The battlefield had already collapsed into ruin. Craters lined the earth, structures shattered into dust. Smoke hung heavy, mixing with the metallic tang of blood. Above, the Vestige fleet blotted the horizon, their guns glowing but momentarily held, as if awaiting the outcome of what unfolded below.

The first commander had arrived.

Gravos, the Spear Titan. His frame loomed above the broken ground, armored in pale bone that pulsed faintly with violet runes. The spear he carried was longer than a tower was tall, its head a jagged fang carved from some long-dead colossus. Every step he took shook the battlefield.

Across from him, four figures stood.

Ren, cloak torn, black-blue fog curling faintly around him.

Elara, pale, her hand pressed to her ribs, light flickering but unsteady.

Vael, silent in shadow, blood dripping from his side.

And Ervin, chest bound, shoulder scorched, but his eyes sharp, calculating.

None spoke. None needed to.

Gravos lifted his spear. The ground beneath their feet cracked simply from the shift in weight. His voice carried, not through sound but through resonance that rattled bone.

"Small ones. I will break you first. Then your planet."

The spear descended.

★★★

Ervin moved before the others. His mind did not waste time on awe or fear. Only process.

["Weapon: mass-based. Impact radius—fifty meters minimum. Ground stability compromised. Immediate action: shield."]

His hands lifted. Mana surged, drawn from the fractured veins of earth itself. Stone walls erupted upward, thick, layered, buttressed against the angle of the strike.

The spear fell.

Impact.

The walls shattered. Dust blasted outward. The force carried through the ground, buckling terrain in a line hundreds of meters long.

But the blow did not hit them directly.

Ervin staggered back, coughing blood from the recoil, but alive. His logic sharpened further.

["Strength: absolute. Speed: moderate. Weakness: recovery between strikes? Spear is massive. It requires an anchor. Coordination needed."]

He spat blood. "Ren…erase the point of impact next time. Don't waste the whole weapon."

Ren did not answer. He simply nodded once.

The black fog thickened at his feet.

★★★

Gravos wrenched his spear free. Dust fell like rain from the weapon's edge. His helm tilted down, eyes glowing with contempt.

Again, the spear rose.

This time it came faster, the arc wider, a sweep that carved the ground as it passed. Soldiers too slow to retreat were flung aside, their bodies reduced to red smears against the earth.

Ren stepped forward.

The fog coiled up his arm. His voice was quiet, almost absent of tone.

"Erase."

The tip of the spear vanished. Not shattered, not broken. It's gone. The massive weapon screamed as its weight destabilized, momentum forcing it into the dirt where it splintered half a kilometer of ground.

Gravos snarled, the sound vibrating air itself. His weapon was crippled, its balance ruined.

But his hands did not falter.

He reversed grip and slammed the shaft like a club.

Ren blurred back, the fog carrying him just outside range. The ground where he had stood collapsed inward, a crater yawning open.

["He adapts fast," Ren thought, gaze sharp. "Erase won't finish him instantly. Not without precision."]

★★★

Ervin barked without looking away. "Vael—his joints. Break movement, not armor!"

A shadow flickered. Vael was gone.

Gravos's attention held Ren, but his instincts screamed. He twisted, spear-shaft raised to block.

Clang.

A dagger sparked against the bone plate. Not penetration yet. But the angle was close.

Vael reappeared, blade sliding away, body already in motion again. His breaths were shallow, his movements stuttered by injury, but his speed did not falter.

He vanished once more.

Gravos snarled again, the air shaking with it. His free hand struck out like a falling mountain, but caught nothing. Shadows left only afterimages.

A shallow line appeared along the back of his knee. Not deep, but bleeding.

Gravos roared.

★★★

Elara staggered forward at last, her golden light faint. She pressed her hand against the shattered ground.

The fractures knit slightly, jagged edges dulling. Soldiers who had been sprawled and bleeding found their wounds closed enough to breathe again.

Her light dimmed. Blood ran freely down her arm.

Ren glanced at her once. His eyes are unreadable.

["Creation. Even broken, she repairs what would otherwise cost us position."]

He turned back toward Gravos.

"Titan," he said, voice like ash. "You fall here."

Gravos raised his ruined spear, fury burning violet from every line of his armor. His voice thundered.

"Then strike, small god. Show me if nothing can consume a mountain!"

The battlefield shuddered.

The true duel had begun.

Gravos' roar tore across the plain, shaking rubble loose from ruined towers. His spear came down like a falling fortress, violet runes burning so violently they seared the air into black smoke. The ground cracked open in jagged spirals where it landed, shockwaves tearing soldiers apart in indiscriminate arcs.

Ren stepped forward. The black-blue fog thickened at his feet, curling upward in slow coils. The spear's descent should have split him in half. Instead the weapon halted, a hand's breadth away. The air itself trembled where erasure had devoured the strike.

A silence rippled through both armies.

Then the clash resumed.

Gravos wrenched the spear upward, swinging it in a wide arc. Each sweep uprooted stone, sent shards hurtling like shrapnel. Ren's erasure consumed what touched him, but the collateral shredded the field. Mages were thrown, bodies split, cries drowned under the Titan's laughter.

Ervin's hand snapped up. His palm burned red. Fire coiled in a wide shield, intercepting flying debris, but it buckled immediately. His ribs screamed as the shock hit him. He countered by driving his other hand into the ground, stone walls erupted, jagged, forming a half-circle to blunt the Titan's reach.

It bought them seconds. Nothing more.

Vael slipped into those seconds. His form blurred through shadow, moving along Gravos' flank. Blood trailed him, each step heavier than the last, but his dagger was steady. He slid beneath the sweep of the colossal spear, his blade flashing once. Black ichor burst from a rent in Gravos' armor.

The Titan's laughter cut into a snarl. His massive hand swung down to crush the assassin, but Vael dissolved into smoke just as the palm hit ground. The crater boomed, dust boiling up.

And through the haze came Elara's light.

Her palm pressed into the broken earth, golden radiance spilling outward. The fractured walls Ervin had raised steadied. Cracks across the plain sealed enough for soldiers to regain footing. A mage whose arm had been shattered moments earlier gasped as bone realigned, blood slowing under a weak but vital glow.

She swayed where she knelt. Sweat ran down her temple, blood soaking her side. Yet she did not stop.

Ren's voice cut across the din, flat, merciless.

"Titan. You bleed."

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