Solus didn't float anymore. He fell.
The shattering of his domain had severed his immediate connection to the sun. He landed on the ruined pavement of the plaza, his golden armor dull and flickering. He looked less like a god and more like a frightened king whose castle walls had just been breached.
"You represent Chaos," Solus spat, backing away as Cain approached. "If I die, the sun goes out! The crops will wither! The world needs Order!"
"The world needs fertilizer," Cain said, dragging his massive cleaver across the stones. "And you'll make great mulch."
Solus's eyes burned with a desperate, manic light.
"I am not just a being," Solus roared, raising both hands to the sky. "I am this city! I am every stone! I am every beam of light! If you want to kill me, you must kill Solara itself!"
The ground shook.
It wasn't an earthquake. It was a transformation.
The white marble buildings surrounding the plaza began to groan. Windows shattered. The stones liquefied and reshaped themselves.
The Sun Spire—the tallest tower in the city—bent forward like a spine. The palace walls detached and formed massive arms. The streets buckled, rising up to form legs.
Solus dissolved into a beam of light and shot into the center of the mass.
The city stood up.
It was a City-Golem two thousand feet tall. Its chest was the palace. Its head was the Sun Spire, the magical flame now acting as a single, cyclopean eye.
Isolde screamed, backing away as the shadow of the titan engulfed the entire district. "Cain! It's too big! It's the size of a mountain! We have to retreat!"
Cain stood at the feet of the monstrosity, looking up. He had to crane his neck all the way back just to see the knees.
"Big," Cain admitted. "Slow."
The City-Golem raised a fist made of ten city blocks. It swung down.
BOOM.
The impact annihilated the plaza. A shockwave of dust and crushed stone leveled everything within a mile.
Cain leaped out of the dust cloud, landing on the Golem's arm. He started running up the limb.
The Golem swatted at him with its other hand. Cain jumped, dodging a cathedral that was serving as a finger.
"Isolde!" Cain shouted into his collar piece (a magical comms crystal she had insisted he wear). "I need a distraction! Blind him!"
"How?!" Isolde yelled from the back of Snack the Griffin, flying frantically around the giant's head. "He's made of sunfire!"
"Use the weather!" Cain ordered. "Make it rain!"
Isolde hesitated. "I'm a fire mage! I can't summon rain!"
"Then summon smoke! Block the sun!"
Isolde gritted her teeth. She flew Snack directly in front of the Golem's cyclops eye. She raised her staff.
[Spell: Volcanic Smokescreen]
She pumped every ounce of her mana into a spell meant to create cover. A massive cloud of thick, black, oily smoke erupted in the Golem's face.
The sun was blocked.
The City-Golem roared, blindly thrashing. Its power source—the light—was momentarily cut off.
Cain reached the shoulder. He looked at the neck—the Sun Spire. That was where Solus was hiding.
"Found you," Cain whispered.
He put away his sword. It was too small for this.
He reached into his shadow. He focused. He didn't want a weapon. He wanted a catastrophe.
He remembered the Kazikli Bey—the lance he used in the Sea of Rot. But one lance wasn't enough.
Cain activated his Void Authority.
"Inventory Dump."
He didn't pull objects out. He ejected them.
He ejected every spear, every sword, every pike, and every jagged piece of metal he had collected over five years of looting battlefields. Thousands of weapons poured out of his shadow like a river of steel.
But he didn't let them fall. He caught them with his Killing Intent.
He suspended ten thousand blades in the air behind him.
Cain jumped.
He soared toward the Sun Spire.
"Vlad the Impaler Style: Forest of Execution."
He threw a punch at the air.
Following the trajectory of his punch, the ten thousand weapons fired.
THWACK. THWACK. THWACK.
It sounded like heavy rain.
The weapons slammed into the Sun Spire. They turned the tower into a pincushion. The structural integrity of the stone failed instantly.
The head of the Golem crumbled.
The magical flame in the center was exposed. Solus's core.
Cain fell through the debris, landing on the exposed core. It was a ball of pure, screaming plasma.
Solus's face appeared in the fire, terrified. "You cannot touch me! I burn at ten thousand degrees!"
Cain reached out.
His hand turned black. The Warlord's Pelt flowed down his arm, wrapping his hand in void-fabric.
"I like my steak well done," Cain growled.
He plunged his hand into the sun.
He grabbed Solus by the metaphysical throat.
"NOOOOOOO!"
Cain pulled.
He didn't just pull Solus out of the fire. He pulled the Divinity out of the Concept.
He ripped a glowing, golden humanoid shape out of the core. As soon as Solus was separated from the source, the fire died. The City-Golem froze, then began to collapse, turning back into lifeless rubble.
Cain stood on the ruins of the Sun Spire, holding the fading god by the neck.
Solus gasped, his golden skin turning grey. "You... broke... the world..."
"I fixed it," Cain corrected.
He squeezed.
CRUNCH.
Solus shattered into golden dust. The dust didn't float away. It swirled around Cain, sucked into his shadow.
[Target Eliminated: First Divinity Solus.]
[Inventory Upgrade: Solar Battery.]
[Effect: User can store sunlight and release it as heat.]
The sky above Solara changed. The oppressive, blinding glare faded. The sun remained, but it was softer. Normal. The magical tyranny was gone.
Cain stood on the peak of the ruin, looking down at the destroyed city. The silence was absolute.
Snack the Griffin landed nearby. Isolde slid off, her legs shaking. She looked at the devastation, then up at Cain.
"Is... is he dead?" she whispered.
Cain dusted off his coat. He pulled a pair of sunglasses from his pocket (looted from the vault earlier) and put them on.
"He's history," Cain said.
He jumped down, landing in front of her.
"One down," Cain said, holding up a finger. "Two to go."
He looked toward the Earth Kingdom in the East.
"Terra is next. Pack your bags, Princess. We're going gardening."