Chapter 50: Krutonian Giants

Esako and Zan stood across from one another in the smoking ruins of the eastern quadrant. The ground was scorched, but neither moved. Esako’s crimson eyes burned with unwavering focus. His stance was sharp, grounded, and ready. Zan, by contrast, stood lazily with a crooked tilt to his head, a faint smirk stretching across his pallid face. His skin shimmered with a strange, oily sheen, droplets of acid occasionally dripping from his fingers and hissing as they touched the earth.

Esako: Krutone’s error.

Zan: Krutone’s slave.

Esako moved first, wasting no time. With a sharp step forward, he launched a fireball the size of a boulder straight at Zan’s face. The explosion was instant. Zan’s head blew apart in a sizzling splash of black and green, the air filling with the screech of burning acid evaporating on impact. But even before the flames could finish dispersing, the melted remains of Zan’s head writhed on the ground and launched upward in long, serpentine tendrils, acidic cords snapping toward Esako like seeking whips.

Reacting instantly, Esako ignited a burst of flame beneath his feet, rocketing himself into the air. Fire trailed from his heels like twin comets as he soared upward, twisting midair to keep visual on Zan. Below him, the acid wriggled, still reaching and reforming. Zan’s head re-solidified with a grotesque squelch, his empty eyes rising to meet Esako’s above, that smug grin returning as though nothing had happened.

Without hesitation, Esako raised both arms and summoned a rain of fire down upon his opponent. The flames roared from the sky like a meteor shower, crackling with blistering heat as they struck Zan directly. The acid mutant didn’t dodge. Instead, his entire upper body erupted into a splash of corrosive fluid, the fire punching through and hissing as it met the liquid. For a moment, Zan was nothing more than a pool of boiling acid spread across the ground. Then, just as suddenly, he surged back into form, whole, grinning, and feral.

With no warning, Zan shot forward with terrifying speed, his acidic form trailing behind him like a comet of rot. He weaved low, then high, closing the distance between them with impossible agility. Esako darted backward midair, igniting bursts of flame around his body to push himself in different directions, zigzagging, spinning, dipping in and out of reach. Each of Zan’s strikes melted stone and left steaming scars in the earth, but Esako danced around them, a blur of fire and fury, refusing to be caught. Zan stopped chasing and Esako came to a halt.

Zan: Don’t run! You’re Krutone’s best soldier, right? I mean— best slave!

Esako: You’re stupid. You wouldn’t understand what it’s like to have real human parts. You know nothing about defense.

Zan shrugs.

Esako dashed to the left, fire spiraling in his wake, then pivoted sharply, launching three blazing crescent blades from his palms. Each sword curved through the air with precision, aimed for Zan’s neck, chest, and legs. The first sliced clean through Zan’s midsection, the second caught his shoulder, and the third sheared off one of his legs entirely, yet none of it mattered. The severed acid simply splashed to the ground, hissing violently before writhing back toward Zan’s main form. Within seconds, his body reformed, unmarred, that devilish grin stretched even wider. Esako didn’t blink. He adjusted his stance and kept moving, never once allowing his feet to touch the same ground twice. He knew better than to get close.

With another flick of his hand, Esako summoned a rapid barrage of firebolts that rained like a storm against Zan’s chest. Each strike hit dead center, bursting into waves of heat that rippled through the battlefield. Zan’s form spasmed with every hit, limbs temporarily losing cohesion, face melting into featureless goo, only to rebuild moments later. Esako’s expression remained cold, unfazed. He wasn’t trying to kill Zan. He was trying to learn him. Each attack was data. Zan’s speed, his regeneration time, his behavioral tells. Still, the futility clawed at the back of his mind. Every perfectly calculated shot ended in nothing.

Zan retaliated with a wild, serpentine leap, stretching his arms into elongated, acid-coated whips that lashed through the air like cracked bullropes. Esako vaulted upward, barely missing the hiss of one tendril by inches. He spun midair, gathering flame between his palms before launching a concentrated jet of fire straight down. Zan took it full force, erupting into a geyser of steam and shrieking gas, but when the flames cleared, his body stood again, half-Zan, half-fluid, reshaping from within. Esako landed cleanly on a rooftop, not a single burn on his uniform, but his breathing was heavier now. Precision could only carry him so far.

The next wave came with Zan diving underground in a splash of acid, the earth corroding behind him. Esako immediately leapt high, hurling a fiery discus to the ground beneath. It exploded just as Zan erupted from below like a geyser of acid, catching the blast point-blank. Acid flew in all directions, some of it hitting nearby walls and melting straight through steel. Esako never descended. He used the explosion’s force to propel himself higher into the air, where he began conjuring twin spirals of flame in his hands. But even before he could throw them, Zan regenerated once more, now laughing maniacally from the pool of carnage below. Esako narrowed his eyes. He hadn’t been touched once. Yet it still felt like he was going nowhere.

Zan: It’s always like this. At some point, you’ll tire out, and then I go for the kill.

Esako: Is that your tactic?

Zan: Either than or you’ll lose patience, and I’ll capitalize on it. Whichever comes first.

Esako: And you think I’m like the rest?

Zan: Doesn’t matter. I suppose running away is the other option, but you wouldn’t do that would you?

Esako: I read about you. You were imprisoned in a glass container and you couldn’t burn your way out. Is your acid not potent enough?

Zan shrugs.

Esako: Or was it because you weren’t being fed enough batteries? Or was it because you were kept low on Intergy?

Zan: Beats me.

Esako: Don’t lie. You know the answer.

Zan: Do you know the answer?

Esako: I do. I’m just seeing how honest you say you are. You revel in being a monster, which is honest, I’ll grant you that. But are you honest about what makes you powerful?

Zan: If you already know, there’s no need to ask, silly. Does it matter if you already intend on killing me?... Assuming you can.

Esako: What does pain feel like?

Zan: Huh?

Esako: Exactly. You don’t feel. Forget about being a monster. You’re not even alive.

Zan: Fighting words.

Esako: No. Just the truth. How do you even think? Do you have a brain?

Zan ignored him and lunged, his body warping into a serpent of acid and speed. The air shimmered around him as he closed the gap in a heartbeat, slashing outward with a whip of corrosive energy. Esako shifted to the side, a narrow dodge that left his hair singed and the air rippling in his wake. Zan followed with a second strike, then a third, each faster, more violent, but Esako’s footwork remained flawless, guided by precision and instinct. Esako launched upward, his palms flaring with heat. He twisted mid-air and hurled two searing discs of flame down at Zan. The first hit squarely, bursting in a cone of fire that splashed against Zan’s form, vaporizing into hissing steam. The second was dodged, but Esako was already moving again, bouncing from rooftop to shattered rooftop, never staying still. Zan gave chase, laughing, his distorted voice echoing through the smoke-cloaked city ruins.

But Zan was learning. His attacks weren’t random anymore. He began predicting Esako’s movements, herding him toward tighter quarters, collapsed buildings, uneven ground, and narrow alleys. Esako, focused entirely on avoiding contact, didn’t see the subtle acid trap Zan had laid: a thin, nearly invisible slick of fluid that shimmered along a broken ledge. When Esako stepped on it mid-leap, his foot skidded just enough to throw off his landing. In that flicker of imbalance, Zan’s claw snapped out like a striking viper and slashed across Esako’s arm.

The fire soldier grunted as pain surged through him. The wound wasn’t deep, but it was enough. The acid scorched through his skin. Esako dropped low, rolling to extinguish the corrosive burn with controlled bursts of heat, cauterizing it in an instant. His face twisted, not in fear, but in irritation.

Zan: Did that burn? You tell me, then. What does pain feel like?

Esako: Fuck off.

Esako’s fury ignited the sky. He flung both arms wide, drawing heat from the air itself as a cyclone of flame erupted around him, forming a tornado that spiraled upward, consuming the broken battlefield. With a thrust of his hands, the tornado split in two, curling inward like fangs and crashing down on Zan. The mutant’s body vanished in the inferno, splashing into a puddle of acid that writhed violently. But there was no pause. Esako was relentless. The ground beneath Zan ignited into a sea of molten fire, licking upward in towering waves, each pulse of heat shaking the broken buildings nearby.

From above, fire swords rained like meteors, each blade screaming as it cut through the air. Esako guided them like a conductor, orchestrating a symphony of destruction. Every time Zan tried to reform, another sword crashed down, blowing his body apart into sludge again. And again. And again. The battlefield became a loop of violence, Zan reassembling, and Esako tearing him apart. The longer it went on, the more time Zan spent becoming rather than fighting. Each reconstruction slower, more sluggish, as his acid hissed with exhaustion under the never-ending firestorm.

But eventually, the loop cracked.

Zan: You done with your temper tantrum?

Zan surged forward mid-reformation, catching Esako between attacks. His body was only half-formed, half face with jagged muscle and flailing limbs, but he whipped out a claw of pure acid with surgical precision. Esako twisted to dodge, heat flaring around him, but not fast enough. The claw skimmed his leg, searing through fabric and flesh. The hiss of burning muscle cut through the storm as Esako gritted his teeth, fire bursting from beneath his feet to launch him away before the wound deepened.

Zan: Tiring out?

Esako: You too?

Zan: Me?

Esako: Your regeneration is getting slower.

Zan: Your point?

Esako: My point is I’ve been knowing how to deal with you.

Zan: Don’t get too confident there, Krutone slave.

Esako: Your Intergy is what keeps your acid running. But what happens when you run out of Intergy? What then? It’s an ability after all, right?

Zan: That’s assuming you even get me to that point.

Esako: I’m just tiring you out—

Zan lunged forward with renewed speed, but this time he didn’t go in for a swipe or a slash. His body jerked sharply and fired. Bullets of acid, small and fast, blasted from his fingertips like molten gunfire, each one hissing through the air with lethal intent. Esako reacted instantly, dropping low and letting his body whip sideways, flames bursting from his feet to propel him into a sweeping dodge. The bullets scorched past him, leaving smoking craters in the ruined streets and walls behind him. A single drop would’ve eaten through bone.

As Zan adjusted his aim, Esako retaliated with a wide arc of fire, sending out a wave of intense heat meant to intercept the next volley. The acid bullets hit the flames midair, and many evaporated in bursts of steam. But Zan didn’t stop. He twisted his body unnaturally, launching more acid from his arms, shoulders, even his chest. The air filled with sizzling death, forcing Esako to flicker between movements, evading while launching back volleys of fire in sharp, explosive jabs. Each strike that landed on Zan burned away chunks of his mass, slowing him. Esako could see it. Zan was starting to stall between volleys, each reconstruction taking seconds longer than before.

Still, Zan pressed on as he fired another barrage. Esako launched into the air again, spinning as flame trails followed his motion. From above, he sent a trio of flaming spears downward in a tight spread. They struck Zan mid-step, detonating with a chain reaction that blew him apart once more into sizzling, groaning fluid. Steam hissed up in plumes, and Esako landed smoothly on the rim of a collapsed building, not saying a word. His leg still throbbed, but he was watching. Waiting. Counting. And Zan was taking longer to reform.

Esako (thinking): Is now the time? I have to time this right. 

Zan fully reformed.

Zan: I never took Krutone’s best slave to be such a runner.

Esako (thinking): He’s taunting. I must be burning him out. Maybe now is the time.

Esako’s body began to shimmer red, his skin glowing faintly like molten channels. Heat poured off him in waves, the air distorting around his form. Ash lifted in slow spirals from the cracked ground. The very oxygen in the air began to waver with instability. Even the wind retreated. He took a single step forward, and the ground beneath his boot blackened instantly. Zan’s form wavered across from him, watching with amusement… until Esako lunged.

Esako didn’t make contact. He didn’t need to. His fist sliced through the air several feet from Zan’s body, but the heat that followed was a wall of force. The pressure wave alone blistered Zan’s skin into bubbling blots of hissing acid. Zan flinched, reeling backward as steam erupted off his form. His regeneration was immediate, but slower now, hesitating in uneven pulses as though his Intergy couldn’t quite keep up. He whipped around to strike, launching himself at Esako in a rapid twist of fluid motion, arms outstretched like acidic blades.

The acid hit, but it didn’t melt. Instead, it evaporated on contact, sizzling into vapor as it met Esako’s superheated skin. Steam burst from every point of impact as Zan’s attack turned against him. The mutant’s eyes widened in brief confusion before he reformed again, charging, launching tendrils of acidic limbs toward Esako's midsection. Esako pivoted, flames spiraling around his legs and waist, his heat now so intense it left behind glowing footprints in the stone. He blocked with his forearm, not physically connecting, but letting his aura of heat incinerate the acid just before it touched him.

The battleground twisted under the pressure. Roads began to sag. Stone melted at the edges. Metallic signs overhead curled inward and wept rivulets of molten steel. Glass warped in buildings, and pipes hidden beneath the ground hissed open, releasing pressurized steam that couldn’t compete with the heat now overtaking the entire quadrant. Esako moved through the inferno like a burning god, each step a flare of fury. His control was slipping, but purpose held it intact. He couldn’t maintain this state for long. But just long enough.

Zan twisted himself into a wave of sludge and shot toward Esako again, trying to slip beneath the firestorm in his liquid form. But Esako reacted faster. He sent a ripple of flame downward, cracking open the earth in front of him. Molten rock bled upward from beneath, glowing red and gold, and before Zan could adjust course, Esako lifted his arm and commanded it. The bubbling lava rose like a crashing ocean, a wall of fury that towered over them both.

Zan’s smug demeanor faltered. He froze.

Zan: Fuck!

Then he surged back, but too late. The lava came down. A mountain of heat and death cascaded over him, burying him in a scalding tide. The hiss that followed was apocalyptic. It wasn’t just steam, it was the sound of matter fighting for survival and losing. Acid and magma clashed in a horrifying fusion, neither able to dominate the other cleanly. The chemical fury and natural destruction tangled together, each dissolving, mutating, screaming. Then, from beneath the lava’s surface, a stream of black-green fluid snaked upward. Zan. He was trying to escape, fully liquified, no longer taking humanoid form. He was slipping through cracks, climbing, retreating.

Esako: You’re not escaping, bastard!

With a final burst of fire from beneath his feet, Esako launched himself toward the escaping stream. His hands plunged into the molten pool, skin cracking, nerves screaming. But he found Zan’s acidic core and shoved. He shoved with everything he had, pushing Zan’s escaping mass back into the pool of lava with one arm. The reaction was immediate. His skin blistered and peeled. The acid bit deep. The lava devoured him. The two conflicting elements consumed him in different directions, melting flesh from bone, searing blood into smoke.

Esako didn’t stop. His left arm trembled, and then vanished. It began melting off with a soundless burst of agony. His scream tore through the war-torn air like a thunderclap.

Esako: ARRRHHGGGHHH!!!

But he didn’t let go. He forced the last of Zan’s acidic form fully under the lava, trapping him beneath the churning surface. There was no time to reflect. No time to hesitate.

With one last desperate surge of fire, Esako blasted himself out of the lava, flinging his body backward and rolling across scorched ground. His chest heaved. His face contorted in pain. His left arm… gone. Burned away close to the shoulder. The remaining flesh around the socket was charred, warped, and bleeding. But he didn’t scream again. He lay there, panting, as the pool of lava bubbled violently, then stilled.

Zan was no longer climbing out. Not this time. The air around Esako shimmered with heat and pain, blood pooling around him, the scent of acid, smoke, and victory mixing in the silence. His red skin returned to normal, but burn marks were left behind.

Esako (panting): Shit…

Esako, with his right arm sealed the open wound on his left open limb with fire.

Esako (squirming): Fff-uuck!

Then the wound sealed fully.

Esako: He’s done… Zan’s done…

Then, Esako passed out.

Meanwhile afar, Jaze narrowed his eyes as the world around him continued to decay. The street beneath his feet cracked with unnatural rot, and even the air felt diseased. Mayzen stood calm, the blackened tendrils of his memory-corrupting Intergy creeping across the ground like roots feeding on reality. Jaze didn’t wait. He wasn’t going to give Mayzen the first move. With a roar, he launched forward, hurling a blazing spear of fire entwined with lightning, the crackling bolt splitting the air like thunder. But Mayzen had already begun. Before the attack could even fully close the gap, a thick wall of darkened stone erupted from the earth with seismic force, absorbing the blast in a fiery detonation that sent embers and sparks cascading in every direction. Smoke curled from the impact, but Mayzen’s silhouette stood undisturbed behind the charred stone, his eyes glowing a deeper, greener hue now, as if the real fight had only just begun.

Jaze: Earth user. I see.

Veins began to pulse and stretch from the back of Mayzen’s neck, thick, blackened cords of corrupted Intergy that slithered along the ground like living cables. From either side of him, two motionless corpses rose, limp and decayed, each suspended in the air by a single vein piercing into their spines like grotesque puppets. Their eyes were lifeless, their limbs slack, but Mayzen’s control animated them with horrifying purpose. One corpse jerked its hand upward, and suddenly a colossal gust of wind tore through the battlefield, howling with unnatural force. Within the gale, massive shards of jagged ice spiraled like missiles, each one glowing faintly with a sickly green tint. The storm surged forward with devastating power, forcing Jaze to brace himself as the corrupted storm closed in.

Jaze (thinking): What the hell?

Jaze reacted fast, his arms sweeping wide as a towering inferno surged forward to meet the icy storm. Fire devoured wind and ice in a violent clash, steam erupting in every direction. But just as the flames cleared, one of Mayzen’s corpses had already reached him. It was silent and unnoticed until it swung a massive sword forged of stone and steel. The weapon howled through the air. Jaze twisted his body, just barely escaping the full arc, but the edge grazed his leg. He hissed in pain, blood streaking down his calf.

Jaze (thinking): Shit!

Mayzen gave no pause. From behind the first corpse, another one leapt forward with terrifying speed, its arm cocked back and glowing with electrical fury. The fist crackled with volatile lightning, each spark screeching in the air. Jaze barely managed to duck, rolling to the side just before the corpse’s fist collided with the floor. The moment it hit, the ground exploded. Lightning erupted outward in a blinding blast, sending shards of earth skyward. Jaze was caught in the shockwave, his body flung through the, slamming into the dirt far away, coughing dust with a grunt.

Even from the ground, Jaze’s eyes widened in disbelief. Mayzen wasn’t done. Two more corpses began to crawl up from the soil, their limbs twitching, their skin torn, eyes empty. Mayzen’s veins lashed out, burrowing into the bodies' backs and latching deep into their spines. The lifeless figures spasmed, then stilled. Mayzen now had another two puppets added to his grotesque arsenal.

Jaze: What kind of ability is this?

Mayzen: As I said, welcome to my graveyard.

Jaze: There is no one who fights like this.

Mayzen: I am the overlooked mutant. You thought I could only read the memories of dead bodies? No. I control them and everything they were capable of when they were alive… Their powers are mine.

Flames erupted from Jaze’s hands in a spiraling inferno, racing forward. The nearest corpse, charred and hollow-eyed, raised its arm under Mayzen’s control, and a wall of dense stone burst from the ground, the fire striking it with a roaring blast. But it didn’t stop there. The flames splintered, curling upward along the wall before a gust of wind from a second corpse shot them backward, sending burning embers raining across the battlefield. Jaze vaulted into the air, redirecting his fall with wind to avoid being singed by his own assault. The terrain beneath them withered with rot, the stench of old blood and sulfur choking the air.

Jaze landed and immediately slammed his palms into the earth. A series of jagged stone spears erupted around him in a circular formation, stabbing outward like a blooming crown of blades. Mayzen stood unmoved, the veins from his back twitching. Two corpses jumped high above the spikes, water encasing one’s body as it dove down like a missile. Jaze spun into a rising cyclone of wind and frost, the water user freezing in mid-air before exploding into icy chunks upon impact.

Jaze (thinking): I have to get through these dead bodies before getting to Mayzen… Damn… 

Mayzen stepped forward slowly, his body surrounded by six distinct corpses now. They launched in tandem, their powers blasting in chaotic succession. Lightning streaked toward Jaze, forcing him to redirect it into the sky with a rising spire of metal-rich earth. Wind slammed into his ribs, throwing him into a shattered building, while fire exploded beneath his feet from a trap laid by another corpse. Jaze retaliated mid-fall, unleashing a wave of water from his fingertips to cool the burning floor, then turned that same water to ice, creating jagged terrain the corpses stumbled over.

Jaze leapt from the rubble. He combined wind and lightning, creating a spinning disk and hurled it forward, slicing two of the corpses clean in half. Jaze’s eyes widened in horror as one corpse behind him drove an earth spike through the floor. He narrowly rolled away, the spike missing his torso by inches, and countered with a massive wall of rising flame. The fire consumed the space between them, but Mayzen simply pointed. One of the corpses breathed deeply, an unnatural inhale, and exhaled a sea of fire. Jaze, exhausted and bleeding, summoned a twin wave of ice and water from both arms. It crashed into the flames and corpse, freezing its joints and shattering its limbs. But before Jaze could capitalize, another corpse tackled him from the side, wrapping lightning-charged arms around him and electrocuting them both. Jaze screamed in pain but forced a pulse of water from his skin, exploding outward and blasting the corpse away in chunks.

The ground beneath Mayzen now warped entirely. His veins had spread out like roots, pulsing through the earth. Two more corpses rose. The battlefield was a graveyard come alive, the terrain shifting with each step Mayzen took. Jaze took to the air, forming a storm around himself, a cyclone of elemental fury that merged fire, wind, and lightning. He dropped down like a comet, smashing into the earth and blowing every corpse back. The explosion was deafening, the shockwave leveling nearby structures.

Dust and smoke clouded the battlefield. Silence lingered. But out of the smoke stepped Mayzen, bruised, but still calm and unshaken. Behind him, six more corpses crawled back up, half-missing limbs, faces disfigured, and powers distorted, but they were moving. Jaze panted heavily, blood dripping from his mouth, as he watched Mayzen raise a single hand. All six corpses stopped, then launched forward in unison, one with a lightning spear, another with water blades, the others with twisted remnants of whatever remained of their past. Jaze screamed, rallying various elemental attacks right back.

The explosion from Jaze’s elemental dive tore through the battlefield. The corpses surrounding Mayzen were instantly vaporized, blasted apart into scorched limbs and cracked skulls as the shockwave flattened nearby buildings and seared the corrupted veins that snaked through the earth. For a fleeting moment, there was silence. Jaze landed, panting, eyes scanning the crater left behind. But Mayzen was already moving. Without a word, he extended both arms, and from the festering soil, ten new corpses erupted. Their eyes glowed with emberlight, and their flesh peeled with heat, bodies radiating intense elemental fury. They didn’t speak. They simply advanced.

Jaze steadied himself. He shifted entirely to water. Twin torrents swirled around his arms, and with sharp, practiced sweeps, he sent crashing waves at the corpses. Fire met water in steaming collisions—one after another, the fire-users were doused, extinguished by Jaze’s precise strikes. He moved like a current, fluid and relentless, knowing fire could not win this match. But that was exactly when it happened.

From within the ten, one corpse, almost indistinguishable from the rest, thrust its arms forward. Electricity surged violently through the stream Jaze had just launched, riding the water like a live wire. Jaze’s eyes widened too late. The lightning coursed through his body with brutal precision, seizing his muscles and sending agony ripping through his limbs. He screamed as his body convulsed mid-motion, crashing to the ground.

Mayzen: Did you really think I’d use all fire? Don’t mistake me for a moron.

Jaze got back up on his feet panting.

Mayzen: I have to be careful with you. I want to make you mine. I’m losing a lot of my favorite dead bodies, sure… but you’d be a wonderful replacement.

Jaze: You aren’t making a puppet out of me!

Mayzen looked at his hand, some veins rattling outside of his skin.

Mayzen: I had been waiting to use this… maybe it’s finally time.

From the ground, a body rose… a legend… Zash. Jaze couldn’t believe his eyes.

Mayzen: Zash and I worked together long ago. Osin made the mistake of burying this body instead of burning it. Now it’s mine.

Mayzen extended his hand, and the black veins writhing beneath his skin suddenly lashed outward like serpents. They pierced into the back of Zash’s reanimated corpse, latching onto his spine, shoulders, and neck. Zash’s eyes, once bright with will, now glowed with a hollow green hue as corrupted Intergy pulsed through his body. For a heartbeat, he stood still, silent and unmoving, but then, with a sickening crack of his knuckles and a faint sizzle of heat, Zash stepped forward. The earth beneath him rippled with pressure. Mayzen didn’t say a word. He simply pointed, and his puppet surged ahead.

Zash’s approach was like watching a god of war resurrected. He raised both arms, and a jagged row of earth pillars exploded upward, racing toward Jaze like a set of spears erupting from the ground. Jaze vaulted into the air, barely clearing the last spike, only to be met with a column of fire bursting from Zash’s palm midair. The flames swallowed him whole for a moment, spinning him backward until he crashed into a stone wall, coughing smoke and gripping his scorched side. Before he could recover, Zash was on him again, this time swinging a molten fist that shattered the wall just inches from Jaze’s head. The heat alone singed his face. Jaze ducked and dove to the side, rolling across rubble as more stone spires erupted behind him, each one a heartbeat too slow to impale him.

Every time Jaze tried to mount a counterattack, Zash crushed it. A wave of fire from Jaze’s palm was met by Zash’s towering wall of rock. A lightning strike thrown with desperate precision was absorbed into the ground by Zash’s command of earth. Even when Jaze conjured a vortex of wind and ice, Zash answered by slamming his fists together on the ground, unleashing a heat shockwave that melted the frost midair and sent Jaze flying again. It wasn’t just Zash’s strength. It was Mayzen’s strategic control over him. The veins pulsing in Mayzen’s arms guided Zash with terrifying precision, directing each blow, each eruption, each elemental surge with surgical cruelty.

Jaze sprinted across the battlefield, trying to create distance, but Zash wouldn’t let him breathe. Fissures opened at his feet and fires roared outward. Walls of stone blocked his path. A burning whirlwind chased him around collapsed buildings as molten rock and elemental blasts detonated all around. He ducked, leapt, and slid. His lungs were heaving, and his legs were screaming, but the pressure never let up. Every time he slowed, Zash was there. Jaze swung back with water blasts and bursts of wind, but they barely staggered the corpse. Zash just kept coming, shrugging off wounds like an unkillable monster, each movement as deliberate as it was deadly.

And then came the final blow to Jaze’s morale. From behind Mayzen, the other ten corpses entered the fray, nine blazing with fire, and one crackling with hidden lightning. The sky lit up with streaks of flame as fireballs, beams, and scorching waves joined the chaos. Jaze barely dodged one before the next came. He used water to deflect the heat until the lightning corpse struck. A bolt arced through his water stream, electrocuting him on the spot and sending him crashing into the ground, twitching, smoke curling from his skin. His vision blurred, his chest convulsing as he struggled to get back up. He threw up a shaky wall of ice only for Zash to punch through it instantly, forcing him back into retreat. No longer was this a duel. It was a relentless slaughter, and Jaze was being hunted from all directions, his every breath a battle for survival.

Jaze (thinking): I think I’m going to die. There’s just no way. 

Mayzen: Can we make this a little faster? You’re trying too hard for something that’s inevitable.

Jaze: How long did you keep this a secret?

Mayzen flicked his fingers and sent Zash charging forward once again, the giant of a man sprinting like a war-born beast, earth quaking beneath each step. But this time, Jaze didn’t dodge. He didn’t run. He raised his arm shaking, desperate, almost like an act of surrender, but something changed. In the blink of an eye, Zash’s body began to decay mid-charge, the skin and rotting muscle collapsing in on themselves like they were melting from the inside. Mayzen’s eyes narrowed, immediately pulling Zash back, his veins retracting like a panicked beast withdrawing a limb from fire. He wasted no time, casting the ten remaining corpses toward Jaze in unison. But Jaze’s arm remained steady, pulsing with Intergy. As the ten closed in, each one evaporated and burned into nothing. The air stilled. Mayzen took a slow step forward, the corners of his mouth twitching with curiosity instead of anger. For the first time, he wasn’t mocking. He was intrigued.

Mayzen: Interesting. I’ve never seen this. You too have a secret ability?

Jaze: I can keep secrets too, Mayzen.

Tension was rising. Mayzen summoned ten more corpses, each of them wearing Krutone badges.

Mayzen: These were all once generals of Krutone. You stand no chance. Even with whatever your secret ability is.

Jaze: It’s radiation.

Mayzen’s green eyes focused on Jaze.

Mayzen: Radiation… Fascinating.

Jaze: As you know, I’m responsible for the bombs that Krutone makes.

Jaze looks at his hand, burned and parts skinned away from his earlier attack.

Jaze: But I have to use it sparingly. I don’t know how to control it yet, even after all these years.

Mayzen: Don’t you worry. I’ll learn it for you.

Jaze: Mayzen… President Kyto once regarded you as one of his most valuable soldiers, even not knowing about your ability to control the dead. You betrayed us. What are your intentions?

Mayzen smiles.

Mayzen: Once Aku kills Kyto, my plan was always to claim him, and then the rest. Sicrus. Josar. Even Penim. And now you. Right now, I’m not strong enough to kill Aku… not yet. I can’t take Sicrus or Josar either. But if I can get my hands on just one of them… I gain control of The Orb. And with that, I could rule Krutone far better than Kyto ever did. I’ve lived through the memories of thousands, seen the world through their eyes. I know its pain. I know its rot. I know what it needs.

Jaze: Do you really?

Mayzen: Of course. I am every person that died with a dream. I have the answers.

Jaze: Then what is it? What are those answers?

Mayzen: I don’t give these kinds of answers to trash!

Mayzen lifted his arms calmly, veins pulsating with a feverish rhythm as he summoned forth a surge of corpses, one after another, clawing from the ground. Dozens. Then more. A hundred bodies, maybe more, each one a former soldier, general, or victim, now laced in his web of green-veined control. Their eyes glowed faintly, a sickening mimicry of life. The air grew thick with the smell of decay and fire. Dust rose like a curtain around the battlefield as the earth trembled beneath the rising dead.

Jaze (thinking): I’m… I’m going to die here… 

Jaze stood at the center of it all, unmoving. Silent. His body trembled, not from fear, but from something deeper. His breathing slowed. Then, his eyes began to glow faintly, and so did his arms. His skin cracked in places, light pouring through the breaks like liquid sun. His burned hand, still mangled from his last attack, now pulsed with a violent, uncontrollable force. Mayzen raised an eyebrow, stepping back slightly. Something felt wrong.

And then it happened. Jaze’s entire body flashed with a blinding white-yellow light, and without warning, it simply vanished. No sound. No scream. No final word. Just disintegration. His form dissolved into a burst of silent radiation, a heatless explosion that rippled outward like the breath of a dying star.

The corpses, every single one of them, began to melt. Their limbs sloughed off their frames, their skin and bones evaporating into glowing particles. Mayzen’s eyes went wide, and he raised his hands to defend himself with the remaining bodies, but it was futile. The radiation crept through the arena like a plague of light, dissolving all matter in its path. His puppets turned to dust mid-motion, collapsing into nothing. Mayzen screamed, not in pain, but in disbelief as his clothes began to disintegrate, his skin peeling into flakes of light.

In that final moment, the battlefield went silent. The arena itself, cracked and charred, crumbled into a crater of glowing ash. Nothing remained. No bodies. No blood. No war. Just the faint, haunting hiss of invisible energy where Jaze once stood.