[A/N: If you see MP being taken then skills are being used. If not, then it's a talent. The lower MP required the Lower the skill rank...]
All five A-rank auras detonated simultaneously, and the throne room ceased to be a room; it became a collapsing star. Gravity screamed. Ice exploded across every surface in fractal spears thick as ship masts. Mirene's illusions tripled the combatants until fifteen perfect copies moved in flawless, murderous harmony. Seris's ash and fire turned the air into a choking crimson furnace that devoured light itself. The five Veloran elites struck as one living weapon.
King Alaric moved first, the floor buckling beneath his charge. Lunar mana condensed around his right fist until space itself folded inward like crumpled parchment.
[Gravitational Crush 3%MP]
Three times standard gravity became thirty in the space of a heartbeat, the pressure alone splintering the obsidian table into powder.
Ash shifted his weight to dodge, but Queen Sara had already acted. Her talent [Absolute Ice Manipulation] rippled outward; the marble beneath his boots flash-froze into a substance harder and denser than obsidian, locking his ankles in glacial manacles that would have crushed a mountain giant.
At the exact same instant, Prince Cael slammed both palms downward. Gravity in a ten-meter sphere around Ash multiplied fivefold; blood burst from his ears and eyes, knees creaking as the floor beneath him spider-webbed.
Alaric's fist arrived.
BANG!
BOOM!!!
The impact lifted Ash off the ground, caved his sternum, and launched him backward like a cannon shell. He crashed through three consecutive marble pillars, each one exploding into white dust and silver moonlight, before slamming into the far wall hard enough to leave a man-shaped crater ten meters deep.
Pink blood painted his lips. He looked up, grinned, and laughed through broken teeth.
Fifteen royal phantoms descended from every angle, blades of gravity, ice, and illusion screaming for his throat.
His [Eyes of First Dawn] flared, golden-pink rings spinning, shredding the illusions into glittering mist until only the real five remained.
But he never saw the final blow.
Seris stood atop the shattered dais, crimson braids whipping in the burning wind. She brought her palms together with a sound like colliding volcanoes.
[Palm of Hell – 3% MP]
Every ember, every ash flake, every tongue of flame in the entire palace answered her call. They coalesced into a titanic burning hand fifty meters across, veins of molten crimson pulsing through it like living magma.
It fell.
BOOOOOOM!!!
The palm struck the crater dead-center. The remaining pillars disintegrated. Shockwaves tore through corridor after corridor; priceless tapestries flash-burned, crystal chandeliers shattered into molten rain, servants who couldn't flee fast enough were frozen mid-scream or reduced to silhouettes of ash on the wall.
From the entrance, Vaeloria's ten tails snapped outward, void-moon aura enveloping Nia in a perfect sphere that shrugged off the apocalyptic pressure like it was a summer breeze.
"W-will he be fine?" Nia's voice trembled, golden eyes wide.
Vaeloria stared into the heart of the explosion, then the memories of the eighteen months she spent forging this monster in the dark. A slow, fanged smile spread across her face.
"Don't worry. He's just getting started."
As if the world itself heard her, wild, unrestrained laughter detonated from the epicenter.
"HAHAHA! GOOD! FINALLY!"
Ash's voice, raw, exhilarated, alive.
Nia and Vaeloria shot forward.
By the time they arrived, the palace was a ruin floating in the night sky. Gravity twisted into knots, ice lances the size of ballista bolts filled the heavens, fireballs and ash storms raged in every direction, phantom duplicates flickered in and out of existence like heat haze.
Ash hovered at the center of the maelstrom, coat shredded, torso streaked with blood, hair wild and glowing under fractured moonlight. Pink rivers ran from his lips, his left arm hung broken, ribs visibly cracked.
Then the moonlight touched him.
Flesh knit. Bones realigned. Blood reversed its flow and crawled back into his veins. In three heartbeats he was whole again, more than whole, radiant.
He tore the ruined coat away entirely, letting it burn to nothing in the wind, baring a torso carved from war and sin, every scar glowing faint gold under the moon. His eyes blazed golden-pink, pupils dilated with pure, unfiltered joy.
He had spent the entire beating trying to understand how they resisted his passive Soul Brand.
He still didn't know.
But he stopped caring.
'I'll just ask Val later.'
Ash cracked his neck once, rolled his shoulders, and activated two talents at the same time.
[Absolute Sol Invictus]
[Inferno Dominion]
That moment...the night sky died.
Every source of light within 2.5 Km, every lantern in every capital, every hearth, every star visible on the horizon, every photon dancing in the air, bowed. The moonlight itself bent toward him like a subject before its emperor.
Ash became the center of a perfect, continent-scale domain of light and flame. The longer the battle lasted, the stronger he would grow within this domain. Sixty seconds from now, every enemy here would be forcibly suppressed an entire major rank.
And then, because he felt like it, he flexed.
Seris's remaining fireballs and ash storms froze mid-flight. Every ember turned its allegiance in the space of a heartbeat. Crimson became paradox gold. Ash raised one lazy hand and flicked his fingers.
The former fireballs, now Paradox Balls, spheres of golden-pink flame that denied physics and common sense, reversed course and screamed back toward the five A-ranks faster than they had ever flown before.
Seris's eyes widened for the first time in three centuries.
Nia's breath caught in her throat.
"T-that… looks like my talent… but stronger?"
The whisper was soft, but Vaeloria heard it perfectly. Her golden eyes slid sideways, curiosity and sharp interest flaring.
Above them, Ash floated in the heart of his newborn son, arms spread wide, laughter echoing across the ruined palace like the voice of a deity who had finally found something worthy.
The real fight had only just begun.