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The shield continued to flex and warp, and as Leon’s army approached, it finally flashed and died, leaving the castle open to the air.

However, as soon as it died, Hector launched himself into the air, followed by his most powerful mages.

Leon took the opportunity to snipe the weakest members, striking them with lightning so powerful that they were rendered ash with a single bolt. Hector and his sole eighth-tier follower were the only two who remained.

But while the eighth-tier warrior faltered, Hector shot upward without hesitation, his body encased in powerful armor and a deadly spear in his hand.

Red swooped in to envelop him in fire, but Hector thrust his spear outward, warding her off with a startlingly powerful lance of darkness. As it hit her scales, Red roared in pain and broke off her attack, leaving Leon the only one who could act as Hector aimed his spear at the nearest ark.

Hector drew his arm back in preparation to thrust, darkness magic wafting about the blade of his spear, when Leon flapped his wings and sent a wave of lightning coursing through his feathers, out of his wings, and slamming into the Tiger.

Leon’s lightning did damage, blackening Hector’s armor and drawing some blood, but Hector maintained his focus, his armor blocking enough of Leon’s attack for him to thrust out and send another lance of darkness at the closest ark.

The lance struck the ark in an instant and peeled away its flimsy armor like armor before an open flame. Arks were poorly armored to begin with, a consequence of needing to shed the extra weight that thick armor necessitated. They were clad, for the most part, in thin, magically-enhanced steel plates, but even then, the ark required so much power to operate its weapons and keep in the air that these defensive wards weren’t even close to the strength of a properly-warded stationary fortification.

These drawbacks in the design of arks were put on full display as Hector’s lance buried itself in the side of the ark he’d hit, impacting hard enough to push the ark away from the castle and nearly cause it to roll over in the air. Leon could sense from the magic surrounding the flying machine that its engines were hit hard enough that it could barely remain airborne, let alone continue to participate in the battle. It continued to barely fly, but for all intents and purposes, Leon had just lost an ark.

Anger flashed through his mind as he conjured new lightning bolts in the clouds above. At the same time, Leon’s retainers began firing off attacks of their own at Hector, though his armor was still relatively intact despite the damage it had taken, and the man’s eighth-tier follower flew forth to project another shield of light to protect Hector.

Lightning arrows exploded upon the shield, as did magic from Leon’s retainers. But the shield held, and return fire was directed from the castle below as the fifth-tier and stronger mages in Hector’s force directed their magic at Leon’s retainers. Individually, they weren’t hard to deal with, but they numbered in the hundreds, and those who were weaker added more mundane attacks to the mix, loosing arrows and hurling javelins.

Leon’s retainers broke and dodged out of the way, shifting their attention downward while Leon’s lightning slid past the light barrier to strike Hector again. Hector shouted in pain as bits of his armor melted and Leon drew more blood, but in an impressive feat of concentration, he thrust outward again, striking another of Leon’s arks. The ark didn’t fare much better than the first and was forced to wave off or risk crashing into the forest.

Again, Leon felt wrath coursing through him, and he channeled that spike in emotion into another round of lightning bolts. Hector was forced to the ground as Leon turned his eighth-tier follower into a charred mess.

Just then, the Tempest Knights arrived, and their arrival was heralded with three large explosions—the MALLs that Leon had given them were in front, and their Lightning Lances announced their presence by blowing holes in the recently-built fortifications. The rest of the Tempest Knights charged either over the ground or through the air. Hector’s followers fired their magics back, and the forest to the south and east of the castle shattered from the pressure.

Most of Leon’s Tribal followers and the forces from the central army were behind the Tempest Knights—having a lower average of power, they moved much slower. However, the Jaguar had run ahead of his Tribe’s contingent and, in a flash of red lightning, practically exploded into the castle’s outer bailey. He formed large claws of red lightning bolts and used them to maul and rip his way through Hector’s people; dozens fell in his wake.

Leon dove and added his lightning to the rest, while Red joined the battle again, a deep gash carved into her side.

Hector, meanwhile, injured and barely able to stand, retreated into the castle.

The battle didn’t last much longer. With Leon, his retinue, and the Jaguar acting as the tip of the spear, the Tempest Knights, and then the central and Tribal armies, crashed into the ruined castle and killed all those still resisting. The one remaining intact ark couldn’t fire its Lance anymore with so many allies in range, so it simply hovered above the castle, imposing with its mere presence.

After only half an hour, the outer walls and towers were taken, pushing Hector’s defenders all the way back to the keep. Of the man’s fifteen hundred warriors, at least three or four hundred had been killed, and the rest were either injured and taken prisoner or simply surrendered once their officers were eliminated.

Leon’s losses, on the other hand, were remarkably light. He’d expected much more, but he supposed he did show up with overwhelming force. His biggest material losses were the two heavily-damaged arks and the loss of one MALL, though in the latter case, the crew had managed to safely evacuate when the vehicle was terminally damaged.

Landing in the castle’s main bailey, Leon reassumed human form. He was soon joined by the Jaguar and the rest of his retinue, save for Red who continued to fly around the castle roaring in triumph.

“You ready?” Leon asked everyone, though his question was most directed at the Jaguar.

Everyone replied in the affirmative, but it was the Jaguar’s quiet but determined, “Yes,” that saw Leon calmly walking toward the castle’s main doors.

The castle was heavily damaged in the fighting and its wards had been disrupted, so Leon didn’t struggle much to kick the door open. What greeted him on the other side was the castle’s main hall, largely empty save for a large table and a few chairs off to one side, and Hector sitting in one of those chairs at the other end of the hall.

His spear rested against the chair, while his body was covered in shiny new armor. The injuries he’d taken earlier were largely healed, and Leon only had to look at the pile of used healing spells at Hector’s feet to see how.

“Finally,” Hector spat as Leon and his people entered. “Took you long enough. With such weak-willed people following me, I thought you would’ve made it in here in half the time it took you.”

“Act tough and unfazed all you want, Hector,” Leon replied, “but you’ve lost.”

“No man has lost when he still has the will to fight!” Hector said as he pushed himself to his feet, his spear springing to his hand. “And to keep my people free of your tyranny, I have made my will stronger than stone!”

“Really,” Leon drily replied. “seems to me more like you’ve only gotten your Tribesmen killed.”

“Then you prove yourself blind,” Hector growled. “Either I kill you here and end everything, or you kill me and make my name immortal. I will be the spark that lights Kataigida aflame, and you will be caught in the conflagration.”

“Heh,” Leon chuckled. “I’m no stranger to fire…”

Hector was about to respond, but someone else beat him to it.

“Shut the fuck up, Hector,” the Jaguar ordered as he stepped forward. “You’ve destroyed yourself with this. Whatever you hoped to accomplish has all been undone today.”

“Everything I ever hoped to accomplish was undone a long time ago,” Hector said in a low, dangerous tone, laced with bitter resentment.

Silence fell upon the hall for a moment that lasted barely a second but seemed much longer.

“I couldn’t betray Solomon,” the Jaguar quietly stated.

“But you could betray me?!” Hector shouted as he pointed his spear at the Jaguar in furious accusation. “None of it meant anything! You abandoned everything that day!”

The Jaguar quietly frowned, and his eyes drifted downward until he was staring at the floor.

“Everything we ever dreamed of, Lysander,” Hector continued, “everything… you just… threw it all away.”

“She was my sister,” the Jaguar protested as he turned his eyes to Hector again. “I couldn’t abandon my family.”

Hector smiled with such bitterness that his expression was barely readable. “I suppose I ought to thank you. It’s always good to know where one stands, isn’t it?”

The Jaguar sighed. “Leon,” he said, “will you let me handle this?”

He didn’t even look at Leon, but Leon lightly frowned and nodded. He backed away, waving the others back as he did to give Hector and the Jaguar plenty of space to end this.

“Don’t go far, little Leon,” Hector jeered, his words inspiring such rage within Leon that black sparks began dancing about his fingers.

If the Jaguar didn’t end Hector, Leon vowed right then that he would burn the rebellious Tiger alive.

Hector madly grinned as the Jaguar took up position. He lifted his spear and assumed an aggressive posture, whereas the Jaguar stood like a mountain, imposing and unmoving. Neither moved for a long moment.

“Just like old times,” Hector said. “I’ll be aiming for a different outcome, though…”

“As will I,” the Jaguar replied, speaking in a morose tone.

And with that, Hector lunged forward, darkness erupting from the tip of his spear.

The Jaguar side-stepped, but instead of dodging the black, smoky darkness, he held out a hand and tore it apart with a single swipe of his red lightning claws.

Hector swung his spear to the side to try and catch the Jaguar, but the Jaguar parried, the spear glancing off his lightning. He swiped with his other hand, forcing Hector to leap back.

Again and again the two exchanged blows, but Leon could see that neither were fully committing to the fight. They were still testing each other out, probing their defenses with stronger and stronger magics. It quickly escalated to the point that Leon ordered everyone else out of the castle, let alone the keep. If the keep survived this duel, he’d be frankly surprised.

“It’s always like this!” Hector shouted as he thrust his spear again, only for the Jaguar to slip out from the lance of darkness. “You never stand and fight! Always looking for an out!”

The Jaguar growled incoherently as Hector spun about, catching him in the back of the leg with the butt of the spear. The blow didn’t even draw blood, but it was the first one either landed yet.

However, a moment later, the Jaguar channeled a lightning bolt through his ark, blasting Hector away. Hector’s armor absorbed nearly the entire strike, leaving the man with some singed hair, but otherwise fine.

He slid across the floor, then leaped into the air, hovered there for but a moment, and then brought his spear down like a meteor, crashing into the spot that the Jaguar was only a moment ago hard enough to obliterate the floor and send cracks spiderwebbing up the walls. The castle, already damaged, began to groan as one outer section collapsed.

The Jaguar hardly blinked, though, as he charged forward while Hector’s spear was stuck in the ground. He slammed his fist into Hector’s chest plate and detonated a massive explosion of red lightning. Hector went flying right through the wall, the Jaguar flying close behind.

Leon, wanting to follow the fight, followed after.

The violence continued to escalate, with Hector blasting at the Jaguar with ever-larger tendrils of darkness. He even occasionally became intangible to avoid some of the Jaguar’s strikes, though it rarely took long for the Jaguar to penetrate even that shield of darkness. The Jaguar’s lightning was powerful and violent, and soon enough, it did more damage to the castle than Hector’s darkness had.

After a lightning-aided uppercut, Hector was sent crashing through the ceiling and into the sky. Again, the Jaguar followed, and only a moment after Leon went after them, the entire castle simply collapsed.

In the air, Hector conjured a massive flying Tiger out of a ball of darkness and sent it racing toward the Jaguar. The Jaguar, however, was able to rend it apart with red lightning and then sped after Hector.

“If only you kept to your old principles this steadfastly!” Hector shouted as another blast of darkness missed the Jaguar. “All of the Ten Tribes would be truly united by now!”

“Hate me all you want!” he roared as Hector dodged and weaved between the Jaguar’s massive bolts of red lightning. “But stop pretending you’re doing anything for the benefit of the Ten Tribes! This is all out of spite! Spite for me, your own Tribe, and everyone else!”

“Don’t flatter yourself!” Hector screamed. He looked like he wanted to continue to scream, but the Jaguar’s lightning caught him as he tried to dodge, sending him crashing into the ground. Instead of an actual crash, however, when he hit the ground he disappeared into a shadow.

The Jaguar plummeted to the earth but a moment later, reaching into the shadow that Hector had vanished into like plunging his arm into a pond.

Hector, however, had moved and sprang out of another shadow. This time, a wisp of darkness hit true, snaking around the Jaguar’s head and causing his eyes to roll up into his head. For just a second, the Jaguar became vulnerable as Hector assaulted his mind. The Tiger tried to capitalize, but lightning arced out from the Jaguar’s torso, enveloped his head, and the Jaguar was back on his feet, alert and in the fight.

“A fantasy, nothing more,” he said before charging Hector again.

“It could’ve been real!” Hector shouted as he did his best to dodge the Jaguar’s lightning claws. “It was you who threw it away!”

“You wanted me to abandon my family!” the Jaguar shot back.

“I was supposed to be your family!” Hector cried out just as the Jaguar slammed into him, sending him once more crashing to the ground.

This time, Hector wasn’t able to vanish inside a shadow and instead hit the ground properly, slamming through a tree in the process. The Jaguar followed up with a powerful blast of red lightning, shredding the remnants of Hector’s armor.

Hector attempted to resist, conjuring a horde of black Tigers from the shadows all around him, but a torrent of lightning exploded out from the Jaguar, not only tearing them to pieces but also incinerating everything within a couple hundred feet of Hector.

When the lightning died down, Hector looked like he’d been ground zero for some terrible weapon; he lay in the center of a crater surrounded by little more than burned dirt and burning stumps. What little remained of his armor was either blackened or red-hot, and his skin was cracked and bleeding in a hundred places. He was covered in burns and clearly in pain, but he was still conscious. His aura was flickering and barely a fraction of what it once was, indicating to everyone who could see that Hector was no longer in fighting condition.

The Jaguar softly landed next to him.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I am deeply sorry for how things turned out. You were the best friend I’ve ever had. But I still couldn’t choose you over my sister.”

Hector weakly looked up at the Jaguar and barely acknowledged what he said. “Just… finish…” he croaked.

Leon hovered above them and watched as an expression of deep sorrow flitted across the Jaguar’s face, but the man didn’t hesitate to extend his lightning claws and rake them across Hector’s body, cutting him into several pieces.

Hector was killed instantly as the Jaguar’s power sundered his body, ripped his heart apart, and shattered his soul realm.

And with that, Hector’s rebellion was over. Silence fell upon the surroundings, and Leon was somewhat aware that throughout the battle, they’d flown more than a mile from the castle and left a huge trail of destruction in their wake. However, Leon didn’t break that silence and gave the Jaguar time as he stood over Hector, staring down at his ruined body.

[Take your time,] Leon whispered into the Jaguar’s mind. [Come back when you’re ready.]

The Jaguar acknowledged Leon with nothing more than an anguished sigh, and Leon turned to fly back to the castle. While this fight clearly weighed heavily upon the Jaguar, and that dampened Leon’s mood somewhat, he couldn’t help but revel in this victory. Now, only the Spiders stood between him and a truly united Ten Tribes, and once he returned to Stormhollow, he’d be focusing entirely on them.