King Domine's fists tightened slowly at his sides. His shoulders rose with a long, controlled inhale, then he released it in a deep, measured sigh.
The sudden calm was more unsettling than his rage.
Around him, the others exchanged uncertain glances.
*Just what is up with him?* Xain wondered, unease crawling up his spine. *If only Ercale was inside my head right now…*
Domine straightened to his full height, towering over them. His three eyes lowered, cold and utterly devoid of humor.
"I am going to kill you all now."
There was no rise in his voice. No theatrics.
Then he moved.
The stone beneath his feet shattered as he exploded forward. The distance between him and Callum vanished in less than a heartbeat. His hand shot out and closed around the werewolf's throat before anyone could react.
"Starting with you, dog," Domine spat.
He drove Callum downward.
The impact was catastrophic.
Callum's body struck the stone with such force that the ground ruptured outward from the point of contact. A violent shockwave tore through the city center, splitting streets and buckling foundations. The air itself seemed to punch outward.
Zee and Mae reacted first. Their elven reflexes kicked in instinctively, they leapt backward at sharp angles, boots barely touching ground as they sprinted away from the expanding fracture lines. Even so, they had to weave mid-run as the few standing buildings near the plaza groaned and began to collapse from the tremor.
Xain let out a startled yelp as Nori suddenly scooped him up without warning, lifting him clear off his feet. Nori turned and sprinted at full speed, carrying him away from the epicenter while the stone behind them split apart and dropped into the forming crater, entire sections of the street collapsing inward as the impact carved the city center open.
Lia was thrown upward by the blast, the shockwave launching her off her feet. She gasped mid-air, twisting her body as debris rained down. In one fluid motion she snapped her whip outward, the lash catching around a protruding structure. She swung wide, but the collapse was faster than she expected, stone and timber crashed past her, fragments clipping her as she barely avoided being crushed before she hit the ground hard beyond the falling debris.
Vilak reacted just as quickly. With a sharp motion, he summoned a skeletal horse beneath him. The creature formed in an instant, bone assembling into a galloping frame, and he mounted as it surged forward. It bounded across broken masonry and leapt from one unstable rooftop to the next, carrying him beyond the expanding edge of destruction before the worst of the shockwave reached him.
Then, gradually, the tremors subsided.
Dust rolled outward in heavy clouds.
Where the city center had stood moments ago, there was now a crater nearly a hundred meters across. Stone had been pulverized into rubble, streets warped inward toward the center like the imprint of a massive fist.
At the bottom of the crater stood King Domine.
In one hand, he held Callum aloft.
The werewolf's body hung bonelessly from his grip, completely limp, every limb slack and wrong. He looked less like a man and more like a gutted fish hauled from the sea, blood running from his mouth and down his arm as he dangled without structure.
"Still alive?" Domine said, tilting his head slightly. "I suppose I have to rip off your head to kill you."
He shifted his grip, releasing Callum's throat and catching him by the skull instead. With his other hand, he drew his arm back slowly, claws extending as he prepared to tear the head clean from his body.
They did not hesitate.
Vilak stepped forward first, no restraint in his movements this time. He drove the butt of his staff against the fractured stone and thrust it outward, arm fully extended.
"Fist of the Dark Lord!"
The gemstone crowning the staff flared violently, black radiance surging through it in jagged pulses. The air beside King Domine warped, folding inward before tearing open into a circular rift. From within it, the massive arm erupted forth, formed of writhing shadow threaded with faint green mist.
The arm shot forward and struck.
Its fist collided with King Domine's side with crushing force, the impact cracking the stone beneath his feet. The blow drove him sideways and into the crater wall in a thunderous detonation of debris.
Callum slipped from his grasp.
The werewolf hit the ground in a boneless heap at the bottom of the crater, limbs folding unnaturally beneath him, his body completely without structure.
The others moved immediately.
Zee and Mae dropped down first, boots sliding over loose rubble as they reached Callum. Lia landed beside him and crouched without hesitation, hands moving quickly over his torso and neck, assessing damage.
"Well if werewolves are anything like lycans he should heal, but it's going to take time," she said.
Zee gave a short nod, already drawing her sword. The steel slid free with a clean, decisive sound.
"Then we have to protect him till he does."
They turned together toward the crater wall.
Dust cascaded downward in steady streams as King Domine stepped out from the fractured stone, fragments falling from his shoulders. He rolled his neck once, slow and deliberate, as though testing it.
"Fixed the ache I had in my neck, thank you for that," he said evenly.
His gaze shifted upward.
He raised one hand toward the rooftop where Vilak stood.
"Dominus Tollere Aedificium."
The words carried weight.
The five-story building beneath the necromancer shuddered violently. Stone groaned. Then, impossibly, the entire structure tore free from its foundations. Masonry ripped upward in a grinding roar as the building lifted into the air, dust and debris raining from its underside while Vilak remained atop it, still mounted on his skeletal horse.
Domine lowered his hand slightly, redirecting it toward the group clustered around Callum. Their expressions tightened, disbelief cutting through the chaos as they watched several tons of stone suspended overhead.
"Dominus Obrue Aedificium."
His hand dropped.
The building descended.
At first slowly, then faster, the massive structure began to fall toward them, casting a widening shadow over the crater as it came down to bury them all alive, as they first witnessed the power of a Demon King.