The storm had swallowed the whole forest, but the battle was still going strong.
Leon stood among the fallen guild members as his clothes was dark with blood. Beyond him, the surviving army struggled to regroup. Their shared runic network was gone, and the commanders had been forced to split their forces into smaller units.
At the far end, three auras were approaching through the storm. Darian came first, drawing his lightning sword. Serik followed with his twin blades hanging low, while fire gathered around Odran’s fists.
Their wounds had been treated but not healed completely. They were stiff with the pain, and the exhaustion was clear on their faces and movement. But the sight of Leon standing amid the battlefield left them no room to hesitate.
They stood at the edge of the battlefield, gazing over the destruction before settling on Leon.
Two of the five had fallen, and with them went the methods they had relied on to restrain Leon. Without Varek’s earth defenses or Malrec’s spiritual restraints, the three of them could not fight the way they had in the city.
Their plan had been to trap Leon between their attacks and the army, and kill him before the fight drew the attention of powerful cultivators beyond the guilds’ territories, but that chance was slipping away.
The destruction had already spread beyond the forest, and the pressure coming from the battlefield could no longer be hidden.
"We have to end this fast," Darian said as he drew his lightning sword.
Serik nodded as his twin blades shimmered while gathering essence around them, while fire covered Odran’s arms and spread across his shoulders.
Now, none of them will held back.
Darian moved first as his figure dissolved into lightning and reappeared above Leon, his sword already descending. Leon slipped aside, but the blade struck the earth and cleaved through the ground.
The slash kept going past the battlefield, cutting across a distant mountain ridge and splitting it in two.
Before the effect of the attack could be see on the mountain, Serik appeared behind Leon, crossing his twin blades towards Leon’s neck.
Leon bent backward, letting the edges pass above his face, then drove an elbow toward Serik’s chest, but he vanished before the blow landed. He reappeared a few hundred meters away and launched himself forward, leaving afterimages on the ground. Leon tracked him and formed a blade of condensed essence.
Their weapons clashed against each other, and the force hurled both of them back. Serik twisted in the air and landed on a rock, while Leon stopped himself with a current of wind, but Odran was already waiting near him.
He struck with his fist, swallowing Leon in a blazing column. The heat burned the whole forest behind.
Leon emerged out of the flames with himself coated in lightning, and struck Odran on the jaw, and sent him near the mountain ranges. Before he could steady himself, Leon appeared in front of him, trying to cleave him in two, but Darian defended himself with a horizontal slash.
The collision drove both of them back, and the blast kept going and tore a deep hole through the mountainside behind them.
The three of them could attack Leon from different directions, but they could not hold him in a place.
Without Varek to reshape the ground or Malrec to restrict his movements, every opening they made closed almost immediately, and only the army could hold him for a moment through their combined formations.
"Split the formations!" one of the commanders ordered after regrouping from their losses. "Don’t let him close in to the guild masters!"
The commanders divided their troops into smaller formations, abandoning their broken network instead of wasting time trying to restore it. Each formation attacked at a different timing, forcing Leon to change direction before he could go after any of the masters.
Leon directed the storm towards the regrouped army, then struck the ground with his palm as lightning spread through the ground and erupted beneath the army’s nearest formation. Their front ranks scattered, and Leon charged through the gap.
A commander tried to intercept him with his massive axe, but Leon caught it between his hands, and spread his condensed erosion and stripped away its structure until the axe crumbled. He then drove his knee into the commander’s chest and threw him towards the soldiers approaching from behind him.
Darian used the distraction and struck behind Leon’s back. His blade opened a deep wound as Leon staggered, but instead of turning to face Darian, he released a burst of wind that carried him above the battlefield.
From there, he saw the army’s remaining formations spread across the broken ground, their commanders shouting orders, trying to coordinate without the shared network. Each formation still had its own runic junction.
’I have to break those, and they will fall apart themselves,’ he thought.
Then he dove downwards, and shattered two formation junctions with lightning, but was bleeding and exhausted.
Others gave him no time to rest as Serik attacked from above, only to be struck by Leon’s lightning coated fist. But from his side, Odran’s flaming blow sent Leon flying. Darian followed as he slashed and sent an lightning arc towards him. Leon slipped away using his wind, though the attack grazed his leg.
Rising above the battlefield, he unleashed a growing storm. Unlike the storm earlier, this one kept growing past the horizon.
Across the continent, buildings shook as cracks ran through the borders, and guards cleared the district. At a coastal port, waves tore the ships and smashed them against the harbor walls. In the north, an avalanche buried a mountain pass and cut off a trade route.
Powerful cultivators felt something worse than the shaking ground. A huge spiritual fluctuation pulsed through the skies, and they all came to a single conclusion, that a battle was being fought between people far beyond ordinary Convergence.
An old cultivator stepped out of his secluded mountain, gazing toward the distant horizon, then immediately sent a message to his sect.
Many rival guilds sent scouts, and influential families summoned their strongest cultivators, and independent experts came out of seclusion, setting off toward the wilderness.
Some feared the destruction will follow towards the cities, but most of them wanted to see the battle.
By now, the three master had also felt they had lost the time they needed.
Darian looked at the storm spreading past the battlefield. Serik tightened his grip on his chipped blades, while Odran forced the last of his fire into his fists.
"One more," Darian said, raising his sword. "Everything we have left."
The other two moved with him. Serik’s blades cut through the air, opening two crossing paths toward Leon. Odran slammed his fists together and sent a torrent of fire through the gap, while Darian’s lightning came down from above.
Leon gathered the surrounding wind essence and raised a weapon of condensed essence just as the attacks struck him simultaneously.
The collision tore the crater beside Leon apart and sent a shock wave tearing across the wilderness. The masters were thrown back, exposing an opening to the c the commanders waiting at the rear.
On their guild master’s signals, every remaining formation unleashed its final reserves. Their attacks merged into a single, massive torrent that rained down on Leon.
He saw it coming as he maximized his erosion output into a single point, and stripped away layer after layer of the oncoming condensed energy while lightning tore through the rest.
The residual force coiled around him, redirecting the impact to the sides. For an instant, the attack bent away, but the masters struck immediately.
Darian’s sword pierced the outer layer of Leon’s defense, creating a gap for Serik’s twin blades to follow. Simultaneously, Odran’s fire engulfed the space, right as the army’s combined attack crashed into the exact same point.
The entire battlefield vanished into a blinding white light, and the resulting explosion swallowed the whole forest, almost reacing the mountain ranges, and sending a massive shock wave tearing across the landscape.
The ground caved in entirely, leaving a hollow crater where Leon had just been standing. The high dust blinded all. It was high enough to mask the storm as shattered stone rained down upon the battlefield.
Darian crashed onto the crater’s edge. Serik stumbled beside him, coughing, while Odran’s flames flickered out completely as he gasped for air.
There was silence for a long moment as no one moved. As the dust finally began to settle, they scanned the depths of the crater.
There was no body, not even a movement of someone alive.
"We have to find him," Darian said, spreading his senses deep.
Serik lowered his blades, while Odran stared into the crater. Around them, the surviving soldiers stood silent. They had watched Leon survive attacks that should have killed him many times over, but they hoped this one to take him.
"Is he dead?" Odran asked, but no one answered.
Far beyond the battlefield, the approaching cultivators kept travelling toward the wilderness, unaware that the fight might already be over.
Over the crater, dust drifted through the rain and settled on the fallen soldiers. Then, deep beneath the ground, a faint current of spiritual essence began to move. It was too weak to reveal where it came from, but it had not vanished.