"How bad luck for us. Our army is dying faster than ever." Zeiris stared ahead, disappointment heavy in his voice.
Lyoth remained calm. "It's okay. Even if we lose, it doesn't matter at all. This was a simple test — exactly what I expected."
"The light stone surely helped them. Even the weak have become strong."
"It is not over yet. They may have killed more, but our numbers still outweigh theirs."
"Indeed." The atmosphere inside the castle was silent and cruel.
--------------------
THUDS. THUDS.
Locker returned.
This time, he was hell itself. Power radiated off him in waves, thick and suffocating, the kind that warped the air around him and made the ground feel heavier just by standing near it. His chains dragged behind him, scraping the earth with every step.
He spotted Aron mid-fight, cutting through soldiers with everything he had left. Locker's eyes locked onto him. He breathed in slow and heavy, like a beast steadying itself before the kill, then broke into a full sprint.
The punch landed before Aron could react.
The impact was catastrophic. Aron flew over the heads of the soldiers, screaming through the air, and smashed hard into a broken tree at the edge of the field. The wood splintered around him. He crumpled at its base, helmet cracked, armor caved in on one side, and went still.
Locker walked toward him without urgency. His chains coiled loosely in his grip. He stopped a few paces away and waited, watching Aron's body for movement.
"COME ON, NORM. STAND UP AND FIGHT."
The voice was somewhere far off — high-pitched and jagged, like sound dragged through shattered glass. Aron wasn't fully conscious. The world around him had shifted into something dark and formless. He couldn't move. His body refused every command he tried to send it. But something pressed down on his shoulders, like two hands pushing him into the ground, and a whisper reached him from somewhere close.
*Stand up.*
He could hear the dying screams of soldiers beyond the tree line. Men he had been fighting beside. He heard the chains. He heard Locker's breathing, rhythmic and patient, waiting for him.
His armor was destroyed across the chest and shoulder. His head was bleeding freely, warmth spreading down the side of his face and dripping off his jaw. He had no sword. He didn't even know where it had gone.
But slowly, with both hands pressed against the broken tree behind him, Aron began to push himself upright. His arms shook. His legs buckled once, and he dropped to one knee, grinding his teeth, pressing harder against the bark. Then, with something that had nothing to do with strength and everything to do with refusal, he stood.
*How is he alive.* The thought moved through him slowly, like water through cracked stone. *That punch would have killed a hundred men.*
Locker laughed. "YOU CANNOT DO ANYTHING NOW. YOU ARE WEAK."
But then Locker stopped.
Standing between him and Aron was a single figure. One man, unarmed, planting himself directly in the path of something that had just launched a person through the air like debris.
Aron recognized him immediately. Ernold. The man from the room, the one who had looked at him like someone quietly deciding something when no one else was watching.
"Don't," Aron said, voice rough. "Don't do anything. You'll die."
Ernold glanced back over his shoulder. He smiled, calm and unhurried. "It's okay," he said. "Even if I die. We still have to fight."
Aron looked at him for a moment, then shifted. His mind was already moving. "Listen," he said quickly, low enough that only Ernold could hear. "When he charges — throw the sword high. Then jump aside. You understand?"
Ernold gave a single nod. "Okay."
Locker's voice dropped into something deeper, something that didn't sound entirely human anymore. "WHO DARES CHALLENGE ME?" He smashed both fists into the ground. The earth cracked outward from the impact. "I WILL RIP YOU INTO PIECES. BOTH OF YOU."
He charged.
The speed was monstrous. The ground shook beneath his stride as he closed the distance in seconds, chains swinging wide at his sides. At the last moment, he left the ground entirely, launching himself into the air above them, shadow falling over both men.
Ernold threw the sword.
It spun upward, end over end, and Aron was already moving — pushing off the ground with what little he had left, catching the hilt at the apex of its arc, and swinging in one clean motion as Locker descended.
They landed at almost the same moment.
The silence that followed was immediate and absolute.
Locker stood still for a single breath. Then Aron stepped back, and the sword remained — buried to the hilt, directly through Locker's chest, the blade finding the heart with a precision that felt less like skill and more like something decided long before the fight began.
Locker looked down. His hands opened slowly, and the chains fell. Then he collapsed, and as his body hit the ground, it began to dissolve — edges softening, form unraveling, until there was nothing left but a faint smear of darkness fading into the dirt.
------------------
"Now," Rogard said, his voice carrying the weight of someone who had already decided the outcome. "What will you do, Trail Smith?"
He charged before Trail could answer.
*What speed,* Trail thought, already moving — weaving left, pulling right, reading the wolf's rhythm and staying just ahead of it. But he felt the margin shrinking. One mistake. That was all it would cost him. He could feel himself drifting backward, further from his sword with every exchange.
Then the claws came. A sharp, raking blow caught Trail across both hands as he pulled them back. Blood followed quickly. He stumbled, putting distance between them, breathing harder now.
*He's powerful. I have to admit that.*
Rogard pressed forward, swinging hard. Trail crossed both arms to absorb it — and the force still drove him off his feet. He hit the ground and stayed there for a moment, chest heaving.
Rogard moved closer, stepping over the battlefield like he owned it. "Never thought I'd see you like this, Trail Smith." He almost sounded amused. "What happened to the strongest commander to ever exist? Looks like that title is about to be demolished."
Trail looked up at him. "You weren't always like this, Rogard. You were better. The darkness took hold of your mind and changed you." He steadied his breathing. "The war will end."
"You think you can beat us?" Rogard said. "The black reaper will rise and burn every last one of you where you stand."
Trail held his gaze. Then, quietly, he said, "Foolish of me. I forgot to mention — I brought backup for that."
A burst of brilliant light slammed into Rogard and sent him skidding back across the field, disoriented and snarling.
Trail's eyes moved briefly to Zord, then back to Rogard. He reached down and lifted his sword from the ground. He rose slowly, standing straight, and leveled his gaze across the distance between them like a line drawn in the earth.