Date: February 12, 542 years since the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored.
Legate Valerius stood breathing heavily, the steam from his breath instantly freezing into small ice needles. He felt his Vessel, pushed to the limit, begin to vibrate from extreme overload. The Alvost Herald understood: if he continued trying to outplay the old man in technique, he would simply turn his life into a prolonged circus performance.
"Do you think your dolls are the law?" Valerius growled, his eyes filling with a crimson light. "No, old man. The law is what remains when everything else turns to nothing."
Valerius drove his sword deep into the obsidian floor slab. All his inner essence, accumulated through years of service in the legions, surged down through his channels into the very foundation of the Temple. The air in the hall suddenly became unnaturally quiet, and then the space around the Legate began to rapidly turn black. It was his final technique, a forbidden maneuver that could tear even a Herald apart if his will faltered.
"Art of Rupture: Polar Collapse!" Valerius shouted.
Directly beneath Magnus's feet, the floor ceased to be solid. The very molecules of obsidian began to change their charge, repelling each other. The earth exploded from within, turning into a roaring fountain of fragments and pure, destabilized force. It was a blow aimed not at flesh, but at the very structure of reality beneath the opponent.
Master Magnus, seeing the scale of the attack, for the first time in the fight, stopped smiling. His piercingly blue eyes narrowed. He understood that this time, a simple top or nutcracker wouldn't suffice.
"Too much noise," the old man squeaked, but there was no longer any mockery in his voice.
He instantly poured all the remaining soldier figurines from his box onto his palm. "Spirit of Ancient Toys: Fortress of the Brave Sergeant!"
Dozens of tin and wooden guardsmen instantly grew before Magnus, linking their shields and shoulders into three dense ranks. This was not just a wall—it was a living shield, into which Magnus poured a colossal volume of his power, creating a physical barrier of incredible density.
The next second, Valerius's blow struck home.
The black flame of Polar Collapse hit from below and from the front, consuming everything in its path. The crash was such that Kaedan and Iskon, fighting at the far end of the hall, were knocked off their feet by the shockwave. The first rank of Magnus's toy guardsmen simply vanished, turning into a cloud of splinters and molten metal. The second rank held a moment longer before being literally erased from reality.
Magnus stood behind his improvised wall, feeling the recoil from the Herald's blow pass through his puppets and into his bones. The last rank of soldiers cracked, and the blast wave finally reached the old man.
When the dust and smoke cleared somewhat, Valerius, leaning on his sword, saw the result of his strike. His face twisted in a grimace of disappointment.
Magnus was alive. He stood amidst a pile of debris—all that remained of his army was now just rubbish underfoot. However, the old man no longer looked invulnerable. A deep cut from a flying shard blazed on his cheek, and his right sleeve was torn to shreds, revealing a dry, scratched arm. Blood seeped from small wounds on his palm.
"You... you made me dirty my clothes," Magnus said quietly, touching the cut on his face with his fingers. He looked at his bloodied palm with strange, almost childlike surprise. "That was... rude, boy. But quite effective."
Valerius breathed heavily, his Vessel more than half-empty, his regeneration working too slowly to close his own wounds. He saw that the old man was genuinely angry. And though Magnus had only received a few scratches, the very fact that his defense had been breached changed the atmosphere of the battle.
"My friends are dead," Magnus pointed to the pile of splinters that had once been his guardsmen. His voice became quiet and frighteningly steady. "Now we will have to play for real."
The Agrim Master slowly reached into a hidden pocket of his grey coat, and Valerius felt the air around him begin to crystallize from the old man's mounting power. Magnus produced something wrapped in black cloth, and the Legate of Alvost realized his greatest blow had merely irritated the true monster hiding beneath the mask of a decrepit master.