The fight back to the Dwarf Kingdom sanctuary was agonizing for the princes, but far more brutal was the battle taking place high above.
King Winston, the Tier 5 Master of Fire, Spirit, and Light, stood opposite Lenard, the Tier 5 Master of Ice, Dark, and Time. They had teleported to a secluded, high-altitude arena: a mountain peak covered in thick, untouched snow, radiating a cold, pristine beauty.
The mountain peak, once a majestic spire of white snow and jagged rock, was transformed into the isolated arena for the battle of two kings. King Winston, the Tier 5 Master (Fire, Spirit, Light), his white hair flowing gently and his brown eyes burning with fierce resolve, faced Lenard, the Tier 5 Master (Ice, Dark, Time), whose green hair fluttered with equal defiance, framing his cold blue eyes.
Winston's contaminated shoulder screamed in silent protest, but he masked the pain perfectly. "Do you truly wish to fight me, Lenard? I offer you one last chance to abandon this suicidal course."
Lenard's blue eyes narrowed, his patience thin. "Your weakness is showing, Winston. I came to defeat you and accelerate the fall of your allies. Stop your pathetic negotiations." The cold air flowing between them carried the immense, compressed energy of their Tier 5 cores. Their defiance was absolute.
Lenard launched the offensive instantly, a blur of motion across the snow. He channeled his Ice Element into his fist, which glowed with frigid blue light, striking with the blunt, crushing force of a frozen glacier. The blow was aimed directly at Winston's center mass. Winston managed to block it with a hastily raised arm, but the sheer momentum and Tier 5 strength of Lenard sent him skidding violently backward, his heels digging deep trenches into the snow. The king coughed, the jarring impact threatening to loosen the seal on his contaminated shoulder.
Winston instantly activated his Tier 5 Fire Defense Artifact(The Fire Saver). A shimmering shield of crimson light and fierce, controlled heat flared to life, causing the snow beneath his feet to vaporize into a cloud of steam. Lenard countered, enveloping himself in a chilling Dark Defense—a thick layer of swirling, obsidian shadows that absorbed all ambient light and heat.
Lenard, a master of complex Tier 5 strategy, didn't rely on brute force alone. He launched a massive, coordinated counter-attack.
First, he summoned his creature. With a low incantation, a massive, purple-hued, Tier 7 spectral tiger with twin tails tipped with violet fire materialized: Flerrion. The creature's eyes burned with malevolent intelligence.
Flerrion, under Lenard's silent command, launched a savage, Tier 7 flanking attack. Winston dodged the creature's claw, but this was merely a setup. As Winston evaded the creature, Lenard utilized his mastery of the Time Element, achieving a subtle, localized temporal acceleration. He moved just fast enough to bypass the normal speed of reaction and struck Winston from an angle that defied conventional physics.
The blow—a combination of Ice and Dark energy—slammed into Winston's chest. He crashed into the sheer rock face at the edge of the mountain. Winston slumped, seemingly defeated, sitting on the jagged rock.
Lenard smiled, his green hair fluttering with satisfaction. "See? I told you. You sacrifice your life for children you cannot protect. You are not at the level to fight me."
But the image of Winston began to dissolve, swirling away like smoke. It was an illusion, projected through Winston's mastery of the Spirit Element. Lenard looked around in genuine shock and despair, momentarily losing his tactical advantage.
Winston materialized behind Lenard, having cloaked his movement using Spirit and the residual light of his shield. He instantly channeled his Light Element into his hand, forming a searing, pristine white Spirit Blade, and plunged it into Lenard's back. The blade hissed as it met the Dark Defense.
Lenard roared in pain, his Dark Defense barely holding the blade from penetrating his Spirit Core.
Before Winston could follow through, Flerrion was upon him, attacking with a desperate Tier 7 frenzy. Winston, despite his wounds, caught the creature's tail and, channeling his full Tier 5 Fire strength, slammed the beast into the mountainside. The rock face exploded into powder and steam, but the creature staggered up, enraged.
Lenard stood, using his Dark Magic to quickly cauterize and seal the wound. Winston, recognizing the creature was a strategic distraction, knew he had to eliminate it. He activated the Zephyr Step. The Tier 5 speed artifact glowed with a humming energy, granting him near-teleportation velocity.
He blurred past Lenard, who was still sealing his wound. Winston delivered a devastating, accelerated barrage of blows. Lenard's armor cracked, and blood flowed from multiple gashes, but his formidable Ice Defense held, coating his skin in a hardening sheen of frost.
Then, in a microsecond that defied the speed of the artifact, Lenard's right arm shot out, catching Winston's incoming fist. Lenard had predicted the trajectory and used a micro-burst of temporal distortion to briefly slow Winston's momentum just enough to seize him.
"Did you truly think I would lose that easily?" Lenard sneered, blood flowing down his face. He locked Winston in a crushing grip with his left arm, channeling his most terrifying power into his right hand, chanting the Dark Spell: "The Void Destroyer!" Purple, ethereal flames—the raw, annihilating power of the Void—erupted from his right hand.
Winston, knowing this attack was absolute, channeled a desperate, localized Sonic Shield directly at Lenard's left hand. The shield was brief, vibrating at an impossible frequency. It bought the King a split second to wrench himself free. The Void Destroyer launched, instantly vaporizing Lenard's own left arm where it had been gripping Winston. The attack continued outward, striking the mountain face, which instantly turned into nothingness—a frightening testament to the Tier 5 spell's power.
Winston, thrown back by the residual Void wave, knew he was operating on borrowed time.
He launched himself again, ignoring the blinding agony in his contaminated shoulder. He dodged Lenard's counter and headed straight for the Flerrion. He formed a powerful Light Sword named "Light" and drove it into the creature's neck, beheading the beast instantly. Flerrion dissolved into dust and ashes.
"I knew you would do that," Lenard said, his voice ragged but retaining its edge. "My pet was indeed a distraction. Now, there are no distractions. We fight until one dies"
Both masters launched into the air. Winston created his final, immense Light Sword (Light). Lenard formed his new blade with his remaining right hand: a sword of swirling shadow and void energy, the Obsidian Whisper (Omen).
The two Tier 5 swords clashed. The opposing elemental energies—Winston's brilliant Fire and Light versus Lenard's frigid Ice and Dark—created a cataclysmic rupture in the atmosphere. The sheer kinetic and magical force annihilated the mountain peak beneath them, turning the entire landscape into a smoking crater—a true wasteland. They ascended, battling in the air, the screams of their elemental powers scarring the heavens.
They fought for seven grueling hours. Their bodies were mutilated, their armor shredded, and their Spirit Cores strained beyond capacity. Neither would yield.
Finally, they channeled the last vestiges of their life force into their swords. They prepared for the final, ultimate blow. Their swords did not make contact, but the spiritual pressures of their opposing Tier 5 powers—Light versus Dark—collided. The resulting shockwave was catastrophic, vaporizing the surrounding mountain terrain.
Winston's strength failed first. He collapsed mid-air, falling toward the crater, forced to his knees by the crushing force of Lenard's spiritual push.
Lenard descended, his body broken but his spirit triumphant. He stood over the kneeling King, raising the Obsidian Whisper for the final, finishing blow.
"See, old king? You are no match for me. I knew the outcome when we started, but it took time to make me the winner."
Winston lifted his head, his brown eyes burning with defiant Light. He summoned his last spark of Light Element into his hand, channeling a desperate, devastating beam of pure energy. The beam tore through Lenard, instantly vaporizing the lower half of his body.
Lenard screamed, dropping the Obsidian Whisper. He was defeated but miraculously alive, sustained by the pure dark energy of the artifact in his torso. Winston struggled to his feet, blood flowing from every open wound.
"I am still standing, Lenard! I also predicted the outcome of this fight from the start" Winston's voice was a ragged whisper, but the defiance was absolute.
Just as Winston stood, his body trembling from the exhaustion of the seven-hour duel, a sudden, devastating Tier 3 spiritual pressure slammed down upon the mountain. The force was raw, primal, and impossibly immense for its supposed Tier rating, instantly forcing the Tier 5 Master back to his knees.
Lenard, ecstatic despite his horrific wounds, spoke: "My King is coming."
A figure appeared, descending from the sky. The resurrected prince, Zeron, stood before them. He had blue hair and chilling blue eyes, and his pristine appearance contrasted terrifyingly with the carnage. His body radiated an effortless Tier 3 authority, yet the spiritual intensity he emitted felt utterly boundless.
Zeron walked calmly toward the kneeling Winston, offering a cold, mocking smile. He didn't need to speak to convey his power; the sheer force of his presence accomplished the task.
With a simple, passive surge of Zeron's spiritual essence, the world fractured. A silent, annihilating shockwave rippled outward from the two combatants. The immense pressure was focused and absolute, instantly crushing the surrounding terrain. The remaining mountains for a radius of over 10 kilometers were not merely shaken—they were structurally compressed, pulverized, and reduced to featureless ash and powder, instantly turning the vast region into a permanent, flat wasteland. The ground beneath Winston leveled entirely, forcing the King to kneel on fine dust, overwhelmed by a casual demonstration of force that exceeded both his and Lenard's final attacks combined.
Zeron looked down at Winston, his eyes cold and uninterested. "Tell my younger brother, Zayn, and tell your little Dwarf King(Borin Stone Head) this: I am coming. And I will kill all of the Dwarf people. You have delayed my plans, but you have sealed your own fate."
The crushing implication was terrifying: Zeron, a mere Tier 3, could effortlessly generate this level of destructive force, suggesting his power stemmed not from earned mastery, but from an unknown, terrifying inheritance.
Zeron effortlessly picked up the mortally wounded Lenard. With a final, dismissive gesture, the two vanished, leaving behind only the new, vast, flat wasteland and the gravely injured King Winston, defeated but alive, now burdened with the certainty of a terrifying, impossible foe.