Date: February 12, 542 years since the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored.
The tension in the Hall of Atlanteans reached the boiling point. Kaedan felt the mercenaries' chains biting into his basalt pauldrons, tightening, trying to restrict his movement. The wound on his knee pulsed with a dull ache, but his Warrior regeneration had almost stopped the bleeding. The young man realized the time for caution was over—if he didn't end this fight now, his Vessel's exhaustion would become his main problem.
He took a deep breath, allowing his inner essence to compress to the state of a red-hot core. A low, vibrating hum emanating directly from the knight's body passed through the hall.
"My right is to stand!" Kaedan roared.
He sharply pulled his arms apart, putting all the power of his Development into the movement. The heavy iron chains holding the two mercenaries tensed and snapped with a dry clink, unable to withstand the monstrous pressure. Seizing their momentary confusion, Kaedan stepped forward. The floor under his greaves cracked.
The young man delivered two short, devastating vambrace strikes. The speed of his movements, despite the massiveness of his armor, was frightening. The first swordsman took a blow to the chest that crushed his cuirass and threw him back against the base of a statue. The second barely managed to raise his shield, but Kaedan simply smashed through the barrier along with the attacker's arm. Both mercenaries collapsed, knocked unconscious by pain shock.
The dwarf crossbowman tried to fire again, but Kaedan, without looking, hurled a piece of chain in his direction. The heavy link smashed into the crossbow, shattering the mechanism into splinters. The remaining warrior-mercenaries backed away, realizing that before them was no longer just a talented young man, but a force capable of breaking steel with bare hands.
Iskon was meanwhile finishing his match with the Pillar. The bone warrior, seeing his comrades fall, flew into a cold rage. He plunged his staff into the floor, and a whole forest of bone spikes erupted from under the obsidian slabs towards Iskon.
Iskon didn't jump. He acted with the icy calm that had always set him apart among the Order's knights. At the moment the spikes should have pierced his legs, the young man momentarily increased the area of his teardrop shield, turning it into a small platform beneath him. The points shattered against its lower edge, causing no harm.
"Your energy is waning, Pillar," Iskon said, and for the first time, a note of contempt sounded in his voice.
The young man made a lightning-fast lunge. The opponent tried to block with the bone shield on his forearm, but Iskon used a complex scaling combination. At the moment of contact, his double-edged sword abruptly shortened, passing under the enemy's guard, then instantly lengthened, plunging into the Pillar's thigh.
The mercenary grunted and dropped to one knee. Iskon didn't finish him. Instead, he delivered a powerful blow with the flat of his shield to the opponent's head. A dull sound rang out, and the Pillar-mercenary collapsed to the floor, his Spirit of Bone Growth instantly dissipating, leaving behind only piles of slowly crumbling bones.
Silence fell over the hall, broken only by the knights' heavy breathing and the groans of the fallen enemies. Five Warriors and one Pillar had been neutralized. Kaedan and Iskon stood in the center of the hall, their armor scratched and covered in grime, but their Vessels still held sufficient reserves of power.
At that moment, the Orc on the throne slowly rose. His enormous figure blocked the light of the distant crystals. The cleaver in his hand traced a furrow in the floor, striking sparks.
"A worthy end for my men," the giant boomed. His inner power began to fill the hall, and Kaedan felt his energy within his channels involuntarily tense in response to this pressure. "You have proven you are worth more than this dust on the floor."
The Orc shifted his grip on the cleaver handle with both hands. His skin began to take on a darker, almost metallic hue. "I am Mirza," he introduced himself for the first time, and his voice sent a tremor through the hall. "And I dislike it when my subordinates lose. Prepare yourselves. Now your energy will be tested for fracture."
Mirza took a step forward, and the air in the hall instantly became as dense as water at the ocean's depths. The battle that had previously seemed harsh now felt like mere child's play. The Herald had entered the fray, and Kaedan and Iskon understood: their only chance to survive was to go beyond their own limits.