The Exalt [Cultivation Fantasy]

Arranged on the tall walls and fortified towers of the Imperial Palace, hundreds of cannons rotated and pointed outward in all directions, the three sections of its shaft rotating as a humming ramped up. Within the gun's muzzle, a fiery glow intensified, akin to the flames stoking in a furnace, and rounds of powerful blasts fired. Several flew at the encroaching enemy, and most shot at the location of the opening created by the Ercanal-fives. Bright beams of light from the Garantulems, the fleets, and the cannons mounted on the Imperial Palace flashed like lightning across the shadow cast on the city by the stormy clouds.

One by one, enemy Exalts endured countless explosions, slipping past to enter Dragonheart City. Several powerful spells tore through the hulls of ally ships, and a tower of the Imperial Palace collapsed, rubble clattering down in a tide of stone as it toppled on its side. It landed to the right of Oscar, a cloud of dust and dirt instantly forming, but on the left, a ship crashed, the metallic hull groaning until it split apart, and a rush of flame exploded. Everything was swept away, the flames and the dirt, by the force of Oscar's shield bashing against Orden's hammer, and smoldering piles of wreckage remained.

"Orden!" Oscar shouted, forming scarlet blades of golden edges that blinked sunlight in their quick path to stab into Orden. Oddly, Orden's hammer was more powerful than before, and the giant stomped his foot, swiveling his hammer to repel all of Oscar's blades, scarlet fragments clattering on the ground before melting into small droplets of molten lava. It was strange. The Meld ability gave his adversary a powerful multiplication, and it was much more powerful than before, multiplying the force of his blows by a factor of fifty. But it didn't explain the inexplicable weight that trembled from his shield to the soles of his feet.

'What have you done?' Oscar wondered. Erden swooped in from above, releasing a ray of dense flames so hot that it burned white. Surprisingly, the Eirin-infused fire split off after meeting the head of the hammer, the flames engulfing the ground around Orden and scorching the stone bricks into charred wastes. Orden, himself, was unharmed, his feet standing on perfectly fine ground. In a boisterous roar, a shockwave of fifty multiplied seismic power parted Erden's flames in twine.

Erden cut off the flames and dodged to the side as a seismic quake imploded the air where he once stood. Oscar was stunned, eyes fixated on the energy rippling from Orden's hammer and widened in horror. It couldn't be, but it was. The familiar feeling from Orden's tall figure, the violent intent spilling from every fiber of his being, matched the ones he had fought many times. Clenching his shield and artificial hand, Oscar shouted, "Eirin?! Have you met the New Dawn?"

Orden said nothing as his shoulders quaked up and down, an erratic rush of breaths spluttering underneath the helmet. Raising his hammer, he roared and rushed, his very stomp erecting earthen ramparts, locking Oscar in place as an immense gravity pushed on his body. Oscar grunted as his feet caved into the weak, charred road. He needed to get out. But Orden arrived from above and threw a stone, a black gem that terrified Oscar.

A loud crack reached his ears, and the black gem shattered apart. 'Not this again!' Oscar stomped a good amount of Eirin into his legs and dashed away, breaking through as many layers of earth as possible. But the expanding vortex caught him. Oscar resisted and struggled but decided not to waste too much of his Ein and allowed the darkness to engulf him. The next moment, he found himself in a flat world of seemingly endless plains of slate.

"The prison realm," Oscar murmured. He had once been dragged into this place when he first met Sirsi and fought her. Turning to Orden, who stood far away, Oscar felt varying emotions in his heart and voiced them, "I once thought of you as an honorable warrior. Perhaps we could have been good friends in another life. But to ally with the New Dawn is beneath you."

"That is not up to you to decide…." Orden coughed and seemed to be choking. He removed his helmet and knelt, blood gurgling out of his mouth. His gasps were nothing compared to the extremely loud and rapid heartbeats that filled the quiet realm. Grasping his chest, Orden stared at Oscar, the broad face overtaken by hate as he growled, "I should have killed you long ago. I let you live in Ashen Grove, and I have paid the price for that with losing the Divine Essence and losing my men to your hands!"

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"And I lost many in this war!" Uncle Carlson, most of his Black Aegis Order members, and his parents…he recalled all he had lost. "Sometimes, I wish I never took that damned Divine Essence. I wish I could have destroyed that thing."

"Aye. That's true." Orden coughed out more blood. "It should never have existed. The costs we both suffered were too much. But…." He rose to his feet and stuck his hammer out at Oscar. "I lost everything. All that's left now is vengeance."

"Even if you wanted revenge, I would never have sunk so low as you did. Look at you. You used the Reis core a few times and already suffered a lot. Was it worth it for a few exchanges?" Oscar asked. His artificial arm clacked his joints, brushing off the bits of earth stuck on it. Elder Saul couldn't complete the grade-five elixir, delaying it for more years, citing the unstable nature of the Divine Essence extract to be very troublesome, so the recovery of his arm would have to wait.

"The Reis core is indeed powerful. I can understand why you are strong." Orden shed off his armor, revealing three blood-red orbs lodged into his chest. From his experience, Oscar knew one Reis core allowed others to use Reis and Eirin for an extended time that ignored the heart's condition, but three at once would certainly have the opposite effect. The power would be too much for one person to bear. "I came here looking to die, Oscar. If I can take you with me and repay the debt from my past crimes, I don't care. Farewell, Oscar."

The hammer anima integrated into Orden's body. Thick stone blocks clamped and embedded into his skin, and he stomped out, clad in armor created from heads of hammers, his entire being now containing the force of multiplication. Orden pulled out a vial of viscous, black liquid and drank it without an ounce of hesitation. His aggravated shouts howled over the lands, and a chaotic Ein spread out, the ground riddled by cracks.

Oscar avoided the devastation of the land by taking to the sky. What was that vial? He couldn't shake off the unsettling dread that dripped ice-cold onto his heart. When the dust settled down, he saw a strange monster where Orden should have been. It was twice as tall, the shoulders broader than a doorway. The entire body was still clad in the integration armor, but Oscar shivered when it turned its head up to face him.

"You…." The eyes had turned to a clear brown, and the skin became craggily and gray, made entirely of stone. A long crack formed across the stone head and split wide open, the jagged edges resembling rows of sharp teeth. A fearsome roar spread earthquakes along the ground, caving in vast portions of the slate plains. Terrified, Oscar created his Duality body, and he, Demon, and Erden combined their attacks. Scarletgold Blades whistled through the air, and motes of Scarletgold Breakers, orbs of red and gold, dropped below and flared into massive bursts of sharp gold fragments and engulfing flames.

A dense gravity field forced the spells to the ground before reaching Orden. The few that did make it through bounced off his armor, unable to withstand the seismic force from merely touching it. Oscar activated the Guise, melded his anima into Erden, and shared the Guise with Demon. The three dove straight down, pairs of antlers adorning their heads.

"End it all in one strike!" Oscar shouted, fusing his Scarletgold Drill into Erden. Demon supplemented more power by adding his drills into the collective whole. Using the final concept of Eirin, the Lines, Oscar poured out his will and fused their attacks into a singular Line, the most powerful of their combination. Orden bellowed out and swung his hammer, a spinning rock covering the head as crackles of gravity and Eirin quaked along its surface, a yellowish hue on the cracks.

Oscar had never felt such a heavy attack in his life, certainly not from one of his peers. The fifty-multiplied of Seismic Force, Gravitational Push, and Kinetic Core, created by Eirin and overflowing with elemental power, met his strike. It all fell silent, their warcries inaudible, and the world vanished from his vision briefly. At the epicenter of their clash, nothing existed, only them. Then, it all rushed back, the booming sounds of immensely powerful Eirin fighting, the view of the ground underneath caving in as they fell into a large chasm, and the roars of their exertion.

Landing in an underground chamber exposed by the crushing power of their exchange, Oscar gritted his teeth, pouring in more power. Passing Orden, he halted himself, carving two grooves into the ground. He turned and saw Orden's body split in half, relieved to see it was over as the two halves plopped to the floor. Sweat beaded down his forehead, and he wiped it to find it was unbelievably cold.

'It's over.' Light showered from above. Oscar floated up, wanting to find a way out of this world. First, he needed to escape to the surface. A faint crunch perked his ears, and he swept his gaze downward, trembling as the two halves of Orden's transformed body fused back together, and the glaring brown eyes stared back. It resembled Quinn's ash body, but how? Realization struck him like lightning in a storm. That vial of black liquid…was the culprit. Orden had undergone elementification.

"You…" Oscar heard the monster, formerly known as Orden, let out a deep roar, an inhuman bellow that sounded like the groaning of the earth. Staring at the monster, he felt enraged and shouted, "You cast aside everything!"

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