Multiple flashes of lightning struck the arena around the corrupted Kaiden statue and Lyn's hyper speed advancement. Despite her speed resembling the blinding flash of lightning, it still took ample time for Lyn to advance before she had even a chance to reach the corrupted Kaiden statue, the amalgamation of Teize and Kaiden together.
To prevent Lyn from reaching her destination, the corrupted statue did everything it could at once to create as many obstacles as it could. It hurled gusts of wind powerful enough to separate continents and launched boulders large enough to cause a worldwide cataclysm in a matter of seconds. Smaller tendrils also buried underneath the sandy ground with hopes of catching Lyn in time.
But none of it could match Lyn's pulse-pounding and hyper velocity speed. Each gust of wind was sliced through with Lyn's blade, and each boulder was smashed into dust the moment her body came into contact with it. The tendrils even missed by mere seconds late, to which Lyn had already vanished past.
The valley's sand came crashing down upon Lyn's feet, but not enough that could stop her from moving. In a matter of seconds, Lyn's gauntlet, which supercharged her body frame with enough power to raze a planet with a single dash, blasted out in one final blow to have her ascend miles fast enough to reach the corrupted Kaiden statue. After doing so, Lyn found herself rushing towards Kaiden at a much slower pace, leaving her hand to exhaust itself.
The corrupted Kaiden statue hollered in frustration, sending its two of its twelve skyscraper-like tendrils for Lyn. Both of the purple tendrils converged together in an attempt to slam Lyn together like a pancake, but to no avail, Lyn managed to escape between by delivering a flurry of energy-infused slashes. She then landed on the tendril and began to run along it to reach her destination even closer.
The corrupted Kaiden statue projected its gargantuan arm further, propelling four more tendrils toward the skies until it reached Lyn's path along its own tendril. After sacrificing its own tendril to rid Lyn of her path to the statue, three of them missed as Lyn delivered a single slash to blast them all back. The final tendril however, reached Lyn's chest and sent her flying against the cliffs built across the Wastes in an attempt to crush her to death.
She found herself being carried at top speed through multiple cliffs from the tendril, but her body frame managed to sustain herself from enough damage to survive. Her limbs were weakening with each smash, leaving her powerless in the moment. However, her gauntlet reacted to the tendril's aether, sending a lethal blast through the tendril to incinerate the tip of it.
Lyn collapsed to the ground and regained enough power to regenerate her frame's successfully. She inhaled another breath and clenched her weapons tightly before rushing toward the statue once again.
"I'M STILL HERE, KRIN!" Lyn called out, leaping onto the center of the Kaiden statue. Sensing the weak portions of the statue's tendrils keeping the hulking monstrosity together, she planned individual slices through that would sever the statue altogether.
But the corrupted statue anticipated this, sending its fierce fist down upon Lyn to stop her. With her advanced body frame's speed keeping up with the field of combat, Lyn managed to dodge a section of the fist; it managed to completely eviscerate her right arm, however, leaving only her gauntlet ready to retaliate.
Lyn gritted her teeth to bear through the pain of losing a limb. She delivered two pummeling strikes against the side of the statue's hand, shattering pieces of it until it revealed its fleshy purple insides to Lyn's view. Holding up her aether charged gauntlet toward her missing limb, the energy managed to help her regrow her arm once more. She seized control of her fallen blade and dashed forward like a shooting comet, generating enough force to sever the hand off.
Faint flashes of light sliced up the statue's hand. It was impossible to see Lyn's speed in the moment until she reappeared by the statue's forearm, rushing up it while dragging her blade through it.
"IT'S NOT ENOUGH!" Lyn berated, ascending to aim for the heart of the statue.
The statue aimed four more of its tendrils against the aether's current, splitting through the air with enough force to seemingly trap Lyn from rising up even further. The force shoved Lyn down upon two opposing sides, intending to crush her like a bug.
But Lyn ejected the force of her gauntlet upwards, freeing her upper body. She then elegantly danced upward as the bottom tendril propelled her forward into what seemed like space. As the tendril spiraled out of control with no ability to retract, Lyn gathered energy from the tendril's surface with her gauntlet. She absorbed enough aether from it as the tendril reached its peak limit; it could not extend any further.
With one final exhale, Lyn drove her fist through the tendril downward, gushing its purple blood across the skies to rain down in a sea of acid. However, Lyn's body was too hot for it to affect her as she descended down. As another tendril aimed straight for her, Lyn angled herself to break a part off the existing tendril she slammed down upon.
Now armed with a gargantuan weapon about the same size as the statue, she used the force of her gauntlet to ram it directly towards the heart. The remaining statue's corrupted tendrils however, did not allow this, and formed a cascading body shield to block Lyn's attack. She found herself clashing against the impenetrable rotten skin of the tendrils amplified sixfold, by the remaining tendrils.
Lyn summoned the fullest of her remaining strength, attempting to amplify her own strength with the gauntlet's power. She attuned her strength to the tendril's peak power, resulting in her grunting as loud as possible until a final burst of strength resulted in her screaming aloud to penetrate through all of the shielded tendrils.
The heart was in plain sight, with Teize grinning directly at her untold power in the center to match her.
With the tendril armed and ready, Lyn slammed it down toward the heart of the statue, piercing through it.
"I'M DONE WITH YOUR NONSENSE!" Lyn cried as she pushed down upon the heart with her tendril. She then grabbed her infused blade and slashed down upon it to drive it even further down, for it was not enough power to break through the towering creature.
"THIS ISOVER!" Lyn exploded in a final fury of rage, sending the tendril through the heart and out through its back.
As Lyn's gauntlet seemingly detached itself after projecting her final push against the corrupted Kaiden statue, she found herself blinded by the amount of steel and rubble holding the creature together. From an outside perspective, the sun revealed the statue's final fall from grace to death, toppling over the loss of its main power source. The statue began to crumble into nothing but rubble that would send death and destruction over seemingly hundreds of miles on end.
After Lyn had broke through the statue's heart, she found her body degrading with the amount of aether she unraveled to and from her body to the corrupted Kaiden statue. She tried to search for a safe way to land on the ground, but there was no surface she could attach herself onto. As she free fell towards an infinite expanse of distance, she attempted to drive her bandit's blade against a stretch of mountains that held its base along with the statue's implosion.
Just before Lyn would land safely, suddenly, a final effort was made from Teize and Kaiden to stop her tracks. The same corrupted statue that greeted Lyn at the beginning of the fight dashed from the darkness to dance with her once again, sending a pulverizing blow towards the mountains to send her off of it. Another fist attempted to strike her midair, only for her to flip over it and free fall from the skies.
"WHY WON'T YOU JUST DIE, ALREADY?!" Lyn frustratingly hollered.
A quick seize of Lyn's body from the statue's grasp left her too powerless to move. Its maddening corrupted appearance was sacrificing all of its strength in order to destroy her. It brought its fist down upon the side of the mountains like an anvil, dragging Lyn's body frame down to try and end the battle.
An entire minute had passed with Lyn attempting to break free from the impossible seizure of her body. Intense pressure on her body frame was about to break her in half. She began to lose consciousness as a result of the unstoppable force pinning her down against the world. But as the two continued to descend the fissure of infinity, shards of the gauntlet began to form itself around Lyn's left hand once more, imbuing her with aether once more for one absolute final push.
Boring through the weakened hand that kept her prisoner with her left hand, she flayed her body out of the trap and summoned the last of her strength, charging her fist for the final blow. As Kaiden's statue attempted to grab her once again, the speed of the statue's descent managed to sever its arm from the weakened tendril that held it together, leaving it fully vulnerable.
Lyn propelled her body frame forward with the remaining shards of her left gauntlet protruding outward for a climactic punch. The fist collided successfully into the statue's mouth, but it was not enough force. Summoning all that was left into her body frame was barely enough.
But the drive for a hopeful future was more than enough. With her allies.
"DIE!" Lyn yelled one last time.
The blow ejected the statue down towards the infinite abyss from where they fell. The mountains separating the endless chasm split open, leaving the open skies and the sun shining down upon her as she fell. The mystical gauntlet of no origin vanished completely from her left hand. Lyn's eyes closed as her body frame's consciousness could not keep up with the aether sourced through her body.
The abyss was seemingly not far off from the ground. Kaiden's statue collided with the force of a thousand tons, disintegrating nearly all of the statue into oblivion. Only the torso remained mildly intact as Lyn fell at full speed beside it, landing in a pool of sand.
It took minutes for all of the existing debris to clear out of the way from the skies. Mountainous cliffs toppled down from miles across the stretch of the wastes, leaving nothing but flat lands as a product of its destruction. The sun's mellow light shone upon Lyn and the statue's torso, bathing them in a clear sign of the end of the battle.
The statue's torso began to faintly crumble into dust, revealing Kaiden's entire bottom half his body disintegrated, only to be brushed away by the light and gentle breeze of the wind's calling. The warlord of the Wastes remained there, barely conscious of his existence in the world.
As the dust settled upon the crash site from where they landed, Lyn was seen among the rubble on her knees, fully regenerated from the damages she endured. But her body frame, along with her spine and left hand were pushed to the absolute limit. She panted desperately, and attempted to keep up with her body frame's limitations. The amount of aether her body absorbed from the battle continued to wear down upon her, leaving her stunned in the moment.
Her eyes and mouth were bled with grey as she struggled to keep up with breathing. From the distance where she kneeled, a red portal opened, revealing a disappointed Teize in the middle of it. She stood out with his eyes closed in absolute torment over what had unfolded despite "decades" of time in the colorless dimension.
Her pupils constricted themselves as she spat in defiant anger at Kaiden's thinned corpse, refusing to accept defeat in the moment. "Such a disappointment you were," She exclaimed, staring down at Kaiden's body in disgust. "I was promised more than what I bargained for! I came here for the warlord that would grant me infinite power, not watch as his entire legacy was reduced NOTHING!"
Kaiden grunted, barely able to speak from the damage he was inflicted. He was on the verge of death. He could not believe Teize's rage towards him was justified, for she seemed purely innocent to him.
"I GAVE YOU EVERYTHING! But, all I got was still the pathetic coward who deserted his family and friends, whimpering away like a little dog," Teize continued before slamming her foot against Kaiden's torso with force. "You stupid, ungrateful, insolent little-"
"STOP!" Lyn cried, revealing her strength still golden enough to denounce her nemesis's behavior. "Leave... him alone."
Teize's anger transferred onto Lyn, gritting her teeth wide open. "And YOU!" She screamed like a helpless little girl. "I should have never given you the chance to come back. Look at what you did! You ruined this for me!"
Lyn bitterly stared into Teize's conniption, aware that she was merely playing a role in front of Kaiden. However, after finishing her rage, she gave in, and transformed into Seth, her original form. As Kaiden met his eyes with him, his breathing began to pick up, astonished that he was betrayed. Seth glared down at him, snickering at his foolishness.
"Surprised?" He asked. "You see, this is what humanity is. Greedy to the point of no avail. You were too blinded by power that you couldn't even tell you were being manipulated. And so, you get what you deserve. Poor little Kaiden, running away from his little family like the worm you are! You are living proof that all cowards deserve to die!"
"NO!" Lyn shouted, charging at Seth with her blade drawn.
Yet it was not so fortunate for her; Seth utilized his invisible restraint ability on Lyn again, capturing her mid-movement. He dragged her close to him once more, this time without a cocky expression. He was bashful and ready to explode his anger.
"Someone like you, who would dare stop me from getting the world's greatest power in my soul, deserves to die," He stated, ready to flick her forehead once again. "You are not fit for Mother's eyes. You don't even deserve to breathe the same air she does."
Lyn struggled to move, dropping her blade to the ground. Her throat almost collapsed on itself from the amount of force being pushed. It was absolutely over for her.
"And so, the legacy of the greediest warlord fades away, with not a single soul remembering him for life," Seth's cocky voice irritated Lyn's ears. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Truly a poor soul. He couldn't see past his own cowardly failures, and instead triumphed with greed instead of his heart. This is what humanity is; all failures to a-"
Before he could finish his monologue, a blast from a firearm caught Seth's palm, interrupting his spell upon Lyn. She dropped to the ground and bolted upward, snatching her blade. As Seth failed to recover, he caught sight of Lyn's boiling point, her face riddled with irritation and madness as she charged through to him. Seth's body could not react in time. She had mustered enough strength to summon a portal into his portal containing the colorless dimension with herself at the helm.
Both of them crossed the alternate dimension, where all life had been whisked away.
As the portal vanished altogether, leaving the two stranded away, there was only one thing remaining from Kaiden, and that was Ardine and Dorothy, the former who fired the bullet to save Lyn.
He slid down and approached what was left of Kaiden, dropping his firearm as Dorothy watched in horror.
"Kai, Kai!" He called, holding Kaiden by his knee. He watched as his upper half was almost about to fade away into the winds. "You... you've looked better, believe me." He sarcastically stated, attempting to break the sorrow with a light-hearted joke.
Kaiden laughed and managed to muster enough strength to look into Ardine's eyes and speak. "So, I was wrong..." He croaked. "My two biggest betrayers... were my allies all along."
"Don't speak," Ardine said. "You need to rest."
"My time is up," Kaiden said, chuckling before looking at where Seth and Lyn were previously before they vanished. He feebly set his head down on the sand before giving a bright smile. "That woman... that brave woman... she didn't kill Aema, did she?" He asked.
"No," Dorothy said. "She would never do that."
"Ah, so I was right," Kaiden continued. "That woman is the strongest warrior I have ever faced in my entire life. But saying that means nothing. I abandoned my post, my family, my friends... and you..."
"Forget about all of that," Ardine continued. "Just stop talking, Kai."
"I..." Kaiden muttered, teardrops parading from his eyes down. "I was scared..."
Ardine and Dorothy could do nothing but watch a dying man confess his sins, believing them the only way to find solace among the world.
"I was scared of death... and I wanted to return... but I couldn't imagine the disappointment of your faces if I had told the truth. So I ran and ran... and I kept running... until now." Kaiden said.
Ardine looked down at his missing torso and laughed as a tear began to shed in his eye. He sniffled as he chuckled. "Like you'd be able to run like this." He said. "If you have any doubts about anything..."
"No," Kaiden interrupted, holding his hand up toward Ardine's arm. "No... I don't want you to forgive me. What I did was unforgivable... so you mustn't. Not that easily..."
"I do," Ardine replied fervently. "I do."
Silence broke out as Kaiden lowered his hand toward his torso. He removed his only one golden ring and handed it to Ardine's hands, placing it in his palm. It was a jeweled ring with an emerald for the gem. "Take this ring... and bury it next to Aema..." He uttered. "I want you to take her body back to Buchasa... and let her rest in peace..."
Ardine clenched the ring in his hand as Dorothy continued to look down upon them.
"Can you promise me that... Ardine?" Kaiden asked.
"Yes," Ardine said, nodding. "I promise."
"Good," Kaiden's words were beginning to weaken. He then exchanged glances with Dorothy and watched her lifeless face remain stone cold at the sight of his condition. He then looked up at the sky, shooting his right hand up in awe. "I wish... I could tell Aema... how much I love her... and how sorry I am... for doubting her..."
"You can tell her now," Ardine said, placing his hand on his own chest. "She's waiting for you, Kai."
"I..." Kaiden laughed one last time before dropping his arm to the ground. "I know..."
His torso and head began to disintegrate. A few seconds later, Kaiden's hollow skeletal remains sat amidst Ardine's knees, only to be brushed away by the light and gentle breeze of the wind's calling. The warlord of the Wastes perished into winded ash, leaving the last of his legacy besides his friend.
Ardine placed his hand on his heart and closed his eyes to send a prayer.
Dorothy looked at where Lyn had vanished, eyebrows curled in wonder.