Lord Grak-thul's voice, amplified by the crimson runes on his wolf-helm, hung in the unnaturally silent plaza.

"I... hate it."

He leaned forward, his magma-orange eyes blazing with a sudden, violent, and personal hatred. "It clashes with my entire aesthetic. Which is, as you can see... fire and screaming."

Before the echo of his words died, he moved.

It was not the clumsy, lumbering charge of the Brutes. It was a terrifying, fluid lunge. He raised his massive, two-handed axe—a weapon that should have been impossibly heavy, impossibly slow—and brought it down in a whistling, vertical arc.

Not at Kellan.

He struck Elara's silver wall.

The crimson runes on the axe-head ignited, blazing with a light-devouring, anti-magic energy. The axe was not aimed at a single point; it was aimed at the concept of the barrier.

KR-THOOOM!

The impact was not a clang. It was a gong, a deep, soul-shaking, dimensional thud.

A shockwave of pure, black, void-like energy erupted from the point of impact. It was not fire, not magic, but a wave of corruption. It slammed into the silver wall, and the two opposing forces met.

The crimson-black void clawed at the silver light, trying to tear it, to rot it, to unmake it.

But Elara's magic was not a spell. It was a law.

The silver wall held.

It did not crack. It did not strain. It simply was. The runes of Severance and Closure that she had inscribed in reality unmade the demon's corrupting magic as it touched, the black energy dissolving into harmless, gray dust.

The plaza was silent for a stunned heartbeat.

On the other side of that impassive wall, Dain Ragnor, his shield still raised, could only stare. "Gods..." he breathed, his knuckles white. "It... it held."

Ilya Veyne, standing just behind him, was pale, her mind racing with an almost-religious awe. She wasn't watching the demon. She was watching Elara. She didn't cast a spell. She just... told it 'no'.

Grak-thul was also staring. He lowered his axe, a low, frustrated growl rumbling in his chest. His most powerful siege-breaker, a spell that had shattered the wards of capital cities, had just been deleted.

He turned his burning gaze from the wall. He couldn't get to the Scribe. He couldn't get to the other, weaker soldiers. He couldn't get to the Academy

He was trapped on this side of the plaza.

With Magister Kellan.

"So," Grak-thul rumbled, his voice losing its casual, amused edge and replacing it with a cold, focused fury. "It is just you and me, 'White Flame'."

Kellan, who had been waiting, his entire being coiled like a spring, finally smiled. It was a cold, sharp, and terrifying smile.

"It always was," Kellan said.

He did not wait. He exploded.

"FLARE!"

His entire body erupted in a blinding, incandescent, white fire. The 'White Flame' was not just a title; it was his very essence. His armor, his blade, his hair—all of it was consumed in a searing, roaring corona of pure, white-hot, consecrated magic. He was no longer a man; he was a comet.

He crossed the fifty feet between them in a single, super-heated, flash.

The sound was not a footstep. It was a hiss, the sound of air being vaporized.

Grak-thul, for all his size, was fast. He raised his crimson-runed axe to block, his own armor flaring with void-energy.

SKREEEEE-CLANG!

The sound of Kellan's burning, white-hot blade meeting the crimson-runed axe was a deafening, agonizing shriek of two opposing realities colliding. Sparks, the size of a man's fist, erupted—not red, not white, but a sick, violet-black—and sprayed across the plaza, melting the cobblestones where they landed.

The duel began.

It was not a fight. It was a storm. It was a battle of two fundamental concepts: Light and Void.

Kellan was speed. He was a blur of white fire, a relentless, searing assault. His blade was everywhere at once, a continuous, flowing, incandescent ribbon of light. He was fire, and he was grace. Each strike was a flash-point, aimed at the joints, the visor, the gaps in Grak-thul's monstrous, black armor.

But Grak-thul was weight. He was a mountain of iron and hate. He did not dodge. He endured.

His crimson-runed axe was not just a weapon; it was a void.

Kellan feinted, his blade hissing, and plunged it toward Grak-thul's visor. Grak-thul caught the blade on the flat of his axe.

And the White Flame dimmed.

Kellan felt it instantly. A horrifying, psychic slurp, as if a leech had just latched onto his soul. The blazing, white-hot fire on his blade was siphoned, drawn into the crimson runes of the axe, which pulsed with a greedy, satisfied, blood-red glow.

Grak-thul laughed—a deep, grating, rattling sound inside his helmet. "Your power," he purred, his voice a low rumble. "It is delicious."

He shoved Kellan back, the Magister stumbling, his blade's light visibly weaker.

"What... what is that?" Dain whispered from the other side of the wall, his eyes wide. "He's... he's eating Kellan's magic."

Elara, her face pale, her knuckles white on her second stylus, knew exactly what she was seeing. "It's a Void-forged weapon," she breathed, her voice a horrified whisper. "It doesn't just block magic. It consumes it. Oh, Kellan..."

Kellan stared at his blade, the White Flame now just a flickering, hesitant, candle-flame. He was panting, not just from exertion, but from the sudden, terrifying drain. His magic was his life. And this... this thing... was drinking it.

He was in a war of attrition he could not win. Every attack he made... fed his enemy.

"You see it now, don't you, Magister?" Grak-thul purred, taking a slow, contemptuous step forward, his axe heavy with Kellan's own stolen power. "Your fire is my feast. Your light is my bread. What... what else do you have?"

Kellan looked at the demon. He looked at Elara, pale and watching, her wall the only thing holding the rest of the army back. He looked, in his mind's eye, at the children on the other side. At Dain. At Ilya. At Kairen's sacrifice.

He had one shot.

He let the White Flame die.

His blade, no longer burning, returned to simple, mortal, rune-etched steel. He let his armor's glow fade, the searing heat around him dissipating, leaving just a man, his breath pluming in the suddenly cold air.

Grak-thul tilted his head, his orange eyes glittering with amusement. "You surrender? You extinguish your own flame? How... sad."

"I don't need a flame," Kellan growled, his voice a low, human, and utterly dangerous sound. "To kill a beast."

He changed his stance. He was no longer a mage. He was a soldier.

Grak-thul laughed. "Your steel? Against me?"

"No," Kellan said, his eyes now fixed on a single, tiny, almost-invisible gap in Grak-thul's gorget, right where the helmet met the breastplate. "My speed."

Kellan moved.

No magic. No fire. No sound. He was just a blur of mortal, desperate, and perfected motion. He used his last, remaining burst of stamina not for a spell, but for a lunge. He was a fencer, not a comet.

He was inside Grak-thul's guard. The demon, for all its power, was slow. It was a being of heavy, crushing force, and it was not prepared for a simple, physical feint.

Kellan's blade, now just cold steel, shot forward, aimed at the gap, at the un-armored flesh beneath.

He was going to win.

And Grak-thul let him.

The demon commander, in a move of impossible, contemptuous speed, dropped his axe.

He didn't try to block.

He caught Kellan's blade.

Not with his gauntlet. With his bare, black, clawed hand.

SKREEEEEEEE.

The sound of rune-forged steel scraping, grinding, and stopping against demonic, chitinous flesh was horrific.

Kellan stared, his eyes wide with shocked disbelief. His blade was embedded two inches in the demon's palm, but the demon... the demon just looked at it.

"Pathetic," Grak-thul hissed.

With his other, free gauntlet, he punched Kellan. Not a magical blow. A simple, brutal, armored punch to the chest.

KRA-THOOM!

The sound of Kellan's breastplate crumpling like tin foil echoed across the silent plaza. The breastplate, a relic of the Old War, forged to withstand dragon-fire, shattered.

Kellan's eyes went wide, a sharp, choked gasp exploding from his lips as his ribs snapped.

He was thrown backward, tumbling, his feet skidding on the stone, his broken blade—still stuck in the demon's hand—ripped from his grasp.

Grak-thul looked at the sword, his palm bleeding black, smoking ichor. He sneered. He pulled the blade from his hand, looked at it with disdain, and then snapped it in two over his armored knee.

He dropped the pieces, which clattered uselessly to the ground.

The White Flame's blade was broken.

"NO!" Dain roared from the other side of the wall, his voice a raw, agonized sound. He slammed his shield against Elara's barrier, but the silver light didn't even shimmer. He was a spectator at an execution.

Kellan was on his knees, clutching his shattered chest, blood, bright and human, dripping from his lips, his breathing a wet, ragged, gurgle.

"That..." Grak-thul growled, the amusement gone, "was for my axe. Which you made me drop."

He advanced on the kneeling, broken Magister.

Kellan looked up, defiance still burning in his pain-filled eyes. He tried to summon his flame, but only a pathetic, flickering, orange spark danced on his gauntlet before dying. He was spent.

"Still... fighting?" Grak-thul purred. He raised his massive, armored boot and kicked Kellan in the side, a brutal, simple, vicious blow that sent the Magister rolling across the plaza like a piece of trash.

"This is the 'White Flame'?" Grak-thul roared, his voice now a bellow for all to hear. He was performing. "This is the 'Hero of Azurefall'? This... is... nothing!"

He strode to where Kellan lay, a broken heap against the rubble of the gate. He reached down, his clawed gauntlet sinking into the Magister's shattered shoulder-plate. He lifted him. Kellan's body, limp and unresisting, was raised into the air, his feet dangling uselessly.

"Elara!" Kellan choked, his last, desperate, bloody plea. "The wall... drop the wall... let them... help..."

Grak-thul laughed. "She can't. If she drops the wall, my army floods through. She is paralyzed. And you... you are mine."

With a final, contemptuous roar, Grak-thul slammed Kellan into the cobblestones.

CRASH.

The impact was absolute. The stones themselves shattered. Kellan's body didn't bounce. It just... stopped. He was a ruin, his armor a crumpled, broken shell, his body a broken, unmoving thing inside it.

The plaza was silent. The demon army, the City Guard, Dain, Ilya, Elara... all were frozen, witnesses to the fall.

Grak-thul, his magma-orange eyes blazing with triumph, retrieved his crimson-runed axe. He planted one, massive boot on Kellan's back, pinning him.

He raised the axe high, its crimson runes pulsing, hungry, ready for the final, severing blow.

"And so," Grak-thul purred, his voice a whisper that every person in the plaza could hear, "the 'Flame' goes out."

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