The air above the Dwarf Palace was no longer a realm of oxygen and light; it had become a Domain of Absolute Ruin.
Thrain Ironhand stood at the epicenter of a spatial collapse, his figure shimmering with an unholy brilliance that threatened to blind any mortal who dared to gaze upon him. He was a man who had stepped beyond the boundaries of the living, a Tier 3 powerhouse currently fueling his existence with the very essence of his soul. In the parlance of the ancient cultivators, he was a "Dying Sun," most radiant in the moments before total darkness.
Jai, his golden robes tattered and stained with the emerald blood of his allies, stood firm. His mind, connected to his comrades through the Listener Artifact, hummed with the cold, calculating frequency of a Grand Strategist. He had seen the truth. He had peered through the veil of godhood to find the rotting core within.
"Listen to me, all of you!" Jai's voice echoed directly into the souls of Zayn, James, and the surviving Ministers. "Thrain's 'Destroyer' state is not a pinnacle of power; it is a Vessel of Defects. He is a mortal cup trying to hold the ocean of the Heavens. His core is screaming, and the energy is finding its way out through the three gates of the body!"
Zayn Stone, his breath coming in ragged gasps, leaned heavily on his Ice-Soul Bow. "Arthur! Explain it simply! My mind is clouded by the pressure of his aura!"
Jai took a deep breath, his own Dantian vibrating with the effort to stay upright. "The Destroyer Technique is a double-edged sword that slays the user to slay the world. Infinite essence is passing through Thrain's core, but because he is only a Tier 3, he lacks the God-Seeker's Physique of a Tier 2 master like your father, King Borin. To prevent himself from exploding instantly, he is forced to 'leak' the excess pressure. Look at the mists! He is hemorrhaging his very divinity!"
"The golden mist from his chest is the Lightning Essence leaking from his Heart!" Jai continued, his words like sharp needles of logic. "The purple mist from his back is the Void Essence escaping his Kidneys! And the white light from his eyes? That is his Light Essence dissolving his very perception! These three points are his Vital Cracks. If we widen them, the 'Train' of his power will run off the tracks and dissipate before he can take us with him!"
James, his eyes sharp with the heritage of the Chenwongo line, nodded. "The 'Defect of the Destroyer.' Lord Beatrice once warned us that a star is most vulnerable at its vent. We have to strike those three locations simultaneously."
"But how?" Winston interjected, his voice trembling. "His skin is now harder than Heavenly Star-Iron. Our swords will shatter against his aura before they even touch his flesh!"
Jai's gaze hardened. "We do not attack with brute force. We attack with Unified Intent. Ministers! Do not divide yourselves! If you form three groups, Thrain will notice the intent and seal his pores, triggering a premature explosion that will erase this entire kingdom. We must maintain the illusion of a desperate, chaotic assault. Attack his whole body with 30% of your power, but focus 70% of your Spiritual Pressure on the three leaks! We will bleed him dry without him even realizing he is being punctured!"
The Ministers, their Dao Hearts bolstered by Jai's clarity, roared in unison. They knew that Thrain was currently a ticking time bomb. Then zayn asked: "Arthur What if he explode and collapse. He is going to die, right?". Then jai replied :"If he achieved a Total Core Collapse, he wouldn't just die; he would become a Black Hole a thousand times more potent than the one Queen Morlin had just sacrificed herself to stop. It would be the end of the Stone Head lineage and the beginning of a silent era".
Thrain Ironhand, sensing the shift in the battlefield's rhythm, let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-growl. His demonic face, now etched with glowing violet veins, looked toward the heavens. He knew his time was measured in minutes.
"You scurry like rats in the shadow of a falling mountain," Thrain's voice boomed, vibrating the very marrow of everyone present. "You seek my end? I shall give you the end of all things!"
In an unbelievable display of wealth and power, Thrain's interspatial rings shattered. Forty-eight Divine Artifacts flew into the air—ancient bells that rang with the sound of death, jagged swords that drank the light, and obsidian shields that absorbed the air itself.
The battlefield transformed. Each artifact acted as a node in a Grand Slaughter Array. Beams of light, bolts of violet lightning, and pulses of void energy rained down in a continuous, soul-crushing barrage.
"DEFENSE!" Zayn screamed, raising his bow to create a wall of frost.
The Ministers collapsed their offense, forming a dome of elemental shields. Winston used his "Aegis of the Silent Wind" to protect Jai, while Brokk threw his body in front of James and Zayn. The ground turned into a slurry of blood and pulverized stone. Thrain was no longer fighting; he was performing a ritual of extinction.
While the plaza burned, a darker tragedy was unfolding in the shadows of the medical wing. Rezo, a traitorous Tier 5 Minister who had long been a plant for the old regime, stood over the unconscious princess, Morisa.
"Your brother is a fool, and your father is a ghost," Rezo hissed, raising a dagger glowing with toxic green light. "Your blood will be the seal upon the new world."
But as the blade began its descent, the temperature in the room dropped to absolute zero. It wasn't the cold of ice; it was the Cold of the Grave.
Squelch.
Rezo's arm didn't just stop; it ceased to exist. A blur of black and gold light flickered through the room. In the blink of an eye, the ten elite guards Rezo had brought with him were reduced to piles of fine, grey ash. They didn't even have time to scream.
A man stepped out of the darkness. He was tall, with hair like spun gold and eyes that held the depth of the primordial void. He wore a simple black shirt and pants, yet the air around him warped and bowed as if in the presence of an Emperor.
This was the hidden guardian who had been appointed by Lord Beatrice and followed Jai and James from the Human Kingdom, through the Linston Town skirmish, and into the heart of the Dwarf Palace. He was the one who had watched them from the rafters when they rescued the children, and the one who had shielded them from the unseen assassins of Zenos.
Jai found him when they were saved from the enemies who kidnap Morisa. But, he choose silence because, so then Jai used him as the shield. Then the same thing happening right now.
Back in the plaza, the 48 artifacts were about to deliver a finishing blow to the exhausted Ministers. Thrain raised The Destroyer, ready to cleave the world in two.
Suddenly, a massive Vortex of Sovereign Intent erupted from the palace gates. It was a power equal to Thrain's God-State, but it was refined, stable, and ancient. Every Dwarf, including Zayn and the High Ministers, was pinned to the earth by a gravity so intense it felt like a mountain had been placed on their shoulders.
Only Jai and James remained standing because of the same bloodline, their eyes wide with recognition and a deep, filial piety.
The golden-haired man walked onto the battlefield, holding the shivering Morisa in his left arm as if she weighed nothing more than a feather. He stepped through Thrain's artifacts—beams of light shattered against his skin like glass against stone. He didn't even blink.
He stopped in front of Jai. With a graceful movement, he handed Morisa to the stunned Zayn Stone, who could only stare in mute shock.
Jai and James immediately knelt, their foreheads touching the cold, blood-stained marble. "Greetings, Master! Greetings, Uncle!"
The plaza fell into a deathly silence. Jai looked up, his voice ringing with newfound hope. "Everyone! This is the man who forged our blades and our spirits. He is the Supreme Commander of the Human Kingdom, the third prodigy of our race, and the nephew of Lord Beatrice herself! and also our uncle."
"Alaric Chenwongo has arrived!"
Alaric looked up at Thrain. His eyes, filled with the "Six-Element Reversion" (Light, Storm, Void, Water, Fire, and Dark), locked onto the dying God-General.
"Thrain," Alaric said, his voice a calm breeze in the middle of a hurricane. "Hundred years ago, you fled from my aunt's shadow. It seems you've spent that time learning how to commit suicide with style. But you've forgotten one thing."
Alaric's aura flared, a brilliant white-gold light that pushed back the black flames of The Destroyer.
"A Chenwongo never leaves a job unfinished. You were supposed to die in the Valley of Mourning. Allow me to correct that historical error."
The final act of the Dwarf Kingdom's tragedy had just found its director. The "Destroyer" was no longer the strongest being on the field.