The giant puppet, Harvey's grotesque creation of Dark Magic fused with Earth Magic, loomed over the Underside like a living calamity. Its sheer size made it a perfect target, but that same reality applied to the massive stone pillar B had raised from the ground. The towering column had shot the civilians upward with incredible speed, delivering them near the shattered ceiling of the Underside, where makeshift bridges were still forming. Many sections of the Alterian road above had collapsed, leaving rough stone paths where the mages were building connections as quickly as they could.

But the pillar's height and stability didn't matter. What mattered was how visible it was, how obvious a target it made.

And Harvey noticed instantly.

The puppet's many limbs pulled backward, curling like spears preparing to strike. Dark Magic condensed in multiple nodes of swirling black energy, not just one massive pulse but several, each capable of obliterating everything in its path.

Alen and his group were sprinting toward the remaining Shelters when the movement caught his eye. He turned, and the truth hit him instantly: Harvey wasn't targeting them. He was about to destroy the pillar, and everyone climbing it.

A cold shock ran through him.

"No… no, how do we stop that? How do we stop that?" Alen's voice cracked as he surged upward with fire-enhanced leaps, landing hard on a nearby rooftop. He felt the heat burning his legs, but he thrust his hand out anyway, igniting it with flames.

"HEY, HARVEY!" he bellowed, his voice tearing through the chaos. "You want me, right? I'm right here, out in the open! Hit me! Use one of those attacks! Come on, use all of them on me if that's what you want!"

The giant puppet didn't turn its head, but Harvey, secured grotesquely at its chest like a parasite, shifted his gaze toward Alen. His expression twisted into amusement.

"Do you think I led the Dark Guild by falling for childish taunts?" Harvey sneered. "I am beyond all of you now. I will erase every obstacle eventually. And what matters most at this moment… is increasing my power."

The puppet extended all of its limbs at once. They swung forward in a horrifying synchronized motion, like an array of battering rams driven by malice itself. Multiple waves of condensed Dark Energy spiraled out from the attacks, merging into a catastrophic barrage.

The pulses surged forward, aimed directly at the towering pillar.

Harvey expected nothing to stop them.

So when three silhouettes suddenly appeared between the pillar and the oncoming devastation, he paused, not from fear, but from surprise.

A streak of lightning slammed into position first, crackling with furious intensity, Dame in his transformed state. Liam leaped from the ground a moment later, landing with his blade drawn, using the momentum to brace himself. And B rose atop a smaller earth platform she'd created beneath her feet, eyes glowing crimson as blood swirled violently around her arms.

Their timing was perfect.

Dame thrust his arms outward, unleashing rapid-fire Qi blasts with blistering speed. He didn't delude himself, he knew his strength wasn't enough alone, but every second mattered.

Liam's stance sharpened. He gripped his blade and imitated the Dark Edge sword techniques he'd witnessed, executing cloned motions with remarkable precision. Each strike sliced directly into the Dark Energy spirals, cutting away chunks of the attack, diminishing its integrity one blow at a time.

Then B stepped forward.

Blood gathered around her arms in twisting rings, spiraling upward like twin vortexes. Not only her own blood, but the blood from the bodies littering the battlefield, the fallen Dark Guild members, civilians, attackers, rose into the air, pulled by her command.

"Dark Magic isn't the only thing that grows stronger from death," B called, eyes narrowing. "My power does as well!"

The three launched forward together.

Dame's lightning body surged, Liam's blade tore through the shadows, and B hurled her spiraling blood constructs straight into the oncoming storm. The collision unleashed a deafening shockwave that shook the Underside itself.

Dark energy evaporated in an instant, obliterated under the combined force of their attacks.

They had done it.

The attack was stopped.

But only barely.

Liam's sword had cut through the magic rather then colliding head on with it's power like the others. He had manged to dwidlne the attack with his attack's form before but this still meant toruble. The final fragments of the Dark Pulse crashed into the pillar, sending cracks running along its structure. For a terrifying moment, the entire spire shuddered as though it might collapse.

Mages reacted immediately. Wind users lifted themselves mid-air to reach the damaged section. Earth mages reinforced the weakened sides, patching stone with stone. Fire mages followed, sealing the joints with precise amounts of heat, fusing the fragments together.

They shouted as they worked:

"We'll hold it! We can keep it together!"

"After everything you three did to protect this, we're not letting it fall!"

"Keep climbing! Don't stop!"

The civilians moved faster, driven by renewed hope and sharpened fear.

Liam, Dame, and B landed together, each breathing heavily. Taking the attack had on now they had an idea of how much power the puppet had and it made them realise.

Each of them were now aware of the same truth settling over them.

Stopping Harvey's attack had taken a lot. They had used a large amount of power. And Harvey wasn't even truly fighting them yet.

They looked up at the enormous puppet, its shadow stretching across half the Underside. Dark Magic continued to surge around it, growing and thickening. Harvey's expression had shifted from irritation to something far worse.

A cold certainty washed over the three warriors.

Blocking the attack was one thing.

Defeating Harvey was going to be an entirely different battle.

****

*****

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