[Boy! That statue is preparing to attack!] Xaphan shouted into Leon’s mind, drawing Leon’s attention away from Valeria and back to the colossus on the other side of the field, half a mile away.

Leon could sense a rising magical pressure, and his eyes grew wide as its power and density quickly surpassed his ability to see through. Whatever the statue was preparing was far more powerful than any attack Leon could possibly muster with only his own power.

“SCATTER!” he roared, cutting Valeria off right before she asked about his previous statement, that someone had been there recently.

Neither Valeria nor Maia hesitated. Maia noticed what was happening almost as soon as Leon shouted, and she peeled off to the right, trusting that Leon knew what he was talking about and that scattering was the right thing to do. Likewise, Valeria threw herself to the left, putting quite a bit of her fifth-tier strength into her legs and gaining forty feet between her and Leon with a single movement.

Neither of them moved a moment too soon, for as the words were leaving Leon’s mouth, the great jewels in the eyes of the Thunderbird colossus flashed with golden light and a bright gold lightning bolt erupted out of the blue, nearly cloudless sky and fell upon where the three had stood only a moment before.

Leon sensed the magic condensing into the bolt even before it was visible and reacted with every ounce of speed he possibly could, instinctively understanding that even the distance the two ladies had gotten wouldn’t be enough to escape its effect given the amount of power he could sense packed into that bolt. Drawing the Adamant blade of his family and the Thunderbird Clan, he held it aloft like a victorious hero and reached out with his element-less power, creating something like an invisible net in the air with which he hoped to catch or block the bolt.

In the space of a flash and with an earth-shattering boom, the lightning bolt hit Leon’s power with astounding force, far more than Leon could possibly muster with his seventh-tier powers. He was immediately hammered down to one knee and started sinking into the loose, grassy dirt as he pushed back with all of his might, his raised sword wavering as the lightning bolt above him slowed enough that Maia and Valeria could see it reaching down at Leon and extending back up into the clear blue sky like a singular tree root.

Leon clenched his jaw and bared his teeth in exertion, the sheer power of the lightning bolt forcing him further and further into the dirt, his net of power straining and barely holding together. He did his best to keep it intact and to try and seize control of the bolt, but the thing was too powerful.

Suddenly, Leon heard the Thunderbird’s voice echo through his mind with all the speed her lightning magic gave her.

[You can do this, Leon. This lightning is but power absent conscious control, no one of my blood could possibly fail to stop this thing.]

Leon braced himself against the ground as much as he could as he turned his head up to stare at the brilliantly shining lightning bolt above him, so bright that it washed out the colors of everything around for hundreds of feet.

[Take it,] the Thunderbird both encouraged and demanded, [seize it and make it yours! This thing is nothing compared to you!]

Leon became vaguely aware that he had begun to scream at some point, and that the power being transferred from the bolt to him even with the distance between them was great enough to start tearing apart the skin of the hand holding up his blade. Blood streamed down his arm, glowing bright red with magic power.

But the lightning bolt slowed even further. To Leon’s magic-enhanced senses, it had practically come to a halt, though the pressure forcing him down into the ground had not lessened at all.

[That’s it…] the Thunderbird purred. [To become the King of the Heavens, to become my truest successor, you must become the master of lightning, he who commands the wind and the rain, who summons lightning and thunder, who brings the tide and orders it to recede… This lightning is nothing to the brilliance of the powers at your command, so MAKE IT SUBMIT!!!]

With a roar, Leon pushed himself back into a standing position and constricted the ‘net’ of power above him, enveloping the lightning bolt as much as he could. It extended up into the sky for miles, though, so the entire body of the bolt was effectively out of reach. But the tip was enough; Leon’s power wrapped it and pressed in and seeped into the spectacularly radiant magical energy.

Slowly, as the lightning bolt crept ever onward, inch-by-inch, Leon’s power invaded it, slowing it down and bringing it under his control.

Leon almost felt great about it, but he soon realized as the lightning inexorably advanced that he wouldn’t make it in time. The bolt was just too big, too powerful, his power—especially after the past couple of days—wasn’t going to be enough to subjugate it completely. But as a few stray arcs of lightning erupted between his raised blade and the tip of the lightning bolt above him, transferring magic power from him into the bolt and back again, he had an idea.

The Adamant metal of his blade seemed capable of holding near-limitless amounts of lightning magic. He’d used it in his attacks many times over the past few years, and no matter how much of his power he poured into it, it always seemed greedy for more.

And here was an opportunity to give it more.

Leon braced himself as much as he could. Then, he squeezed the lightning bolt with his power, letting it burst out of a small hole in his net. The lightning bolt arced downward, the suddenly relieved pressure causing it to move faster than even Leon could track.

The bolt had originally been aimed at the ground between all three of them when they had stood together, but with Leon’s blade raised high, the bolt bent only a few feet from Leon and slammed into the Adamant.

Again, Leon was pushed back, the force of the lightning so great that it almost tore the weapon from his hands. But the weapon stayed locked between his fingers, his grip on it so tight that if he had the brain power to spare, he would’ve suspected it wasn’t natural.

For what seemed an eternity to Leon, but for Maia and Valeria was barely the blink of the eye, lightning surged into Leon’s blade, and the blade absorbed all of it. Every spark, every errant arc, all of it was captured by the weapon.

The sword was a greedy thing, eagerly devouring all the ownerless lightning that touched it, but inevitably, the connection—both physical and otherwise—that it shared with Leon caused some of that lightning to travel between it and him. The powerful bolt conjured by the eyes of the Thunderbird colossus was intense, and even diminished, its power was more than Leon could easily handle.

It rushed into Leon’s hands, bursting capillaries and causing his muscles to seize. Traveling up his hands, his wrists locked up and his nerves felt like someone had dunked them into molten iron. Into his upper arms the lightning continued, ripping and rending flesh as it went.

Throughout all of this, Leon concentrated on nothing but holding the lightning, on seizing control of it and controlling it like he would his own magic. And as the lightning raced up his arms, he felt it working; the lightning slowed, weakened, and eventually stopped just before it surged past his shoulders.

It was now under his control. The bolt had struck, and it submitted to him, becoming docile and obedient after his efforts, indistinguishable from his own magic power.

And then the pain hit, Leon finally breaking his concentration long enough to let it in. He fell to his knees, his blade still raised above him, glowing, snapping, and crackling with the stored lightning. He couldn’t let it drop or all of that lightning would explode out on whatever the blade touched, for the blade couldn’t just make all of that magic power disappear, it had to go somewhere.

So Leon gave it somewhere to go. He clenched his jaw and opened himself up to more power from the blade. He pulled what he had into his soul realm, storing it as his own power, and let the rest take its place. He blocked the pain as much as he could, but it was all he could do to just kneel there and absorb the power, to dominate it and pull it into his soul realm where it would truly become his.

For Leon, it seemed like hours had passed, his magic lighting up his senses and making everything seem like it was traveling in slow motion. In reality, though, by the time Valeria and Maia turned back around to see what was happening after scattering, Leon was already kneeling and absorbing the lightning bolt, screaming in pain.

But neither could approach, for the might of the lightning in his blade was still too strong. Valeria tried to launch an ice spike at it, hoping to break Leon’s grip on the weapon and save him from whatever was happening, but the heat of the lightning simply vaporized the ice before it came within twenty feet of Leon. Maia, too, tried to aid her lover, but the water dragon she conjured met the same fate as Valeria’s ice spike.

There was nothing either of them could do.

It took about ten agonizingly long seconds for Leon’s sword to stop glowing, all of the magic power finally absorbed into his body. By then, though, the sleeves of his shirt had been shredded, revealing broken, burned, and bloody skin, most of it charred black. Leon’s golden eyes had practically turned orange from how bloodshot they’d become, and he had a wild look about him, as if he were an animal cornered by a predator.

“Leon!” Valeria shouted, her eyes wide and terrified.

[Are you all right?!] Maia added as she rushed back toward Leon.

But it wasn’t either of them that cut through the haze of pain and the rush of all of his absorbed power, it was the passionate, proud, arrogant, imperious voice of the Thunderbird that managed to bring Leon back from the brink of blissful unconsciousness.

[It has challenged you…] she said into his ear, her pleased tone bordering on inappropriate at the display Leon had just made, [… NOW ANSWER IT IN KIND!]

Before either Maia or Valeria could get too close, Leon suddenly roared and staggered to his feet, his right hand releasing his sword and coming back to his ear where he opened his fingers and summoned the brightest, most powerful bolt of silver-blue lightning he’d ever held and hurled it with a strength worthy of his name and heritage.

That bolt crossed the space between him and the colossus faster than anyone could track and exploded across the colossus’ beak like a meteor. The stone cracked and split as lightning danced across the colossus’ face, only for all of that silver-blue lightning to stop in place as if someone had frozen time, then suddenly vanish as the gemstone eyes of the colossus flashed with silver light.

Leon stood there, his arms limp, his eyes wide, his arms burned and bloody and limp, his legs shaking so badly that it was a wonder he stood at all. In his ears rang the raucous laughter of the Thunderbird, unapologetically gleeful.

[YEEES!] she boomed, her voice like thunder in Leon’s soul realm as she reveled in what he had just done. [LET IT KNOW WHO HAS COME TO RECLAIM IT! LET IT KNOW THAT ITS MASTER HAS RETURNED!!!]

Maia wasted no more time, appearing at Leon’s side and pulled him into her, letting him lean on her body for support. Valeria likewise ran over, and though she kept a more respectable distance, she also produced several healing spells which she hurriedly applied over Leon’s wounds.

Leon managed to stay conscious, all that had just happened over the past half-minute or so overwhelming him and leaving him dazed and speechless. Fortunately, no more lightning bolts followed the first—it seemed that whatever had happened when Leon answered with his power, it ended with the colossus standing down.

[You know,] the Thunderbird said as Leon slowly came back down and started registering his surroundings again, [that thing isn’t a bad depiction of me, as far as such things go. I’ve seen better, of course, but this one isn’t awful. Something for lesser peoples to be proud of, I suppose. Still, it tickles me a bit to see it now…]

Leon’s glazed-over eyes refocused back on the now-damaged colossus, its face shattered, with small chunks of stone tumbling to the ground. But the great eyes set within its face were untouched, still glowing with silver light, still appearing as immovable as the mountains around them.

It struck Leon as an arrogant thing, lording over the tiny Vale like a god, and Leon couldn’t help but admit that it was a startlingly accurate depiction of his Ancestor, at least in that regard.

Taking a deep breath, Leon conjured a few more healing spells and layered them over the ones Valeria had already given him.

“Thank you,” he said to her gratefully as he separated from Maia. Turning back to his river nymph lover, he gave her a loving smile and a nod, their connection ensuring that he needed no words for her to understand.

Her lips turned upward in a smile to match his, and she asked, [What now? It doesn’t seem like another bolt is coming…]

“No, I think we’re good on that front,” Leon said as he took a deep breath to steady himself. He glanced around at the rest of the Vale again, specifically at the demonic corpses, and figured that there was little reason to investigate them. It seemed clear enough to him that they’d all been killed by the colossus, and if they were here now, they’d likely been here for a long time.

What struck him as strange, on the other hand, was the fact that there were no other corpses around. If Justin had come through here and fell to the colossus, as those footprints he could see in the ice surrounding one of the corpses suggested, then he would’ve left a corpse behind. The bolt Leon had absorbed had been strong enough to kill an eighth-tier mage by his, admittedly hypothetical, reckoning, but not enough to destroy them entirely.

“Justin must’ve made it to the door…” he murmured to himself, half thinking out loud and half to the other two. “So let’s go check it out.”

“You mean… get closer to that thing?” Valeria asked with some trepidation. However, her tone was even and calm, and Leon didn’t doubt for a second that her nerve would falter at approaching such a terrifyingly powerful weapon.

“There’s a door between its talons,” Leon said, pointing to the top of the shallow hill that the colossus sat upon, at the base of the mountain just behind it. “This Vale is meaningless, what matters is what’s beyond, or beneath. So that’s where we’re going.”

[It’s worth pointing out that there might be more powerful security measures inside,] Maia replied.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Leon said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there are, but generally speaking, defensive measures are there to ensure a place’s survival, so the power of an interior defense would have to be limited to keep collateral damage low. Besides, the colossus seems to have recognized me, so I’m hoping that any internal security measures will as well.”

“That’s real encouraging,” Valeria sarcastically stated, but her expression was stony and determined.

“Let’s go and see what’s here…” Leon said, setting off toward the hill, his wounds having been closed up by his natural healing factor and the spells on his arms so that they were barely more than a dull ache.

Maia and Valeria unhesitatingly followed, neither of them willing to back down now.

---

Far below the Vale, beneath seemingly endless trapezoidal halls, past empty bed chambers, through workshops and assembly rooms and storage rooms packed with enchanting materials and raw metals, past dozens of bronze statues each as large as a stone giant, was a vast domed chamber.

The floor of this chamber had been polished to a mirror shine, while millions of glowing runes made of light of various colors hovered on the domed ceiling, constantly shifting and rearranging themselves in various patterns. The chamber itself was dark, with all of these runes sparkling like stars in the night sky.

There were no adornments in this place, no pieces of furniture, no carpets, no decorations of any kind. However, directly beneath the center of the dome where a massive diamond that glowed like the moon had been installed, was another dome, this one made entirely of bright opaque white light.

From within that light came a voice, aged and tired, that growled like it was a thought spoken aloud, “… Ahh, finally… one of the Clan has arrived…”

A pulse of magic swept out through this deepest of chambers and washed itself through the entire complex. In response, the bronze statues began to move, their eyes and joints lighting up as their wisps, long dormant, began to rouse themselves from slumber.

And they readied themselves to fulfill their duties, to fight to the death in defense of this place.