Teuta would die like Icarus, her wings burning down after she flew too close to the sun.

No armor or magical defense could stop Kairos’ flames from consuming whatever they touched. His spear glowed brighter than the stars in his hands as it unleashed a sea of smokeless fire.

Teuta raised her icy axe in response. A layer of snow formed on the edge before exploding into a chilling blizzard. Fire and ice collided in the skies above Talos’ Cradle, only for flames to triumph. Though Teuta’s magic slowed down Kairos’ blast, even the thickest snow melted before the sun.

Teuta proved herself wiser than Icarus by flying away from the inferno. She escaped death by immolation by the skin of her teeth and Kairos immediately gave chase. He bombarded his foe with fireballs without rest. Teuta zigzagged in the skies the best she could as she dodged projectiles.

Her wings proved a good match for Rook’s speed. Kairos bent the winds to propel his griffin forward and slow down Teuta, to no avail. She managed to maintain a respectable distance in spite of his best efforts. “Rook, can’t you catch up to her?”

“I’m trying!” Rook huffed as he struggled to maintain his wings’ equilibrium. “It’s the weight, Kairos! My silly new wing is too heavy, it drags me to the side!”

Andromache and Thales had done a spectacular job with Rook’s metal wing, but the griffin had worn it for less than two days. The fact he could fly straight at high speed at all was a testament to his grit and determination.

The two rivals for Travia’s throne engaged in a deadly dance above Talos’ Cradle, giving Kairos a good view of the battlefield. Thales’ temporary disruption of his maker’s control over the automatons had a profound impact. The cannons protecting the Cradle no longer bombarded the Travian-Lycean fleet nor provided suppression fire for the Thessalan forces, allowing Kairos’ ships to make full use of their overwhelming numbers. Most of the mechanical sea monsters had fled or fallen, and the few vessels Teuta had left to defend the forges wouldn’t hold out for long.

Talos was the only source of concern. The colossal automaton remained fixated on striking down the Foresight and would move to destroy Kairos’ fleet if he succeeded.

Deciding to end things with Teuta as quickly as possible so he could move on to Talos, Kairos had Rook move slightly above his rival while raising his spear. The Travian King aimed to strike the pirate queen the same way a fisherman would harpoon a large fish.

“I was wrong about you, Teuta!” While Kairos had avoided trying to harm his old foe out of respect for her, she had spit on his mercy one time too many. “I thought you cared about Travia, but your patriotism was never more than a veil to hide your selfish pride!”

“At least I have pride left!” Teuta turned around and pointed her fire axe in Kairos’ direction. Her weapon unleashed a blue fireball straight at Rook. “I will not give in to your words!”

“You will give in to my steel!” Kairos had Rook fearlessly fly into the fire as they once dove straight into Helios’ blaze. Teuta’s flames licked skin and feathers alike without inflicting any damage.

[Fire] damage negated by [Sun of War].

Kairos and Rook emerged through the fire unscathed. Teuta’s eyes widened in surprise as her rival threw his spear at her. The would-be pirate queen dove closer to the ocean below to dodge, only for the weapon to alter its trajectory and pursue her. Empowered by [Spear Fighting 4], Kairos’ weapon could not miss. Teuta could block the spear but never escape it.

Kairos needed to kill her in one strike. Teuta had already escaped him once thanks to her teleportation amulet, and even being burnt alive had given Mithridates enough time to escape to the care of healers. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

The pirate queen threw her fire axe as Kairos’ Dawnspear came within a few meters of her chest. The weapons collided in a mighty clash of steel and flames. The Dawnspear’s bright aura grew in power until it illuminated the entire battlefield in its light. Teuta’s griffin soldiers and Euthenia’s pegasus riders halted their battle above the Cradle, awed by the sudden display of divine radiance.

As the flash of fire died down, Kairos watched Teuta’s broken axe falling into the sea below. The Dawnspear teleported back to his hand in a pristine state, immaculate and almighty.

Teuta floated in the air below Kairos, looking up to her rival with an expression of grim despair. Her hand trembled as she lifted her last remaining axe.

Kairos sensed the gaze of soldiers on his back. The aerial forces of both camps had briefly stopped to witness the duel’s result, waiting to see whose will would triumph.

And they would find Teuta’s wanting.

“Do you see the difference between us now?” Kairos asked her as he looked down on her from above. “Your steel is as brittle as your resolve!”

Kairos raised his spear above his head and lit up the tip like a torch. The Dawnspear’s light became a beacon in the night, a lighthouse in the darkness.

“I am the radiant sun that lights a blazing path for our people!” Kairos’ words, empowered by his [Speech] Skill, echoed across the sea. His voice cut through the noise of battle and explosions. All listened to him, all watched him. “The star that shattered Orichalcos, defeated Mithridates, and slew the last titan! I have won more battles in a year than you ever did in your lifetime! The Sunsea shudders at my name! Death is my crown and victory is my banner!”

“Soldiers, do not listen!” Teuta attempted to rally her griffin riders, but her words didn’t carry half as far as her rival’s. “To me! To the brave shall go his [Legend]!”

It wasn’t a Skill or confidence that carried Teuta’s voice, but weakness and desperation.

Her soldiers sensed it. Of the dozen griffin riders that had joined Teuta in this battle, none made a move to help her. They were sons and daughters of Travia who had followed the pirate queen to Thessala for the promise of future victory. Perhaps some had believed that Teuta would eventually prevail, that her defeats were a fluke, that Kairos was a Lycean puppet bound to fail in due time.

But when faced with such a shameful spectacle, how could they not doubt? Kairos stood high above Teuta as the very image of a powerful [Demigod], mighty, inspiring, undefeated, and supremely confident. In contrast, his rival had lost a weapon and called for help instead of rising to the challenge.

As if on cue, the sun finally started to rise behind Kairos. The sea seemed to catch fire as a red glow reflected on the clouds beyond the horizon. The very skies appeared to support the Sunslayer King’s proclamation of dominance. The heavens had chosen their side.

At that moment, Teuta realized it was all over. Kairos saw it written all over her face.

He struck and Teuta ran away.

Kairos’ spear threw a fireball and the would-be pirate queen fled in fear of its flames. She cheated death alright, but her weakness killed her all the same; to her soldiers, she might as well have died. Her demoralized griffin soldiers routed. A few fled from the Cradle in multiple directions, each man for himself. Others lowered their weapons and surrendered to the tip of Orthian riders’ spears.

“Spare those who will throw down their weapons!” Kairos ordered his troops before chasing after Teuta. He took a quick glance at the Cradle on his way, watching Ultor and Agron toss a fire cannon into the sea. The fortress would fall soon.

Teuta abandoned the skies above the Cradle to move closer to Talos himself. By then the Foresight had lured the giant far away from his own fortress and at the very periphery of the battle. The living ship barely dodged a warhammer strike that would have blown a castle to smithereens.

On its deck, Julia organized the crew’s defenders as they repelled flying automatons pouring out of Talos’ melting skin. Two crew members didn’t participate in the effort. Despite the danger, Andromache and Thales modified the runes on a dozen fire rods rather than cast down attackers with bombs and spells. Kairos was too far away to fully understand the purpose of their action, though his [Magical Knack] Skill informed him that it involved removing the rods’ safety measures.

Teuta flew closer to the Foresight’s mast before turning around and swinging her remaining axe in Kairos’ direction. Icicle shards surged from her blade more swiftly than arrows, each as sharp and deadly as an Orthian javelin.

Kairos waved his spear in a swing of his own. His weapon’s edge raised a wall of fire that melted the projectiles into harmless water.

But when the Travian King threatened to retaliate by throwing his spear for a lethal strike, Teuta positioned herself between Kairos himself and the Foresight’s deck. Kairos’ flames died at the tip of his spear, as he risked hitting Andromache and Thales. Detonating the fire rods by accident would destroy the entire ship.

“Did you flee to my ship so I wouldn’t open fire on them, Teuta? Nothing bites so hard as a cornered rat I suppose.” Kairos couldn’t help but sneer in disgust. “Call me disappointed, for I expected better of you.”

“You have no right to call me dishonorable after winning so many victories through deceit!” Teuta prepared to swing her axe again. “What do I have to lose now? You have taken my throne, my pride, my hopes… what is there left for you to take, Kairos?”

“Your life,” Kairos replied dryly as he prepared to engage Teuta in melee.

“That you won’t have.”

“No, he won’t.” Julia walked to the very edge of the Foresight’s deck and glared at Teuta. “The day is ours, Teuta of Travia. Surrender now and I shall let you live. If you do not, I swear as Queen of Histria that you will perish here and now.”

Teuta looked over her shoulder to match Julia’s offer with a defiant gaze. Her axe remained firmly in her hand. “What can a spoiled noble brat like you do on the battlefield, Lycean whore?”

“This.” Julia squinted. “[Queen’s Rebellion].”

The frost around Teuta’s axe melted away and her wings stopped flapping. Julia’s Legendary Skill had disabled all of the would-be pirate queen’s magical items, and Teuta plummeted to her death.

The pirate queen failed to catch the Foresight’s deck as she fell and her free hand reached out to her teleportation amulet. The device had saved her from a similar fate near the Valian coast, but it failed her today. No magic rescued the pirate queen as the sea below called her into the cold embrace of death.

The battle was taking place hundreds of meters above the sea’s surface; even a fall from a fraction of this height would have been lethal. Kairos could have bent the winds to soften her landing and save her life.

He did not.

Teuta might have been a Travian, but she had spat on all his offers for peace and would never accept submission. She was the old way that held Travia back, the cruelty of constant piracy and the freedom of the strong to take from the weak. She had fallen prey to the very rules she promoted as justice demanded.

Kairos watched the old Travia die with Teuta as his former rival plummeted down to the raging sea below. He heard her curse his name one last time before hitting the waves, followed by silence.

“You think she could have survived that?” Rook asked with a frown.

“No,” Kairos replied as he spotted Teuta’s corpse pushed to the sea’s surface by a wave.

“Not even as an undead? It always happens to us!”

When he put it that way… Kairos cast a fireball from above at Teuta’s remains and incinerated them. Her smoking skeleton vanished under the water, never to rise again.

“Husband!” Julia shouted from the Foresight’s deck, too bothered by Talos to rejoice at their victory over Teuta. “We are in dire need of your assistance!”

Talos raised his warhammer as the Foresight entered his striking range again. The giant automaton adopted the posture for a vertical swing, ready to smite the living out of the skies.

Kairos glanced at Andromache and Thales. The latter carried the modified fire rods in his arms, all of them tightly bound together by a rope. “Sir!” Thales called out to Kairos. “I request access to my maker’s neck!”

“You shall have it!” Kairos replied. The Foresight answered his desire by rising upward closer to Talos’ head right as the automaton swung his weapon. His hammer crossed the air in a horizontal swing from the left like a meteor.

Kairos immediately moved to protect his beloved ship. His spear whipped up a mighty whirlwind into existence, the air current bending to his will. His mighty attack would have brought down walls of stones and snapped hills in half. It was the wind that blew away mountains and reshaped the land.

It barely slowed down Talos’ warhammer.

Kairos felt the pressure as their attacks collided. So powerful was the giant’s blow that its weight carried through the winds themselves. The metal head of the warhammer grew closer and closer to the Foresight’s hull, ready to shatter it.

Julia barked orders to the crew behind him. “All spellcasters to the left! Target the hammer and deviate it! Snap his hand!”

Andromache was the first to rescue Kairos, as she whipped up winds of her own with her scepter. Other spellcasters cast debuff spells on Talos or blasted his metal fingers with fire and lightning. Their collective might compounded with Kairos’ whirlwind to slow down the automaton’s deadly blow, but they could not stop it.

Explosions shook the sea below and Talos stumbled.

The giant automaton lost his momentum as he fell deeper into the ocean, the waves rising from his waist to his bronze abs. The hammer went down and missed the Foresight’s hull by a few narrow meters. Its uncontrolled head hit the waters below with enough strength to turn a fortress to rubble, tidal waves rippling from the point of impact.

Kairos looked down at the waters, watching the form of an orca mermaid slipping below the waves.

Nausicaa.

As more explosions resonated below Talos and left him shaking, Kairos realized what had happened. Nausicaa and other amphibious forces had detonated mines near the giant automaton’s knees. They hadn’t been powerful enough to damage Talos, but they destabilized his posture when he needed the most momentum.

Nausicaa had also brought reinforcements.

Talos raised his warhammer in a desperate defense a few meters above the sea, and no further; for a colossal sea monster leaped out of the ocean in a surprise attack. The creature was a mix and match of many animals matching the Foresight in size. Its eel-like body coiled around Talos’ arm and crushed the joints of his hand. The warhammer slipped through the automaton’s fingers as the pressure grew and was soon swallowed by the waves.

Kairos smiled in relief and joy as he recognized his ally. “Hybris!”

“I have told you once, Kairos.” The Cetean [Demigod]’s lure glittered as he strengthened his hold on Talos’ arm. A sickening noise echoed as the automaton’s bronze skin cracked under the pressure. “The Sunsea is ours alone to rule!”

Talos was not yet defeated. His skin melted off around the shoulders, no doubt to produce more automaton defenders. “Thales!” Kairos shouted as he prepared to strike down any new mechanical minion. “Now is the time!”

“On it, sir!” The Foresight moved right above Talos’ head while he tried to regain his footing, allowing Thales to leap off the deck and onto his maker’s helmet. Using three of his hands to climb down to the back of Talos’ neck, Thales then placed the modified fire rods with the fourth at a critical juncture. He stuck the weapons in a narrow space between the highest cervical and the helmet. “Ready, sir!”

Rook descended at once. Thales jumped off Talos’ neck and caught his king’s hand after triggering the fire rods. Kairos helped his friend sit on Rook’s back as they flew away alongside the Foresight.

The fire rods did not detonate immediately. In what would be his final act, Talos raised his free hand to catch Rook. The griffin slipped through the giant’s fingers as they closed on empty air.

A second later, Talos lost his head.

The customized fire rods exploded at once, their energies resonating together in a way that outmatched even Kairos’ Dawnspear in destructive power. Hybris slipped off Talos’ armor right before a mighty blast of fire and light erupted on the giant’s neck.

Thales had used his engineering knowledge to place the fire rods at a critical joint with terrible results. The blast erupted in the narrow space between Talos’ skull and helmet, shattering both. The neck snapped as steel cogs and bronze plates flew into the air before falling into the sea. A veil of smoke covered Talos’ disfigured head. Kairos barely distinguished a melted bronze face’s features through it.

Talos stumbled again, but this time he did not catch himself. The first and greatest of all automatons collapsed on his chest, his sheer overwhelming weight raising a tidal wave ten meters tall. The nearest ships were pushed back.

As he and Thales watched Talos sink, Kairos couldn’t muster any sense of triumph or relief. Hephaestus had created the first automaton before the Anthropomachia. Talos had witnessed the history of entire civilizations and protected many. He was a survivor of the old world, the last vestige of a fallen city-state.

When Kairos watched the purple fire in Talos’ die out, he knew that the last remnant of Thessala had perished too.

By defeating your rival for the throne of Travia and bringing down Helios’ last image, your [Legend] changed from [Sunslayer King] to [Travian Sun].

You have earned three levels (total 75) and 12 Skill Points.

Nothing but underwater ruins and memories would remain.

Kairos couldn’t help but wonder how Talos had been as a person. The automaton had lived in the times of Prometheus, Dionysus, and Heracles. Talos had instituted laws restricting his creations, but he had also given them a measure of freedom of thought. Kairos would have loved to talk with the giant about the old world.

Now he could only hope that Talos had regained his mind in his final moments; that he had perished as a free automaton rather than Mithridates’ thrall.

“I am sorry, Thales,” Kairos said with a somber tone. His crewmate and friend watched his dead maker vanish without a word. “I wish there had been another way.”

“I wished there had been one too, sir.” Thales shook his head as the very last piece of Talos disappeared under the waters. The waves calmed down and the sea turned as still and peaceful as a pond. “I wish there—”

Thales didn’t finish his sentence, much to Kairos’ confusion. “What is it?”

“Sir, I am not a [Demigod].”

Kairos’ eyes widened in surprise. Thales had earned his [Legend] by organizing the demise of a Nemean Lion. The circumstances were similar and yet the automaton hadn’t grown in power.

Which could only mean one thing.

“Hybris!” The Travian King called to his ally. The sea monster’s head rose above the water. “Talos is not dead yet!”

“His body is not moving anymore!” the Cetean replied with skepticism.

“Lord Talos’ core remains intact in his skull!” Thales’ grim acceptance had turned to hope. “We only separated it from his body!”

“We need to carry the skull to the surface,” Kairos said. “He might be able to influence automatons even in this state.”

“None will reach him,” Hybris replied before diving into the sea’s depths. He and Nausicaa would retrieve the skull and bring it to the surface.

“There may be hope, sir.” Thales glanced at the sunrise illuminating the Cradle. The battle had come to an end, with Teuta’s fleet either broken or captured. “For my maker and my kind.”

“There is a chance at least,” Kairos agreed. He had no idea how much damage Talos had suffered.

Whether they could salvage anything from today’s battle, Mithridates had lost the Cradle and Thales’ ploy had freed the automatons in his army. Forges would no longer churn out soldiers to supply the Thessalan troops, leaving only Zama and the Thalassacrator as major obstacles to conquer the League.

Kairos knew exactly how to deal with both.

With the Cradle conquered, the path to Pergamon laid open. Kairos would bring the war to Mithridates’ doorstep, and the Poison Emperor would have no choice but to meet him in battle.

The end was in sight.