With the soot cleared, Kaelen surged forward. He was no longer fighting as a cursed knight or a distant king; he was fighting as a man who had finally tasted hope.
"Your reign of blandness ends here!" Kaelen shouted.
He swung Thorn-Breaker, the blade glowing with the white-hot intensity of a forge. The Arch-Baker raised his obsidian peel to parry, and the collision sent a shockwave through the fortress that cracked the very foundations.
While Kaelen held the Arch-Baker in a stalemate of strength, Elara sprinted toward the Great Black Oven. The heat radiating from it was toxic, a "Dry-Burn" that blistered the air. She saw the dial on the oven—it was set to Infinite Bitter.
"The recipe is wrong!" Elara shouted over the roar of the magical fire.
She began to whisk the air itself, pulling the ultraviolet shadows into a vortex. She was "folding" the darkness, treating it like a heavy, over-proofed dough. She added the final drop of her own living hearth-blood to the mix—the ultimate sacrifice of a Baker Witch.
The Arch-Baker screamed, sensing his power being redirected. He threw Kaelen aside and turned toward Elara, his mask cracking to reveal the void beneath. "You would give your life for a loaf of bread?"
"It's not bread," Elara gasped, her vision blurring from the heat. "It's the Rising!"
She thrust her whisk into the heart of the oven.