The moment the blade known as The Destroyer was unsheathed, the laws of the physical world seemed to collapse in a fit of architectural agony. It was not merely a sword; it was a localized rupture in the fabric of the universe. As Thrain Ironhand held the weapon aloft, a massive spiritual force erupted, a dense, suffocating Qi that hammered against the ground until the ancient marble plaza groaned and splintered. Fissures, like jagged black lightning, raced across the earth, threatening to swallow the very foundations of the Dwarf Palace.
Jai, standing at the center of the defensive formation, felt his Dao Heart tremble. The sheer magnitude of the power before him was beyond anything he had imagined. Cold sweat matted his hair to his forehead as he stared at the terrifying General.
"How?" Jai whispered to himself, his voice lost in the howling wind of Thrain's aura. "How did Lord Beatrice defeat a monster like this by herself? If this is the shadow he casts as a Tier 3, then just how transcendent was Beatrice during the Great War?"
Thrain did not move. He stood as still as a statue in a graveyard, but his blade, a terrifying cocktail of purple void energy and flickering black flames, began to vibrate at a frequency that heated the surrounding air to a searing temperature. The ground beneath him began to liquefy, turning into a slag of molten stone.
With a slow, deliberate movement of his spirit, Thrain channeled nearly 80% of his internal essence into a single point. Using the forbidden mastery of his Void magic, he began to manifest a Singularity. A small, ink-black sphere appeared at the tip of his sword—a miniature Black Hole. At first, it was no larger than a marble, but it hungrily devoured the light, the dust, and the very air around it. Within seconds, it began to grow, its gravitational pull becoming a relentless, invisible hand that tugged at the armor of the soldiers and the stones of the palace.
Morlin, the Queen of the Dwarves and a master of Tier 4 Medical, Wood, Air, and Light elements, stepped forward. Her eyes were sharp, reflecting the encroaching darkness. She turned to Jai and Zayn, her face a mask of royal resolve.
"Listen to me," she commanded, her voice cutting through the gravitational roar. "That anomaly... if it is allowed to expand for even a few more minutes, the entire kingdom—not just the palace, but the city and every living soul within it—will be sucked into the void. It will be an erasure of our history."
Zayn's face paled. He reached out to grab his mother's arm. "Mother, what are you saying?"
"I am going to take it out," Morlin said calmly. "I will carry this darkness into the heavens and release it into the vacuum of space. It is the only way to save Aetheleon."
"No!" Zayn shouted, his voice cracking with desperation. "You can't! There are Ministers, there are others—we can find another way! I won't lose you too!"
Morlin reached up and cupped her son's face. Despite the chaos, her touch was as gentle as a summer breeze. "Zayn, look at me. Your mother is not a fragile flower. I carry the royal bloodline of the Dwarf Kingdom in my veins. I am the strongest master of Light and Wood currently standing on this plaza. No one else has the specific elemental combination required to contain that thing during the ascent."
She leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "If I do not return... if the heavens take me... please, find your sister, Morisa. Save her. Take care of her for me. If your father didn't come back take your sister and get out of the kingdom and after you become strong come back to the kingdom. Then, kill this trash and Be the King your father knows you can be."
Zayn's eyes filled with tears, but he saw the unshakable light in his mother's gaze. He knew the logic was sound, even if his heart screamed against it. After Jai reinforced the necessity of the mission, Zayn finally, agonizingly, nodded.
"Please," Zayn choked out. "Please come back. I don't want to be an orphan of this war."
Jai immediately shifted the formation. "Ministers! Defenders! Form the Iron Wall! We must maintain a distraction! Thrain is currently in a meditative trance, a 'Combat Coma,' as he recharges the final reserves of The Destroyer. We must shield the Queen! If Thrain wakes before she clears the atmosphere, we are all dead!"
The Ministers, though terrified by the black sun growing in their midst, roared in defiance. They created a corridor of shields and elemental fire, masking Morlin's movements.
Morlin did not hesitate. She lunged toward the black hole. Using her Air magic, she cast the high-tier spell "Vertical Slipstream."
She created a massive, localized column of upward-rushing air—a reverse tornado. By thinning the atmospheric pressure above the black hole and blasting high-pressure air beneath it, she created the artificial lift needed to break the kingdom's gravitational grip on the anomaly.
As she rose, the friction against the air began to generate intense, incinerating heat. Morlin gritted her teeth, her skin blistering. She unleashed her Wood magic, encasing herself and the black hole in a Bio-Shell of Sacred Wood. This was no ordinary timber; it was living energy that regenerated as fast as the atmospheric friction burned it away.
The black hole, sensing the life force, tried to consume the shell. Morlin had to constantly "feed" the wood magic's growth energy into the core of the anomaly, tricking it into consuming her magic rather than the atmosphere around her.
Higher and higher she climbed, a streak of green and gold against the darkening sky. As she reached the thermosphere, the air grew thin, and then vanished. Her Air magic became useless. There was no resistance left to push against.
Summoning the very last of her Dantian's reserves, Morlin converted her essence into Photon Propulsion. She released a blinding, solid beam of pure light from her palms. Since light carries momentum, she used the radiation pressure to give the black hole one final, massive kick.
With a silent explosion of light, the black hole was hurled deep into the vacuum of space, far beyond the reach of Aetheleon's gravity.
But the cost was horrific. The vacuum of space, the sudden decompression, and the recoil of the Photon Propulsion shattered her body. Her bones snapped like dry twigs; her legs were mangled by the pressure, and her face was a mask of blood and scorched skin. Using a final, reflexive burst of her Wood magic's regenerative properties, she stabilized her vital organs just enough to fall back toward the world.
She descended like a fallen star, crashing back into the palace plaza exactly where she had departed. Medical teams, led by the head physicians, rushed to her mangled form.
Zayn collapsed beside her, his voice a ragged sob as he grabbed the doctor's robes. "Save her! I don't care what it takes! Use my life force if you have to! Just save her!"
The doctor, seeing the prince's despair and the Queen's state, nodded grimly. "We will do our best, Your Highness. We will do our best."
As the Queen was carried away, a heavy, stagnant silence returned to the plaza. Thrain Ironhand remained standing in his trance, his body beginning to glow with a terrifying, rhythmic pulse. He looked like a heart about to burst.
One of the Ministers, trembling, raised his spear. "He... he isn't moving. If we strike now, while he is recharging, we might end this!"
"Stop!" Jai's voice was sharp. "If you touch him, you die instantly."
Everyone turned to Jai. He pointed a finger at Thrain's vibrating form. "Look at his skin. He is fully encased in a tri-elemental shroud of Void, Light, and Lightning. His internal temperature is currently higher than the core of a volcano. Any blade that touches him will melt before it even makes contact. Any soul that touches that shroud will be unraveled by the Void."
James wiped blood from his lip. "Then what do we do? We just wait for him to wake up and kill us?"
Jai sighed, a sound of profound weariness. "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that Thrain Ironhand is going to die today. There is no doubt about it."
A ripple of nervous laughter and relief went through the Ministers. But Winston, ever the skeptic, noticed Jai's expression didn't change. "And the bad news?"
"The bad news," Jai said, his eyes locking onto the glowing figure of Thrain, "is that he is only going to die after he kills every single one of us."
Zayn stepped forward, his eyes red from crying. "What kind of technique is this?"
"It is called The Destroyer," Jai explained, his voice echoing with the weight of ancient knowledge. "It is a suicidal forbidden technique from the era of King Elanor. The user sacrifices their entire life force, their Dantian, and their very soul to become a vessel for pure elemental energy. It turns the user into a temporary god. But the power is so massive that the human—or dwarf—body cannot contain it. The core will eventually blast open from the inside out. But until that happens... he is invincible."
James looked at his brother. "Jai, why are you so calm? We're talking about a god-level suicide bomber."
Jai let out a small, sad chuckle. "Honestly? Since I came to this kingdom, I've seen things I never thought possible. I've escaped kidnappers, saved a little girl, and watched a King return from the dead. I've lived more in these few weeks than most do in a lifetime. If I die here, I die having fought a legend. I die knowing a Tier 3 General had to use his ultimate sacrificial move just to deal with a Tier 9 like me. There is a certain... satisfaction in that."
He then looked at Zayn. "But I'm still nervous. We still have to save your sister. We still have to win."
Suddenly, the pulsing glow from Thrain stopped. The silence that followed was not peaceful; it was the silence of a vacuum.
Thrain opened his eyes. They were no longer black; they were twin pits of swirling purple and white fire. He exhaled, and the breath itself was a gust of lightning that scorched the marble.
A massive Vortex of Intent erupted from his body, expanding outward with such force that every soldier and Minister on the plaza was pinned to the ground by the sheer atmospheric weight. The gravity was so intense that some of the weaker soldiers felt their ribs begin to crack.
Jai, however, remained standing. His knees shook, and blood trickled from his nose, but he refused to kneel. He looked like a lone sapling in the middle of a hurricane.
Zayn struggled to his feet, leaning on his ice bow for support. He looked at Jai, then at the monster before them.
"Arthur," Zayn rasped, using Jai's alias. "We have to kill him. We will hold him back. We will throw our lives at him to buy you ten seconds, twenty seconds... whatever you need. Make a plan. Kill him before he takes the kingdom with him."
Jai nodded, his golden aura beginning to flare as he drew his sword. The Sovereign's Path was now a narrow bridge over an abyss of fire.
"Let the war begin," Jai whispered.
Thrain moved. He didn't run; he simply was there. The space between him and the front line of Ministers vanished. The first swing of The Destroyer didn't just cut through armor; it erased the space where the soldiers stood.
The final struggle for the heart of the Dwarf Kingdom had reached its bloody crescendo.