Merek's insane laughter stopped abruptly.

It was so sudden and the silence so complete, as if Merek wasn't even physically present in the air anymore… it was like there was just empty space where a monster had been laughing moments before.

And then crimson energy flooded the entire atmosphere like spilled blood.

It turned the whole surrounding area to deep red, saturating everything. It turned the sky crimson, the ground crimson, and the very air itself into crimson as well.

It was like the color reflected off every surface and refracted through the space between, painting reality in shades of violence.

A system notification appeared in Azel's vision.

[You have been intimidated by Merek's Overwhelming Presence]

[Kyone's Blessing has banished the effect of the presence on you]

Then Merek began a different kind of laughter.

A broken one.

Gwendolyn stared at Merek in absolute horror and surprise, her ghostly form flickering with distress.

She had known him since they were children, grown up alongside him, been engaged to marry him and not once, not in all those years, did she think that he would end up like THIS.

This wasn't the man she'd known at all... This was something else wearing his face.

"I… I… was meat..." Merek's voice cracked and it sounded like each word was forced out. "Rotting in your sacred tree... I was screaming... And you were singing... And I began to hate you even more…"

His voice sounded crude and raspy, like two rusted spoons scraping against each other. But worse than the sound was the wrongness in it, the sheer concentrated insanity.

"Hehehehe... HAHAHAHAHA…"

And then the laughter stopped again, cut off like a blade through sound.

Silence.

Then Merek spoke, and the words that came out were so filled with venom that they seemed to physically poison the air.

"HATE. I hate your throats that are so delicate, that swallow water and food and air without splinters tearing them from the inside. I hate your eyes that never went blind from insects burrowing through them, laying eggs in your optic nerves. I hate your lungs that breathed clean air instead of sap and splinters and your own liquefying flesh. I hate your skin that never sloughed off in wet strips while roots grew through your spine, puncturing organs that regenerated just so you could feel them rupture again and again and AGAIN."

His staff crackled with mana.

"I hate that your blood flows clean and red and mine turned to sludge… to poison, pumping through a body that died and regenerated every single day for FOUR HUNDRED YEARS while I stayed CONSCIOUS. AWARE. FEELING EVERY SECOND."

Merek's eyes were wide, unblinking and completely mad.

"Hate? HATE?! HATE?! There are exactly 4,897,823 rings in the wood that was my tomb. I counted them. Every. Single. One. With nothing else to do but COUNT and FEEL and HATE. If I carved the word HATE into every cell of my flesh that rotted and reformed, into every nerve that screamed and snapped and rebuilt itself, into every moment of that eternal darkness trapped in living wood…"

He paused, raising his staff.

"It wouldn't equal one TRILLIONTH of the hate I feel for every single elf standing here RIGHT NOW."

The malice radiating from him was palpable, suffocating.

"I will unmake you. Your forests will burn to ash and be salted so nothing grows again. Your songs will be forgotten, erased from every record and memory. Your history will be dust. And the last of you will die slowly, understanding with perfect clarity that your mistake wasn't imprisoning me…"

His smile was a rictus of insanity.

"It was making me survive first."

Everyone watching had the same collective thought running through their minds.

'What is he talking about…?'

What Merek had just uttered was the kind of racism and genocidal intent that Azel couldn't even measure against anything else.

Nothing any Elf could possibly do right now could compare to the sheer concentrated evil in those words.

This wasn't just hatred… this was something that had transcended hatred and become a fundamental force of destruction.

Then Merek stopped his monologue and turned his attention directly to the Elf King floating nearby.

"You're the same… from all those years ago when your father sealed me away." Merek said, studying Anastasia with cold assessment.

A ball of concentrated destruction magic began condensing on the tip of his staff, crackling and growing.

It gave off an immense amount of magical pressure that made the air itself scream. "However, you're far weaker than I expected. Disappointing."

Anastasia condensed its own magical energy in response, forming a defensive spell.

"Is it because you still don't have a gender? What a delusional, pathetic elf…" Merek added with cruel mockery. "Centuries of existence and you still can't even choose what you ARE."

'An opportunity…' Azel thought as he prepared himself for a desperate sprint.

He would most likely regret this decision, but once again, he really didn't care about personal consequences. This was an opportunity to force Anastasia to choose, to finally transform through the shock of loss.

Just then the two mages fired off their condensed balls of mana simultaneously.

The spheres of energy collided in the air between them, the impact blowing caution to the wind. Multicolored light exploded outward.

However, the very next instant, the Elf King's spell was completely blasted apart like it was made of paper.

Merek's attack continued forward, soaring directly toward where Anastasia stood.

It was moving so impossibly quickly that the Elf King could not even hope to dodge or put up another defense in time. The speed was beyond reaction.

'Even after so many years of training… I still can't hold a candle to him.' Anastasia thought with bitter resignation.

In what looked like its last moment alive, it wondered distantly how Azel would feel about its death. However, it suddenly felt something warm cover it the next instant as the destructive ball hit.

There was a catastrophic explosion that killed all the elves who had been nearby in the stands, the shockwave crushing them instantly. The entire section collapsed inward, stone and wood and bodies falling.

Merek raised an eyebrow with mild interest as the smoke and debris began to clear.

Covering the Elf King protectively was Azel's body.

His hands and legs were completely burned off, charred stumps ending at the elbows and knees. There were several gaping holes punched through his torso where the destruction had eaten through flesh and organs.

Even his head was partially destroyed, the skull cracked and brain matter visible.

Anastasia looked down in shock as his ruined body fell limply to its side.

It reached out with trembling hands for his lifeless face. The same face that had woken with a gentle smile this very morning as they cuddled together in bed, discussing vacation plans.

Now it was half blown out and destroyed. His wonderful body that had held it so carefully was broken.

"Why…?"

Tears began welling in Anastasia's eyes for the first time in centuries.

If it had just accepted Azel's warnings earlier and focused on stopping Sylvia like he'd wanted, then it wouldn't have to see him die protecting it.

"Why did you…?"

Why did everyone protect it? What was so special about its existence that its father and now its lover would both sacrifice themselves for it? What had it ever done to deserve this?

Merek's cruel laughter sounded from high above, echoing across the ruined stadium.

"Was that half-elf very important to you?" Merek asked with false sympathy. "Well, I'm glad you can feel SOMETHING. You didn't have much reaction to seeing your own adopted daughter die, after all. I was worried you might be completely empty inside."

The words were designed to twist the knife.

Tears streamed down Anastasia's face now. 'I'm weak… I couldn't protect the ones I loved, a second time… I want to be strong enough…'

And then something inside it broke open.

A golden glow began emanating from deep within its chest, spreading outward. It burst out of its insides and covered its entire body like liquid light.

The radiance expanded further, covering the whole stadium, the collapsed stands, everything.

The arena was bathed in overwhelming golden light as the Elf King underwent its transformation.

The magical energy radiating from it tripled, then quadrupled, then continued rising. The sheer pressure threw caution to the wind, cracking stone and bending metal.

She held onto Azel's broken body as tears streamed uncontrollably down her eyes, the drops falling onto his ruined face.

…For this was a love born of loss.

The golden light had not even completely faded when the Elf Queen unleashed a catastrophic array of spells outward in all directions.

Each one was a different element, masterfully cast despite the emotional turmoil. Fire, water, lightning, earth, wind, ice, life… everything in her arsenal converged on Merek simultaneously in a rainbow of destruction.

However, the Archmage merely waved his hand with practiced ease. He shattered all of the spells instantly, though it clearly required some effort.

The combined magic exploded harmlessly in the air.

"Haah, you are actually even stronger than the former Elf King in pure magical energy output." Merek commented with genuine interest. "Impressive transformation."

Then he waved his hand toward the stands where elves were still fleeing.

Dozens of elves simply popped open like overripe fruit around the stadium, their bodies exploding from the inside out.

They died instantly with just a casual wave of his hand as he callously harnessed their released mana and converted it directly into more destruction magic.

"However, wherever there is life, then there is…" He grinned wickedly. "More fuel for me."

The golden light finally faded completely as Anastasia floated directly in front of Merek, meeting his gaze.

She was now a beautifully endowed woman who men would literally kill to even touch. Long silver-green hair flowed behind her, and her tri-tone eyes burned with fury and grief.

However, tears were still trailing down her perfect cheeks.

"You… you will die here." She said with absolute conviction, her voice shaking but determined. "I swear on everything sacred that I will kill you myself."

She raised her hand and summoned a massive bolt of concentrated lightning that crashed down on Merek like divine judgment.

He tried to counter it with destruction magic, but the sheer power forced him backward. The lightning sent him crashing violently into the far stands, obliterating that section.

The remaining elves who hadn't yet evacuated began fleeing in earnest from the stadium now, running for their lives.

Merek emerged from the rubble and released his destructive energy in a wide wave, intending to massacre the fleeing civilians.

However, Anastasia flicked her fingers and multiple elemental barriers fell into place, protecting the evacuees.

…

Meanwhile, Azel's destroyed body twitched once on the ground.

A golden glow covered him completely as divine energy flooded his form. Flesh regrew, bones knitted back together, and organs reformed.

He sat upright shortly after, completely healed as if he'd never been injured.

"Fuck, I'm not sure I can get used to the feeling of dying." Azel muttered, rubbing his neck.

Since he was the lover of the Goddess of Life Elarielle, she would just bring him back from death immediately and automatically.

Which was insanely broken now that he actually thought about the implications.

Azel looked around, assessing the situation. He had spent some time in the divine realm with the goddesses during his death, and it seemed during that brief period, the stadium had gone completely to shit.

Every single living elf had fled or was fleeing, while the ones who were dead lay desecrated on the blood-soaked ground.

On the far side of the ruined arena, two mages were fighting with immense magical energy that made the air itself distort.

They made the power of even a Great Mage look like literal child's play.

Azel stood up fully, and Gwendolyn's ghost floated beside him.

"What is your plan…? He's incredibly strong, possibly the strongest opponent you've ever faced." Gwendolyn said with obvious concern.

Azel summoned a dark cloak over his ripped clothes through spatial magic. He seemed to like wearing those kinds very well.

"Oh, I have a plan in mind." Azel said confidently.

He walked over and grabbed the battle axe that the Arclight heir had abandoned on the ground.

Using Aurum Hand, he channeled golden energy into the weapon. It transformed into a sleeker, more elegant battle axe that gave off radiant golden mana like a holy relic.

The two battling mages noticed the person walking calmly toward them through the destruction.

Anastasia turned to him with eyes going impossibly wide with shock and hope.

"You… you're alive?" She asked as fresh tears gathered on her cheeks and threatened to spill over.

Azel was taken aback for a moment by her appearance. She looked so incredibly beautiful as a woman, even more than he'd imagined.

"Of course I am." Azel said simply as he continued walking toward Merek.

The overwhelming pressure coming from the Archmage was completely suppressed by Kyone's divine blessing, allowing Azel to approach without being crushed. He grinned with anticipation.

Merek's eyes narrowed dangerously. "How are you still alive? I made absolutely sure that the blast could kill a measly half-elf like you… No mortal should survive that."

Azel didn't bother answering with words.

Instead, he dashed forward the next instant, closing the massive distance between them in a burst of borrowed divinity from all three goddesses at once.

It was painfully obvious that the gap between a Grand Mage and an Arch Mage was enormous, practically insurmountable under normal circumstances.

So he decided to borrow concentrated divinity from the three different goddesses who loved him to close that distance in raw power. More than that, he wanted to absolutely bully this genocidal bastard.

He closed the distance faster than Merek could even blink or react, appearing directly in front of the Archmage's face.

"Let's change our fighting zones." Azel said with a vicious smile.

He swung the divinely-enhanced axe with all his strength, the blade glowing with golden light.

It connected solidly with Merek's torso, and the impact sent the ancient Archmage flying violently into the air like a ragdoll. The shockwave from the hit cracked the ground beneath Azel's feet.

He then turned back over to Anastasia, who was still crying tears of joy and relief that he was alive.

Azel extended his hand toward her with a gentle smile.

"Shall we… fight together, milady?"

She reached out and took his hand without hesitation, intertwining their fingers. She smiled as well through her tears, her expression radiant despite everything.

"We shall."

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