Book 9. Chapter 40: Arena of the Apex |
Ainora snorted. “Funny, those are our words for you. Let’s see how long you can last against the Calamity, Human.”
Isolyn reached inside her fur with her paw and retrieved a golden obelisk. She held it out and channeled energy into it. A small Menu interface appeared in front of Jake, and he accepted the terms, and Bree, Ainora, and Isolyn did the same.
A flash of golden light occurred, emanating from Isolyn’s location. Four golden pillars lined the outside of their battlefield, with a golden light forming a thin, domed barrier. The actual arena was shaped like a pill, a cylinder that went deep into the ground and quite a bit more into the sky.
[Arena of the Apex Activated]
[Duelists Bound: Beast Avatar of Aenorath, The Emerald Storm, Sovereign of the Shattered Sky (Aspect of the Triarch Calamity) and Beast Avatar of Isolnir, The Glacial Wasteland, Sovereign of the Frozen Earth (Aspect of the Triarch Calamity)]
[VS]
[Provisional Count Jake Hart and Bree the Savage Forgemother]
[Battle Type: To the death (resurrection possible) or submission.]
[Arena Rules Enforced: Auxiliary Resource Cap. Item Quotas applied, Soul-Link Sharing and External Buffs dampened to approximately 10-15% of personal strength.]
Jake blinked at the glowing golden text hanging in the frozen air, taking a moment to actually read through the wall of titles.
Aenorath and Isolnir? Jake thought, shaking his head slightly. I was somehow actually pretty close with what I named them. How?
He also noted the Triarch Calamity name of their whole dinocerberus entity. The cults that worshiped them in the lower tiers didn't just pray to them for salvation; they also prayed to them like mortals praying to a hurricane, begging the destruction to pass them by. They were literal avatars of natural disaster.
But what really caught his eye was the text at the bottom.
The Framework didn't list Bree by some ancient, apocalyptic title. Bree had told him her original name, and the text didn't call her Brythos, or the Molten Ruin, or the third Aspect of the Triarch Calamity. It just called her Bree. She had physically and spiritually stripped away all of that pretentious, lonely baggage just to stand next to him in the mud.
Jake tightened his grip on his polearm, a fierce smile pulling at his lips. He was going to make damn sure she never regretted it. However, he also felt the heavy restriction settle over his bonds as golden hexagons of the Framework washed over the four participants.
The roaring river of his family's connection was reduced to a steady, suffocating trickle. It was enough to keep the bonds alive, but not enough to easily rely on. As practiced, he could definitely use their States, but wouldn’t be able to bring about their full power and certainly couldn’t use them as a battery. Ophelia’s Eternal Oath was also a special type of restricted ability, it seemed, not even allowing for 10% of the original amount to go through.
Outside the golden arena, Jake’s wives drew their weapons, taking up positions up and around the canyon to hold off any potential interference. Thankfully, the box canyon allowed them to oversee the battle as well as incoming enemies for miles.
“We are not doing this to be cruel, little sister,” Isolyn said, her voice carrying a twisted sincerity as the air inside the dome began to freeze. “We are doing this for your own good. When he breaks, you will understand that the only thing an apex predator can rely on is herself.”
Through the restricted Hearth tether, a sudden burst of amusement broke the tension.
[Pfft–herself?] Tanda giggled mentally, laughing at the absurdity. [There are literally two of them standing right there! They've shared a body and soul for a thousand years!]
[It sure is tough to always go it alone as a strong, independent woman,] Berri chimed in with a dramatic mental sigh. The sarcasm was incredibly thick coming from her.
Jake kept his physical expression perfectly stoic. The hypocrisy was almost impressive, but perhaps that was the point. To them, relying on the Triarch was not dependence. It was simply what they were.
Ainora sat back on her haunches. Despite being in her massive, lightning-wreathed wolf form, she raised a single, razor-sharp claw and tapped her lupine lips thoughtfully once again.
“Before we begin, I suppose we should formally apologize for the pet comments, Bree’s chosen,” Ainora chuckled. “You proved your bite. In truth, I can see why our sister chose you. With your elite pack, you should be able to rise to the peak.”
Her eyes narrowed, static crawling through her mane.
“But should is not enough for Bree. Not until it has been written in stone. However, I can already see how her loss would break her heart. We’ve both seen what she was willing to give up to come to you. So if you fall today but later claw your way to the peak before we become Eternal, we will not call the matter closed forever. Whatever happens today, let it be the law of the hunt, not hatred.”
Bree stepped forward, her chaotic vines flaring as she readied her auril-infused heat, and her body grew as her heart pulsed. “If you're done barking, Sis, why don't you bite?”
Isolyn’s glacial eyes narrowed as she planted her four feet strongly into the ground, one at a time. Suddenly, the temperature in the arena dropped rapidly, as if all energy died. It felt like Isolyn was claiming the territory in a way Jake had never seen before.
It was like she was overwriting the physical reality of the clearing with her own chilling cold. The world itself seemed to respond, frost racing up the golden pillars, and jagged, diamond-hard glaciers erupted from the earth, trying to lock Jake and Bree into a frozen labyrinth.
In Jake’s Umbral Gaze, he noticed that she had tapped into the nearby leylines, almost like his array flags and mana fonts, but different. It was a lot like Earthly Daos as Fhesiah had described them to him.
Lightning gathered around Ainora, her eyes and feathery fur brightening with dangerous energy as her body lifted off the ground, and she began to float. It reminded Jake of how Valora or Fhesiah could control flight.
“You rely on a pack,” Isolyn’s voice echoed from every surface of the ice. “But to rely on them means being weak while separated, an inevitability. Let us see how you hunt in a cage.”
Of course, Jake and Bree didn’t just watch their opponents getting ready for battle and had gotten ready at the same time. Jake had entered the Resonant State of the Pack Predator, ready to face Bree’s sisters as one. A portion of his hearthflames and Aura transformed into something close to Bree’s Fertile Flames, but not quite.
Without being Hearthbonded, he was simply unable to connect to her flames in the same way as his other wives. Unfortunately, this was one of his weakest states as of now, but it empowered Bree in a more significant way for their bout. Her body grew as she was enhanced, auril and mana pulsing through her hearthvines and her flames brightening with intense heat.
He also immediately launched his buff spells, the casting ring of Pyros showing its superiority as Giant’s Growth, Holy Might, and Einherjar landed on Bree in quick succession. The three spells empowered her further as her body grew, enhanced her with holy light, and a prismatic energy increased her strength and speed significantly. Then, he began gathering mana for his template summons.
Isolyn looked down at her with derision. “You received all those buffs just to meet my shoulder. You truly discarded perfection to become a weak plant abomination.”
Bree chuckled. “I’ve got a lot more tricks than just that, Sister. You’ll see.”
Bree’s auril heart beat, singing the song of the hunt. Celtic Runes glittered to life, spiraling around her, as several dinodogs manifested. Jake released three empowered raptor templates, infusing them with Bree’s hearthflames, then immediately began splitting his focus. He knew Ainora wasn’t just going to let him cast everything he wanted, so he prepared a barrier.
Ainora scoffed. “Weak beasts? You waste your mana, Summoner. We know your tricks. We used to drive your puppets, remember?”
A flash of lightning arced across the field from Ainora, striking many beasts at once. But rather than get erased as Ainora likely expected, Jake’s Heavenly Aura did a fair job of protecting them. One of Bree’s dinodogs got struck rather hard, but the auril construct held tight and was quickly reinforced by Bree’s heartbeats.
Bree rushed at Isolyn, her massive frame enhanced by Jake's magic a hell of a lot faster than Isolyn likely expected, dashing across the frost-covered arena. Isolyn had still been drawing up more frost across the arena, crouching as she did. When Bree got near quickly, she lunged, and a thick, fiery vine whip lashed out from her shoulder, tracing a glowing Celtic rune in the air. She then opened her jaws and exhaled a torrent of chaotic Forgemother flames.
The fertile heat violently clashed against Isolyn’s chilling cold, rapidly melting the diamond-hard glaciers and providing a path of heat that settled over the area. Isolyn hissed, forced to continuously output leyline energy just to maintain her footing as Bree’s heavy ankylosaur tail-club smashed into her flank, cracking her armor of frost.
Jake had followed Bree’s wake covered in hearthflames and moved to assist in the melee. He dashed forward, empowered by auril, his polearm wreathed in dense Vajrafire, and drove the weapon into the crack Bree had opened. The blade pierced the thick glacial armor, leaving a deep, searing cut across the hound's shoulder, as a raptor moved in, slicing into Isolyn’s back.
But before Jake could capitalize on the wound, the sky fell on him.
A flash of lightning struck Jake with only Ira’s slight warning. Hestia’s Heavenly Flames intercepted the lightning with an explosion, and his prepared fiery barrier flared outward with a thought. But the lightning contained something even heavier. Jake just barely brought his shield up in defense in time, lining it with Vajrafire as it smashed into him and sent him flying through the air, separating him from Bree.
Ainora’s feathery paw was not far behind, nearly slamming into him–but Jake launched a powerful Cone of Cold spell made of Nordic and Demonic Runes empowered by Nessa’s frostfire. An apparition of a fiery frost elemental appeared, and it blasted and engulfed her in cold flames, causing her to grunt as the fiery river diverted her body and paw, and Jake strafed her with hearthflames wrapping around him.
Jake allowed himself to get separated as Ainora continued to come after him with her paw and maw, trusting Bree to face off against her sister while he continued to gather his mana. Bree’s claws and maws at the end of her vines were causing a bigger problem for Isolyn than she likely predicted, Jake’s buffs from his Aura adding onto every attack, and counteracting her special domain.
He had needed a bit of time because his next summon was a doozy. In all his testing, this beast held out the best in nearly all the matchups against ice and thunder enemies combined.
After ducking under a thunderous paw sent skittering over his head thanks to his shield, he finished gathering his mana and brought out his permanent summon: Garona. He slammed the butt of his polearm on the ground, and his Permanent Summon appeared above him in motes of light, creating a giant, protective canopy above his head. Ainora backed off for a moment, as if to just understand what the hell she was looking at.
The titanic tortoise couldn’t come out at her full size while reliant on Jake’s mana, but she was still larger than Bree and Isolyn. Earth grew from the ground, forming a heavy barrier of stone as the heavy gem-horns protruding from her head started to vibrate with a sickening, magic-nullifying hum.
“You summoned… a turtle? Are you just trying to piss us off?” Ainora snarled, shaking the frostfire from her feathery fur. It was like her odd, emerald lightning also contained a fair amount of heat to counter the cold.
Jake was already preparing his next spell. “Is it working already? If a summoner isn’t pissing you off, it means they suck at their job.”
“If you’re just going to hide, I can go after exposed targets. Would you ditch my sister so quickly?” Ainora jumped into the air but began looping toward Bree and Isolyn’s battle.
“Who said I was ditching her?”
Garona’s gems vibrated as they tore off her shell and wrapped around the stone spikes as they rose from the ground.
Jake focused on his spell, making sure to use Fusion, instilling his will of the Crucible into his Curse. Holy Dark mixed with Blood’s gravity and strong will, and Deathly auril and mana, infused with Tanda’s manifested will of the hunt. They flowed into the Nordic Runes, creating a tale of the past, present, and future, with a sacrifice of a fair amount of mana and a strong effect on the opponent’s spirit. With a burst of sickly purple light, the runes manifested as a powerful spell containing their unique strengths.
The attack on Ainora’s spirit had mostly taken her off guard. She must have known the attack was coming, because a burst of lightning covered her body and spirit–but she had looked down on it. Jake’s curse was nearly 90% spiritual.
Death energy in the shape of a wolf’s head bypassed her natural storm and will, bit into her spirit, delivering the curse nearly as fast as lightning. The sickly purple energy wrapped around the bird-wolf’s form like a dense black and purple cloud. The gravity and weakness latched onto her spirit, slowing her down instantly.
Ainora snarled, her flight trajectory violently stuttering as the spiritual anchor dragged her down.
That slowness was just enough. With a prideful Thwump, Garona’s earthen spike accelerated to incredible levels and smashed into Ainora, sending her tumbling through the air and toward the ground. Garona chuffed with pride, then began to prepare her next earthen spikes as she stomped toward where Ainora fled, which was also toward Bree and Isolyn’s battle.
Jake didn’t give her a moment to breathe. Runic shackles full of Holy Dark wrapped around the lightning wolf, pulsing their anti-magic energy into her flesh as they did. He knew it wouldn’t hold her for long, but he didn’t need it to. Two earthen spikes were about to be launched into the wolf’s slowed, wounded form.
Meanwhile, Bree and Isolyn had been fighting a deadly dance of claws and teeth, fire and ice. The environmental ice was chilling, like an absolute zero that couldn’t be penetrated. All energy was sapped out of anything that came near, Bree’s dinodog and Jake’s flaming raptor summons doing little more than landing a weak blow or two before having to retreat to heat themselves back up.
It was only Jake pushing his Aura to the maximum to continue protecting her, the synergy of the fertile flames, and how they were infused into the raptors that allowed them to overcome Isolyn’s frost. While the fight was 1 on 1, Bree was being propped up by Jake from afar, allowing her to wound and overcome the Glacial Hound.
Isolyn was covered in a thick armor of frost, a near-impenetrable aura reinforced by the leyline nearby. They had landed scratches on her or mace blows that shattered some of the frost and cut wounds into her, but it simply regrew and covered her wounds. Isolyn was quite the tank, even if her body was battered, bruised, and bleeding.
As Jake readied to teleport over, Bree and Isolyn met in a devastating, head-on clash, both sisters charging up their breath attacks and using their quota of Nascent Divine Essence to assert dominance over the arena.
Bree’s breath was a roaring tide of Savage Forgemother flames, weaving Celtic Runes into the raw chaos of natural creation. Isolyn answered with a localized apocalypse of glacial death–a destructive frost so fundamentally cold it caused the very mana in the air to crystallize and shatter like glass.
“You traded the peak to become kindling!” Isolyn roared, her voice cracking the frozen air as she dumped her entire reserve of spiritual power into the attack. “Witness the true apex you threw away, Sister! Your fire was the only thing that could ever match my cold, and you let it die!”
For a frightening moment, it appeared that Isolyn’s truth was superior. The overwhelming cold pushed through the center of Bree’s fertile flames, striking the plant-dino’s body hard enough to knock her back and encase her chest and forelegs in diamond-hard frost.
But the truth showed itself quickly. Two hearthvines radiating incredible heat and two dinodogs rushed around the sides of the attack through the violently warmed clearing, biting down on Isolyn’s haunches with the manifested will of the Highland’s beasts. And at the center of the clash, Bree’s form shimmered with intense, localized heat despite taking the dead-on blow of destructive frost.
It was a direct result of her evolution. They had faced the Cyro-blight Terrorwood in the Dungeon Raid, and Bree had intentionally spent massive effort integrating its cryogenic resistance into her defenses, supporting her flesh and vines alike against the cold. It didn’t make her immune to her sister, but combined with her internal forge and Jake’s Aura, it took a hell of a lot more than that to chill her to the bone.
Isolyn's head snapped around, her glacial eyes widening in genuine shock as the overwhelming heat bit into her flank and her sister refused to shatter. She immediately lowered herself, frantically gathering more frost in a desperate defense. Pillars of ice rose from the ground and crumbled outward, erupting like an avalanche rolling down to crush Bree and tear through the vine bindings in one fell swoop.
“Now, Chief!” Bree roared.
Jake stepped through the void and now stood next to Bree, having used Reverse Summon to arrive next to her. Her hearthvines blazed with fertile might, another Celtic Rune spell rapidly finishing with Jake’s assistance, a wide spiral containing their practiced spell with dozens of Celtic Runes.
Planting his feet, Jake used Fusion and the Weight of his Bonds. He mixed Fhesiah’s draconic flames and kitsune flames, and in the same breath, Bree channeled the chaotic energy of her evolution, unleashing a massive blast of compressed flames.
The elements fused, becoming something more. The chaotic trifecta of three types of flames hit Isolyn’s avalanche like a bunker buster, the heat and strength behind the giant gout of flames having a heavy spirituality. The resulting explosion of steam and kinetic force shattered Isolyn’s domain, blowing the ice queen’s feet off the ground and enveloping her body in flames that destroyed and devoured.
Isolyn crashed hard into the dirt, and she fought against the flames with her glacial frost–but it wasn’t enough to counter the conceptual strength of the attack. With Jake riding Bree, she charged into her sister, her horn piercing deeply into her chest, with Jake’s Hearthblade punching deep into her as well. The impact pierced into her beast core and shattered Isolyn’s avatar completely, sending her away from the arena in a shower of fractured, frozen light.
Jake let out a ragged breath, his muscles burning. It had been a desperate, razor-thin gamble. He and Bree had known Isolyn was a marathon fighter; if they had let her territorial domain fully set, they would have been ground down to dust. They had relied on the sisters underestimating Bree, as well as his mobility and his ability to lock Ainora out of the sky just long enough for a blitz to finish her off.
But as a deafening crack of thunder shook the valley, the hairs on Jake's arms stood on end. He remembered the scary truth: Isolyn was the tank or guardian, but Ainora was the true apex of the three.
With only that sound and a small warning from Ira to look out, Jake shifted into the State of the Guardian, matching Ophelia with his desire to protect him and Bree from Ainora’s fury. His flames shifted to Vajrafire, and he began preparing Hestia’s barrier using it.
After taking a strike from Garona’s earthen spike, Ainora was pissed. She had broken her shackles and flew up, beginning to gather her lightning to destroy the insolent turtle. And up above, Ainora had witnessed her sister fall before she even finished charging her storm attack. The playful, barking dog vanished. The arrogant amusement warped into pure, unhinged fury. The ambient mana of the valley screamed as Ainora pulled an even larger storm into herself.
“You parasitic little wretch!” Ainora shrieked.
Before Jake could react beyond getting the floating shield of Vajrafire up around him and Bree, a concentrated pillar of emerald lightning slammed down like divine judgment.
It struck both Bree and Jake. The blast wave hit Jake’s hasty shield and shattered it like glass. The chaotic voltage tore through his armor, scorching his flesh and throwing him violently backward. His vision whited out, his muscles seizing as the residual lightning cooked his nerves.
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Through the ringing in his ears, he watched helplessly as the core of the pillar flooded Bree’s plant-dino body deep into her bones, tearing it apart despite all of her defenses. The weight behind the blow was like a Divine had descended, chaos and fury contained in the deadly lightning.
And that wasn’t all. A cage of lightning descended as Ainora did, trapping Bree inside. She floated over Bree’s form as it convulsed with lightning, sneering down at Bree.
Jake shouted, his Hearthflames flaring as he lunged forward. He tried to trigger Call Summon to pull her back to his side, but the spell couldn’t complete. In his Umbral Gaze, he saw that the cage wasn't just made of electricity; it was a manifestation of law anchoring the space so heavily that even his spatial tethers couldn't slip through, just like Fhesiah’s powerful daos or like the stake items he faced.
He raised his polearm, preparing physically to shatter the conceptual bars and force a massive surge of his flames of Renewal into her. He considered using Ira to–
“Don't,” Bree’s voice echoed in his mind, stopping him dead in his tracks and speaking as fast as thought itself. “It's a trap, Chief. If you hit the cage with brute force, it'll detonate, drain you dry, and still take me with it. I know I’m the weaker link here. Don’t waste your mana breaking me out or healing me. Get ready for the next stage. I trust you to knock some sense into her.”
It pained Jake to admit it, but he needed this pause just as much if he had a hope of lifting a finger against Ainora. He wasn't just getting relatively low on resources; his body was a mess. Ainora had dumped a staggering amount of her spiritual fuel into her last barrage, and the residual emerald lightning clung to his armor and channels like burning chains, actively fighting to paralyze his nervous system.
Dropping into a low crouch, he drew what remained of his raptor’s mana into him. The constructs dispersed into motes of light, sucked back into his reserves as he empowered the hearth within Sanctum and Pyros. This produced a weak Mana Font effect that he enhanced with his own Crucible, using the surging heat to aggressively burn the demigod's invasive energy out of his muscles, layer by agonizing layer.
This rapid recovery only worked now because Isolyn was taken out. With the ice sister's domain broken, the ambient mana in the arena–aside from the violent storm immediately surrounding Ainora–truly began surging toward his Hearth.
Inside the cage, Bree coughed, her usually red or emerald scales charred black as she slowly pushed herself up. She looked at Ainora, who was hovering just outside the bars, vibrating with lethal intent.
“You threw away your foundation for a mortal,” Ainora sneered, rage and lightning sparking at the corners of her avian-like yellow eyes. “I can’t believe how shameless you are. You crippled your own path, abandoned us, and for what? Did you think defeating us would somehow force us to give your original vessel back later? Now you’ll both die in the dirt!”
“I don't care about the Divine Essence or our Territory, Ainora,” Bree laughed, a wet, rattling sound. “You think I fought you in some backward way to secure my inheritance?”
“Of course you did! How could you just discard the power we worked so hard for? Bled for?!”
Bree looked at Ainora sadly, shaking her head. “You really don’t understand, do you? Jake and I don't need your permission to grow. I didn't agree to this duel to claim what I left behind, and you know that wasn’t the deal anyway.”
Ainora’s storm flickered, her eyes widening. Genuine confusion seemed to cut through her rage. “Then why?”
“Because I know how lonely you two are up there, we used to share a mind and soul, remember?” Bree said softly. The taunting was gone, replaced by a heartbreaking pity. “You sit at the peak, scaring everything away just to keep each other safe. I know exactly how cold that is... because I was lonely, too. I only agreed to this duel because I want my sisters back. I want you to be as happy as I am now, but I knew you'd never listen to a damn word unless I beat it into you.”
Ainora went rigid. The feral rage shattered, replaced by a flash of raw disbelief.
“Lonely?” Ainora's voice cracked, a betrayed, agonizing sound. “You want us to be happy? You are the one who walked away! We bled to conquer that summit so nothing could ever hurt us again! We made you untouchable! What more could you possibly need?!”
“A pack,” Bree smiled, her physical form scorched and nearly broken. “You gave me power, Ainora, but you built us a cage. I found a real home. A family. And there's plenty of room for you and Isolyn in it, too. You don’t have to be isolated to be strong, and my mate is going to prove that to you today. You’ll see. Maybe not today, but you will. I know it.”
Ainora let out a scream of pure heartbreak and fury. She unleashed a final, devastating wave of emerald lightning directly into the cage, intending to completely vaporize her sister's avatar.
But Bree didn't just sit there and take it.
Deep within her core, the spark of Agni’s flame and her Nascent Divinity violently resonated. The overwhelming, lethal pressure of Ainora's storm acted like a hammer against an anvil.
The lightning washed over Bree, but instead of instantly shattering, her emerald scales hardened into something resembling dark, molten glass, her Divine Trait kicking into high gear. The heat radiating from her core spiked, eclipsing anything she had produced before.
She crashed directly through the bars of the lightning cage as she surged forward. The incoming lightning and the cage sheared much of her physique apart, as her resistance was just partial and incomplete until she spent time forging the evolution into something more. The lightning bars violently tore through her armor and flesh, but Bree pushed through, ignoring the agonizing pain.
Bree reached Ainora before the demigod could even register the impossible movement. Bree’s massive jaws clamped down fiercely onto Ainora’s shoulder, her fangs sinking deep through the lightning and into the wolf’s flesh. At the exact same moment, her molten hearthvines unwove from her armor, grew rapidly, and whipped outward, piercing like spears into Ainora’s flanks and injecting a super-heated payload of fertile, chaotic flames directly into her sister’s flesh.
Ainora howled–a genuine cry of shock and sudden, searing pain as her body jolted, sending a powerful blast of lightning into Bree.
Bree held the brutal bite for one agonizing, triumphant second. She looked past the thrashing demigod, meeting Jake’s eyes with a final, affectionate, and fiercely proud smile.
[It’s up to you now, Chief. I believe in you.] Then, her physical avatar finally reached its limit. Bree shattered completely under the backlash, bursting into a blinding shower of golden motes that rushed back into Jake's chest.
She was gone, but she had bought him a priceless window.
As Ainora thrashed, desperately forced to use her lightning to purge Bree’s chaotic flames from her deep wounds, Jake hadn't wasted a millisecond. The Samsaric Anchor aggressively devoured the lingering static in his veins, and he used Berri’s Holy Light from his Crucible to heal his wounds.
The pain was blinding, but the rapid influx of energy knit the fractured bone in his arm together and soothed his scorched lungs just enough to drag him back from the absolute brink.
Ainora landed heavily in the center of the arena, the storm swirling chaotically around her. She was panting, emotionally compromised, and completely furious. She turned her glowing eyes to Jake.
“You took her from us!” Ainora roared, the lightning tearing up the surrounding earth. “And now you are alone, and I will take her back!”
A loud Thwump preceded the giant earthen spike crashing directly into Ainora’s field of lightning. The nullification magic contained within did a fantastic job of piercing deep through her defenses, smacking into her with a dull thud and causing Ainora to howl in pain as she was knocked through the air.
“Forgetting something?” Jake asked calmly, stepping forward as the massive, vibrating form of Garona stomped over his form, covering him with her bulk. “Who’s alone?”
If Ainora was pissed before, she was livid now. When she rushed toward Jake this time, it was like her entire body was made of lightning. Jake was used to Ophelia’s Vajrafire Blitz, but this was even faster. Jake was underneath Garona, who had latched onto the earth underneath them, ready for battle.
But as Ainora arrived, Garona groaned with effort, unable to lift the earth. It was like Bree had said–it was like her mere presence alone caused the world itself to stand against them, the turtle’s spell dying. Lightning pulsed through Jake and Garona like a static field, and it was only Jake’s Guardian-enhanced Aura that prevented them from taking significant damage from it. It still pulsed through Garona, and she thankfully was able to ground that energy into the earth beneath her.
Ainora’s deadly paw swiped toward Jake, moving with incredible speed.
Jake didn't just brace for impact. The devastating pillar of lightning he had barely survived moments earlier hurt like hell and burned his flesh, but it produced a positive effect as well. The massive kinetic shockwave from that blast had flooded his newly stabilized Void Cells. His Sub-Nadir Pressure Cycle swallowed the atmospheric turbulence of her life-ending strike, storing the apocalyptic pressure deep within his cells like a coiled spring.
He angled his shield, lining it with Vajrafire to meet her claw.
When the strike landed, the sheer kinetic weight and atmospheric turbulence should have shattered his arm completely and sent him flying across the canyon. Instead, Jake's cells acted like an abyssal trench, swallowing this new impact and adding it to his staggering reserves. The sheer force still fractured the bones in his forearm, and lightning scorched him from the inside out as he was batted a short distance away, hitting the dirt hard.
If I fall here, Bree is gone. Maybe forever.
That terrifying thought forced him back to his feet, just as the hydrostatic pressure in his cells released.
A massive burst of kinetic acceleration flooded Jake’s limbs. His perception of time seemed to slow as his physical speed skyrocketed, fueled by the very storm that was trying to kill him. When Ainora went for a follow-up strike, moving as fast as Ophelia’s Vajrafire Blitz, Jake was already there to parry it away.
Ainora then dodged a retaliatory blow from Garona’s giant paw easily, sneering up at the tortoise. “Your kind is annoying–slow, gluttonous prey that hides behind a shell like a coward. Truly, a stain on existence. So pathetic, I don’t even need to face you.”
Garona roared as her gems vibrated dangerously once more. Small amounts of gem began breaking off her shell and mixing with stone on the ground, even through Ainora’s domain. She did not like being called prey, but Ainora paid her no mind, turning her furious might back to Jake.
Every dodge burned Jake's lungs, and every parry sent fresh agony shooting up his fractured arm. He could scarcely defend against the sheer ferocity of her attacks, anchoring himself with the Weight of his Bonds just to survive the next second. Through his sympathetic connection to Ophelia, her instincts added onto his own, enabling him to deflect the swiping paw with his shield and bring his polearm around to smack the maw away.
But it was the synergy of his Void Cells that truly kept him ahead of the next attack. He was bleeding her kinetic energy. Every blow she landed on his shield only fed his atmospheric pressure cycle, converting her violence into the explosive speed he needed to keep up with her.
Ainora was beginning to realize it, too. Her strikes grew increasingly frantic, her bird-like eyes flashing with mounting frustration. She was the apex of the storm, yet every time she tried to overwhelm him with sheer velocity, this mortal miraculously matched her pace.
He was stalling for several reasons. As the emerald lightning and static buildup around Ainora violently tried to invade his flesh and fry his organs, Jake’s void cells continued their work–the samsaric cycle and the life regeneration healing him, besides. His set of three hearths was drawing in mana, even through Ainora’s domain, and he was a marathon fighter.
The longer the fight went on without him needing to actively cast massive healing spells, the more he would get ahead. Ainora had a strange, powerful domain that gave her what felt like free, absolute control over lightning, but he could feel the truth. She was expending her spiritual fuel faster than Jake was regaining his. She had spent a lot to take Bree out and wound Jake.
And slowly, steadily, he used his Crucible–Berri’s Holy Light mixed with Sati’s Compassionate flames–to actively restore the ruined flesh beneath his armor.
“What’s the matter, human? Aren’t you going to use it?” Ainora taunted, her claws sparking as she circled him. “Your Void Bloodline? I admit that I don’t know exactly what it is, but I have smelled the hunger on you since the very beginning. Let’s see it. I know there must be a reason you’re Hestia’s golden child and that even my mother is interested.”
Jake knew she wasn't talking about his passive cellular regeneration. While that was certainly related to his Bloodline, that was just a compounding of his incredible effort: his body tempering. He and his wives had spent a literal fortune turning his body into a treasure, and it was truly shining here.
Instead, she could smell the true, devastating power locked inside his Void Lungs and his Void Furnace, no doubt–the sheer, apocalyptic hunger of the abyss. She expected him to unleash it and fight her monster-to-monster.
And it was true. With just one breath, Jake could likely overwhelm her special…domain, such as it was, and land a significant, possibly lethal blow.
“If I use that, I’m just proving your point,” Jake said, his voice still calm as his grip tightened on his dented shield. He didn't just want to survive the physical fight; he needed to break her certainty. “You want to fight the monster. You want to see the abyss, because if the hungriest beast wins, then your worldview stays intact.”
Jake leveled his halberd, the golden flames of his Crucible flaring to life along the gemlike metal.
“But the Void is just empty hunger, Ainora. Any desperate, starving animal can bite. Bree didn't leave you to find or go be with a bigger monster. I’m going to break your storm with the sheer weight of what my family has built. And I don't need a single drop of the abyss to do it.”
Ainora just laughed and sneered at that, but Jake wasn’t just standing up to Ainora in melee for nothing. With a quick burst of speed, he used Ophelia’s Vajrafire Blitz to not just meet Ainora’s attack with his shield but also slam into her chest and send a Fusion of draconic flames and Avalara’s flames of Conflict into her body.
The blast stopped her body cold, and Garona was finally ready. With a powerful launch at nearly point-blank range, Garona’s earthen spike crashed and pierced into Ainora’s side, sending her tumbling from the dead-on blow.
Jake capitalized on this, finding synchronicity with Blood. It was time to show Ainora the strength of their combined will, and his devoted queen was in-sync with his thoughts. He took on the State of the Monarch, and his flames in his hearth took on the black-golden glow of holy dark. Runes shot out of Pyros’s casting ring as he used his Fusion once more. Mixing three flames in one of his wives was possible, so long as he used the flames of their State.
Nessa’s Frostfire flames of justice and Fhesiah’s devouring flames of the kitsune mixed with Blood’s black-gold holy dark, creating a powerful, debilitating curse of gravity and chilling cold that far exceeded the previous.
Ainora gave a pained yelp as the weight of his will tugged down on her body. It was his will against Ainora’s domain, and now the lightning wolf was wounded and weakened. She noticeably slowed, even as lightning picked up around her.
Now Jake was on the offensive, his Monarch Aura overlapping Ainora’s domain as Garona’s earthen shots fired into the thunder wolf. His sweeping strikes with his polearm dug deep into the wolf’s flesh, though it felt much like his polearm was hitting that spatial anomaly of the lizard’s–some kind of weight preventing him from hitting as hard as he liked. It was more of that special heaviness of a divine beast preventing his blows from doing much more than bruising her flesh.
But Jake kept pouring in his Fusions, manifesting his will of the Sovereign Crucible. Pyros’s hearthblade cut through her lightning barrier, sending powerful flames piercing through and engulfing her flesh. Her wounds became more substantial now that Jake was not only able to keep up with her attacks–he was now faster.
Eventually, Ainora must have seen her loss written on the wall. She roared, violently shedding the flames on her body with an explosive burst of lightning and knocking Jake back. She floated up into the air, her chest heaving as she panted. The atmosphere grew terrifyingly heavy as she called upon what remained of her Nascent Divine Essence.
The field of her domain enlarged, and Jake realized Garona wouldn’t be able to help him with what happened next. He recalled the mana making up her construct, siphoning it into him with a quiet pulse of gratitude for her efforts. She had done well, and he’d make sure she got a special reward.
“You think you’ve won?” Ainora asked, her voice tight, her chest heaving as her certainty finally cracked. She stared down at the mortal who only seemed to burn hotter and move faster the more she battered him. “To match the Apex of the Storm... to stand against my domain and carry the weight of a sovereign... I don't know what you truly are. But I have watched a thousand brilliant prodigies turn to ash, unable to reach the true peak, Human. Unending stamina and potential mean nothing when the multiverse grinds you down. I cannot let you drag Bree into a shallow grave. She deserves better!”
Jake lowered his shield slightly, taking a deep, steadying breath as his body processed the last of her kinetic energy. He had played the rope-a-dope perfectly. He hadn't just been stalling to drain her spiritual fuel while preserving his own mana and health. Jake had been running down the clock on his Covenant. Pack Predator. Guardian. Monarch.
Forced to cycle through three distinct States, each with their own time requirements, his restrictions would allow him to unlock his true peak. He had weathered her worst, and now, the lock was finally broken.
“I didn't drag her anywhere,” Jake said, his voice unyielding. “She chose to fight by my side. I gave her a pack and a home, not a cage. And just as she said, the door is open for you and Isolyn to do the same.”
Ainora’s snout wrinkled in a mix of desperate rage and agonizing denial. She reached into her feathery fur to pull out a huge, giant-fist-sized, jagged crystal pulsing with chaotic, violet energy–a Beast King storm core of the Third Tier.
It exploded with a flex of her will, and the purple lightning wrapped around her, adding onto the lightning that had already built. An aurora borealis formed around her, a wave of green and purple light cascading across the sky, demonstrating the sheer physics of her buildup.
The ambient mana of the arena inverted. A suffocating, powerful surge of violet-emerald lightning exploded from her body, an apocalyptic storm building up around her even greater than there was already. It wrapped around Jake, and he could feel his Aura nearly die–compressed down to the space inches from his skin. It wasn’t impossible for Jake to cast a spell thanks to that and Pyros, but Jake knew that most of his wives would struggle.
“Love and hope die in the Contest!” Ainora roared over the deafening thunder, channeling the chaotic power into a city-ending attack above. “Only the true monsters survive! I won't let you make her weak!”
He had met the requirements; enough of his wives synchronized with his will. Jake closed his eyes and shifted into the State of the Family.
The moment he opened his heart, his wives, watching fiercely from beyond the golden pillars, pushed back.
They poured their faith and their spiritual weight into that tiny conduit. It hit Jake's internal Crucible as a roaring, hyper-compressed torrent of conceptual fuel. The family’s will aligned, all demanding Jake win and bring Bree home. And…put this mutt in her place.
His Crucible ignited.
The flames of his Void-Divine Hearth erupted into a blinding gold. The runes on his armor flared with prismatic light as all their distinct flames fused into a single, incredible pressure.
Ainora gasped, her building feral storm faltering. Even through the suffocating roar of her violet-emerald lightning, she felt the shift. The heat radiating from Jake wasn't the wild, consuming hunger of a lone apex predator.
It was nurturing, yet strong and unbreakable. It felt like a blazing hearth at the center of a fortified sanctuary–an unbreakable home forged by distinct, overlapping souls standing shoulder-to-shoulder, refusing to bow to the hurricane. In that brief moment of clarity, Ainora realized his fuel was fundamentally superior; it was built to outlast any storm.
Jake planted his boots, shifting his grip on Pyros. He didn't pause his preparations to speak; he funneled the golden fire of his Crucible directly into the halberd's focus to create a dense blade, compressing the energy until the air around the gem-like metal warped and screamed. He infused his scant Divine Energy, locking in the flames of Hestia as a binding and enhancing agent.
“In some respects, you might be right,” Jake shouted over the deafening thunder, his voice unyielding as he began layering Fhesiah's devouring and creation flames and Ophelia's Vajrafire over the metal. “But strength just for the sake of being strong isn't true power, Ainora. It's bare survival.”
He torqued his hips, drawing the Divine weapon back. Blood's holy dark and Tanda's deathly flames spiraled into the growing, prismatic crescent at the edge of the blade. “Bree didn't leave because you weren't good enough. She loves you. She left because she was empty, and she knew you were too.”
The metal of Pyros whined under the impossible stress, the blade glowing a blinding, volatile white as the rest of his wives' flames locked into place.
“If being a monster was the answer, why haven't you three ascended long ago?” Jake asked, locking his eyes on hers. “You have nothing to fight for, and you know it.”
Ainora screamed, a sound of pure, agonizing denial. The massive storm around her violently compressed and shifted, shrinking down until it formed a solid, tangible spear of apocalyptic violet-emerald plasma hovering just above her head.
Ainora then hurled the condensed spear downward, tearing reality like brittle glass.
Jake stepped into the strike. The standard Hearthblade spellform morphed under the impossible weight of his family’s combined will. Instead of a volatile aura clinging to the metal, the mana hardened. It condensed into a crescent blade of fire so impossibly dense it was practically physical. A Heroic Hearthblade that transcended the Tier.
Jake swung upward in a brutal arc. The solid blade of energy detached from Pyros, launching into the air at blistering speed without losing a fraction of its terrifying sharpness.
The flying wave collided with the spear of violet-emerald plasma with an intense thunderclap. The crescent acted like a wedge, shearing straight up the center of the apocalyptic bolt and splitting it in two. But the immense friction of the Beast King’s lightning destabilized Jake's construct.
What started as a tight, crescent blade was forced to bloom outward under the pressure. It fanned into a massive, roaring curtain of prismatic fire. This blazing tidal wave surged up the newly carved path, violently washing over Ainora and entirely consuming her storm.
Jake hadn’t waited to watch the impact. The millisecond the first wave left his weapon, he planted his back foot and reversed his grip, refolding what was left of the flames of his family into another attack. He torqued his hips, winding up to deliver a devastating horizontal sweep, fully prepared to unleash a second strike if her domain held.
But as he pulled Pyros back, the curtain of fire hit Ainora.
Her yellow avian eyes widened in shock right before the flames swallowed her. The wave of flame’s impact shattered her lightning armor instantly and engulfed her in their flames of purpose. The curtain of fire erased her feathery fur, the raw kinetic force throwing her massive, multi-ton body backward through the air.
Jake held onto his intent, throttling the lethal edge of the flames just enough. The fire didn't fully incinerate her and instead burned her deep and only lightly cracked the core in her chest, crippling her spiritual battery without taking her life.
Seeing her crash hard into the dirt and skip twice across the frozen mud before coming to a dead halt, Jake aborted his motion. He froze mid-swing, letting the gathered kinetic energy bleed out of his shoulders.
He didn't need to follow through. The remaining static died instantly, leaving only the hiss of melting ice and scorched earth beneath a clear, broken sky.
Looking at the lingering prismatic sparks fading from his blade, his thoughts finally caught up with what he had accomplished.
The sheer quality and quantity of the flames he had unleashed, boosted by the State of the Family, had fundamentally surpassed the Second Tier. Ainora’s apocalyptic lightning had broken the rules of their reality as well, but his Heroic Hearthblade hadn't just matched it–it had completely transcended it.
Jake slowly lowered Pyros, his boots cracking the frozen mud as he walked up to her ruined form. He exhaled a ragged breath of ozone, letting the butt of his halberd rest against the scorched earth. He stood a distance away, opting not to stand over her like a conqueror.
“I know you didn't go to these lengths just for your pride,” Jake said quietly, holding her avian gaze. “You and your sister fought me because you love Bree, and you wanted to be certain she wasn't making a mistake. I respect that.”
Ainora’s ears twitched. The rigid, feral hostility finally bled out of her posture, leaving only a dull, aching exhaustion.
“My family’s strength is my truth,” Jake continued. “We are going to reach the peak, and your sister will help us get there. But our chances would be even better if you helped us too. I want your power and your centuries of experience in our Hearthtribe. You fight to protect her, and we fight to protect her. Let's do it on the same side. Do you yield?”
Ainora let out a long, shuddering breath. A ragged laugh escaped her snout as the crushing tension completely dissolved from her massive shoulders. She bowed her head, exposing her neck to the white-golden flame lingering on his blade.
“We yield.”
The beast passed out, her head thudding against the ground as all tension left her muscles.
The golden hexagons of the Framework responded, wrapping around Isolyn and Bree’s remains to build a silhouette around them. Jake received a Menu notification, and a small golden plaque materialized in his palm.
A hum emanated from beneath his arm where he cradled the skull, and he frowned as he looked down at his shield, noticing something a bit peculiar. Sanctum had partially activated, despite him not doing so. His Pyros was stronger in his State of the Family, as designed and expected, but he really hadn’t done anything special to Sanctum to cause this behavior. He would definitely need to look into this.
Nevertheless, his heart was full of joy. He and Bree had finally won, and he had proven his path against the peak.