[A/N: Instead of dumping all the info about their Soul Brands/Myths, I tried showing them in action during battle. Just to clarify, Sylvara's myth makes anything her flames touch multiply into flame serpents that are twice as strong and hot.
Rhea's increases her momentum to the point where no one she considers weaker can stop her.
Seyra gains immunity to anything she absorbs into her garden.
As for Lyrin, any sound created by her or her targets, leaves an echo she can detonate at twice its power within ten seconds.]
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A day bled into two over the corpse-strewn sky-islands of Stormrend.
Sylvara hovered above blackened earth, backless crimson silk fluttering like torn war banners in the furnace wind. Golden-black flames coiled around her bare skin in possessive spirals, drinking the last dying flickers of lightning that still sparked from Riven's ruined husk.
His twin swords lay shattered beside him, edges melted into slag; his once-beautiful face was charred meat and exposed bone, storm-blue eyes finally, mercifully still. Blood dripped from Sylvara's shoulder where a lightning bolt had punched clean through, sizzling as it met her fire.
She wiped sweat and crimson from her brow, voice hoarse.
"That was... a lot closer than I'm comfortable with."
Rhea stood panting on the fractured storm-glass slab, spear planted like a victory standard through General Dren's throat. His thunder-armor lay in smoking fragments around her boots; blood poured from her shattered left leg, bone gleaming white through torn muscle.
Momentum still thrummed in her veins, but every heartbeat felt like a hammer blow now. She rolled her shoulders and laughed through cracked lips.
"What a tough bastard... Haha good!"
Seyra descended from her shadow perch, violet-streaked hair settling like silk as the Void Garden folded back into her skin with a wet, hungry sound. A long gash across her ribs leaked dark blood that refused to clot, but her smile never wavered. "One more day until Kale," she murmured, voice calm as deep water.
Lyrin skipped across floating debris, bells chiming soft death knells. Vale's lightning-saber lay broken; his corpse convulsed one final time as the last reversed echo detonated inside his chest. Her left arm hung charred and useless, skin split to the bone, yet she blew a kiss at the body.
"Night-night, sparky."
They regrouped on a drifting slab, exhaustion dragging at their limbs like chains. Below, fifteen thousand Voss survivors cheered, but the sound was thin—Stormrend's true might hadn't even stirred.
Then the sky cracked open again.
Eight new auras descended... each one like a storm compressed into human shape.
Sylvara looked up and laughed, clearly exhausted. "Of course. They brought friends."
Marshal Kira nocked an arrow of violet lightning that split into twenty mid-flight.
VMMMMM!
Captain Thorne charged beside her, armor drinking ambient electricity until he glowed white-hot.
"Burn!" Kira screamed as she fired more arrows.
FWHOOOOSH!
Sylvara's whip lashed out, golden-black serpents devouring every arrow. Her Myth of the Ash Reborn ignited—each shaft turned to ash mid-air and reformed as flaming serpents that struck back at Kira's face.
And in that quick instant one took her left eye in a burst of sizzling meat.
KRA-BOOOOOM!
Thorne's punch detonated the air itself
Just the mere shockwave shattered three of Sylvara's ribs; she coughed blood that ignited on her lips. "That all?" she rasped, grinning through red teeth, and sent a tide of reborn flame straight down Thorne's throat.
---
CLAAAAANG!!!
Across the battlefield, Rhea charged roaring into Vex and Lira. Vex's storm-fists met her spear shockwave flattening a hundred floating corpses. Lira's ice shields reflected momentum back; shards exploded into Rhea's thighs, embedding deep causing hot blood to pour down her legs.
"Stand still and die!" Lira shrieked.
Rhea's Soul Brand, Myth of the Unbroken flared—anyone she judged weaker (and Vex's storm felt like a summer breeze compared to Kale's presence) could not stop her charge. She barreled forward again, spear piercing Lira's shield like paper, drawing first blood.
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On the slab, Rhea charged Vex and Lira. Vex's storm-fists met her spear, the impact sending shockwaves that shattered nearby debris. Lira's ice shields reflected Rhea's momentum back at her, forcing her to skid to a halt, ice shards embedding in her legs.
Rhea's Soul Brand, Myth of the Unbroken flared—anyone she judged weaker (and Vex's storm felt like a summer breeze compared to Kale's presence) could not stop her charge.
SHNK!
Her spear pierced Lira's shield like paper, punched through collarbone and out the back in a spray of arterial crimson.
Vex answered with a thunderclap punch that caved Rhea's breastplate and hurled her thirty meters. She landed laughing, coughing blood. "Heh, you're weaker than you look, old man!"
----
BZZZZZZZT!
Seyra folded space, emerging behind Elara only for Dris's lightning nets to snap shut. The cage bit deep, as his electricity cooked her flesh... Until her Myth of the Untouched Garden devoured the net whole, then spat it back as black wire that wrapped Dris's arms to his torso, tightening until bone snapped.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!.
"How does it feel to be in your own cage?" Seyra whispered, voice silk and venom.
Elara's wind-blades carved the air where Seyra had been. Seyra swallowed one blade into the void and returned it as a void-laced spear that punched through Elara's thigh.
SHLUNK!
The wound wouldn't heal as dark veins began snaking upward like starving roots.
----
Lyrin danced through thunder and multiplying spears, while her bells were singing death. Silas's armor echoed a deafening boom that burst eardrums across half the battlefield. Her Myth of the Last Echo caught the sound, held it for ten endless seconds, then detonated it inside Silas's own chest cavity.
BOOM!
Blood exploded from every orifice; he dropped like a broken doll.
Nova's multiplying spears rained down. Lyrin caught one... in her teeth, giggled "wrong one," and the echo behind Nova.
The battles continued raged for hours, the sky a canvas of blood and storm. Sylvara took a lightning arrow to the shoulder, Rhea's leg was shattered by a hammer blow, Seyra bled from a dozen cuts, Lyrin coughed blood from internal thunder damage. But they won, one by one, myths turning the tide, until eight more corpses littered the battlefield.
Even still.... Stormrend's numbers overwhelmed them. Forty thousand Voss forces were down to fifteen thousand, bleeding against endless waves.
After another day of desperate holding, the girls pushed to their absolute limits, barely alive, when the horizon cracked open with crimson banners.
------
Kale had arrived with the full Voss legion. With him he had ten thousand A-ranks all bound to his crown of tongues. All these A ranks came from every kingdom he every stepped into after gaining this aspect. Then he brought, hundreds of thousands of C–B fodder from twenty-five+ conquered kingdoms.
The tide flipped again.
He stepped into the center of the carnage, boots crunching over broken armor and cooling blood.
His gaze swept the battlefield (his army on its last legs, his lovers broken and bleeding) and his frown cut deeper than any blade.
| Crimson Tide Dominion (A) | | Sovereign's Rebuke (SS) |
Mist and water mana spiraled around him in a crimson cyclone.
Blood-mist flooded the sky-islands, drowning 20,000 Stormrend troops in their own fluids.
"Kneel."
The moment those words left his mouth every A rank and below instantly knelt as they felt 40% of their power disappear in an instant.
He said nothing more as he summoned his spear from his mana ring.