A hush, thick and heavy as a funeral shroud, settled over the battered clearing. The very air seemed to hold its breath. Debris from the previous brutal duels littered the scarred earth: twisted strands of Xarachnus's dried webbing clung to broken branches, deep footprints from colossal combatants marred the ground, and angry scorch marks from errant spells painted the grass in shades of black and grey. The scent of ozone and something vaguely like burnt spider still hung faintly in the air.
"Cyanthros, get ready," Brask's voice, low and rumbling with pent-up energy, sliced through the silence.
The primeval dragon, a majestic horror of bronze and teal, shifted its immense weight. Each iridescent scale, large as a coffin lid, reflected the dappled forest light with faint, menacing turquoise glimmers. It was a creature of myth, of ancient power, and it looked decidedly unimpressed with the proceedings thus far.
Brask, his armor still lightly thrumming from residual power, stepped forward into the open center of the dueling ground. His gaze, cold and calculating, swept across Zehrina. She stood perfectly poised, an island of calm in the anticipated storm, her simple grey sweatsuit a stark contrast to the fantastical power she exuded. Roy and the others, a motley crew of exhausted warriors and Presidroids, watched from the relative safety of the forest's edge, their hushed words swallowed by the oppressive stillness. Kaelor was practically vibrating with a mixture of fear and exhilaration.
"Create a barrier," Brask stated flatly, his voice sharp and devoid of preamble, cutting through the silence like a thrown knife. "Let me use my strongest attack on it. If it breaks, I win. Simple enough for you?"
Zehrina tilted her head, a slow, deliberate movement. The corners of her mouth flicked upward into a wry, almost pitying smile. For a fleeting, disconcerting moment, her eyes seemed to glow with an inner darkness, a void that promised nothing good. She turned that same unnervingly scrutinizing look upon the magnificent Cyanthros, then slowly, contemptuously, back to Brask.
"Ha! What a monumentally stupid request," Zehrina declared, her voice light, almost musical, yet laced with a razor edge of mockery. She turned away from him with a gesture of blatant disrespect, as if dismissing a particularly dull child. "Why should I accept such an insane, one-sided proposal? What's in it for me, Otherworld King?" Then, with a theatrical sigh that dripped with feigned boredom, she added, "But, I suppose if I didn't accept, you'd probably scurry away with your tail between your legs, wouldn't you? So, fine. I accept. Do try to make it interesting, darling."
At her taunting words, Brask whirled around, his face a mask of controlled fury. He marched stiffly toward Cyanthros, whose gleaming, intelligent eyes followed his approach with an almost reptilian focus. Roy, watching intently, noticed Brask mutter a few sharp, unintelligible syllables beneath his breath. The sound, though faint, carried a subtle, unnerving pressure that made the air around them crackle with unseen energy. The ornate armor on Brask's shoulders rippled, segmented plates shifting and reshaping with a series of soft clicks, revealing intricate lines of pulsating turquoise runes that snaked across the metal like living fire.
Suddenly, the very ground around Brask and Cyanthros trembled violently. Nine towering pillars of translucent, shimmering energy materialized in a wide half-ring behind them, each one humming with barely contained power. A second later, the runes etched above and below both man and dragon flared with an intense, blinding light. Brask's armor, which had momentarily reverted to its original state, now pulsed with a fierce, vibrant turquoise light, energy arcing between the plates.
Meanwhile, Zehrina stood idle, the picture of nonchalant grace. She swayed her arms gently, fingers tracing delicate patterns in the air as if she were directing an unseen, celestial orchestra. Threads of purest black dust, darker than a starless night, swirled around her fingertips, weaving and knitting themselves together, forming multiple, overlapping barrier layers in front of her. Each new layer shimmered with an oily, almost obsidian gleam, absorbing the ambient light and casting her face in enigmatic shadow.
"CYANTHROS!" Brask bellowed, his voice a raw, guttural roar that shook the leaves from the trees. "UNLEASH YOUR WRATH!"
The primeval dragon reared back, its colossal head scraping the highest branches. Its scales began to glow with an inner fire, brighter and brighter, until they rivaled the sun's unbearable brilliance. In that moment of terrifying, mounting tension, a new figure burst from the forest edge behind Roy's group. It was Evarran the Reverter, robes askew, hair wild, eyes darting frantically across the scene.
"What is all this infernal commotion?!" he started to screech, his voice cracking with panic, only to freeze mid-syllable the instant he laid eyes on the radiant, energy-charged Cyanthros. "…In the thrice-cursed name of Loe himself, WHY ARE YOU ALL TUSSING WITH A P-P-PRIMEVAL DRAGON?!"
Roy shot him a panicked, desperate hiss. "SHHHHH! You geriatric menace! You're gonna make us miss the good part!"
Brask, oblivious or perhaps indifferent to Evarran's terrified squawking, locked his arms overhead, forming a perfect, unwavering circle with his hands. Cyanthros roared, a sound that tore the sky asunder, and unleashed a swirling, concentrated beam of pure turquoise energy. The runes hovering above and below Brask spun with mesmerizing, hypnotic speed, funneling the dragon's apocalyptic attack into a focused, terrifying lance of destructive power. It lanced through Brask's raised arms, the raw energy merging seamlessly with the torrents of power now surging from the nine towering pillars behind him.
Brask's own voice rose in a primal, guttural shout as the combined, cataclysmic energies fused into an even broader, more devastating beam. Vivid, searing turquoise light streaked across the clearing in an unstoppable surge, slamming into Zehrina's layered barrier with the force of a falling mountain.
Zehrina braced herself, a grimace flickering briefly over her otherwise calm features as the beam crashed and crackled against her defenses.
"Oh, shit!" she yelled, her playful demeanor vanishing entirely as the first layer of her dust shield shattered like fragile glass.
The onslaught continued, the beam of pure destruction tearing through layer after layer of her resilient barrier. Radiant shards of solidified dust and raw magic exploded outward, carving deep, smoking gashes in the surrounding forest. Ancient trees, silent witnesses to centuries, snapped like dry twigs under the cataclysmic discharge, their splinters thrown high into the air. For ten seconds, a sliver of time that stretched into an agonizing eternity, the clearing was awash with searing, unbearable light and a howling, deafening wind.
When the torrent of energy finally, mercifully, subsided, a thick, choking cloud of smoke and dust hung heavy in the air. Cinders and faint, dying arcs of leftover magic rained down like malevolent snowflakes. Roy coughed, blinking through the acrid haze, a knot of dread tightening in his chest, half-expecting, half-dreading what he might see.