Lumenkill Hyperlance] from her left hand, forcing him backward from the flash-detonation of impact.

  “I’m a Queen, Leonidas! Your wife can afford to love you, but a Queen must protect Her people!”

  “A Queen…” the man who had been King said almost derisively, while walking toward her with a wound in his armor where her Hyperlance had managed to mangle the plates around his abdomen. “What use is a Throne, Aylar? What use is any of it? This world is a cycle of suffering, enforced by a System so far beyond its understanding that resistance is a foregone futility.”

  “That doesn’t give you the right to decide the fates of everyone upon it, Achilles!” Synthra interjected a moment later, landing with a pant nearby to Aylar and flanking their husband. “That doesn’t give you the authority to end it for your own grief!”

  “My grief?” the Archon asked after a moment, and then shook his head. “No, my love. Not grief. Enlightenment. After Elatra, after the Cataclysm War, after all of it—I finally understand the truth of this reality: we are just pawns on a board, moved and manipulated by the whims of a universally vast sociopathic intelligence. There is no purpose to any of this.”

  “Yet you’re using the very burden it placed on you to do your work!”

  “I call it karmic justice,” Leonidas responded simply, his voice resolute and certain. “I will end Terra’s suffering with the very power the System gave me, and then I will turn my eyes to the rest of the Nexus,” he said, lifting his helmet to the cloud-blackened sky as if he could see beyond it, eye lenses aglow with power. “I’ll stride across every star in the Nexus, and I’ll end their suffering too, until I throttle this putrid, malodorous System’s life from the Universe.”

  “Achilles…” Synthra said in horror, while Aylar’s own eyes widened in disbelief. “You’re talking about genocide! Universal genocide!”

  “I’m talking about peace, Synthra,” the Archon countered steadily, his head lowering to look down at his blade. “Final peace, across the entire System Nexus. A final reckoning for all the souls sacrificed on the altar of its malice. It’s justice.”

  Aylar’s eyes lowered at his words, toward the wound in his armor, and a memory tickled her—quickly suppressed behind the strongest of her Mind Shields. Her eyes snapped up, and she moved idly, walking toward Synthra as if checking on her while Leonidas was caught in conversation.

  “How is that justice?” Synthra demanded. “You’re an Archon! How is your [Knight Oath] not shattering?!”

  “I have transcended that,” Leonidas said simply, lifting his helmet to peer toward Ceruviel’s broken body. “She didn’t understand, either. I’m not beholden to your limitations, my love. The System created Cataclysms to be reshapers of worlds, and there are secrets locked within that—secrets about limitation that only a Cataclysm can understand. The rest of you break your limits, I do not—I seek them.”

  Aylar passed by Synthra quickly, murmuring a single word to her as she did.

  “Valerian.”

  Synthra’s ears twitched at her murmur as Leonidas continued, and the Sorceress nodded once, just barely, to show she understood. It was enough.

  “None of that explains why you chose this, Leonidas,” Synthra said as she worked to keep their husband distracted. “We could have helped you. We could have come up with a better plan that didn’t involve you murdering everyone you held dear!”

  “I haven’t,” Leonidas answered cleanly, his helmet shifting back to regard them. “Bardulf isn’t dead, just unable to fight. I haven’t killed you two, though now I wonder if I will have to. This is not a negotiation, wife—it’s inevitability. This was always where the path led, where the revelation found its natural zenith. The System must be ended, and that means the fuel for its power must be eliminated.”

  Aylar shifted her position toward Leonidas’ right side as he spoke, his dominant side, the one he felt the most secure in. It was only a subtle difference—he’d always told her how important equity of combat capability was—in the long-term, but in the short-term, she knew he felt more powerful fighting with his preferred flank, even if only slightly.

  She could leverage that if she were smart about it.

  “That doesn’t change the rest of it, husband!” Synthra said to him, slashing her arm toward Ceruviel and Johanthan, dead in the arena. “Your mentor! Your brother-Archon! You killed them like it was nothing!”

  Leonidas paused at that, for just a moment, and then turned toward the corpses, as if magnetized to what Synthra was saying.

  “I chose the most logical recourse. Ceruviel and John would never have agreed to—”

  Aylar exploded into motion while he was mid-sentence, triggering her [Chivalric Charge] and tapping into the fading vestiges of her [Radiant Celerity]. Her movement was explosive and sudden, accelerating her faster than pre-Attunement Leonidas had ever been able to achieve. Speed had always been her strength, not power, not like her husband.

  Speed and precision.

  Aylar impacted Leonidas’ defensive sword-lift with a concussive detonation, drawing a grunt of surprise from her husband for the first time since the fight started. She did not waste time on words, or feelings, or attempts to reason—he was beyond reason. The man she loved, the man she gave herself to, was gone; subsumed by the Core poisoning his beautiful soul like a cancer they had failed to treat in time.

  Whatever he said, this hadn’t been the result of inevitability—it was the result of inaction.

  Aylar demanded his attention with a blistering torrent of strikes, forcing Leonidas to defend as Synthra moved in tandem and blasted herself to their husband’s left, her feet surging with flames of [Blazeforce Acuity] as she rapidly shifted vectors. The Sorceress was already charging what Aylar assumed was her [Dragonforce Flamespear], a piercing spell she’d manifested after reaching her Ascendant rank.

  “This is pointless, Aylar!” Leonidas growled as he battled her, matching her movements with a steady, certain violence of action that dispelled any doubt he was ‘wrong-footed’ by her assault. “Even if you could force me to retreat, my victory isn’t measured in a single battle. I’m more than a Cultivator now. I’ve transcended!”

  Aylar didn’t reply. She couldn’t reply. To reply meant to engage him, to engage her lover.

  The woman could do that. A Queen could not. Action itself was her guiding language now.

  The man I love has already been subsumed by the Cataclysm.

  Aylar felt the certainty of those words settle on her like a cloak, reinforcing her decision. Her [Coup de Force: Premier] flowed into a [Coup de Force: Deux], and finished with a [Coup de Force: Troisième] to finally obliterate his guard for a single, pivotal moment. Leonidas let loose a ‘tsk’ of irritation when his [Archon’s Psiblade] was torn from his grasp and—precisely as she’d hoped—raised his sword-arm by instinct, adopting a martial pose with his left hand at his side by habit as he pointed at her with his right.

  [Psionic Force] wrapped her in a bubble of instant compression, freezing her in place as the Archon put the full weight of his immense Willpower into holding her, for just a moment, and Aylar smiled as tears stung her eyes.

  He always was so damned beautiful at his most imperious.

  The [Dragonforce Flamespear] blew apart his helmet a second later.

  Leonidas froze for a crucial second at the strike, his [Psionic Force] shield fractured by the focused attack as Synthra smashed into the manastone afterward, having expended every iota of her remaining mana for the sole purpose of a strike powerful enough to penetrate their husband’s defenses.

  Of course he hadn’t seen it coming: Synthra was never reckless enough to use all her mana so abruptly.

  The [Psionic Force] wavered for just a second, for two heartbeats, as Leonidas’ focus was momentarily distracted by the unexpected blow and his head—the sole thing he needed to keep safe for his Psionic power—reeled from the strike.

  Aylar moved with neither doubt nor hesitation blocking her mind, and her [Lumenkill Swordforce] thickened upon her sword, reinforcing its edge as she used the last fragments of her [Radiant Celerity] to ram it into his abdomen, directly where his dantian was located.

  Leonidas snapped his head to her, beautiful eyes wide.

  Aylar smiled at him with heartache as she delivered the deathblow.

  Her [Radiance Core] revved into full rotation, and a [Lumenkill Hyperlance] exploded through the center of his [Cataclysm Core] with enough force to punch through his back, searing through the center of the Last Archon powerfully enough to fracture the embodied force of natural disaster that was his Core.

  Leonidas staggered when she ripped out her sword, and his arms dropped to his sides, fingers reaching for his ruined abdomen as he stood, defiant, despite the hole in his gut. His eyes lowered in disbelief, and then rose to look back at her as he collapsed to his knees at last, body shaking as spasms overtook him.

  “Aylar… what… what have you done?”

  The pained disbelief in his voice was like a wound on her soul, but Aylar didn’t flinch.

  A Queen never flinched at what was necessary for her nation.

  “I chose, Leonidas. I chose between my heart and my duty. The woman I am may love you, she may love you with more brilliance than there are stars in the sky—but a Queen cannot afford that luxury.”

  “You’ve killed me,” he said hoarsely.

  “No, Leonidas,” Aylar said in a wavering voice, as her eyes threatened to spill over. “No, you don’t deserve death. The man I loved would have called death a mercy for what you’ve wrought. You’ll survive, Leonidas. Without power, without Cultivation, and with no future as an Archon—but you’ll live.”

  Overhead, the skies were already clearing; the storm that had responded to the Cataclysm’s call untethered as the power that sustained it guttered out and faded.

  “This is my judgment, Leonidas Achilles. You have cost Us the Archons, you have cost Us a nation, you have cost Us—” her voice broke “—Our heart, but you will not cost Us Our rationality. You will live, Leonidas, and you will spend every waking moment of the rest of your life remembering the price of your weakness, your hubris, your surrender to your demons.”

  Synthra joined her as she was speaking, with a limping Bardulf braced upon Parnym’s shoulders.

  “The world will have its future, its chance to decide its own path,” the Queen declared as the woman’s heart shattered, “and if the cost of that is a single Archon, I consider that trade just.”

  Aylar looked up as sunlight pierced the clouds and closed her eyes against the warmth.

  When she opened them, the arena was gone, and she stood within the chamber of arches once more.

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