Act 3: Empire's Stand - Chapter 578: Orden's Sacrifice

Act 3: Empire's Stand - Chapter 578: Orden's Sacrifice

Arranged on the tall walls and fortified towers of the Imperial Palace, hundreds of cannons rotated and pointed outward in all directions, the three sections of its shaft rotating as a humming ramped up. Within the gun's muzzle, a fiery glow intensified, akin to the flames stoking in a furnace, and rounds of powerful blasts fired. Several flew at the encroaching enemy, and most shot at the location of the opening created by the Ercanal-fives. Bright beams of light from the Garantulems, the fleets, and the cannons mounted on the Imperial Palace flashed like lightning across the shadow cast on the city by the stormy clouds.

One by one, enemy Exalts endured countless explosions, slipping past to enter Dragonheart City. Several powerful spells tore through the hulls of ally ships, and a tower of the Imperial Palace collapsed, rubble clattering down in a tide of stone as it toppled on its side. It landed to the right of Oscar, a cloud of dust and dirt instantly forming, but on the left, a ship crashed, the metallic hull groaning until it split apart, and a rush of flame exploded. Everything was swept away, the flames and the dirt, by the force of Oscar's shield bashing against Orden's hammer, and smoldering piles of wreckage remained.

"Orden!" Oscar shouted, forming scarlet blades of golden edges that blinked sunlight in their quick path to stab into Orden. Oddly, Orden's hammer was more powerful than before, and the giant stomped his foot, swiveling his hammer to repel all of Oscar's blades, scarlet fragments clattering on the ground before melting into small droplets of molten lava. It was strange. The Meld ability gave his adversary a powerful multiplication, and it was much more powerful than before, multiplying the force of his blows by a factor of fifty. But it didn't explain the inexplicable weight that trembled from his shield to the soles of his feet.

'What have you done?' Oscar wondered. Erden swooped in from above, releasing a ray of dense flames so hot that it burned white. Surprisingly, the Eirin-infused fire split off after meeting the head of the hammer, the flames engulfing the ground around Orden and scorching the stone bricks into charred wastes. Orden, himself, was unharmed, his feet standing on perfectly fine ground. In a boisterous roar, a shockwave of fifty multiplied seismic power parted Erden's flames in twine.

Erden cut off the flames and dodged to the side as a seismic quake imploded the air where he once stood. Oscar was stunned, eyes fixated on the energy rippling from Orden's hammer and widened in horror. It couldn't be, but it was. The familiar feeling from Orden's tall figure, the violent intent spilling from every fiber of his being, matched the ones he had fought many times. Clenching his shield and artificial hand, Oscar shouted, "Eirin?! Have you met the New Dawn?"

Orden said nothing as his shoulders quaked up and down, an erratic rush of breaths spluttering underneath the helmet. Raising his hammer, he roared and rushed, his very stomp erecting earthen ramparts, locking Oscar in place as an immense gravity pushed on his body. Oscar grunted as his feet caved into the weak, charred road. He needed to get out. But Orden arrived from above and threw a stone, a black gem that terrified Oscar.

A loud crack reached his ears, and the black gem shattered apart. 'Not this again!' Oscar stomped a good amount of Eirin into his legs and dashed away, breaking through as many layers of earth as possible. But the expanding vortex caught him. Oscar resisted and struggled but decided not to waste too much of his Ein and allowed the darkness to engulf him. The next moment, he found himself in a flat world of seemingly endless plains of slate.

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"You...." The eyes had turned to a clear brown, and the skin became craggily and gray, made entirely of stone. A long crack formed across the stone head and split wide open, the jagged edges resembling rows of sharp teeth. A fearsome roar spread earthquakes along the ground, caving in vast portions of the slate plains. Terrified, Oscar created his Duality body, and he, Demon, and Erden combined their attacks. Scarletgold Blades whistled through the air, and motes of Scarletgold Breakers, orbs of red and gold, dropped below and flared into massive bursts of sharp gold fragments and engulfing flames.

A dense gravity field forced the spells to the ground before reaching Orden. The few that did make it through bounced off his armor, unable to withstand the seismic force from merely touching it. Oscar activated the Guise, melded his anima into Erden, and shared the Guise with Demon. The three dove straight down, pairs of antlers adorning their heads.

"End it all in one strike!" Oscar shouted, fusing his Scarletgold Drill into Erden. Demon supplemented more power by adding his drills into the collective whole. Using the final concept of Eirin, the Lines, Oscar poured out his will and fused their attacks into a singular Line, the most powerful of their combination. Orden bellowed out and swung his hammer, a spinning rock covering the head as crackles of gravity and Eirin quaked along its surface, a yellowish hue on the cracks.

Oscar had never felt such a heavy attack in his life, certainly not from one of his peers. The fifty-multiplied of Seismic Force, Gravitational Push, and Kinetic Core, created by Eirin and overflowing with elemental power, met his strike. It all fell silent, their warcries inaudible, and the world vanished from his vision briefly. At the epicenter of their clash, nothing existed, only them. Then, it all rushed back, the booming sounds of immensely powerful Eirin fighting, the view of the ground underneath caving in as they fell into a large chasm, and the roars of their exertion.

Landing in an underground chamber exposed by the crushing power of their exchange, Oscar gritted his teeth, pouring in more power. Passing Orden, he halted himself, carving two grooves into the ground. He turned and saw Orden's body split in half, relieved to see it was over as the two halves plopped to the floor. Sweat beaded down his forehead, and he wiped it to find it was unbelievably cold.

'It's over.' Light showered from above. Oscar floated up, wanting to find a way out of this world. First, he needed to escape to the surface. A faint crunch perked his ears, and he swept his gaze downward, trembling as the two halves of Orden's transformed body fused back together, and the glaring brown eyes stared back. It resembled Quinn's ash body, but how? Realization struck him like lightning in a storm. That vial of black liquid...was the culprit. Orden had undergone elementification.

"You..." Oscar heard the monster, formerly known as Orden, let out a deep roar, an inhuman bellow that sounded like the groaning of the earth. Staring at the monster, he felt enraged and shouted, "You cast aside everything!"