Mikaela stood amidst the jagged monuments of her own making, her Elemental form shimmering with the reflected glow of Kael's lava. Vane and Malphas were no more than frozen shadows within the ruby glass. She didn't breathe; she pulsed, a living heartbeat of the tundra.
Harold looked at the frozen wasteland she had created, then back at Kael, who stood with a wild, regenerative heat radiating from his chest. For the first time in a century, the Supreme Commander felt a bead of sweat form at his temple. It wasn't from the heat—it was from the realization that the balance of the world had just shattered.
"Two Elementals," Harold mused, his voice vibrating with a frequency that made the nearby ice groan. "The A.N.Ts were built to prevent this. To ensure that no one man—or woman—could become a cataclysm."
"Then the A.N.Ts were built to fail," Kael spat, his plasma-eyes flaring. "Because here we are. And we aren't stopping at Osoroshi."
Harold closed his eyes. The soft, solar light that had been his aura began to retract, pulling into his skin until he looked almost human again. But the silence that followed was more terrifying than the roar of Kael's fire.
"You think the Elemental State is the peak," Harold said softly. "You think that because you can rebuild your flesh and command the atoms, you have reached the end of the path. But there is a reason I have ruled the First Nation since your grandfathers were in the dirt."
Harold opened his eyes. They weren't white anymore. They were two infinite wells of golden nothingness.
"The Elemental State makes you a part of the world," Harold whispered. "The God State makes the world a part of you."
The God State: Lux Aeterna
The transition was not a burst of energy; it was a total erasure of the surroundings. For a radius of three miles, the violet sky of Osoroshi vanished, replaced by a sky of absolute, blinding gold. The lava at Kael's feet didn't cool—it simply ceased to be matter, turning into weightless particles of light.
Harold's body didn't change into fire or ice. He remained perfectly human, yet he became transparent, a vessel of pure, solidified intention. He didn't move toward Kael; he simply was wherever he chose to be.
Kael lunged, throwing a punch backed by the full thermal weight of a volcano. His fist passed through Harold as if he were a ghost. But as Kael's arm extended, Harold touched Kael's shoulder.
It wasn't a strike. It was a command to the universe.
Kael's Elemental fire didn't just go out—it turned into solid gold chains that bound his own arms. The heat was sucked out of his body in an instant, replaced by a weight so heavy it felt as if a star were sitting on his lungs. Kael collapsed to his knees, his plasma-form flickering and dying, leaving him shivering in the cold mud.
"Mikaela!" Kael choked out.
Mikaela surged forward, her ruby-ice blades screaming through the air. She didn't try to pierce him; she tried to freeze the very concept of him. But as her ice reached the golden radius around Harold, it didn't shatter. It turned into flowers. Thousands of crystalline, golden lilies that fell harmlessly to the ground.
As the golden sky pulsed with Harold's absolute authority, the horizon finally broke. The clouds parted to reveal the A.N.T. Grand Fleet. Hundreds of massive, white-and-gold cruisers descended like falling gods, their shadow covering the entirety of the Osoroshi capital.
Thousands of soldiers began to rappelling down on beams of light, their weapons locked onto the two exhausted sovereigns.
Harold stood over Kael, his hand glowing with the terrifyingly calm light of the God State. "I am not your enemy because I hate you, Kael. I am your enemy because you are a variable I cannot control. And a variable in the God State is a cancer to the world's order."
He looked up at the descending fleet. "Take them. Strip their titles. Place them in the Void-Cells of the Motherland. If they are Elementals, then we shall see how long they can burn in a room without air."
Kael looked at Mikaela, her icy form fading as the golden light suppressed her mana. Their eyes met—a final spark of defiance before the darkness of the First Nation took them.