Lightning hissed across the war-torn plaza as the three Pillars circled Kiras, her figure swaying calmly in the smoke like a serpent sizing up prey. Sparks, frost, and fire lit the haze in rhythmic pulses—each a sign of elemental might unleashed.
Kiras smirked. "A little young to be playing at legends, aren't we?"
Freedom stepped forward first, flames swirling around his arms like golden serpents. "Funny. I was thinking you're a little old to still be doing sneak attacks!"
A flicker of her eyes—then she lunged, blade of warped void magic arcing toward him. He ducked, launching himself upward with a fiery burst and slammed his fist down toward her skull, flames spiraling like a comet. She spun aside, but not fast enough—the edge of the impact scorched her shoulder. "Still stings, huh?" Freedom taunted, backflipping and landing with a flare of heat.
Truth called out from behind. "We're not here to play games!"
"Then stop holding back!" Kiras snapped, dashing between them in a blink. Her foot swept under Ardyn, who countered by flipping and slamming both electrified palms into the ground. Bolts scattered—Kiras twisted midair.
Truth moved in with glacial efficiency, each ice spike sharper and faster than the last. She deflected the first, dodged the second—but the third scraped across her side. She winced, eyes narrowing.
"Cute," she growled. "You coordinate better than your titles suggest."
"Oh, I'm more than a title," Freedom barked, rising up beside her with blazing fists. "I'm the guy who's gonna leave scorch marks on your ego!"
With a fiery roar, he charged. His punches came in fast—flaming knuckles with the power of small explosions. Kiras danced back, absorbing one hit, two—then twisted and tried to impale him with a jagged void blade.
Truth flicked his wrist— an ice wall rose in between them just in time.
"We've got her reeling!" Ardyn yelled, electricity sparking from her forearms.
"You mean I've got her reeling," Freedom corrected with a cocky grin, charging again. Combo after combo—fire and lightning striking together, frost locking her feet, thunder disorienting her balance. Kiras was on the defensive, parrying fast, casting dark sigils into the air only for them to be shattered by coordinated magic.
But still, she didn't stop smiling.
"You're passionate," she said to Freedom, her tone velvet and venom. "And reckless. That burn of yours…it won't just scorch others. It'll consume you."
Freedom's fire roared even hotter, coating his arms. "Then let it!"
He slammed his fist into the ground, a fiery geyser exploding beneath her. Kiras twisted midair again—only to catch a lightning spear straight in the ribs from Ardyn. She coughed as Truth stepped forward, eyes glowing blue, gathering a massive spear of glacial energy.
Together, the three Pillars formed up—ready to strike in harmony.
Kiras stood, disheveled now, blood on her lip. She chuckled.
"Well then," she said, eyes darkening like eclipsed suns. "Let's see what happens when I stop playing."
The battlefield had become a kaleidoscope of shattered cobblestone, shattered breath, and unrelenting chaos. Lightning, fire, and frost had reshaped the once-proud courtyard of Eldoria's inner circle into a crater-ridden war zone. Kiras stood tall at its center—unmarked, unfazed, and beautifully horrifying.
With a simple raise of her hand, the sky cracked. A violet shimmer blotted out the sun, and a shadow-ring crowned the light in an unnatural eclipse. As if answering her summons, the battlefield pulsed with eerie silence. No wind. No cries. No clash of steel.
Only her voice.
"Flame that burns brightest…
Ice that cuts deepest…
Thunder that roars loudest…
I name you all."
Golden brands pulsed along her arm. The words echoed, and with them, power shifted.
Freedom took a step forward, only to stumble—his flames curled violently up his arms, licking too hot, too fast. He grunted, trying to form a focused flame burst—but it detonated behind him instead, throwing him forward into a roll.
"What the hell?!"
Evren's frost tried to form in a defensive spread, but the mist turned jagged, forming at random angles, slicing near his own legs. He retreated, recalibrating—off balance.
Ardyn's thunder swelled in her chest. She roared and unleashed it like usual—but her arcs lashed sideways, cutting a clean line through a nearby turret wall.
Uncontrolled. Unstable.
Kiras began to walk.
Her counter-attack had already begun.
A molten serpent made of Freedom's own fire slithered from the scorched ground, hissing. It lunged for him, fast and precise, aiming for his neck. He dodged narrowly, landing in a crouch.
"You're using our powers?! That's cheap!"
"No," Kiras said, her eyes gleaming. "I'm perfecting them."
A jagged crystal lance of ice erupted under Evren's feet—his own technique, twisted. He barely avoided being impaled, flipping backward mid-air, his teeth gritting in frustration.
Lightning surged again—and a clone of Ardyn, crackling and roaring with an electric frenzy, lunged at her from her left flank.
"Oh come on," she muttered, dodging a crackling kick.
"I look nothing like that," she shouted mid-dash.
"You're stunning, Ardyn," Evren coughed as he ducked under a bolt.
"Shut it, frost boy!"
The team begins to rally.
The three regrouped near the edge of the broken central statue.
Freedom's chest rose and fell quickly, lips curled in frustration. "Alright. She's fast. She's cheating. What's the play?"
Evren knelt and quickly etched a frost sigil into the ground, eyes scanning. "We need to disrupt her control. Her version of our powers aren't perfect. They're echoes. Mimics."
Ardyn cracked her knuckles. "You're saying we outfight ourselves?"
Freedom grinned. "No problem. I've been doing that in the mirror for years."
Freedom lunged, this time faking a fireball punch and instead slamming his foot into the ground, redirecting the flame underneath Kiras. She sidestepped—only to find Ardyn above her, lightning-wreathed knee aimed at her head. Kiras threw up a hand, blocking with a kinetic shield—but the pressure cracked it.
Evren followed with a spear of ice aimed not at Kiras, but at the clone chasing Ardyn. It struck the lightning copy in the throat, freezing and dispersing it.
"Adapt faster than your shadow," he muttered.
But even with their clever tactics, Kiras never flinched.
"Yes," she said aloud, "give me more to use."
Just as Ardyn went in for a rapid strike, Kiras snapped her fingers.
All three mimic attacks reignited at once: the molten serpent, the jagged ice, and the unstable lightning clone—now all enhanced, converging on their targets with terrifying accuracy. Evren was knocked back by a burst of corrupted ice.
Freedom barely deflected a fiery bite from the serpent—but his sleeve caught fire. Ardyn fought her clone blow for blow, grunting as sparks flared against sparks.
"We're not going to beat her like this," Evren grunted.
"Then we stop trying to fight her solo," Ardyn shouted.
"Pillar combo?"
"Pillar combo."
Freedom's voice rang out first, hot with determination.
"We do this now!"
Evren nodded, eyes flaring blue-white. "Synchronized focus."
Ardyn growled, her stance low. "And hit her harder than time itself."
They took positions—Freedom at center, fire pulsing in both fists. Evren to the left, crouched low, palms to the earth as frostlines spread beneath them. Ardyn on the right, arcs of electricity wrapping her forearms like gauntlets.
The Arena Warps
A shockwave rippled outward. The sky cracked. The battlefield shifted from ruined stone to a suspended space of swirling flame, snow, and lightning—a pocket reality born of their bond. Within it, the rules changed.
Freedom shot forward first, flames bursting from his heels like jet engines. He weaved left and right, delivering blinding jabs and hooks, forcing Kiras to stay defensive. Just as she batted away one strike, Evren emerged from a spiral of snow, tossing piercing shards like throwing knives, each locking her movement tighter with every parry. Then came Ardyn, thundering down with both fists like hammers, slamming her into the frost-forged floor.
Kiras gasped—not in pain, but in realization. The space itself was draining her mimicry. Here, their elemental cores were unchallenged. Their echoes were silenced.
"They've grown," she muttered. "No longer borrowed titles… but true Pillars."
For a moment—it looked like the final blow was coming. Kiras Counters: Dominion Split She clenched her fist—light tore across the space.
"You want a world of your power?" she spat, eyes glowing gold.
"Then drown in it."
Dominion Split. Kiras's echo fragments—which had appeared broken—reformed in new shapes. Not mimics this time.
But corrupt reflections of the three Pillars. Each had blackened versions of their powers, twisted to counter them. The corrupted Freedom burned cold fire—flames that froze what they touched.
The warped Evren cast molten ice, heavy and burning.
The shadow Ardyn moved with silent lightning, faster than thought and without sound. The Pillars faltered. Their own arena—their advantage—was being used against them again.
The Clash Reignites Freedom screamed and charged his shadow, yelling:
"I don't need clean power—I just need it to hurt!"
Evren set his hands to the corrupted ground and let a glacier rise, tossing his warped self through a storm of jagged snow.
Ardyn threw herself into her reflection like a storm given shape, roaring with enough voltage to split the platform beneath them.
Back at the edge of the fight, Talon watched, blade drawn.
"That's what they were always meant to be," he muttered.
Robin, behind him, nodded slowly. "And that's what she's trying to erase."
The ground cracked beneath their feet as Freedom surged forward, fire swirling around his fists in coiling dragons of heat and fury. The battlefield had become a war drum, and he was its thunder.
"You talk big," Freedom roared, "but your flames don't burn like mine!"
Kiras grinned through the smoke and ash, her violet cloak fluttering like wings behind her. "Sweet boy… you're too loud to notice when the quiet things hurt most."
Freedom's flaming fist collided with a sudden barrier—her forearm wrapped in sleek, obsidian armor. The two forces exploded in a shockwave, knocking back even the Hollowspawn nearby. They were toe-to-toe now, and he didn't relent. Blow after blow, heat poured from him as his adrenaline drowned out the pain of overuse.
Behind him, Truth staggered slightly.
The frost on his breath no longer crackled like before. His stance, once firm and graceful, slouched as his pupils dilated briefly. A strange sensation—it wasn't pain. It was... tired.
Seraphine, from the sidelines, gasped. "Evren's fading."
Kiras flicked her fingers subtly behind her back—an invisible weave etched into the air. The fatigue spell had already taken root the moment Truth had cast his first wave of ice. Her Echo of Dominion had whispered through his aura, unraveling his stamina thread by thread. It was all part of the trap.
But she hadn't accounted for Freedom's fury. He didn't notice Truth stumble. He didn't hear the shouted warnings. All he saw was Kiras.
"Don't look away from me!" he shouted, sending a flame wave point-blank. It scorched across her guard, breaking through for a moment as her boots skidded back.
"You're good," she coughed through smoke, "but not complete."
Then it happened. A shriek—raw and guttural—echoed from the left flank.
Justice.
Her body was hurled through the air, crackling with fading electricity, before she slammed into a jagged rock wall. It cracked under the impact. She didn't rise.
"ARDYN!" Truth shouted, panic breaking through his daze.
Seraphine sprinted to her side, eyes wide, barely dodging another Hollowspawn charging the line. Freedom turned—but it was too late. He'd been drawn in too far, too deep.
"You protect them so desperately," Kiras said, stepping back with a coy smile, "but every second you spend fighting me... they fall."
Her smile vanished.
"And I haven't even started."
Kiras stood amidst it all, unshaken, a queen in the eye of a storm. Her cloak billowed like wings, her hair whipping in the chaotic wind. Her voice echoed, cold and calm:
"And this... is the best Eldoria had left? No wonder they needed saving once already."
Freedom charged again, reckless, fiery, desperate. But Kiras was faster. She whispered an incantation—Echo of Dominion—and a blast of arcane force erupted, launching him through the air like a ragdoll. He hit the far wall hard, flames flickering out. Everything paused.
Dust fell. Screams quieted. Even the Hollows seemed to halt mid-lunge. And then, a sound. A note—thin, soft, almost like a whisper of wind—cut through the silence.
"...Haven't changed a bit, Kiras."
Her eyes narrowed.
From the clouds above, something pulsed. The sunlight twisted. Time bent. A rune—complex, circular, ancient—etched itself into the sky.
And then he appeared.
Victory.
Cloaked in violet, hair wild with lilac streaks, boots crunching into the dirt as he stepped through the sky itself. No portal, no flourish. Just power humming at his fingertips. His eyes shimmered like nebulae, glowing with a dangerous calm.
He glanced down at the scattered Pillars.
"Hmph. I told them you'd push too far."
Kiras didn't flinch. "You're late."
Victory gave a half-smirk. "I had to memorize the perfect comeback line. Not like I carry a wand, remember?"
She rolled her eyes. "Still quoting books and chasing ghosts, I see."
"Still trying to be one. Disappointing."
With a flick of his fingers, sigils lit across the ground in a perfect circle. A counter-spell formed, unraveling the remnants of Kiras' fatigue spell and bathing Truth and Justice in warm light.
"Get up," he muttered, not even turning back to them. "It's not over."
Freedom, bloodied but conscious, blinked in disbelief. "You've got to be kidding me…"
Truth, now able to breathe clearly again, whispered, "The stories were true."
Kiras took a step forward. "You really want to die with them, Victory?"
He stretched his arms, lightning crackling at his fingertips. "Nah. I'm here to remind you... why you never beat me."