The Hollow King didn't fight fair.
Why would he? He was a god or something older than gods. He didn't need to swing a sword or throw a punch. He simply willed destruction, and destruction answered.
Tendrils of shadow erupted from the ground, each one the size of a city block, each one covered in screaming faces. They swept toward the fortress, toward the defenders, toward everything Lee loved.
Lee cut through the first tendril with the Dawnblade. The light screamed a sound of pure, distilled fury and the tendril dissolved, the faces on its surface finally finding peace.
But there were a thousand more.
Kira fought on the walls, her fire burning so hot that the stone beneath her feet melted. She sent waves of flame crashing into the shadow tendrils, buying the defenders precious seconds to retreat.
"FALL BACK TO THE INNER KEEP!" she shouted. "DON'T LET THEM SURROUND YOU!"
Taro danced through the chaos, his flexible body slipping between tendrils, carrying wounded soldiers to safety. He wasn't a killer he never had been. But he was a saver, and in this moment, saving was more important than killing.
Ren stood at the center of the fortress, his shadow form fully unleashed. He was no longer the calm, quiet friend they had known. He was a Sun King the last Sun King and his power was terrible to behold. Shadows answered his call, but not hungry shadows like Inyocha's. Ancient shadows. Shadows that had existed before the Hollow King, before the stars, before time itself.
"YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE," Ren thundered, his voice echoing across the battlefield. "YOU ARE AN OUTSIDER. AN INVADER. AND I REJECT YOU."
The Hollow King paused. For the first time, his dying star eyes focused on something other than Lee.
"Ah," the King said. "The last Sun King. I remember you. You ran from me. Hid from me. Survived when all your kin died."
"I survived to fight you," Ren said.
"Then fight." The Hollow King raised a hand a hand made of shadow and hunger and a billion screaming faces. "But you will lose. You always lose. That is the nature of light against darkness. Light fades. Darkness endures."
Ren charged.
The two shadows one ancient, one eternal collided.