The sky split with a deafening roar as Gaisen came down, its massive wings carving through the crimson air and dragging torrents of wind behind them while the very atmosphere twisted under its command into violent spiraling currents that howled like a living thing woken for war. Below, Albatros stood unmoved. The ground around it had already begun to melt, stone collapsing into glowing rivers of magma that pulsed with unbearable heat, and the domain itself screamed under the clash of opposing forces — ice shattering, rock warping, air twisting. And then they collided.
Gaisen struck first. With a thunderous beat of its wings it unleashed a compressed vortex of wind so dense that it tore through the land like a blade, ripping entire pillars of stone from the ground and hurling them forward inside the storm as projectiles of devastating force. The attack slammed into Albatros and detonated across the domain, snow vaporizing instantly, the air bursting in a shockwave that scattered molten fragments over the battlefield. For a moment Albatros disappeared inside the storm.
Lea leaned forward on Gaisen's back with her eyes sharp. "Did that—"
A pulse of red light cut through the chaos, and then the storm ignited. Flames burst from within the vortex — not spreading outward, but consuming inward — and the winds twisted violently, no longer obeying Gaisen, but bending under an overwhelming heat that rewrote their flow. Albatros stepped forward through the inferno, unaffected and untouched, its glowing eye burning brighter as its grin widened. With a single sweep of its arm it tore the storm apart. A wave of fire exploded outward, obliterating the wind currents and slamming into Gaisen in midflight with the force of a collapsing star. The massive dragon went spiraling backward through the sky.
Lea tightened her grip. "Gaisen—!"
The dragon roared, its wings snapping open as it fought to steady itself while the air bent violently around it. It regained control, but the damage was done: scorched scales, broken airflow, and the domain itself slipping further from its command. Below, Albatros raised its head, and the world answered. The ground split open in a violent eruption, and molten pillars shot skyward like spears aimed straight at Gaisen, lava cascading upward in impossible defiance of gravity, guided not by physics but by will. Gaisen twisted through the air and narrowly avoided the first wave, but the heat was suffocating. With every movement it grew heavier and every breath more strained, as the land itself turned against it.
Lea's voice cut through the chaos. "Don't engage directly! It's overpowering you!"
But Gaisen didn't retreat. It couldn't. This was its domain, and it would not yield it.
With a roar that shook the heavens, Gaisen spread its wings wide and summoned everything it had left. The sky darkened and the wind gathered, not as a storm, but as a force of annihilation. A massive cyclone formed above the battlefield, spiraling downward faster and faster until it had become a colossal pillar of compressed air, arcs of pressure crackling through it like lightning and the sheer density of the wind tearing at space along its edges. Then it fell. The cyclone crashed down on Albatros with apocalyptic force and drove it into the ground as the land shattered beneath the impact. The explosion that followed flung debris in every direction and carved a crater into the earth.
For a brief moment there was silence, and Lea's breathing slowed. "That should—"
A heartbeat. Then a glow, as molten light began to pulse from inside the crater — once, twice — and then it exploded. Albatros erupted upward in a torrent of fire. The cyclone disintegrated around it as if it had never existed. Its body burned brighter now, the cracks along its form glowing like open furnaces, its presence swelling and intensifying. It was evolving in the middle of the fight — adapting, and overpowering.
Gaisen hesitated, and that was all it took. Albatros vanished from the ground and reappeared in the sky, right in front of Gaisen.
Lea's eyes went wide. "Too fast—!"
Albatros's clawed hand slammed into Gaisen's chest. The impact was catastrophic: a burst of heat detonated outward, a shockwave tore through the sky as Gaisen was flung downward and smashed into the domain below with a force that split the ground apart. Lea was thrown from its back. She barely managed to twist in midair and land across a jagged outcrop. "Damn it…!"
Below her Gaisen struggled, its wings twitching and its body trembling as it tried to rise. Albatros descended slowly and calmly, like an executioner approaching its prey, the heat growing with every step until the ground turned to liquid beneath it.
And then the world froze — not gradually, and not naturally, but instantly. A wave of absolute cold surged across the domain and crashed into the searing heat. Steam exploded into the air as fire met ice and the battlefield became a chaotic clash of opposite extremes.
Lea's breath caught. "He's here."
The blizzard arrived. From within it a shape emerged — massive and silent. Tikadello the Frozen. Its towering form stepped into the domain with every movement sending fractures of ice racing across the ground, and the storm came not around it but from it, as though the blizzard were an extension of its will. Its gaze locked onto Albatros, and without hesitation it attacked. A massive spear of ice formed instantly in its grasp and launched forward at devastating speed, freezing everything in its path before it slammed into Albatros and detonated in a burst of absolute zero. The impact forced Albatros back. For the first time, it staggered.
Lea's eyes widened. "It actually pushed it back."
But there was no pause, no alliance and no hesitation, because Tikadello hadn't come to help. It had come to claim — and what it meant to claim was Gaisen. Albatros roared, its flames surging violently as it turned on the new challenger. The battlefield erupted again, fire and ice colliding in violent bursts while steam explosions ripped through the air and both rulers unleashed their full power. And Gaisen, caught between them, rose — barely, but enough — its wings spreading once more, trembling but unbroken.
Because this was no longer a battle. It was a war — three Domain Rulers, three forces of destruction, with no alliances and no mercy, only dominance. The sky shattered under their clash. Albatros unleashed a wave of fire that consumed half the battlefield, Tikadello answered with a storm that froze the flames in midair, and Gaisen surged between them, its wind tearing through both elements as it struck with everything it had left. They moved like forces of nature colliding — fire, ice and storm. Every attack reshaped the domain. Every impact pushed the world closer to collapse.
Lea watched from the fractured edge of the battlefield. In Tartarus, when rulers clashed like this, only one outcome was ever possible: the most absolute would survive. And as the three titans tore into each other, their power ripping reality apart, one truth became painfully clear. Gaisen was still the weakest of them.