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For all his new power and the strength of Iron Pride and the Iron Needle, Leon found it frustratingly difficult to get a new hit in on Sunlit. The Emperor wasn’t using his lightning externally, so Leon couldn’t try and create an opening by using the Iron Needle to mess with his magic, as he’d done with Sunlit’s first bolt. Instead, the Emperor was using all of his speed and power to keep on Leon, using sheer aggressiveness to apply pressure.

Leon could respect the strategy, especially since his own style heavily favored aggressiveness, but he hated being on the receiving end. Switching tack slightly, Leon decided that losing a measure of speed was worth it and called upon his other bloodline.

As Sunlit charged after him again, Leon raised an arm and conjured a gout of black fire. The Emperor screamed and halted in midair, then bounded back so quickly that he might as well have bounced off an invisible wall.

Leon grinned behind his helmet and shot after him. Great arcs of black fire erupted from his fingers as he chased the Sunlit Emperor across the sky. With every black spark he summoned, Sunlit did his damnedest to create more distance, his eyes wide with fear.

After a few seconds that felt like hours, though, in which Leon pursued the Emperor a dozen times, Sunlit screamed in fear and pure, unadulterated rage. Leon closed for a thirteenth blast of black fire only to nearly catch a massive lightning bolt to the visor. Only his quick reflexes bringing Iron Pride up saved him from potential injury, as his sword cleaved the lightning bolt in half and dissipated it.

With that came a lull in the duel as Leon pulled back a bit and the Sunlit Emperor didn’t pursue.

“You fight against me,” the Emperor bitterly spat, all the hatred that a single person could feel packed into his tone, “and call yourself the head of the Thunderbird Clan… yet you fight with this cursed magic? You can’t even defeat me with the Clan’s magic?!”

Without waiting for a reply, the Emperor charged again, his blade bright with golden lightning. Leon brought Iron Pride up again, blocking Sunlit’s weapon. He squeezed his fingers around the hilt of Iron Pride intending to use the Iron Needle to cause Sunlit’s magic to backfire, but his focus was shattered as the Emperor used his gauntleted offhand to land a punch directly against Leon’s visor, sending him reeling.

“You would dishonor the name of our glorious Ancestors by using some heathen magic?!” Sunlit roared as he lunged after Leon and slammed his blade into Leon’s breastplate. His blade hit Leon’s pseudo-Adamant armor with spectacular force, the sound booming louder than just about any thunder Leon had ever heard. The pressure from the sound wave alone pushed the clouds back even as Sunlit called down golden bolts upon Leon as he was hurled to the ground.

The two had flown far throughout their duel, but they were still above Thunderhaven’s suburbs. Leon fell into a small park in a residential neighborhood, hitting the ground with such force that the earth shattered beneath him, and he found himself mostly buried even as Sunlit’s lightning rained down upon him.

The ground shook further with every lightning strike, and Leon could feel it burn and melt around him. His armor kept most of it at bay and what little pain he experienced was almost immediately alleviated by the tau pearl, but that hardly changed the fact that he was in deep trouble.

He sensed the Sunlit Emperor land next to the large crater he’d made on impact, and through the dirt and lightning and thunder, he heard the Emperor snarl, “You! Some young upstart from the ass end of nowhere! Think to challenge someone INFINITELY YOUR BETTER?! What audacity! What hubris! What insanity is this, to challenge ME?! I will flense the flesh from your bones and use your worthless skull as a toilet!”

He strode forward, lightning continuing to fall all around them, his aura towering and roiling with unbridled fury. His magic surged forward and blasted away all the burning and molten material around Leon, then grabbed Leon by the neck after stomping on his hand and breaking his arm to loosen his grip on Iron Pride.

“Your followers I will crucify,” the Emperor spat. “Your women I will enslave and give to my soldiers! I wi—”

Leon, nearly blind with rage, lashed out, cutting the Emperor off. He slammed his fist into the Sunlit Emperor’s golden helmet, and his fingers exploded with silver-blue lightning on contact. Sunlit shouted in pain as he fell back and for just a moment, his golden lightning ceased.

With his mind taken completely by emotion, Leon flexed his sword arm’s fingers and didn’t think at all about how Iron Pride had already found its way back to him. As a tenth-tier mage and with the tau pearl’s aid, Leon’s arm had already mended itself enough for him to fight with minimal pain, and even that was already decreasing.

With Iron Pride in hand, Leon launched himself after Sunlit, his golden eyes fixed squarely on the Emperor. He pressed hard, the park around them rapidly disintegrating as golden and silver-blue lightning flashed between them. Their swords clashed with such power and intensity that they were frequently separated by thunderous explosions, though the separation never lasted for longer than a second as each of them charged at the other again and again.

Finally, their blades locked together, and their deadly dance ceased for a moment. Leon noted with a grin that Iron Pride looked pristine despite the extreme conditions it found itself under, yet Sunlit’s sword had deep gouges taken out of the blade’s edge.

As they each applied their prodigious tenth-tier strength to wrestle for position and disentangle their blades, Sunlit growled, “You upstart cu—”

Leon interrupted him with a helmeted headbutt, taking Sunlit by surprise and sending him reeling just enough for Leon to get the leverage to throw the Emperor over his shoulder. Their blades finally unlocked, and with Iron Pride blazing with silver-blue lightning, Leon brought it down upon the Emperor once again.

However, less than a foot away, a barrier of white light sprang into place to save Sunlit. Iron Pride bounced off even as the barrier shattered beneath Leon’s power. Sunlit was allowed the space to retreat, and to buy himself even more time, he threw a tiny disc barely larger than a silver coin onto the ground. Another barrier of white light sprang into place, this one larger and completely enclosing the Emperor in a protective dome.

Leon hurled himself against the barrier, but after half a dozen strikes in less than a second, realized that the barrier wasn’t going to fall through force alone, so he took a moment to step back even as Sunlit, his breath heavy and rapid, stood with his arms outstretched as if goading Leon into continuing his fruitless strikes against the barrier.

Leon’s well-practiced eyes and magic senses scanned the barrier and, to his surprise, found that it wasn’t a modern enchantment, but an ancient one instead. A single rune had been carved onto the face of the enchanted disc, now inside the barrier and beyond his immediate reach. He could feel the barrier weakening at a rapid pace, so Sunlit wouldn’t be able to hide for longer than a couple minutes, but he still turned over a few ideas for dealing with the barrier in his head.

As Leon focused on the problem, Sunlit gloatingly said from the safety of his light dome, “If you hadn’t noticed, you sentient shitstain, we have some guests. It’s fantastic, really; they’ll get to witness your downfall today, and all their ambitions come to a bloody end.”

Leon remained focused, but he did project his magic senses and was somewhat surprised to find that Thunderhaven had more than just him and his forces visiting—about ten miles outside of the furthest suburb was a small group comprised of the Lord Protector, Grand Druid, the Director, Penelope, and the Keeper. None of them had any guards or other attendants with them; they simply hovered in the air, watching the battle take place.

And they had much to witness; Leon could also see the last of Sunlit’s Imperial arks fall, burning from numerous holes punched through its hull. The barrier of light that protected the palace remained in place, but Sunlit’s only remaining ark was the Thunderbird Clan heavy cruiser, and even that powerful ark was being hard-pressed by Silver Spear. By all rights, the smaller and lighter destroyer shouldn’t have been having so much success suppressing the heavy cruiser, but Leon guessed that since no one in the Sunlit Empire had awakened blood, they were still operating the cruiser at far below its technical capabilities.

“Heh,” Leon quietly chuckled. “Were you a real member of the Thunderbird Clan, we’d never have been here…”

Sunlit indignantly glared at him, but Leon continued undaunted.

“The destroyers and that cruiser would all have been operating at a level that me and mine simply couldn’t match. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the ‘Sky Devils’ would’ve bowed to you instead. But you assumed too much and pressed your luck. Now here we are, with you abandoned by everyone who could’ve aided you, cowering behind a thin wall of light.

“As if you have any room to brag, you poxy cum guzzler,” Sunlit growled. “If you were worthy at all—”

“You want to discuss worth?!” Leon shouted with feigned amusement, his towering killing intent betraying his true feelings. “You have none! The ease with which I entered your Empires is proof! Your people despise you! You have utterly failed as a ruler! Everyone, from the lowliest commoner to the highest noble wants you gone! Not a single person loved or feared you enough to get between me and Thunderhaven! You want to talk about worth when you’re this plane’s greatest failure?!”

“I think I’ll start with your tongue,” Sunlit venomously mused. “Rip it out with naught but pliers, and then feed it to dogs. Or maybe whatever dogs I capture once I lay waste to your fleets.”

Punctuating Sunlit’s threat, the barrier protecting the Imperial Palace finally broke under the sustained bombardment from Leon’s fleet, and Tribal Lances began raining death down upon the palace. The remaining Lance towers tried to fire back, but barely a dozen shots were taken before every Lance tower and hastily erected fortress was obliterated from the sheer volume of return fire. The palace itself was nearly destroyed entirely in a matter of moments, even its spectacular defensive enchantments proving no match for the sheer power of the Tribal arks improved with thunder wood and storm crystals. Only a single wing of the palace remained intact—the Imperial apartments, if the ostentatiousness of their décor was any indication.

And yet, Leon didn’t admire the work of his arks. He didn’t pay attention even as the strongest Tribal mages took to the skies with a number of war beasts to do battle with the hundreds of Sunlit mages that attempted in vain to defend their Emperor’s palace and Empire’s capitol. He didn’t see his own retainers charging out Silver Spear at the head of a force of Tempest Knights, even though Maia had assumed the form of a massive ice dragon and Red had taken to her wyvern form.

He only focused on the Sunlit Emperor and what he was about to do to break the barrier separating them.

Leon was no master in light magic, but he had some meager skill in the element. He’d at least studied all of the elements enough to know enough to use the magic at a level that wouldn’t drain even a second-tier mage—not that any second-tier mage could use elemental magic. So, almost on instinct, guided by nothing but the sheer, overpowering desire to cave in Sunlit’s skull, Leon formed an image in his head of a fairly simple-looking ancient rune, and the rune appeared over his fist.

With a grin, Leon recognized a perfectly formed ‘open’ rune he’d used on more than one occasion, crafted from white light and hovering in front of his gauntlet, and then filled his head with one image: that of the light barrier shattering. Then he slammed his fist into the barrier.

The barrier flashed with light and Leon felt an immense amount of pain as magic power flooded over his armor and through his arm. However, he was nearly blinded by the sight of the barrier exploding into bright light, no longer separating him from the Sunlit Emperor.

Sunlit, confident in the strength of his artifact, was taken off guard, giving Leon a single opening. Leon, not wanting to waste it, surged forward, the Thunderbird’s lightning now racing through his veins. He needed his lightning for this, else he wouldn’t be fast enough to reach the Emperor before this chance was lost.

Leon lunged forward with Iron Pride, piercing clean through Sunlit’s breastplate and sinking deep into his chest. A lung must’ve been pierced as Sunlit shrieked, his voice wet and gurgling, and a spurt of blood was ejected from Sunlit’s visor as if the Emperor had spat it out.

Without missing a beat, Leon flooded Sunlit’s body with silver-blue lightning, and Sunlit shrieked again as Leon’s power ravaged his torso. But a moment later, Leon found himself hurled back as Sunlit brought dozens of bolts of golden lightning crashing down upon them. Iron Pride, however, had stuck in Sunlit’s chest.

Leon crashed and skidded across the ground hard enough to have broken sixth-tier bones, though he was able to pick himself up without issue. Sunlit, however, stood unmoving where he’d been standing for the past minute or so, Iron Pride lodged in his body.

“Y-You…” Sunlit gurgled, his sentence going unfinished as he reached for Iron Pride, intending to pull it out. As soon as his fingers brushed against the handle, however, a bolt of black lightning shot forth and disintegrated his entire hand.

Leon finally began to feel something akin to disgust as Sunlit tried to scream in pain, but little came out save for the sick sounds of a blood-filled throat.

Sunlit fell to his knees even as his power shot into the sky and called a hundred bolts down upon himself, and then a hundred more. Each time, the bolt bent slightly, never quite reaching him, but leaving fantastic lightning burns all over the ground around him.

“I…” he choked out as he reached out again for Iron Pride, this time grabbing it by the blade. The fingers of his remaining hand found greater purchase there, but Leon’s Adamant still erupted in silver-blue lightning and melted the golden metal of his gauntlet. After a moment of vainly trying to pull the blade out, his arm fell limp.

Again, he tried to speak, but his words were nearly unintelligible. A cough cleared his throat slightly, and he tried a third time as Leon strode toward him.

“I am… I am a god…!” His body pulsed with non-elemental magic and Iron Pride was finally pushed out of his chest. Leon felt his arm twitch slightly, and almost without thinking, he raised his hand and Iron Pride shot right at him. ‘Eager’ was not strong enough a word to describe how much it wanted to return to him, and he relished the feeling of it returning to his hand, even though they’d only been separated for a matter of seconds.

Sunlit’s wound, visible through the hole torn in his armor, was already visibly closing, but the man himself hardly seemed to be recovering beyond that. He pulled at his helmet, not even pulling it into his soul realm, and let it drop to the ground. His scarred face turned in the direction of their spectators, and he croaked, “Keeper… Keeper, he is… your enemy… h-help…”

Leon cast his gaze toward their hovering watchers, noting that Keeper coldly stared back at Sunlit, his expression unchanging and his position even more so. There was no doubt in his mind that Keeper could hear Sunlit; the Sentinel simply silently refused to aid the Emperor.

“Director…” Sunlit tried again. “Anyth… anything you… want… I w-will give…”

The Director glared back, hostility clear in his eyes even at a distance of several miles. Sunlit received no help from the Director of Heaven’s Eye.

“T-This… can’t be… the… end…” Sunlit wheezed as Leon finally closed to within a few steps of him. “I… had so… m-many… plans…! S-So m-much… to do…”

“You are unworthy of the title, Emperor,” Leon said, though seeing his enemy so reduced had dulled his anger enough to return a semblance of patience to him. Sunlit’s aura was already rapidly receding anyway, so Leon wasn’t worried this was some kind of ruse. “Had you been a better man, your people wouldn’t have let me through. Had you been a better man, you wouldn’t have executed your own officers for minor offenses. It shouldn’t have been this easy to get here, Sunlit. But your own actions made it this easy.”

Sunlit crumpled as if he no longer had the energy to even try and kneel straight. As Leon ended his short castigation, Sunlit’s eyes had grown dull, and he didn’t even seem inclined to resist Leon anymore. Instead, the Emperor slowly turned his head back toward the city. Leon’s people were boarding the heavy cruiser and surging through the palace. Nearly all of the men who had been willing to defend the city had been killed, and there was only sporadic fighting at this point. Not even one of Leon’s arks had been shot down.

The Emperor sighed in despair and resignation. He turned his head back toward Leon, a look of such defeat and regret on his face that Leon wondered if he was finally seeing the world for the first time, free of his arrogance and delusions.

“Do… it…” Sunlit spat, his voice completely toneless. He didn’t even have the energy to spit hate anymore.

Leon raised Iron Pride, hesitating for only a moment.

Sunlit had been a spectacularly privileged person, living with such advantages that most couldn’t even begin to imagine them.

Leon had grown up in a small hut in one of the most dangerous places on the plane, but he couldn’t help but see a little bit of himself in Sunlit. He hadn’t grown up in the lap of luxury, but his blood gave him more power than most could ever dream of. Had he sunk too deeply into the power of his blood, he could easily see himself becoming just another version of the Sunlit Emperor when he was younger…

And he knew he still could. The potential to become the Sunlit Emperor was still in him; if he let himself go too far, if he became too vain, if he lost himself in his power… He was no god, and he could never believe himself to be one. He had much to think about, but he couldn’t allow that to distract him from his duty.

Leon lashed out with his blade, cleanly severing the Sunlit Emperor’s head from his shoulders. He followed that up with a blast of silver-blue lightning that sank into Sunlit’s body and turned his heart to ash. Sunlit’s soul realm was annihilated, and his magic body had no hope of surviving its destruction.

Leon took a step back and sighed as he stared down at the corpse. Relief flooded through him. It was over. He’d won.