A blast of thunder sent Siena and Gnome flying. Shielded by the earth spirit’s body, Siena only felt aftereffects of the electricity singe her essence while the two of them tumbled through the air. With her tail, she barely managed to cling onto the extended arm of a statue, preventing the two of them from falling into the turning turbine below.

Swinging back, Siena gathered the momentum to throw Gnome onto the platform. A moment later, she climbed up after her and inspected the damage. Her own was minimal, little burns and shadows drifting off her form where patches of her magical flesh had not regenerated yet. Gnome was worse off; the last attack had blasted an entire arm and half of her face off. Little buds of green, like glowing sprouts, spurred on the restoration of her earthen body.

A renewed boom echoed through the arena. Arkeidos, its origin, had his spear of thunder raised high and descended on Sylph. Darting off to the side as a streak of green and blue, the arcvolt elemental escaped the thrust. She raised her hands defensively, neutralizing the gusts of wind that came in its wake before they could disorient her. Immediately, Arkeidos set after her.

The storm wielding simulacrum and the air spirit moved at extreme speeds through the area. Competing wind magic turned the traces of other elements that had been released throughout the battle into localized thunderclouds and obscuring smoke. Bright light flashed repeatedly.

It was only a matter of time before Sylph tripped up. Every mistake could be fatal. They had quite successfully stalled Arkeidos so far, even dealt a few minor blows. Their resources were dwindling faster than his, they instinctively knew. It was only a matter of time until one of them would succumb. All together, they theoretically had the power to defeat him. In reality, his overbearing might prevented them from leveraging their numbers, his strikes incapacitating them before any strategy could unfold.

‘I’ll decide this,’ Siena thought, her words echoing throughout their mental connection. They were picked up by Undine, spread out further, met mild hesitation, then universal agreement. Unilaterally, the elementals came to a decision. The shadow spirit did not even attempt to hide her anticipation, as she placed a hand one Gnome’s shoulder.

A colder palm grasped her own arm, after Undine’s true body had skipped over to their flying platform. Salamander was there just a moment later. Their souls prepared to overlap even closer than the mental connection currently allowed, an impossibility by all known laws of magic.

Arkeidos must have realized that he had not been attacked by any of them in a suspiciously long time and stopped in his chase. Turning around, he spotted the four of them huddled together, just as Sylph dashed closely by him. Risky as that it had been, Sylph was now directly on-route to them. The tyrant raised his off-hand and summoned a new lightning javelin, throwing it at the easier target: the four elementals all located on one of the flying platforms.

Gradually, it caught up with Sylph, threatening to impact before her stretched out hand could reach one of her sisters. Its crackling was swallowed by silence. Unleashed, Sylph burned the last of her energy for a burst of speed. Her hand gripped Salamander’s.

All five of their forms swirled and were pulled into a singular point. In less than a second, Siena felt her consciousness being swallowed and swallowing that of the others. A process of mingling, usually ending with their essences in equal parts influencing a final outcome, was shifted by the scale. Water and fire neutralized each other, earth and wind neutralized each other, their elemental powers turned into JUST power, raw power, feeding into the sole elemental without its opposite present in the Combination.

Beyond all reasonability, her might ascended. It gripped at her soul, dragged out what was at the very core, and dulled all memories. Whose were they? There were five different sets of events inside her mind now. Which one of them mattered? None of them. Five minutes, for that long she was in control – for that long she existed. All that mattered was who she was. Indescribable power, one befitting of a new name. Siena was just a part of this. She was the embodiment of a concept now.

Apotheosis’ right hand swiped the lightning spear aside. The limb was the first of her that peeled out of the cloud of darkness that existed where the five elementals had been a moment ago. Slender and elegant, with skin of dark grey and sharp, pointy nails of deep crimson.

“Hm…mhhhmmm,” the five-type Combination groaned as she stretched. The darkness peeled back, revealing her naked, voluptuous breasts, her thin waist, wide hips, long legs, and the white marks that covered them all. Lines were symmetrically distributed and diagonals cut through wherever they formed swirls. From her lower back extended a long tail, covered in sleek black scales. Behind her upper back hovered seven spears. They were featureless, their shape uniform, simple shafts with two pointy ends. Only their colours differed. Purple, gold, pink, green, orange, red, and blue, they were still behind her, their inwards pointed tips describing the outline of a small circle.

Relaxing, Apotheosis let one of her arms fall and brushed the remaining black from her greyish white hair. The long strands appeared to have no definitive end. Groupings of them stretched together into the air, vanishing into nothing before reaching whatever held them up. As the sin elemental rolled her neck, the anchors of her hair switched positions, preventing any strand from ever being pulled taut.

“We have so little time together,” Apotheosis whispered, regretful vocal fry dominating the syllables. A smile revealed the carnivorous teeth past her full lips. Dangerous, a little louder, she added, “Let’s make it count.”

The purple of the seven spears on her back teleported to Apotheosis’ hand. Launching at speed even beyond Sylph’s, she skipped from one platform to the next, her hair appearing and disappearing around her, barely affected by the draft. In a blink, she had crossed the distance.

Her spear clashed against the lightning shaft of his. The Emperor’s arm was forced back a notable bit by the force of the impact. “Interesting!” he declared, while his other hand rose upwards. Apotheosis didn’t need to look behind herself to smack aside the Tempi blade with her tail. Now that Undine was inside a greater whole, the weapon her liquid shadow had held was freed.

Apotheosis did not care about such a minor distraction.

Swiftly, her tail whipped around and slung around the Emperor’s raised arm. She pulled herself around. An explosion of electric energy seared her surface. Pain was not a deterrent to one as great as her. Holding onto the much larger opponent, she raised her spear and rammed it into him.

Effortlessly, the weapon sunk through the armour. Not a single one of the shards making up his torso reacted to the apparent hit. Arkeidos reached around to drag her off his back, but she was already on the move. In her stead, he grasped the spear and attempted to yank it out. Apotheosis landed with the elegance of a cat, her deep purple eyes reflecting the glee at his inability to move the weapon a single centimetre.

“Peculiar,” the Emperor hummed, as she summoned the second of the seven spears to her hand. Golden, the featureless weapon laid in her hand. “This unison, this ability, all quite peculiar – and threatening I have to assume.” His body faced her, the purple spear a disharmonious element to his universally green armour. “If we have so little time together, I shall use it in my best interest.”

Apotheosis clicked her tongue and immediately went on the offensive again. Diving down before she arrived, Arkeidos descended underneath the flying platforms. With no other choice, the sin elemental followed. The whirling of the turbines became all-encompassing.

Underneath the lowest of the platforms, Arkeidos stopped. He gripped the wind, formed a storm, and launched it at his pursuer. A wire of darkness connected Apotheosis to the underside of one of the platforms, letting her swing to the side before the slicing gusts could hit her. Several more strings were spawned by her magic. With each swing, she got closer to Arkeidos.

With one intense pull, she dodged the last in a series of attacks and landed upside down at the bottom of a platform. Her delicious thighs folded in a crouch, moments before she launched herself at Arkeidos.

He attempted to blast her back, but her speed overwhelmed his reaction. It was just enough of a margin that Apotheosis could sink the second spear into his arm before the slicing winds hit her in the chest. Shadowy mist drifted from the wounds. Their source was quickly cut; the remaining swirls claimed by the gusts created by the turbine she was falling towards.

Apotheosis focused her senses on the whirling wind machine. The spinning blades were dangerous, yet far less significant than they would be to a mundane being. Reaching up, she connected to an island for a fraction of a second. A vital delay, enabling her to land on one of the turbine’s blades.

She held on for half a spin, before letting momentum launch her back up. Pushing her body to weightlessness, the air current accelerated her further. In the middle of the air, the third spear appeared in her right hand.

Still pursuing delaying tactics, Arkeidos gripped one of the nearby platforms. With raw strength, he dislodged the enchantments holding it in place and proceeded to toss the entirety of the large stone construct at the sin elemental.

Her hand touched it first, pulling her on top quicker than the object spun in the air. She ran over the turning surface, then leapt off the opposite end. The sole Tempi blade awaited her in the air. She knocked it aside with her pink spear. The entire engagement had let Arkeidos change his position. The tyrant was withdrawing to one of the other turbines.

“Don’t be so shy, let me in.” Apotheosis pouted, the sadism barely hidden under her cute words. She chased after Arkeidos, the hurry of her actions not matching the sultriness of her voice. “Let’s have a fun time together, you and your sins.”

Although Apotheosis was faster than the tyrant, continuously chasing him wasted time she just did not have. Her duration was already halfway up when she managed to ram the third spear into him. The fourth followed twenty seconds later. A delay she could not afford.

The sin elemental descended again and was about to be hindered by a new gust of wind, when Arkeidos’ body suddenly seized up. A flash of brown flickered through the green mist he exuded, a pained groan escaped his throat, and his hand lowered limply. Minimal investigation immediately revealed what had happened: Metra had just defeated her opponent. Arkeidos was experiencing some kind of backlash from a piece of his segmented soul having been shattered.

‘Let’s add to that, shall we?’ Apotheosis hummed to herself and crossed the distance in the couple of seconds he was seized up. The force of the impact ripped Arkeidos out of the air and sent them flying together towards one of the gaps between turbines.

All of a sudden, the howling wind was diminished. The tyrant shook his body and grabbed his spear with both hands. He jabbed at her, to get the distance he needed to take off into the air again. With her superior speed, Apotheosis ducked under the whirling spear tip and pushed the fifth spear into his abdomen.

He brought his elbow down on her. It connected and Apotheosis went to the ground. A descending boot missed her skittering form narrowly. Immediately, he went to fly, but her tail wrapped around his leg and kept him grounded. Exploiting his compromised balance, she slammed the penultimate spear into his back. That left her with only the blue one.

Recovered, Arkeidos whirled his spear around. Apotheosis jumped on him to escape the attack. Almost, she managed to thrust the last nail into his proverbial coffin. A gleeful giggle echoed from her throat, then was ruined by the hand that clasped her shoulder.

With one massive effort, the tyrant pulled her off and smashed her into the ground. The back of her head hit the metal frame that surrounded the large turbines. Situation reversed, Apotheosis now looked up at Arkeidos, thrusting his own spear down. She rolled to the side, escaping the main impact.

The gathered lightning energy was unleashed in a devastating explosion. The adjacent turbines were ripped apart, melted, and turned magnetic all at the same time, utterly ruining their functionality.

The currents were still dancing over the surface of Arkeidos’ armour when he pulled his hand back and directed the now isolated head of the spear with his magic alone. Both it and the single Tempi blade cut through the air, aimed at Apotheosis through esoteric gestures that resembled an elegant dance.

Nimbly, the sin elemental turned her naked body out of the way, knocked aside the sole blade and evaded the twisted spiral. Each time an attack passed by her, it was closely followed by a powerful gust. Any opening she saw was difficult to exploit. Arkeidos concentrated only on keeping her away.

The time was ticking.

‘All or nothing, then.’ The sin elemental licked her lips and stormed straight towards her opponent. This time, a gust met her first, slowing her assault before the spearhead aimed at her chest. Twisting a little out of way, Apotheosis sacrificed her right arm, then pushed through the wind wall weakened by the executed action.

She leapt, the Tempi blade failing to cut through her legs, and landed before Arkeidos. He had a hand raised and brought it down. Calling the feint, Apotheosis took a simple, calm step forward. The fist smashed into the stone, where she would have usually dodged to.

Face to face with the Emperor, the Apotheosis shoved the final spear into his chest. “Show me your sins,” she whispered.

As if crucified, Arkeidos’ arms were suddenly yanked back. The spears all over his body quivered and began to glow in their individual colours. Instinctively, she sorted the severity of his sins. When she released them one after the other, corresponding memories burst out of his form. Like scatters of tinted glass they seemed, reflecting the path in a slowly unfurling geyser.

“Lust.”

Weakest of the tyrant’s sins, lesser than that of most with the fame and power to attract. A memory of a dark night spent in excess of fleshly desires. Almost too mundane to be worth the mention.

“Sloth.”

The blue burst reflected a gaunt, tall man, sitting idly in a stone hut. He stared at the wall, doing nothing of value, providing for no one, not even shovelling the grave of his mother. It was not a state that would last. The next morning, he had it done.

“Envy.”

A different time, likely years later. The same gaunt, tall man was carrying a sack of grain on his shoulder. With an average amount of desire, he looked upon the estate of his ruler. The mansion, barely larger than a villager’s house, stood isolated on a hill. Why did someone deserve it by birth alone, when he had suffered so thoroughly to get where he was?

“Pride.”

More years must have gone by. The same man, now older, hairless, yet healthier, with thick muscles covering his form, stood in the rubble of the house he had envied. What a lousy shack it was, barely even worth being coveted. He could build greater halls, much greater palaces, and why not prove it? Why not show his might beyond this terribly tiny village.

“Gluttony.”

What he conquered he had to taste. The food, the sights, the knowledge above it all. One book after another, transcribing all that was worthy into a tome. A tome grew into a library, and still he was not sated. What was his current knowledge good for? He had one fixed body, aging still.

“Wrath.”

Back in time, far back in time, to a weak youth. His arms were only skin and bones, his facial features fallen, his eyes sunken and dull. All around him, similar people at the edge of starvation wandered. Yet another season where the grain had withered and where they had to rely on Mettle. The dusty taste stuck in his mouth. Each time he partook in it, the youth could feel his frailty go further.

Was this what he deserved? To live among a crowd of frail, horridly dull creatures?

No. No! The fire ignited in his chest in that moment, fuelled by disgust for himself. He raged against his own frailty, raged against his inaction, raged against his lot and forced his frail body to rise. All of these creatures, slouching on one generation after the other, were utterly useless. Would he be like them, yet another body in a ditch, used up and unaccomplished? Misery fuelled his anger at the world, misery made him rise above it all.

“Greed.”

Covered in wounds, breathing heavily, Arkeidos ripped the heart out of the chest of the kraken horror. Gargling, the monstrosity attempted to rise up. It took another breath, the heart beat one more time, then both it and the body it belonged to shuddered and completely seized up.

Arkeidos stood in the centre of the cave. His eyes did not know what to focus on. The cracked sphere of black above them, perhaps? This fascinating, cold heart in his hand, dripping with black ichor? The corpse of the creature, or the egg it had sat upon? The piece of leaden metal at the centre of its forehead?

Collapsing to one knee, Arkeidos realized that the first thing he needed to pay attention to was his body. Aging, at the edge of its capabilities, his body was no longer capable of keeping up with his desires. He needed to put the lessons of lichdom into practice. There was no more worthy phylactery than what he currently held.

Metal cluttered; the chain that kept his spellbook by his waist tore. As cold as the starless night sky, the ichor inside the heart enveloped his hand and the pages of the book, when he shoved it inside. The runes inside inscribed themselves on the inside of the worthy vessel. Arkeidos wrapped his arms around it and looked up at the centre of his world. The centre of HIS world.

It all belonged to him.

In reality, Arkeidos screamed as the intensity of his own sins tore his physical form apart. The memories kept expanding, froze, and then sucked back into him with incredible force. What had been a practically intact armour collapsed in on itself, as if a vacuum had eliminated all internal pressure.

Just like that, Apotheosis was left alone and stretched again. ‘Hmm, I could help him immediately… but I still got a minute,’ she thought and closed her eyes. ‘Let my fragments worry. I wanna watch.’

That she did.