Lyn and Ardine reached Gietha's midtown square, where the town continued to rebuild the fallen structures with what little resources they had. Only the men were responsible for harboring enough strength to lift and erect the pillars that were destroyed in the attack. Even the pirates, whose original goal was to fight back the oppressive noble regiment, had able bodies strong enough to support those in need.
With the community on the path to rebuild what Kaiden had controlled, talks in the town erupted on calling for a new leader to restore the Wastes to its original safe standing. However, with as many names as were thrown out, no one could mutually agree on a name sufficient enough to revive the fallen into order.
No one had even knew if it was possible, either. But the survival of the past meant that anything could have been possible. So the town remained hopeful, continue to push their efforts into rebuilding, no matter what the cost of entry was.
Scabs, who had been assisting other individuals with gathering rations and distributing them among the public, saw that Lyn and Alfaic had returned. He dropped everything and rushed to the two of them, tripping in the process in front of them.
"There's the man of the hour," Ardine jested, lifting Scabs up from his mouthful of sand. "I'm here to deliver the two ton robotic warrior you asked for."
"L-Lyn!" Scabs cheered, jumping up in excitement while shaking both of her hands. The moment he touched them, he moved back in shyness as his cheeks turned into roses. "I... I can't believe you're alive!"
"None of us can," Ardine said. "But I knew it."
Dorothy approached from behind Scabs, looking into Lyn's eyes with determination. A small smile peaked from her mouth before pushing Scabs back to the ground to approach Lyn. "I knew you would be back too," She said. "The prideful tyrant has been toppled, thanks to you. Now no bandit will ever spit in our faces ever again."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that, D," Ardine wittingly stated. "I do have the most spittable face after all."
"Have to agree with that." Dorothy said, rolling her eyes.
"Me too." Lyn chimed in.
Ardine, Dorothy, and Scabs paused their jokes and glanced at each other swiftly before looking directly into Lyn's eyes with concern. "Did you... just make a joke?" Ardine asked.
"I tried to." Lyn said.
"It wasn't so bad!" Scabs complimented, looking at Lyn's futuristic armor. "And... wow, you look amazing in that! Where did you get it?"
"I don't know." Lyn said, examining herself. "But something does feel different."
"Enough of your ogling eyes, Scabs," Ardine said, nudging him on the shoulder. "It's time Gietha was rebuilt, thanks to Lyn. And perhaps, it's even time for me to return home to Buchasa. They'll be wanting news of Kaiden and Krin, and we need backup to take them both down-"
A side-splitting, gut wrenching cry erupted from among the crowd as a sudden earthquake brought everyone down to their knees. Man-made machines and half-constructed pillars began to topple from the skies as the week's work began to toppled on top of others in its wake. Giethan guards rushed to rescue the civilians from harm, ducking undercover solid foundation.
"What's happening?!" Scabs cried.
"Damn it, I thought the Sinker was destroyed!" Ardine called.
Lyn remained pinned on her knee as she watched the stairs ascending to the lord's palace began to split apart. In mere seconds, Rot tendrils erupted from underground, seizing full bodies of innocent guards and civilians alike and wrapping their bodies with their mightiness. Bodies were sliced and carved open, while others were strangled until their guts were split open.
"All of you, behind me!" Lyn shouted, sheathing her bandit's blade infused with energy from her body. The earthquakes continued to break their guards, but Lyn remained calm and secured the three of them beside her. "It's Krin. I have to stop him."
"We're going with you," Dorothy insisted. "You left us behind last time. We've got your back."
"No, it's too dangerous. There's a settlement down the pathway where Ardine and I connected. If you follow that path, there will be survivors there who can help you."
"We don't have time, guys!" Scabs cried, running out of the town's square.
Ardine grabbed Dorothy's shoulder and tried to pull her back. "I'd rather not get my head sliced off, thank you," He stated. "We have to help the others. There's only so much we can do here. D, let's move!" He said, rushing out of the square with Scabs.
Dorothy grabbed Lyn's arm and pulled her close. She squeezed her left wrist hard, prompting Lyn to lock eyes with her in confusion. "Prove what I said earlier to be wrong. Prove to me that humanity is worth fighting for, and that there's still something to be saved."
Lyn did not say a word.
"This world is already doomed as is. Change it, like you were destined to." She said before releasing her grip on Lyn. She then reared back and escorted the other civilians out with Ardine and Scabs.
Clenching her fists with ardent strength, Rot tendrils pierced through the ground beside Lyn, prompting her to slice them in half with her blade. She then rushed through the stairs of the palace once more, kicking open the palace door to find the entire ground caved in from her previous battle with Kaiden. Her eyes had been met with something entirely different the last time she had been there, and it stunned Lyn to the core.
The sphere that had trapped Kaiden had completely morphed into a skyscraper-tall black and white crystalline gem, transforming the surrounding palace into Rot tendrils seeping out of it. The walls were adorned with blood and corruption from the unknown source, prompting Lyn to rush down several flight of stairs to find a way to stop it.
After leaping from broken stair to broken stair, several of the Rot had consumed the deceased royal guards that the pirates had murdered, blocking her path.
"Get out of my way!" Lyn shouted as she rampaged through them, cutting them down. After dispatching more of them in her wake, she found herself several levels beneath ground level, where she was able to see the fissure that Seth created after blasting her miles away with a flick of his finger.
Before she could move any further, a set of corrupted Rot tendrils took control of some debris from the falling pillars, merging it into a rotten golem that stood in her path. After attempting to pummel Lyn to death with its pillars for arms, Lyn dashed through the tendrils holding up its arms and sliced through them, weakening its foundation. After severing the tendril that held up its makeshift head, the golem was dispatched.
"Controlling the rubble..." Lyn whispered. "If this continues, they'll reach the settlement before morning," She gazed as the monumental black and white gem pulsing with aethereal energy. "I have to stop it. I have to stop it now."
After descending one final cliff to reach the same bridge where the Sand Sinker was, Lyn found herself on ground level where the bottom of the gem's base was. She was pushed by the pulses of energy, keeping her away from dashing at it at full speed. Despite this, Lyn pressed on until she could reach the center of it.
I betrayed them.
Unknown voices began flowing through her ears, fogging her mind with illusions of a false grandeur of pride.
No, they betrayed me. I was always strong.
Lyn rejected the voices and pushed onward, despite the numerous voices overlapping.
You killed us!
You could have saved us all!
This world would have been better without you!
Coward!
Deserter!
You deserve death!
"Is this your pain, Kaiden?" Lyn shouted, still held back by the force of the gem. "Are you hurting? Is it too late?"
Coward!
Shame!
Die!
Die!
Die!
"I know how you feel!" Lyn empathized. "I can hear it all. I can hear the voices inside your head, calling to you!"
As Lyn continued to push herself towards the epicenter of it all, her fear and mortality began to return to her. A sharp pebble grazed her left cheek, drawing grey blood out and stinging her in pain. Tendrils attempted to block her path, but Lyn sliced through them the closer she got.
At last, Lyn finally reached an invisible field that reacted to her touch. She forced herself in, revealing a segment closest to the gem that did not react to the emitted energy. None of the quakes, including the tendrils managed to enter inside, rendering her safe.
But there was a figure that stood in front of her, almost unrecognizable by first glance. At first, the gem's darkness blotted her vision to the point where she could barely identify the individual. Even with several blinks of her eyes, it was still impossible to see who the unknown character was.
Enough distance was covered for Lyn to see who it was after a few seconds, but it was a figure she still could not identify. She was presented with a wrinkled skinny stature of a man with broken red shackles on his wrists and calves who ascended his gaze toward the top of the gem, almost rendered into a skeleton.
His bony feet stepped closer to the gem. Each step required maximum effort, and with each step, the figure seemed to have broken a minor bone inside his body.
"KAIDEN!" Lyn called at the top of her lungs.
The gaunt man ignored Lyn's call, and focused his undivided attention on the mystical gem's presence instead. A glimpse of two ghostly figures began to hover down from the center of the gem, approaching Kaiden with open arms. One of them was Ardine, and another was unrecognizable. Yet they vanished the moment they reached him, and instead, their presence was replaced with a dying Aema, standing in midair.
"Ae... Aema..." What resembled Kaiden's voice was nearly reduced to nothing. His voice resembled a reanimated corpse who had fallen for millions of eons, revived to haunt the world with his evocative revival. "My... love... I finally... get to see you... after a hundred years... and I... made... a mistake... by leaving you..."
Each word from Kaiden was followed by a period of wheezing for the smallest of oxygen to keep his barely existent lungs together. Lyn shifted her step forward, attempting to reach him with her hopeful arms extended; the same way she had done for the previous survivors in the cave.
It was possible. I had to be possible to save anyone. Even a dying man in his last stand.
Aema, who had greeted Kaiden with a bitter smile, could not recognize him anymore. She eyed him with omnipotent repulsiveness at his failure to uphold any level or standard of care, nor did she even recognize the hollowness of his dying nature. She deemed him worth a zombie after setting eyes upon his skeletal figure.
Despite this, Kaiden still pressed on, hoping that he could win her heart, even in the afterlife of these illusions.
"You have to let it go!" Lyn begged. "You can change your future! Let me save you!"
Just before Kaiden was about to lower his lanky forearm to the ground, a ghostly blade pierced through Aema's chest, releasing a puff of smoke that brushed by Kaiden's nose and away into the air. Aema's body evaporated, revealing a wicked and twisted amalgamation of Lyn's body, cackling silently at Kaiden's suffering. The ghostly version of Lyn held the blade that vaporized Aema's spirit, leaving ghostly blood dripping from its edge.
"Lyn..." Kaiden's frail voice showed signs of life again. "I... I... I'LL KILL YOU, LYN!"
A sudden pulse of aethereal energy shoved Lyn back, only for her to attempt to block it with her left hand. However, instead of being pushed back to her starting point entirely, a peculiar artifact in the form of a metal glove was unknowingly attached to her left hand, which absorbed the aether pulsing from the gem and Kaiden.
"What is this...?" Lyn asked herself.
As Lyn's ghostly figure began to fade away, Teize's figure descended from above and prepared to rush toward Kaiden to seemingly merge with him. Lyn inhaled a sudden breath and charged forward with her gauntlet, wanting to strike Kaiden from the rear to stop him.
But before she could, Kaiden bellowed out as Teize merged with him. A flash of light blinded Lyn and brought the bridge they stood upon down even further underground, nearly to METIS's core by how far they soared down. Lyn was pushed back further down until she had finally reached a large field of rocky terrain. She glared up at the black gem as it somehow had transformed into a portal.
And out the portal spun a transparent red shield the size of a meteor toward Lyn, which she abruptly dodged out of the way with a hefty leap back. After landing, a colossal steel statue depicting Kaiden's original stature soared out of the portal, slamming where Lyn stood with another red shield armed shackled on his left hand. The blast nearly blew Lyn back, if it was not for the abnormal power of the gauntlet attached to her left hand.
The statue of Kaiden seized control of its second shield through a chain attached to its rear and pulled it back to its original hand. After wielding it once again, the statue slammed the shields together to generate scorching hot heat in its wake. Above Kaiden's steel head was a bejeweled crown that depicted a general's uprising to absolute monarchy, a success that all warlords wished to execute in their lifetime.
With such a gargantuan foe amidst Lyn's wake, she stood firmly and pointed her blade at the statue's head. She then reared back her right hand with her blade by her waist, positioning herself ready for combat.
The battle had begun. Kaiden's steel body rushed toward Lyn's small body and jumped in the air with its shield primed. He slammed downward, sending shockwaves of rock above the ground in Lyn's wake. Lyn, who had prepared for the assault, sidestepped away with her gauntlet gaining power from the aether sent towards it.
Using Kaiden's chain attached on its shields, the massive statue swung the shield toward Lyn, striking her directly on her left hand. But Lyn was able to carry and push back the weight of the blow with her gauntlet, matching it in force by pushing him back. Lyn ejected herself forward, shoving the shield to the ground and sent an aether infused sliced toward the statue's leg.
As she landed, she held both the glowing gauntlet and blade in hand, mystified at the magic that she was endowed with for the fight. She was forced to disregard it the moment Kaiden conjured a flaming stone from the ground to hurl at Lyn, sending her flying back with minimal force from her gauntlet.
Armed to the brim with aethereal energy, Lyn rushed forward with her left fist, rampaging it toward Kaiden's foot. The sudden detonation of her gauntlet's energy upon impact of Kaiden's steel skin sent him hurling to the ground as his entire foot was shattered by the force of the aether's connection. It was too mighty however, and it blasted Lyn back toward the ground, leaving her hand weakened to perform anymore conjuration with the gauntlet.
From the corner of her eye, Rot tendrils began to build Kaiden's foot back together. However, the imperfections of the tendrils managed to only build it partially whole again, with the tendrils instead supporting the weight of the mighty statue. Now Lyn understood his weakness, despite how powerful he seemed to be.
"I can... match your power!" Lyn roared, sprinting the grand distance between her and Kaiden's statue form.
With one hand, Kaiden slammed his red shields down, sending earth-shattering quakes of magma and rock toward Lyn's vicinity, covering what seemed to be miles of distance altogether. Lyn swiftly leaped from spike to spike, gathering the aethereal energy that Kaiden emitted with each attack. A wall of lava spouted between the two, leaving Lyn to rush through it with her left hand cascading the charge.
After breaking through, entire limbs of Lyn were burnt off, only for her to regenerate by pushing through. Now that her gauntlet was seemingly recharged, Lyn propelled herself off of the ground with a vigorous leap, aiming directly for Kaiden's right shield. She ejected the energy of her gauntlet, piercing through the shield and the statue's entire right hand to shatter it off. Lyn flipped and landed safely away from harm as Kaiden's hand was rebuilt again by the Rot's tendrils.
Lyn's left hand began to collapse from exhaustion, forcing her to kneel down in weakness. She sensed the gauntlet collapsing from overuse, rejecting her body's immediate advancement with it. Although she had no choice, her body frame would be not be powerful enough to withstand multiple usages at a time.
Kaiden's statue ascended the skies with its left shield armed with both of its hands. The shield quadrupled in size and blotted the sun's brimming wake, leaving nothing but darkness against Lyn's infinitesimal size compared to it all. Without hesitation, Kaiden launched the sun-blotting shield down upon Lyn's body, intending to crush all of METIS along with her.
"Damn... it...!" Lyn exclaimed, believing that her fatigue would not be enough to defend against the planet shattering slam. But Lyn had no other choice. With another bountiful and arduous leap, Lyn extended her left fist out, striking the gargantuan shield despite her small stature. Although she was shoved immediately back to the ground upon instant impact, sudden gathering of the aether from Kaiden's red shield began to flux through Lyn's gauntleted fingers, seeping powerful heaps of tremendous aether into her arm.
Lyn could feel the pulsing waves of aethereal energy emanating from her gauntlet, generating enough power so colossal that the invisible weight of her force pushed against her very being. She glanced down at her gauntlet, its surface crackling with barely contained power. The overcharged energy danced across her fingertips before slashing through the shield's wake.
With a primal yell, Lyn unleashed her attack as she skyrocketed into the air where Kaiden's soaring body remained. Her gauntlet connected with the his jaw in a collision of aethereal forces. The impact sent shockwaves through the air, kicking up shards of debris and steel through the skies.
For a moment, it seemed as if the two mixed energies were locked in a stalemate. But Lyn's gauntlet prevailed as its aethereal glow intensified. With one final snap of her left first, Lyn broke through Kaiden's jaw, sending him falling toward the ground in a final quake of energy.
Lyn landed safely once again, energy completely expended from her swift blow. With Kaiden weakened, it was her blade's turn to turn the tide. She sped forward with her charged sword and leaped into the air, leaving Kaiden exposed for a downward stab.
Yet Lyn met her gaze with a floating Teize, half transformed to meet the unexpected return of Seth. She held her palm out, stopping Lyn in her tracks with the shackled energy that held her previously.
"What an unexpected turn of events," Teize cackled, holding Lyn in the air. "It's only a matter of seconds before my true weapon annihilates all of humanity! But... I'm selfish. I want the liberty of doing it myself."
Teize released control of Lyn, allowing her to land on the statue's waist. From the center of Kaiden's chest erupted purple Rot tendrils, attaching themselves to Teize's back. Her energy began to bore together with Kaiden's statue, merging her into it by pulling her within. The statue's steel began to decay, leaving it riddled with the corruption from the Rot.
"KRIN!" Lyn bellowed, charging at her with her blade prepared to perform a final stab to execute his nemesis.
Teize's eyes expanded as the tendrils finally met with Kaiden's core. Another flash of light so powerful sent Lyn soaring upward from the ground and into heaven's horizons. Flashes of thunder and lightning nearly bolted through Lyn's body as it missed her by a mere inch. Even her gauntlet was not enough to sustain the melded energy.
Not only was Lyn soaring through the skies, but half of the Wastes imploded as a result of Teize merging with Kaiden's aethereal body, including Gietha. Decades of hard work and effort culminated in the epitome of destruction carving through the sands. The sun began to rise through the skies as the clouds were pushed back as a result of the universal force pushing the planet outward.
Luckily, enough debris remained in the air for Lyn to land safely by hopping down. Despite a boulder striking Lyn on her way down miles away from Teize and Kaiden's location, she landed by dragging her energy-infused blade across the dirt to stop her from sliding any further. Her gauntlet reacted to her blade's energy as well, generating enough force to seize her step.
She found herself in the wake of a parted valley created by Kaiden's explosion of energy. From the distance, miles away from her position, the same statue of Kaiden tripled in size to resemble an entire mountain of rot and decay. The Rot's purple tendrils rendered all pieces of the statue as individual building blocks, standing as an amalgamated rotten monument roaring monstrously through what seemed like the universe at stake.
A total of twelve tendrils, around the size of an entire skyscraper, flailed behind the rotten statue, expanding outward as it began to influence its power among the lands by converging with it.
Lyn, who had nearly enough energy to continue the battle, knew that she had to topple the titan down; even if it meant her death. She clenched her teeth, primed her gauntlet and sword back, and yelled as she adjusted her body frame for the mile-long distance. Her muscles tensed up. Her pale face inhaled a deep breath which could have lasted an entire marathon, and her voice gradually increased from a low grunt to a final huffed shout.
"It's now, or NEVER!" Lyn raged. "I'M COMING, KAIDEN!"
And with the speed of a blinking eye, Lyn bolted forward with lightning precision toward her new target.