The groan of the palace was a living, suffering entity, a deep, resonant vibration that shook the very foundations of Serenar and the hearts of its people. Dust and fine debris fell in a perpetual, grim rain, clouding the air in the shattered throne room. Rael stood as the lone, trembling bulwark against total collapse, his arms raised, his entire being focused on channeling his will through the agonized lattice of roots that held back a mountain of stone. The silver aura around him flickered dangerously; he was a man holding back the sky, and the strain was etching itself into his very soul. From the city below, the terrified cries of civilians watching their palace crumble filtered through the chaos, a desperate chorus that underscored the imminent disaster.
It was the sound of her people's fear that finally pierced the Queen's disorientation. The spiritual shock of her throne's destruction receded, burned away by a surge of maternal, protective fury that was older than the stones of the palace itself. She pushed herself to her feet, her emerald eyes blazing with renewed purpose, the momentary weakness replaced by an iron resolve. She saw Rael's solitary struggle, saw the roots—her roots, the very essence of Serenar's life force—straining at their absolute limit.
"My power is not bound to a mere throne of stone," she declared, her voice cutting through the din with an absolute authority that momentarily stilled the chaos. "It is woven into every leaf that turns towards the sun, every stone that cradles the soil, every breath of wind that whispers through these ancient boughs. I am this land, and it will not fall while I draw breath!"
She slammed her hands onto the cracked and scarred dais, not drawing power from it, but giving power to it. A wave of vibrant, impossibly potent green energy erupted from her, so full of life it felt like the first dawn of creation. It did not target Anastasia or the General; it flowed directly into the wounded earth beneath the palace and the fractured remnants of the structure itself. Outside, the very soil of Serenar convulsed. Massive, ancient roots, thick as ancient dragons and deep as the world's core, erupted from the ground, coiling around the base of the palace like mighty, living buttresses, their gnarled surfaces glowing with the Queen's will. Inside, the splintered, screaming roots Rael commanded suddenly thickened, their frantic weaving becoming more ordered, reinforced with a pure, unyielding vitality that was the Queen's very essence. The frantic, dying groan of the structure lessened, the descent of the ceiling slowing to a managed, though still perilous, halt. Rael's stance eased by a crucial fraction, a silent, profound nod of thanks passing between them. The Queen now stood with him, her power woven directly into the salvation of her home, sharing the immense, soul-crushing burden.
But this act of monumental preservation came at a terrible cost. To anchor the palace, she had to become an anchor herself. She was now a fixed point, a statue of resolve, her immense energy dedicated entirely to stabilizing the structure. She could no longer move, no longer actively fight. Her battle was now one of pure endurance.
This left Zuzu completely and utterly alone.
The full, undivided, and terrifying attention of the Demon General fell upon her like a physical weight. The creature was a monument of infernal might, its obsidian armor seeming to drink the very light from the room, its presence a suffocating blanket of despair. In its grasp, a massive, cruel axe smoked with viridian, acidic flame that dripped and sizzled on the stone, eating away at the palace floor.
"It is pointless, little spark," its voice boomed, a vibration of pure malice that grated on the soul and shook the dust from the trembling ceiling. "You stand before the inevitable, the final truth of all things. Your light is a brief, insignificant flicker against the eternal dark that awaits. Your kingdom is already a tomb; you merely dance upon its grave."
It swung its axe in a low, decapitating arc meant to end the fight in a single, brutal stroke. Zuzu knew a direct block would shatter her arms and her glaive. She flowed with the movement, a leaf on a hurricane wind, using Luminous Finality's length and her own hard-won skill to deflect the blow, guiding the monstrous axe-head to crater the floor beside her. The shockwave that traveled up the haft still numbed her hands to the elbow, and the acidic spatter burned tiny holes in her armor.
This was a different kind of fight. This was not about purification, nor was it about proving her worth or her path. This was raw, desperate, primal survival against an unstoppable force of annihilation. The General was a force of nature—a dark, destructive one. Its attacks were methodical, powerful, and utterly without mercy or flourish, each swing and thrust designed with a single purpose: to grind her down into paste.
She became a dancer in a storm of violence, using every ounce of her training, every instinct Rael had honed in her, every lesson learned from her brother's contempt. She ducked under sweeping strikes that could have felled a tree, used the glaive's hardened haft to trip the behemoth's massive legs, and scored glancing, spark-throwing blows against its armored plates. But her purifying light, so effective against the corruption of the Cursed Dolls, simply glanced off the infernal obsidian, leaving faint, quickly fading scorch marks at best. She was a mayfly stinging a bull, and the bull was growing impatient, its condescension turning to a cold, focused intent.
The strain was immense, both physical and spiritual. Her muscles screamed in protest, her lungs burned with each ragged breath, and each parry sent fresh jolts of pain through her body. The General's mocking voice was a constant psychic assault, eroding her will. "You fight for a corpse. Your Queen is a statue, a monument to a dying age. Your ally is a crutch, holding up a ruin. What strength do you have left? What do you truly fight for?"
Zuzu's mind raced, searching for an answer in a situation that offered none. She couldn't overpower it. She couldn't outlast it. Her eyes, desperate, darted to Rael and the Queen, locked in their silent, monumental struggle to preserve thousands of lives. And in that moment, she understood. Her role had shifted. The objective had changed. She wasn't here to win. She wasn't here to defeat the General.
She was here to buy time.
A new, grim, and absolute resolve solidified within her, colder and harder than any metal. The goal was no longer victory, but endurance. Survival, second by agonizing second. When the General's next overhead chop descended, promising to split her in two, she didn't try to deflect it cleanly. She angled her glaive, becoming a conduit, letting the overwhelming force spin her aside, dissipating the energy through controlled motion rather than absorbing it into her battered frame. She stopped trying to land damaging hits, abandoning all offense. She focused entirely on defense, evasion, on being an unbreakable, frustrating, and ever-present obstacle. She was the wall. The shield. Her glaive, Luminous Finality, burned not with aggressive radiance, but with a steady, unwavering, defiant light, a beacon holding back the tide of darkness.
The General roared in frustration, a sound that cracked the remaining stained glass in the hall. Its attacks became wilder, less precise, fueled by anger at this gnat that refused to be swatted. But Zuzu, her body a canvas of aches and her spirit forged anew in this desperate, singular purpose, held her ground. The dance of death continued, but she had found a new, terrifying rhythm in the very heart of the storm, a rhythm of pure, unyielding defiance.