Cyrona plunged icy spears into the rock of yet another of Omonrel's stone monstrosities, breaking apart its rocky edifice and revealing the strange gnarled knot of the Auras that animated each of the automatons. Whenever she could expose them, she hurled great spheres of water into the middle and then expanded them rapidly as spiked balls of ice. She repeated the process this time, too.

With a near-silent wheeze, the creation fell to the ground, shattering as its brethren had already. But there were so many more. Hundreds. Most of them engaged Aberos's creations, and her own, to the north and south. As they did, Jagreth and Aberos fought a passionate battle up and down the line, seemingly ignoring their servants. The remainder of the automatons, however, came toward Cyrona. Omonrel himself floated above an especially large one that, like him, had an ivory skin and crystalline blue eyes.

"You flatter yourself, Omonrel! Do you think yourself so pleasing?" she taunted him, even as her hold on her Aura weakened with fatigue.

Two of the black stone constructs on just to Omonrel's flanks then loosed ferocious waves of the blackened purple Abyssal Aura. Cyrona conjured a watery ward that deflected the warbling attack and dissipated it into the ether.

"Down to only insults, Cyrona? I overestimated you," the Sculptor Angel scoffed.

Before the Water Angel could offer a biting riposte, blinding light from the north and a surge of the Ceunan Aura manifested themselves. Omonrel spun around in an instant. She could hear his jaw tighten.

"Forynda," he mumbled. He then glanced toward Cyrona. "I see I shall have to tend to a contingency. Another time."

He vaulted off his ivory avatar and commanded the others to blast Cyrona with a furious, if futile, array of the Auras. She deflected it all easily enough, but the time it took allowed Omonrel to speed north toward Emperor Duronaht.

"Aberos, if I go to meet Forynda, will you be able to keep Jagreth tied down?" she inquired, penetrating Aberos's mind.

"As long as you need me to do so," the Angel of the Wastes replied happily.

With that assurance, she sprang from the southern front atop a geyser of water conjured from one of the smaller rivers nearby. As she descended toward the northern flank, Forynda floated before Rohmhelt's army, silently basking in the adulation. Empress Evinda and many of the commanders of the Emperor's army stood before Forynda, awaiting the High Angel's instruction.

When Cyrona descended to float just above the ground next to her, Forynda nodded at her and formed a faint smile.

"You have done so much while I have been absent," the High Angel said to her. "I shall never be able to repay the debt I owe you."

The Water Angel bowed graciously in response.

"Well, it was not as though I was going to flop over and let Omonrel rampage across the world," Cyrona laughed. Her amusement faded as she acutely felt Rithys's absence. She need not have said anything. Forynda grimaced feeling what Cyrona felt.

"I tried my utmost, Cyrona," Forynda said with the Water Angel's mind so as not to let the mortals hear their mutual distress. "There was no moving her."

A chill ran across Cyrona's watery body and she twitched her head to fight off the full pains of grief from Rithys's refusal.

"She has her reasons and I will respect those," the Water Angel meekly answered.

Forynda said nothing in return. After a silent stare of some moments, the mighty ruler of Ceuna turned her attention eastward.

"Now is the time to press our advantage!" she boomed, raising her rapier skyward to rally Rohmhelt's army. Cheers rose from the whole of Rohmhelt's army, even among the battered and haggard men who had just narrowly escaped the deadly argent wave. "It is time to end this!"

~

Duronaht, examining his now-encircled main army to the north, roiled in rage so intensely that he actually reached an unnerving level of calm. He held out his hands and stared at them. No shaking at all.

Am I about to die? Is that why I feel this way?

"Vildrious," he mumbled, barely audible to even himself, "commit our reserves, all five divisions, and break through the encirclement."

His Grand Marshal squinted and briefly looked toward the reserve, much of the ranks bearing their red-tinted enchanted armor, before his eyes met his Emperor's again.

"If they fail, we'll have nothing left to protect you with, Your Imperial Majesty," he said.

"We'll have the Solnahtern and that should be enough to at least buy us some time," Duronaht sighed as he glanced over his shoulder at the resplendent but nearly incompetent guardians behind him. "At any rate, see to it. Now."

Swallowing hard, Vildrious bowed and trotted back toward his junior officers. Within seconds, the reserves were in motion, headed up to try to liberate his army. Great numbers of Jagreth's airborne monstrosities, including dozens of Bladewings, sacrificed themselves against the skirmishing lines of the birdmen of Osilintis trying to at least keep the Wingmother Nanikaw's forces from eradicating his troops before they could be rescued.

He then felt Omonrel's presence approach right behind him. He breathed deeply before turning to face the Sculptor Angel.

"You said you had a solution, Omonrel. What is it?" the Emperor inquired.

With a tempered smirk, Omonrel pointed toward the still-glowing phenomenon to the northwest where Forynda had descended.

"She will launch a full assault against us momentarily. She will see me, Parlon, and Myrvaness as something she can easily swat away. Grind us to dust and end the war," the Sculptor Angel began, wiggling his ivory-skinned fingers as he did.

"Is she wrong?" Duronaht let out a perverse laugh.

"Not entirely. However, I will have Parlon conceal Gorondos's approach toward the city of Karmand itself. I promise you, he has a glorious plan for the that ugly heap of iron," Omonrel's voice strained to conceal its glee at the prospect.

The Emperor found that prospect amusing in its own right, but something was sorely unaddressed.

"Even if Gorondos does that, how do you and the other two avoid defeat? I don't see how you win. You'll be facing Forynda herself, Vorlan, Tathyk, Simel, and Cyrona at the same time. Jagreth might pull back, but that just bring Aberos here. It solves nothing," he scoffed. "You're up against too much."

"Ah, not quite," Omonrel smirked. "An ally of ours, who has thus far remained largely passive, is already on his way. I assure you, he can make the difference."

"I've never seen him fight," Duronaht quickly dismissed the suggestion. "Yet you think he can save us here?"

Omonrel's smirk broadened as Parlon and Myrvaness arrived in front of the Emperor's command post.

"No matter what one may think of him," the Sculptor Angel began while motioning eastward toward a rapidly approaching white blur, "Forynda herself made him the Guardian of Ceuna for a reason."

~

Vorlan had taken so many of Gorondos's incessant blasts while trying to defend Rohmhelt's forces that he was nearly depleted by the time Forynda arrived. She gave him only the briefest of acknowledgements before commanding an assault on Omonrel, Myrvaness, and Parlon. Gorondos's presence, which had been among the others momentarily, vanished without a trace. The Earth Angel thought he periodically sensed the flaming wisps of the Fire Aura, but he could not be sure if it was merely the mages in both armies casting or if it was the movement of the Fire Angel.

Floating above the ground to Forynda's left while Cyrona was to the High Angel's right, Vorlan attempted to gain her attention before battle was joined with Omonrel.

"Forynda, I feel it unwise for us to leave the city undefended. I cannot sense where Gorondos is," he said as they sped toward Omonrel, Myrvaness, and Parlon. "This could be a trap."

"I cannot sense him, either, Forynda," Cyrona added, her voice tense.

Tathyk and Simel nodded to add their agreement. The Fire Angel had utterly eluded them.

"Knowing Omonrel, it could be bait to keep us divided while he has Gorondos raid back here," the Mind Angel offered. "But I do not know."

The High Angel appeared to acknowledge none of this while she surged forward, her rapier drawn and her shield raised.

"Are you strong enough to face him now, Vorlan?" she inquired, her voice serene. "Your strength wavers."

"Enough to gain us time if he makes a run at the city itself," the Earth Angel said.

"Do what you think is right," Forynda said, glancing briefly at him. "I am confident I can dispatch the others."

After so many months of Forynda being chastened and cautious, Vorlan found himself welcoming the steely certainty that she presented during the whole of his existence up until this accursed war. Smiling, he spun around and headed back toward the city of Karmand, resting atop the plateau ringed in black iron and stone walls. He recalled the loving detail he and Omonrel had put into the lands around it, including the towering Mount Pivox and the Santilix Mountain Range behind it.

Another had been there, too, however: Gorondos. The Fire Angel had wanted to make a western counterpart to the massive volcanic Mount Hetras in the east, but Vorlan had wished these lands to be at least somewhat livable. There was a molten core to the mountain, regardless, which fueled its seemingly endless supplies of quality iron.

That is your aim, is it not, Gorondos? Vorlan murmured to himself, speeding across the central portion of the battlefield where the Varanians had devastated a portion of Duronaht's army. I am wise to your intentions, my friend.

"Are you, though?" the Fire Angel's mocking tone echoed in his head.

Vorlan jolted in place, momentarily stopping his advance westward. Gorondos's presence seemed to be almost due north for a brief time, but it was just a flicker. Then massive balls of fire appeared from seemingly nowhere and rained down on the rear echelons of Emperor Rohmhelt's army advancing to the east. The Earth Angel could not respond in time and instead passively observed the conflagration of some hundreds of Rohmhelt's soldiers.

"I am not distracted, Gorondos. Your aim is Mount Pivox. I will not let you have it!" he shouted as he sped to the northwest.

"But you will need help in your state. And you will find your help will be quite too busy," the Fire Angel laughed in his head.

Just as Gorondos's voice stopped echoing in Vorlan's mind, the Earth Angel felt a powerful presence to the east in Forynda's path. A blinding flash of white light shone from behind him, overwhelming everything else. Vorlan spun around immediately to see what he could at such a great distance, but he need not have seen anything. What he felt was clear enough.

"Elaous!" he gasped. "Very clever, Omonrel."

~

Cyrona had just deflected Myrvaness's crackling swords with a watery ward and prepared to strike at the Wind Angel when Elaous arrived in blinding light and a thunderous shockwave. Appearing precisely in front of Forynda, the Guardian was a hulking sight, taller than any angel besides Jagreth, clad in glistening platinum armor, and armed with a gargantuan shield and matching sword. His white enameled metallic skin was impassive, demonstrating nothing that Cyrona could read from him.

Omonrel, wheezing from having to conjure barricade after barricade of stone to endure Forynda's merciless assault, laughed and flung his arms wide as if he meant to hug Elaous, and as if Elaous would ever accept any such gesture. Parlon, too, was overjoyed after having to hold out against a combined offensive from Tathyk and Simel. His skin had phased yet again from its golden hue to a sickly purple marred by black streaks and bore numerous wounds from his battles with Tathyk and Simel.

"Thank you for leveling the odds here, Elaous!" Omonrel chirped, floating around the Guardian.

"It was not for your sake that I came," Elaous rumbled. "I came here because she did."

Forynda slowly pointed her rapier at Elaous, her jaw tightening.

"You truly mean to stand against me?" she asked, her otherwise firm voice betraying the faintest hint of despair.

"I told you what the limits of my loyalty were, Forynda," he curtly answered. "You chose an irrevocably unjust path."

"And you think that standing with them, in the company of such cruelty, advances the interests of justice? You profane everything you ever claimed to stand for!" the High Angel bellowed.

"Your deeds and those of your followers have been as cruel as any I have seen," Elaous scoffed. "I see two sullied causes, both hopelessly flawed. That you are delusional about this is why I stand against you."

"I was hoping for more of an endorsement than that, but I will take what I can get," Omonrel laughed. He then squinted his eyes and made a mocking gesture toward both Elaous and Forynda. "I should let you two settle this. Pay me no mind."

He tried to slink off to the south, but Cyrona sprang to intercept him. Omonrel shrugged at her just as Forynda and Elaous were on the cusp of commencing their battle. Tathyk took her place in challenging Myrvaness while Simel stayed focused on the malicious force of Parlon. Just as Cyrona was about to strike at the impossibly loathsome Omonrel, Elaous shouted in a deafening roar and clashed his sword to his shield.

A thick translucent white barrier rose up across the field and firmly separated the warring groups of angels before encompassing the dissident angels in a shimmering dome.

The Guardian indeed, Cyrona fumed.

She hurled two of her icy spears toward the dome, both breaking into pieces so fine that she could scarcely see them.

Forynda, her radiating rage only just barely being kept in check, summoned a frightening array of radiant white blasts from above. Each of the countless pillars of light smashed into the barrier, loosing a horrendous sound . The explosions obscured Cyrona's vision for a moment. When the lights cleared, the barrier was still firmly intact, if buckled slightly.

"You cannot outlast me within that. You will have to fight!" Forynda shouted, her voice shaking the air itself.

Elaous nodded and collapsed the shield down around his allies, creating barriers around each one of them. All except Omonrel appeared stunned by the display. Cyrona tried again to inflict a blow against Omonrel, but this smaller shield proved at least as durable as its larger predecessor.

"Another pointless delay?" the High Angel scoffed as she loosed a horrifying barrage of white beams of light at Myrvaness, who floated just behind Elaous. With blinding blasts, the fusillade hit its target. Cyrona could feel the barrier strain under the attack. However, it held.

"Hardly pointless, Forynda," Elaous answered.

Cyrona sensed Forynda seethe at Elaous's brazen defiance, but the High Angel avoided even coming terribly close to losing her composure. Indeed, her period of exile had changed her. There was no question of that.

"I still considered you my friend, Elaous," Forynda muttered poignantly. "Until now."

Simel, floating not far to the north, turned his head toward Forynda with a drooping countenance after her declaration. Even for Cyrona, who never expected anything approaching reconciliation, it was a profoundly saddening moment.

"We shall fight to the end, then," the High Angel continued, straightening her rapier and shield. "Whatever may come from it."

She then lunged forward at Elaous, releasing a wake of shimmering white and platinum light.

~

"I'm pleased to see you survived, Marshal Kordov," Rohmhelt smiled as the young marshal limped toward the new command post. It had moved closer to the battle along the Karmand Road where virtually all forces were now gathered. "I thought you had surely died when I saw what happened to your horse."

Kordov held his hand to his right hip, where his armor had been crushed from his fall off his mount. While Kordov himself had avoided the argent wave, a tendril lashed out at his horse and turned it to naught but wilted skin and crumpled bones, sending Kordov hurtling to the ground.

"It was a very near thing, Your Imperial Majesty," he awkwardly laughed.

Empress Evinda kept shooting worried glances toward Karmand as the Earth Angel Vorlan futilely sped from one point to another around the city in search of the Fire Angel Gorondos.

"I think we need to order the evacuation of Karmand," she said, drawing Rohmhelt's attention. "Vorlan's very worried."

Rohmhelt bit his lip and looked back at the great forge city, the visions of it destroyed overwhelming his sight. Even so, that was something from the far future. Whenever it would come, it would come, but not that today. It couldn't possibly. If it did.... No. It couldn't.

"I understand what you're saying, but it's..." he began, but then heard the bells from the city ringing in a frenzied pattern as Mount Pivox loomed massive and silent behind it. "I suppose Lohs made the decision for us."

"Vorlan must've told him something," Evinda said softly, her jaw shifting. "He'd have no reason to do it on his own."

The Emperor now pondered the impossibility of getting any material portion of the better than one million citizens within Karmand's walls safely down off the plateau before whatever calamity awaited them was to strike.

"Let's pray that Vorlan is merely being cautious," Rohmhelt mumbled, the sounds of battle to the east and Karmand's bells to the west overpowering his voice. "Otherwise, this isn't going to do any good."

~

"You're sure of what he means to do?" Lohs asked Vorlan while the Earth Angel floated before the southern balcony of Karmand's castle. The old man's wrinkled face sagged after he had given the order at Vorlan's direction. "This is going to be very hard, trying to get everyone out of the city quickly."

"Hopefully, it will be unnecessary," Vorlan grimaced as he glanced back on the now packed streets of Karmand. People were leaving everything behind and streaming toward the city gates as swiftly as they could. There were too many, however. They blocked one another's movements and everything ground to a halt. "But I do not know where Gorondos is right now."

The haunting specter of Gorondos's lava-like eyes kept flashing in the Earth Angel's mind from moment to moment, but he could not discern where Gorondos was. Whatever veil Parlon had cast on the Fire Angel, it was maddeningly effective and an utter enigma to Vorlan.

"There's also the problem even if we do get the city emptied and it's destroyed, where do we house this many people?" Lohs continued while Vorlan tried to focus on the flicks of what he could sense of Gorondos's movements.

"If we are fortunate enough to have that problem, we will find a solution," Vorlan brusquely answered.

He then finally sensed something more distinct.

An intense burning. It grew closer and closer. Orange. Red. White.

A burning from the.... NORTH!

As if straight out of the void, a blazing ball, like a comet, appeared in the sky above Mount Pivox and sped into the northeast side of the mountain. The explosion hurled chunks of rock into the sky with some of them falling upon the city of Karmand itself. A horrid shockwave radiated out from the point of impact and rumbled through the whole city, causing Lohs to reach out and grab the iron railing of the castle's balcony.

"I will do what I can, but you MUST leave!" Vorlan shouted.

Lohs's face twitched and he grasped at the Imperial amulet around his neck. He bowed and nodded and ran back into the castle, shouting orders to those underlings still within the citadel.

Vorlan leapt toward Mount Pivox glancing only briefly at the panic now sweeping the great city of Karmand. Thousands upon thousands pushing past each other, trampling friends and strangers alike.

As he dove into the hole Gorondos had blasted into the side of the mountain, a great swelling orange glow soon confronted him coming up deep from under Mount Pivox. Floating above it, with his ashen skin and blazing lava-like eyes, was the Fire Angel Gorondos himself.

"Vorlan!" he shouted cheerfully, his booming voice echoing throughout the mountain's hollow center, "I am so pleased you could be here."

What has he done? the Earth Angel gasped. I was far too slow.

~

When the great blast struck Mount Pivox, Cyrona spun about from her clash with Omonrel. She had even started to make inroads in his barrier provided by Elaous, but now that seemed irrelevant. Forynda launched a ferocious blast at Elaous to buy her some space to observe what now menaced Karmand.

"Cyrona! Go to the city and aid Vorlan. He is too weak now to stop Gorondos!" Forynda commanded her.

Just as the Water Angel began to spring away from Omonrel, ferocious abyssal tendrils launched up from where Parlon had been fighting Simel and snared not only her mortal form, but her spiritual form as well. She tumbled to the ground and writhed in agony as the tendrils whipped and coursed through her.

"I am afraid not, Cyrona. Or any of you," Parlon cackled and loosed a dreadful thrumming pulse from his mouth that blanketed them all in a black and purple web-like structure.

Forynda released a sphere of cleansing white light that momentarily cleared it away. But Parlon simply reapplied it.

"Enough!" the High Angel barked and cleared it again with an even more intense radiant explosion emanating from her body. "Why waste these seconds like this, Parlon?"

As the great mountain's rumbles grew in the distance, it became clear enough to Cyrona, now free of Parlon's torturous magic, why he had bothered.

"Seconds were enough," he smirked, his amethyst eyes flashing. "You are too late!"

~

Vorlan watched as Gorondos continued to swell the great font of magma up from deep under the earth. The Fire Angel's glassy orbs around his neck glowed ever brighter, almost phasing white. If the Earth Angel could stop what was to come, he would have to summon all of his remaining energies at the precise moment Gorondos called forth the eruption.

It was delicate timing, nigh impossible even. But it was necessary for catastrophe to be avoided.

Gorondos smiled as he summoned decorative flares to whirl around him. He teased the Earth Angel relentlessly, making each moment appear to be the decisive thrust. But then he would recoil. Again and again, he repeated the same pattern.

"Alright, Vorlan," he sighed and thrust his arms up, calling forth the great mass of lava below him. He surrounded himself in an impenetrable fire ward and rode upward with it.

It surged swiftly up the hollow chamber and toward the weak points in the mountain's stone. Vorlan gauged the strength of the walls and would use the thicker western side, which could give far more generously.

This had better be enough, the flagging Earth Angel lamented as he rallied what strength he still had.

Clenching his hands tightly, he commanded the Auras of stone and iron to yield to him and drive a massive wedge into the rising lava flows. The entire segment of rock and metal on the western slope, half a mile long and hundreds of feet thick, broke free from the rest of the mountain's grasp with the most horrific cracking and rumbling and plunged toward Gorondos and the surging tide of fire. The Fire Angel ably evaded the crashing mountainside, but it fell harshly upon the lava itself, breaking its momentum and cutting off its path toward the east and south. Vorlan then commanded the rock and iron to cool with what water and ice he could summon down through the hole he had made in the western slope.

To his amazement, it began to thwart Gorondos's calamity. The lava flow ceased its advance as this new cool crust capped it. It receded back slightly and then stagnated in place. With his little remaining strength, he swiped his hand across the whole mass, smoothing it into a single dark and glassy surface.

Gorondos floated near Vorlan with a dispassionate air to him. He tapped his finger to his chin and glanced back and forth between the Earth Angel and the now halted advance of his lava.

"I do not suppose you realize that this was just the vanguard," the Fire Angel chuckled, his orbs around his neck glowing brighter than ever as his hands erupted in fire.

"No," Vorlan, utterly depleted, haplessly shook his head. "No. No. No."

"Oh, YES, VORLAN!" Gorondos guffawed and thrust his arms once again toward Mount Pivox's summit. "KARMAND DIES TODAY IN A RIVER OF FIRE!"

The very foundations of the world shook. The thin cap Vorlan had placed on the prior lava flow cracked and glowed. There was such force behind it. Even if he were not so depleted, the Earth Angel doubted he could have stopped it by that point.

I am sorry, he cried as he fled out of the mountain and looked upon the trapped masses in the city below. I failed you all.

~

Rohmhelt and Evinda held each other's hands and observed Mount Pivox from some six miles away. The rumbles grew more deafening with each passing second. The ground beneath them and the whole of both armies shook terribly, causing thousands to drop to their knees to avoid toppling over. The frenzied bells of the city reached and pitch and frequency beyond anything Rohmhelt had ever heard. It was as though the great forge city was crying at its now inevitable fate.

The Emperor and Empress looked to each other for strength, but there was none in either of them. Rohmhelt fought off tears as best he could, but the scale of the tragedy about to strike was simply too great.

CRACK!

Mount Pivox's summit split apart with the awful force coming through it. Not a second later, it blew skyward with staggering force, a cloud of fiery black smoke chasing upward after it.

PHUWMPH!

Great pillars of iridescent orange lava, perhaps a half mile long and a quarter mile wide each, burst outward from the mountain to the east and south, covering most of the city instantly before spreading out to consume the rest.

The black iron roofs and spires melted within moments, adding to the molten flow sweeping across the Karmand Plateau. The Nulpan River evaporated within the city into a vast cloud of hissing steam that lingered over the plateau. He watched, utterly impotent to do anything, while the mix of melted Karmandian black iron and lava raced toward the city walls and then down the ramps, consuming all those evacuating down them. The only blessing of the deafening blast from the mountain was that it drowned out what certainly would've been the most agonized of screams.

Within seconds, his capital, the great forge city of Karmand, had been utterly wiped off the map and its plateau was coated in a thick molten layer the glorious iron that had once adorned it.

Having seen this in his nightmares lessened none of the blow. Not in the slightest. Neither he nor Evinda nor any of his commanders could say anything.

They weren't alone. The whole battlefield to the east fell silent as combatants on both sides stopped to witness the impossible.

Lohs, tell my father I did all I could.