Date: February 12, 542 years since the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored.
Baron Kaelen realized that trading straightforward blows with the northerner was a path to the rapid exhaustion of his Vessel. Grak the Axe possessed that frightening density of inner essence that allowed him to ignore inertia and simply grind through any obstacle. The Baron needed to change the rules of the game.
"You rely too much on your weight, Grak," Kaelen said, his voice suddenly acquiring a strange, polyphonic echo. "The Dynasty's gold is not just wealth. It is perfect form. Spirit of the Golden Aegis: Reflection Facet!"
The golden haze around the Baron suddenly crystallized. Instead of a single dome, the space around him filled with hundreds of floating hexagonal shields of pure power. They were thin as blades and transparent as mountain crystal, but in each, the Temple's light was reflected, transforming into deadly rays.
Kaelen surged into the attack. His movements became even faster—he literally glided between his own shields, using them as springboards. When Grak brought his axe down on him, the Baron didn't try to block the blow. He simply angled one of his Aegis's facets. The heavy axe blade slid along the golden surface, and all the power of the strike was redirected into the floor.
Seizing Grak's momentary hesitation, Kaelen delivered a series of stinging thrusts. His sword moved with the frequency of a hummingbird's wings. Grak's steel cuirass became covered with a network of deep furrows, and new wounds appeared on the Order Commander's shoulder and thigh. Blood stained the grey steel of his armor, but Grak only clenched his teeth tighter.
Grak felt the situation heating up. Kaelen was like a swarm of golden wasps—fast, elusive, and painfully stinging. The density of the Baron's "Aegis" had increased so much that it began to passively suppress the space around Grak, hindering his breathing and movement.
"Your defense is beautiful, aristocrat," Grak boomed, taking another sword thrust on his massive pauldron. The steel pierced the plate, the blade tip entering his flesh, but Grak didn't even flinch. "But it's too complex. And everything complex eventually fails."
Grak the Axe stopped pursuing the enemy. He stood still in the center of the hall, planting his axe handle in the floor. His inner power began to rapidly densify, his Vessel humming like a working forge. The Order Commander began using the technique "Monolith of Order."
Around him, the air became so thick that Kaelen's golden shields began to slow down, as if mired in invisible resin. Grak had become that center of gravity, attracting all the fury of the battle to himself.
Kaelen, sensing the change in the background, raised his hand. All his hundreds of shields instantly gathered into one giant point aimed at Grak's chest. "Aegis: Falcon Strike!" the Baron shouted, pouring all his Herald will into this lunge.
The golden point shot forward, cutting through space. Grak met it not with his axe, but with his own shoulder, pouring a colossal volume of power into his Armor. A sound erupted that made Kaedan and Iskon, fighting nearby, bleed from their ears. Kaelen's golden spike collided with Grak's stone immovability.
The Baron was thrown back by the recoil, his perfect hair disheveled, blood flowing from his nose. Grak, however, remained in place, but his left pauldron was completely destroyed, and blood gushed from a deep wound on his chest.
"Now... my turn," Grak rasped, slowly raising his axe.
Kaelen struggled to restore his defense, but he saw that the northerner's eyes now burned not with fury, but with the cold, calculating flame of victory. Grak the Axe began to dominate, turning his wound into a source of new, even more terrifying resolve. The Central Node was becoming truly too cramped for two Heralds.