The moment the Brotherhood moved, the arena ceased to exist.
Not destroyed—transformed. Reality itself bent around the seven figures as they unleashed power accumulated over five thousand years of preparation. The ground beneath them became something else, a battleground that existed between dimensions, where the normal rules of magic and physics were merely suggestions.
Kaelen struck first.
His shield, unremarkable a moment ago, expanded into a barrier of absolute defense that encompassed the entire circle. Light rippled across its surface, not reflecting but absorbing, consuming, nullifying. When Dagon's counterattack came—a wave of divine force that would have leveled a mountain—it struck the shield and simply stopped.
"You'll find," Kaelen said calmly, "that five thousand years of practice makes a shield very difficult to bypass."
Dagon's eyes narrowed. He raised his hand, and the air around Kaelen began to compress, to fold, to crush.
