Before they launched another attack, Osvald's body shifted again. A series of sharp cracks echoed through the air as bones slid into new positions. His spine straightened and his shoulders pulled back while thick fur receded from parts of his torso. Muscle tightened and reshaped beneath the skin. His forearms thickened into powerful limbs tipped with curved claws, while his posture gained balance and control. Within moments, he stood as a towering werebear, a blend of animal strength and deliberate movement.
They rushed forward together.
Claws crashed into claws, jaws snapped at close range, and the force of their collision rattled the platform beneath them. Each strike landed with enough strength to tear flesh and dent bone. Osvald twisted aside from a sweeping blow and drove his arm upward in a rising strike. As his hand moved, the claws extended and thickened, growing three times their normal length before raking across Thavuk's chest. The slash carved a deep wound that split armor skin and exposed glowing veins beneath.
Thavuk staggered back and dropped to one knee, gripping his chest. Void energy surged into the injury like liquid shadow. The torn flesh pulled together and sealed within seconds. He rose slowly with a smirk and raised one hand toward Osvald. Darkness seeped from the ground and air, flowing like thick tar as it wrapped around the werebear's body and tightened, locking him place. Then Thavuk lifted both hands and compressed the gathering void between his palms. The energy condensed into a dense, perfectly dark sphere that warped the air around it and dragged loose debris toward its surface.
"Abyssal Devourer." He hurled the orb.
The sphere struck Osvald and burst into a violent explosion of darkness that swallowed the area in swirling void. From the center of the blast, a small bird shot upward through the fading energy. The form shifted again midflight. Wings folded inward, feathers hardened into layered plates, and the body compacted into a dense, armored shape. The creature curled into a spinning, armadillo like sphere and accelerated as it dropped.
The rotating impact slammed into Thavuk with crushing force. He threw his arm up to block, but the spinning mass broke through his guard and drove him backward. The hit forced him into the ground with a heavy crash. The momentum carried the rolling form forward before it bounced away and landed several meters to the side, leaving cracked earth and scattered debris in its path.
Thavuk's silhouette vanished inside a thick cloud of dust and shattered debris. Before the haze cleared, Osvald felt the sudden pull of danger ripple through the air. A gigantic hand formed from dense void energy and shot forward. He twisted to the side, but the construct moved faster than his reaction. Its fingers clamped around his tail and yanked him off the ground. The hand swung him in a wide circle, faster and faster, until the world blurred into streaks of color.
The motion stopped without warning. The void hand smashed him into the ground with crushing force. The impact drove a shockwave across the battlefield and hurled splinters and stones in every direction. The hand released him and rose again as a second void hand surged upward beside it. Their fingers clenched into a single massive fist and crashed down. The second strike landed harder than the first, sending an even larger shockwave rolling outward and cracking the surface beneath them.
Thavuk continued the assault. As his arms drew back, ten more void hands erupted behind him in a fan like arc. They hammered downward in relentless succession. Each blow slammed into the same point, pounding the ground again and again. The repeated impacts shook the platform, filled the air with dust, and carved a deep crater where Osvald had fallen. The barrage lasted nearly a full minute before the strikes finally stopped.
Silence followed, broken only by drifting dust and falling debris. At the center of the destruction stood a sphere of thick, interwoven branches. Osvald had forced the wood together into a dense shell that absorbed the storm of blows.
The wooden barrier shifted and split apart. Branches slid behind him and sank back into the platform. Osvald stepped forward, his injuries already fading. Cuts sealed, bruises softened, and faint green energy pulsed across his skin as nature restored him. Thavuk healed with void. Osvald healed with nature.
Their eyes locked across the broken ground. Neither hesitated.
Void hands surged forward again while thick branches burst from the platform to intercept them. Osvald shifted mid stride into the sleek, muscular form of a giant panther and sprinted straight ahead. He darted between grasping hands, twisting through narrow gaps and leaping upward toward Thavuk.
A void hand snapped up and caught his hind legs before his claws could strike. It slammed him toward the ground while Thavuk drove a void wrapped punch toward the falling body.
Osvald changed shape in midair. His body shrank and twisted into a rabbit, slipping free of the blow. The moment his feet touched the ground, his form expanded again into a powerful kangaroo. He leaned back and launched forward, driving both legs into a heavy kick aimed straight at Thavuk's torso.
Thavuk thrust his arm forward to block the kick. The blow struck with enough force to shove him several meters across the platform. His feet carved long grooves through the wood and tangled roots before he forced himself to a stop.
Osvald used the opening and launched himself skyward. His body reshaped mid leap. Fur rippled and shifted into feathers, forelimbs lengthened into talons, and massive wings burst from his back. He became a griffon and climbed sharply into the air. With a powerful downward sweep of his wings, he drove a spiraling funnel of wind toward Thavuk. The tornado tore across the battlefield, ripping loose debris from the ground and dragging splinters and dust into its rotating wall.
Two colossal void hands appeared above Thavuk and slammed together. The impact crushed the tornado as though it were fragile glass. The violent winds scattered into fading currents that dissolved in the air.
Osvald climbed higher and spread his wings wider. They expanded until their span dwarfed his body. He flipped midair and struck again. This time he unleashed a raging storm packed with screaming winds and jagged bolts of lightning. The storm roared forward with enough force to shake the platform itself. The thick branches that anchored it groaned and lifted as the air tore at them.
Thavuk watched with calm focus and a faint smile. His void hands expanded until they towered like pillars. He thrust them forward and seized the storm as though it had weight and shape. Wind slammed against void in a violent struggle that churned the air and rattled the battlefield. For several seconds, neither force gave ground. Then the void hands tightened. The storm collapsed inward, lightning snapping and fading as the winds tore apart and scattered.
The hands lunged toward Osvald. One surged beneath him and snapped shut into a massive fist. He beat his wings hard and slipped free just before it closed. The second hand swept in from the side and moved to trap him. A sphere of compressed wind burst into existence around his body and held the palm back for a few seconds, buying him enough time to escape.
He barely gained distance before Thavuk launched himself into the air after him. Osvald reacted instantly. Thick branches shot upward from the platform and wrapped around Thavuk's legs, tightening in an effort to drag him down. Thavuk answered without hesitation. A new void hand formed around his arm, stretched forward, and clamped around the griffon's leg. He dragged Osvald down with him as gravity pulled them both toward the battlefield.
They hit the ground hard. Thavuk released his grip and rose in a single fluid motion, already gathering power. He lifted one hand, and dense void energy spiraled into his palm, compressing into a dark sphere that hummed with unstable force.
Osvald shifted into a bird and tried to escape the danger, but Thavuk did not throw the spell. The orb began to pulse instead. It shrank and expanded at a frantic pace, and the air around it twisted as if the space itself had started to warp and fold.
"Chaos," Thavuk whispered.
The sphere drifted forward for a heartbeat. A thin, transparent ripple spread outward like a shockwave through glass. And then the orb exploded in a massive surge of void energy that swept across the battlefield.
The wave struck Osvald midflight. His form collapsed back into his normal human shape as he crashed into the ground. Void energy clung to his body like burning liquid, seeping into him and draining mana and life force before fading and leaving scorched marks behind.
Osvald forced himself up with trembling arms. When he looked skyward, dozens of glowing portals had opened above him.
Thavuk closed his hand into a fist. Hundreds of dense spheres of void energy launched from the portals and rained down in a relentless barrage. Explosions hammered the ground one after another, filling the air with smoke, dust, and splintered debris. The bombardment continued for nearly a full minute.
Before the dust could settle, Thavuk swept his arm outward. A powerful gust blasted the haze away and cleared the battlefield. At the center of the devastation sat a massive turtle shell, scorched but intact. From the opening at the front, Osvald crawled out and slammed both palms onto the platform.
Power surged into the ground.
Suddenly, thousands of thick branches burst upward from every direction and wrapped around Thavuk. Roots coiled around his legs, limbs tightened around his torso, and new growth forced its way over the old. He struggled as more wood formed and locked into place. Within minutes, the branches fused together into a towering tree that trapped him inside its trunk.
But void was limitless. Void power surged in response. Thavuk's eyes flared brighter than ever. Dark energy seeped through the bark in glowing cracks and pulsed beneath the surface. The tree trembled and creaked as the power inside it swelled, as if the wood strained to contain the force building within.
Osvald kept his hand pressed against the platform, fighting to remain upright as the power trapped inside the tree swelled and pressed outward. Cracks spread across the trunk in jagged lines. Suddenly, the wood bulged and split apart.
Boom.
Void energy erupted from within and tore the tree apart in a violent blast. Branches snapped and scattered across the battlefield like shattered spears. The pieces that remained darkened to deep purple and twisted into writhing shapes. The broken limbs reanimated as void puppets and thrashed around Thavuk like a swarm of living weapons.
He stepped forward without hesitation, striding toward Osvald, who knelt on one knee with labored breaths and fading strength.
"The void is unstoppable," Thavuk said as he advanced.
When he reached the center of the platform, Osvald suddenly smiled.
"Then let's see what your void will do with this."
Green light burst from his body and spread across the ground beneath Thavuk's feet. Thavuk sensed the danger and glanced down, but the reaction came too late. The platform flashed bright green and a massive beam of life energy exploded upward. The power burned with the force of nature itself.
Thavuk shouted as the beam engulfed him and launched him into the sky. At the same moment, the platform tilted sharply toward the north, redirecting the blast and sending him flying across the battlefield.
The beam carried him thousands of meters through the air before slamming him into the ground near the borders of the Shadowland. The impact did not stop him. His body struck the earth and bounced back into the air, crashing down again and again. Each impact tore trenches through the ground as he skidded and tumbled for hundreds of meters before the motion finally ended.
Silence followed.
Thavuk lay buried deep in the earth beneath scattered debris and torn soil.
Seconds passed.
Then a hand pushed up through the dirt and clawed its way back to the surface.