Chase stood, feeling his balance shift back and forth as his breathing pulled his stomach in and out with immense violence.
A shoulder bumped into his back, keeping him standing as he was able to watch the two halves of Oren clatter against the floor...
"Stay awake... It's not over..." Poppy mumbled, leaning her head on his shoulder with an exhausted sigh.
"You can fight well for a prince..." The half-man half-jackal beast-kin nodded at Chase while wiping blood from a large gash across his snout.
"You with Jack?" Chase asked, raising an eyebrow while Poppy wiped a rag across the side of his face.
Jackal shook his head.
"No, although technically I am now... I was a spy for the Freznov Clan... But, with the demise of several Clan heads, Jack has taken that place... Most likely in order to kill Callahan..." His black eyes gazed towards a staircase that had begun to tremble...
"It's not coming off!" Poppy shoved the rag into Chase's hands and stomped towards Justin who had been knocked unconscious in the corner of the room.
"Did everyone get out?" Chase asked, tossing the rag aside and stretching his arms.
Jackal nodded, picking up the rag and putting it in his pocket causing Chase to cock an eyebrow.
"Littering is wrong..." Jackal muttered, sniffing the air before shoving aside several chunks of ceiling that blocked the path to the staircase.
"I'm awake!" Justin yelled, swatting Poppy's hand away and jumping to his feet.
"We need to go now, if Jack really is trying to kill Callahan... I'm afraid he is in for a rude awakening..." Poppy clicked her tongue in annoyance as she darted towards the staircase with Justin following shortly behind...
...
Jack screamed, letting several infernal tornadoes begin to rip through the Rotunda...
"Cursed flames!" Callahan roared, swatting his bulky arm through the air as a colossal sword of metal dispersed the flames.
Jack landed with a kneel, quickly standing and outstretching his arms...
"What trick is it this time?" Callahan growled, firing several spheres of metallic debris towards Jack of House Ember.
He grinned...
Suddenly... Two thick flat blades made entirely of raging fire formed in the air along each of his hands...
His body danced, shifting and twisting as he slashed straight through every meteor of metal that came his way...
Two sonic booms erupted as Jack and Callahan met in the center of the room in a catastrophic clash, roaring as the entire room trembled with dread under their might.
Callahan's colossal makeshift greatsword shot forth, swaying just above Jack's infernal hair.
He chuckled, lowering as the blade swayed over once more, and just in time Jack shoved a dagger straight into Callahan's thigh.
Staggered, he backed away...
Jack let out another crazed laugh, his hands shaking as his flames slowly burned his skin to a char.
"Surely... You don't think that this grand plan of yours will work... Do you?" Callahan smirked, wiping the horrifying flames off of his suit.
"Oh... Did your mighty King predict this or something?" Jack mocked, letting his heartbeat slow...
"There was no need... For King Phillip... You were simply not considered a threat..." Callahan rolled his eyes, almost yawning even after all of the attacks Jack had thrown at him...
"You've seen my power... And you've given me obvious reason to use it... So tell me?" Jack took a step forward, teeth rattling as his flames began to radiate twice as much heat...
Their eyes met...
"Do you know why the average person has never taken the mantle of a Paladin?" A horrible grin twisted its way onto Callahan's ancient face, his singular eye narrowing his the tension in the air multiplied...
"Enlighten me." Jack demanded, clenching his fist as the two forces of might stood only a meter apart.
Suddenly, the Head of Durangor's suit began to rip... His flesh following suite, his grin widening as his own body tore itself at its center...
Jack's eyes widened...
At the center of Callahan's sternum... A pulsating crystal of potent white energy, beat as if it were some kind of heart...
And wrapped around its inhumane form... A reinforcement of sheet of Starlight Alloy, protected it from any possible harm...
"You... Are destined... For the gates of Tartarus..." Jack's voice trembled, the horrifying truth of Callahan's catalyst revealing itself before him...
"As are all destined for greatness..." Callahan grinned, his chest swallowing itself as his suite laced in metal followed...
"Do you even know what you've done..." Jack stood paralyzed as the entire arena began to quake and tremble under Callahan's floating silhouette...
Jack's ears began to ring as he thought upon the sight...
In order to achieve a crystallized catalyst... Means to have first taken the source from a different person of immense potential... Then to have placed the Catalyst under liquid life for a century... But too have placed that Crystalized Catalyst in one's own body...
It was pure torture...
'A Cardinal Sin...'
Jack remembered the sight of his slaughtered parents... The horrifying truth of the power it took to slay the heads of two ancient houses...
His flames began to ignite... Swallowing the entire floor of the Rotunda in a grand inferno...
Callahan boomed with laughter, the entire underground dungeon shaking with horrible force...
Fear struck in Jack's burning heart as the ceiling was no longer above them... The walls... No longer around them...
He watched in horror as the devouring movements of Callahan's arms brought forth the dismantling of the entire Coliseum... And everything below it...