“Think that did it?” the lightning user asked Taarush.

  Taarush replied with a sneer. “Hardly, these bastards are tough to kill.”

  Sure enough, the mountain stirred with something alive beneath. The stone rose, cracked, and exploded outward in a burst of dust fire and molten shards, like a volcano spewing forth its contents.

  From the storm of debris, Arnault emerged astride éclat once more, riding into the sky. He was battered and panting heavily, pieces of his armor were missing. The cloth was charred and his once resplendent helm broken. Panting heavily from exertion and pain, he removed it before spitting out blood.

  Arnault was battered, true—but he was not yet broken. He drew deep from his reserves, mana flaring as his armor re-knit itself and his wounds sealed. He wanted to fight back, but with Taarush now in the mix—a man who became far stronger than when they last crossed blades years ago— this fight once hopeful had become impossible.

  He touched down lightly on the torn ground, every one of his senses tuned to the enemies ahead, still wary of his enemies who were searching for any opening. Attack, he could plan for; defense, less so, he wasn’t so arrogant to think he could defend against the odds stacked against him. He wasn’t arrogant enough to believe he could withstand what was coming.

  He sighed internally and grumbled, bitter amusement crossing his thoughts. Why did they have to choose today to attack?

  “Arnault!”

  Someone called his name, the sound cutting through the static air. A figure landed beside him in a burst of blue light.

  Arnault’s shoulders dropped with weary relief, he sighed internally again, this time though, he was thankful.

  “Chatur!”

  The newcomer, Archon of the Lotus Dominion, Nivaan Chaturvedi, tall and wiry in a black jacket and blue jeans, shot him an annoyed glare. “Stop calling me that.”

  “Nivaan, good to see you,” Arnault corrected with a smirk as he sent a glance towards his ally. Sweat was streaking down Nivaan’s temple. “That bad?”

  “Yeah, it’s bad.” Nivaan’s voice was steady, cool, and threaded with exhaustion. “We picked the worst day to visit. Thirty Fields went active at once around the country. It’s a pretty big assault.”

  Arnault’s expression hardened. “What about the others?”

  “Since you got caught, Marcelle’s coordinating. Antoine, Devansh, and I finished our fights so we decided to split to reinforce whoever’s still fighting.”

  “Something is wrong with this fight,” Arnault explained quietly. “Normally they would just outright attack us no sign of warning.”

  “Really? In our case, they just attacked, the usual pattern,” Nivaan informed in a whisper only he can hear, sounding skeptical. “What’s different in your case?”

  “Don’t know, I was near Notre-Dame when they approached me,” Arnault replied just as quietly.

  The two men thought for a moment before coming to a disturbing conclusion.

  “What the hell do they want to do to the dragon veins?”

  As they spoke, the C-rank enemy Arnault had left unconscious stirred and rejoined his companions.

  “Go,” Taarush barked, his tone brooking no argument. “I’ll handle these two.”

  The lightning user hesitated. “What if more of them show up?”

  “Stick to the plan!” Taarush snapped, eyes flashing. The lesser mages exchanged a look, then fled out of the field at blinding speed.

  Taarush turned back to the two Archons. His grin was feral, almost ecstatic.

  “I wanted to see Remington again. I was hoping I could chop off an arm of his, then maybe a leg for interest.” His gaze sharpened. “For now, both of you two will have to do.”

  “System Command: Load Arcana Overboost—Level 4!”

  The ground shuddered beneath him. Power surged, an avalanche of raw mana shaking the air.

  “Samaveda: Indra!” (Knowledge of Chants: Indra)

  His body transformed in an explosion of lightning and storm. Flesh hardened into the toughest of metals, bones thickened, muscles swelled and bulged. He rose to over two and a half meters tall, skin the hue of deep cerulean, arcs of crimson lightning dancing across it. A second pair of arms unfurled from his sides.

  The power radiating from him pressed like a physical weight—near godlike, but still suffocating.

  Arnault and Nivaan steadied themselves, caution replacing bravado. Now that Taarush was now stronger than he was before, his aura eclipsed theirs completely and that means only one of the tetrarchs can match him.

  Despite them being Archons and a two versus one fight, the odds were still stacked against them, yet they still had their duties.

  “Avenger’s Gaze!”

  “Parallax Veil!”

  “Vajra Padma!”

  After casting spells on himself, Taarush stood tall and full of confidence. “You may call me—Taarush Deva,” he said as smiled down at them, his eyes burning red and electric blue. “Now then, shall we begin?”

  “Cover me,” Nivaan whispered.

  Arnault slipped his battered helm back on, raised his lance in salute just as thunder split the sky.

  In an instant, Taarush vanished. When he reappeared, it was behind them, all four hands crackling with condensed bolts of red lightning. He hurled them all, two at each Archon.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  Four titanic blasts erupted, carving smoldering, smoking craters a hundred meters wide and twenty deep. The shockwaves flattened the grassland.

  Taarush scanned the destruction, eyes narrowing. “Where are you?”

  The answer came a beat later. Thousands of after-images of Nivaan raced across the battlefield—refraction phantoms, all flickering with identical mana signatures. Taarush snarled, furious at the deception, and began hurling bolts of crimson lightning.

  BOOM!

  BOOM!

  BOOM!

  BOOM!

  Each strike gouged new craters as cracks of thunder pierced the air endlessly. The field became an ocean of smoke and fire.

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  Snarling in frustration, Taarush drew deeper from his power, making the air warp with the pressure of his skill. Above, black clouds surged outward, swallowing the sky as veins of red lightning pulsing like spiderwebs of a living storm.

  “System Command: Load Codex—Vajra!”

  From the heavens descended a staff of pure lightning, its energy screaming and writhing. It stopped in front of Taarush who held it in all four hands. He raised it high, arcs of power lashed outward, scorching the earth wherever they struck.

  “Indra-Varsha!” (Rain of Indra)

  He drove the weapon into the ground. The impact detonated a sphere of seething electricity that spread in every direction, vaporizing everything it touched. A moment later, the storm clouds above answered in kind, unleashing a cataclysmic torrential rain of lightning that devoured the battlefield in a white-blue inferno.

  When the storm’s fury finally subsided, Taarush stood alone amid scorched earth and devastation. The world was silent, only ash, settling dust and his own steady breathing. From a distance, it might have seemed over, but veterans who had fought the Order before knew better. Taarush once again scanned around the devastated space.

  Against Archons, silence was the most dangerous sound of all.

  Unlike them, the mages who relied on the System, on calculated numbers and mana pools, the members of the Order drew from something deeper. Their power was not coded or quantified, it was the raw, living essence of mana itself. And even a drop of that was enough to stir them awake.

  Taarush narrowed his eyes, using his heightened senses to sweep across the field, he tried to see, to peel away his enemies’ deception. He sought the faintest disruption, any trace and shimmer of mana, the sound of a heartbeat that would be out of place in the devastation. His lightning traced arcs across his metallic skin as he focused.

  Then—light.

  The sun pierced the thunderclouds in glorious radiance, scattering the storm, casting away the dark clouds, and igniting the air with soft light. High above, a lone figure glowed in full radiance.

  Arnault, hovered astride éclat, battered but unbowed, his armor gleaming faintly in the dawn light. He drew his lance Ode and issued a mental command. Overture!

  The weapon answered his will, flaring so bright that it seemed to burn a hole through the heavens.

  In that instant, dawn broke upon the battlefield.

  Arnault leveled his lance at the towering blue titan below. éclat screamed, hooves sparking against the air, and both charged together.

  They fell from the sky like a comet of gold and white, a blinding streak of light and fury racing across the sky and slamming down to earth.

  The impact shattered the world.

  The ground liquefied, a crater blooming outward as shockwaves tore through the air. Stone, soil, and shattered lightning rose like shrapnel in the impact in an explosion of force and light.

  Once the dust settled, Taarush staggered a step, his sneer returned almost instantly on his face.

  “That barely did anything,” he rumbled.

  His lower arms braced, holding up a massive magical sigil—an electric blue lotus with twelve radiant petals, each rotating with mechanical precision.

  Vajra Padma

  The Thunderbolt Lotus—an auto-barrier that nullified any direct attack.

  From the crater, two streaks erupted—one gold-white, one azure. They clashed midair, colliding again and again in bursts of light and deafening roars that cracked the sky.

  Ode launched lances of pure light, Taarush countered with erudition lightning while his lotus shield flaring with each hit, turning them aside like bright ripples on water.

  Arnault then swung Serment in a blazing arc, fire trailing like a banner behind his blade. Arnault’s strike hit nothing but air as Parallax Veil did its job.

  The duel had become a deadly waltz among clouds and lightning.

  Arnault quickly learned that Vajra Padma was most vulnerable when Taarush did not manually control it, during automatic defense. But, when both his lower hands guided its rotation and form, it was near-impenetrable, but slower.

  Maybe that could be a window. Arnault thought grimly. But one of us has to be bait.

  It became a match not just of power and strength, but of intuition as one tested the limits of divine endurance, the other probing for weakness.

  But even as Arnault pressed the attack, the gap in their power began to show.

  Taarush’s defenses grew sharper, his teleportation faster, his strikes heavier. Arnault’s advantage in speed dwindled. Then, éclat shrieked as a bolt of scarlet lightning grazed her flank.

  The mighty steed faltered, her feet folding instinctively.

  They plummeted.

  Arnault hit the earth hard, armor cracking, dirt erupting around him in a dull thud. He rolled, coming to one knee, his vision swimming—but his grip on Serment held firm.

  Above him, the sky flared crimson.

  Taarush appeared in the blink of an eye, wreathed in lightning, towering over him. In each of his four hands he held a crackling bolt of red energy—destruction condensed into form.

  A cruel smile touched his face.

  “Let’s see how you shine now, Archon.”

  ========================================================================

  Damn. Our situation is hopeless.

  Nivaan Chaturvedi’s thoughts raced as he drew deep from his mana-wellspring. Against Taarush, neither he nor Arnault or even both combined stood a chance. Ten Archons at once might survive the first volley, but the battle would grind them into attrition. The power gap was simply too great.

  I don’t have authorization to use you, but we need a way to break out, and fast. Please help us.

  What they must do now, was to get word out that the enemy was targeting the ley lines. But they cannot, not while inside the Boundless Field. Any direct attempt to transmit a warning would be intercepted and escape was impossible not with the kind of enemy keeping them from fleeing.

  Nivaan had moved underground, the earth shielding him from the lethal arcs of lightning above. Crude, but necessary. He needed time—time Arnault would have to buy. He could only hope it would be enough and he was not too late.

  Mana surged within him, coalescing, then he exhaled and breathe out a purplish-blue flame in his palms. A chant started in his soul as drums pounded in rhythm. His body moved in a ritualistic dance, crisp, fluid, graceful, yet powerfully masculine, as the two flames circled each hand.

  At the apex, he brought the flames together. They merged into a single blaze, before he traced a flaming circle in the air. Kneeling, he let the fire spread over him like living armor.

  One knee shifted then the other followed, spinning in a perfect circle across the ground, around the flame. Flames licked upward, forming another circle. Rising, he struck the Rudra Tandava posture, awaiting the answer.

  Then, after what felt like an eternity, he heard it—the thunder of massive feet.

  ========================================================================

  Above the battlefield, Taarush raised two bolts of lightning, aiming them at Arnault’s heart and face.

  He brought them down, certain in the strike that would end an Archon’s life. Before they could reach the target, the attacks were halted mere centimeters by a golden lotus sigil of sixteen petals. Taarush scowled, confused.

  He raised all four arms, launching all four bolts downward once more.

  Arnault, behind his helm, closed his eyes and gritted his teeth—but no pain came. When he opened his eyes, it was in time to see what had changed. Over his domain, another one had overlapped and complemented it. The grassy field was now raised upon an arid canyon with trees as well as a mighty river cutting through the valley below.

  The Lotus Dominion was famed for its binding magics, but among their arsenal of artifacts there were twelve weapons of transcendent quality. These were instruments of power that had wills of their own, ones that should have earned them mythic-grade. But being one of the oldest, its strength brushed against legendary.

  From the glowing sigil below the earth, an explosion of power and a torrent of light erupted, followed by a triumphant blast from a trumpet.

  “Jai Mahākāla?,” Arnault exclaimed weakly

  From the brilliance emerged a colossal figure, rising high up in the air punctuated by another trumpet blast. No, not a trumpet.

  It was the exhalation of Airavata the white elephant, one of the 12 Astras (Divine Weapon) and Vahana (Spiritual Mount) of Archon Nivaan Chaturvedi.

  The creature stood five meters tall, four tusks, thick and strong, curved in pairs like battering rams. The skin glimmering snow-white and was adorned with gold and bronze plates from the tusks to its back and sides. A six-sided crystal with a lotus emblem gleamed on its forehead. Atop its back sat a golden howdah, fit for royalty.

  Nivaan stood inside the canopy already armored head to foot in Verdurite and Terracon, the robes of Regalia: Sa?rak?aka flowing in the speed of his charge.

  A large warbow, Vayu already drawn and aimed at Taarush. He released and the arrow made out of both electrified and scorching mana shot out, faster than a missile.

  Arnault kicked, launching himself far away from Taarush, distancing himself from the point of impact.

  BOOOM!

  The arrow struck—but Taarush had already teleported high into the sky, narrowly avoiding the strike. He was now looking down at his opponents.

  Arnault rose to his knees just as éclat galloped behind him. His hand reached out grabbed her saddle, pulling himself on top. Together, they ascended, catching up to Nivaan, who was now dodging and reflecting relentless lightning strikes.

  “It’s an honor to face one of the holders of the Astra,” Taarush mocked as he dusted his shoulder. “System Command: Load Codex—Paranjaya. System Command: Load Codex—Ajagava.”

  Storm clouds roiled again, darkening the battlefield. From there, born from the roiling energies, Taarush drew a large warbow in one hand and a khanda, a double-edged straight sword, in the other. He switched Vajra to one of his lower hands before he wielded the bow.

  Arcs of vitrified lightning formed into an electric-blue arrow as he pulled the string taut, ready to fire as he charged down at his opponents.

  Nivaan mirrored the motion, drawing his bow, channeling raw mana into a single, devastating shot. Backed by Arnault, together, a silver knight and a warrior prince met a god of war in the sky in a titanic explosive clash.