The tower groaned.
Not from damage—but from recognition.
Garron Vale stopped smiling.
He exhaled once, slow and deliberate, and the earth beneath everyone's feet responded like a living thing.
Cracks sealed.
Stone rose.
Gravity thickened.
His aura unleashed.
Brown-gold light erupted from his body, veins of molten earth etching themselves across his skin as his frame expanded—not grotesquely, but inevitably, like a mountain remembering its true size.
This was no buff.
No technique.
This was embodiment.
All transcendent beings—those who walked the boundary between mortality and divinity—possessed a final state.
A form where they no longer used their domain.
They were the domain.
Garron's eyes turned the color of tectonic fire.
His feet fused with the ground, not literally, but conceptually—every step carried the weight of continents. His muscles compressed into dense, impossible mass, each movement bending the surrounding space.
A quasi-deity.
Strength brushing the threshold of a low god.
Kaelus felt it immediately.
The wind screamed in protest around him.
Then Garron moved.
No flourish.
No declaration.
Just a step forward that shattered the chamber floor and a fist that arrived before the sound.
Kaelus blocked—
—and was sent flying.
He crashed through a pillar, rolled, recovered mid-air, redirected with wind—
Garron was already there.
Elbow.
Knee.
Headbutt.
Each strike carried domain authority, every impact layered with crushing pressure that ignored technique and punished existence itself.
Kaelus fought back.
Not sloppily.
Not desperately.
But even genius had limits.
Wind-enhanced strikes landed—clean, precise—but Garron absorbed them like rain against bedrock. Earth arcane sigils flared across his body as he countered with bone-rattling blows that cracked ribs and tore breath from Kaelus' lungs.
They moved at instantaneous speeds, vanishing and reappearing in bursts of violence.
Hand to hand.
Arcane mastery.
Pure will.
And slowly—inevitably—
Kaelus was losing.
A final удар landed square in his chest.
Wind shattered.
Kaelus hit the ground hard.
Silence.
His body didn't rise.
Footsteps echoed.
Rein Clark and Stellar arrived at the edge of the chamber just as Garron straightened, towering, his presence making the air feel heavy.
Garron glanced at them.
"…Will you intervene," he asked calmly, "or will you climb up?"
Rein cracked his neck, utterly unbothered.
"We have no need to intervene," he said.
"You'll die soon."
Garron's gaze shifted to Kaelus' unmoving body.
"…Are you sure?" he asked.
"Your friend will die."
Stellar leaned against the wall, arms crossed, smiling lazily.
"Go ahead," she said.
"Do what you're doing."
Garron raised his hand.
Earth gathered.
A killing blow.
—
Kaelus opened his eyes—
—to sky.
Not darkness.
Not pain.
A vast, endless blue sky stretched above him, clouds rolling like oceans, wind roaring with freedom and weight. He stood upon nothing—and yet felt supported.
Ahead, upon a cloud glowing with soft white light, sat a figure facing the sunset.
Azure Tempest.
The Wind God turned his head slightly.
"What are you waiting for," Azure asked gently,
"to take the seat, my candidate?"
Kaelus looked down at his hands.
"…I don't know what's holding me back."
Azure rose.
In an instant, he stood before Kaelus—close enough that the wind itself seemed to bow.
"Don't be afraid of what you are," Azure said.
"Know thyself—and thou shalt know all else."
He placed a hand over Kaelus' chest.
"You fear being left behind," Azure continued.
"But the wind is everywhere you go."
A smile.
"You cannot be left behind."
Kaelus inhaled.
For the first time in a long time—
He let go.
Fear.
Comparison.
Doubt.
All of it scattered like dust in a storm.
"I'm ready," Kaelus said.
Azure's smile widened.
"Sit."
Kaelus didn't ask why.
He sat.
A cloud formed beneath him—
—and shifted.
Its shape changed.
Edges sharpened.
Light deepened.
A throne emerged.
Wind coiled upward, not violently, but reverently.
A mark burned itself onto Kaelus' right hand—an azure sigil like a living tattoo, rotating endlessly.
The throne accepted him.
The wind recognized him.
—
In the real world—
Garron's hand descended.
Death about to land—
Kaelus' eyes snapped open.
He was standing.
No.
He had already moved.
So fast only Stellar and Rein saw it.
Garron's attacking arm was suddenly—
on the ground.
Severed cleanly at the shoulder.
Wind screamed.
Kaelus stood before Garron, aura transformed—no longer wild, no longer borrowed.
Sovereign.
He drew the sword Aldric Vaelith had given him.
Steel sang.
Kaelus raised it.
"Let's end this, Number Ten."
Garron stared at him, shock giving way to exhilaration.
"…So you became a low deity," he laughed.
"Good."
"Let's end it."
Kaelus moved.
Swordsmanship.
True swordsmanship.
Wind wrapped the blade, rotating at impossible speed along its edge—an edge that didn't just cut matter, but pressure, defense, and resistance.
Garron countered with earth-forged strikes, but Kaelus controlled distance perfectly, footwork flawless, wind steps placing him where Garron couldn't be safe.
Each exchange pushed Garron back.
Closer.
Closer.
Cornered.
No matter which way he moved—
An opening existed.
Kaelus stepped in.
Thrust.
The blade drove through Garron's heart—
—and emerged from his shoulder.
Kaelus pulled it free.
Garron fell onto his back, laughing through blood.
"I have one more thing to say," Garron wheezed.
"I'm just Number Ten."
He coughed.
"You have nine more. Each stronger than the last… before you reach the leader."
Kaelus sheathed his sword, breathing ragged.
"…Thanks for the info."
Rein caught him as his legs finally gave out.
"Good one," Rein said.
Stellar smirked.
They moved on.
Through the next chamber—
A room filled with bodies.
One hundred.
Arcane masters.
Ether masters.
Low deities.
All dead.
Stellar whistled softly.
"I bet Eryndor's having the time of his life."
Kaelus laughed weakly.
"Of course he is. It's Eryndor."
Rein cracked his knuckles.
"Guess we'll have to catch up soon."
They stepped through the black door of Room Nine—
—and the tower swallowed them whole.