The air buzzed.
I looked up, and the sky itself darkened.
Arkas floated high above us, both arms raised toward the churning clouds. The calm in his posture was a lie, the mont he reached the sky, he began pouring power outward, calling the storm.
Thunder rumbled, deep and heavy, shaking the walls of the compound. The wind picked up, whipping at our cloaks and hair.
Above him, the clouds grew thick and black, turning the sun into a lost mory. Sparks danced across the sky like fireflies made of lightning.
This wasn’t a warning.
It was a declaration.
I could feel it, he was about to attack with everything he had. He didn’t co here to fight fair.
Brutus, the lead Grandmaster from the Holts, floated opposite him. His expression shifted from annoyance to disbelief, then finally to alarm.
"Arkas!" he shouted, his voice echoing across the base. "Have you lost your mind?! Have you gone senile in old age."
Arkas didn’t respond.
He simply lowered his arms slowly, fingers spread wide and then, with a sharp motion, he brought both hands down.
The clouds above roared.
Lightning arced through them like veins in a god’s hand, and then those veins took shape. Two massive palms, each almost the size of half the base itself, ford from the swirling thunderclouds, charged with raw energy. They hovered for a mont, casting a giant shadow over the base.
And then they dropped.
The pressure hit us instantly.
Even from the ground, I felt the weight in my chest as the palms descended. My breath caught, and beside , North muttered, "He’s not holding back."
"No," I said. "He wants to break them in one move."
Wind scread as the giant thunder palms fell toward the Holt Grandmasters like judgnt itself. The base lit up in flickering pulses of white and violet. Sparks rained down. The sky flashed with lightning, again and again.
Brutus growled and shot forward, his Essence flaring.
"Defend the base! NOW!"
His body ignited in flas, and his fist grew—ten, twenty, thirty tis in size—until it was a blazing inferno shaped like a gauntlet. With a roar, he punched upward, aiming straight at the right palm.
The air exploded.
The heat from the fla punch sent a wave of dry heat over the courtyard.
At the sa ti, the other four Holt Grandmasters acted.
One summoned a gigantic translucent sword made of golden light and flung it at the left palm.
Another raised both arms and ford a thick do of Essence, a giant shield stretching over the command center.
The last two moved together, weaving wide gestures through the air. From the skies, twin arcs of compressed wind ford into razor-sharp blades, each as wide as a building. They scread through the air, slicing toward the falling hand.
The sky split apart in a storm of power.
Lightning t fla.
Wind clashed with thunder.
The glowing shield shuddered and cracked, but held for a mont.
Then—
BOOM!
The palms t the attacks.
A massive shockwave rolled across the base, flattening banners and knocking soldiers off their feet. The sky lit up in a dance of white and gold, crackling arcs stretching from cloud to cloud.
The thunder palms didn’t hold entirely.
They shattered.
But not before unleashing chaos.
Lightning leapt out from the breaking palms like hungry snakes, lashing across the compound. It struck towers, walls, the distant gates, one bolt landed near a barracks, sending stone flying. Another tore through the roof of the weapons storage.
Buildings cracked.
Stone split.
Wind howled between the crumbling towers. Debris filled the air like dust in a storm.
I stood my ground and covered all the Masters behind in a swirling wind shield.
"Damn," Steve muttered, brushing dust from his shoulders. "That was just the opening attack?"
"Yeah," I said, eyes still skyward. "That’s what Grandmasters call a greeting."
Despite the chaos, surprisingly few people had died. The Holt soldiers had been trained well—most had activated their defenses.
But the damage to the base was impossible to ignore. Smoke rose from several buildings, and a few smaller towers had been reduced to rubble.
The outer defensive walls had completely collapsed, and all the mounted weapons were utterly destroyed.
Above it all, Arkas hovered like a silent god, his clothes fluttering in the wind, his hands still crackling with lightning.
Brutus was still standing, his armor scorched, his right arm blackened from the force of his own fiery punch. His eyes burned with fury, locked onto Arkas with unyielding rage.
Hovering at the front of the Holt Grandmasters, Brutus led them forward. His armor shimred with lingering heat, still radiating power. But his focus never shifted. He stared straight at Arkas, seething.
"So... you’ve finally decided to go all out, huh?" His voice was calm, but each word struck like a hamr. "Throwing your storms around like you own the skies."
He rolled his shoulders, flas licking along his back.
"Alright then," he growled. "Give everything you’ve got. Show why the Rayleighs think they deserve to rule this world... and not us."
Then his body lit up like the sun.
A column of blazing fire erupted from him, twisting upward into the churning clouds. Every fla wrapped tightly around his body, transforming his form into a fiery cot. The sheer heat warped the air.
But Arkas didn’t flinch.
Lightning raced across his skin, wild and loud. His clothes flapped violently as arcs of thunder snapped from his shoulders. The sky howled above him. Then, in one burst of movent, he shot forward, a streak of violet lightning.
The two Grandmasters collided in the sky.
Fire t thunder in an explosive flash. The blast knocked the clouds apart for a mont, turning the battlefield into a swirling ss of heat, sparks, and screaming energy. The shockwave sent cracks spidering across the already damaged base below.
Before the dust could settle, Edgar moved.
The shadows around him twitched.
"I’ll take two," he muttered.
Then the shadows obeyed.
They rose like smoke, curling up his legs, his arms, coiling behind his shoulders like wings. And then, with a sound like tearing silk, they expanded outward, forming a massive bat-shaped construct above him. Its wings spanned wide, its eyes glowed red, and its mouth opened in silent fury.
Edgar’s eyes sharpened and he vanished.
He shot toward two Holt Grandmasters, shadows trailing behind like a cloak of night. One of them, an older woman with golden armor, barely had ti to react before the shadow-bat lunged at her, claws out.
The remaining two Grandmasters tensed.
One launched himself into the air, gathering wind in both hands, forming a spinning cyclone around his body. The other pulled a massive black glaive from his back and shot toward our side.
But our Grandmasters t them halfway.
A clash of wind and steel erupted overhead, shaking the skies.
The battlefield beca chaos.
Thunder, fla, shadow, wind—everything collided at once, turning the skies above the Holt base into a warzone of titanic proportions.
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