Every strike Storm unleashed was caught, redirected, or dispersed like it was nothing.
His claws sparked against invisible barriers, his storms devoured by the Magus' control.
Even when Storm fused wind and lightning into a focused blast, it didn't leave a scratch. His chance of winning was even worse than Inferno's.
anwhile, Draeven and his squad were already finishing their sweep of the ravager nest..
Then they found it—a carved stone corridor, half-buried beneath the central chamber.
A ruin.
Their eyes lit up with hope. A ruin ant a chance—maybe even a relic. But that hope was crushed the mont they stepped inside.
The walls were shredded with claw marks. Chunks of stone littered the floor, mixed with shattered golem parts and burnt-out furniture.
"This place is done for," T'zarek muttered, glancing around the wreckage.
Vek'tal gave a slow nod. "Should we head back up?"
"No," Draeven replied, his gaze lingering on the walls. "We've got nothing waiting for us up there. Might as well look around—maybe the beasts missed sothing."
If the ruin had been destroyed by another faction, Draeven wouldn't have bothered. But this? This was ravager work. Brutal. Mindless. And that gave him hope.
T'zarek thought it over, then shrugged. "Fair. Better than sitting around doing nothing."
They pushed deeper into the ruin, the damage growing worse the further they went. Crumbled doors. Collapsed archways. Burned-out traps.
"The defenses must've gotten stronger," Vek'tal guessed, eyeing the deeper claw marks. "They probably fought harder here."
"Focus," Draeven snapped. "Find anything useful. The Magus might co soon."
"How strong do you think he is compared to the others?" T'zarek asked, his tone uneasy.
They'd seen him fight twice. Once against another Ashborn warrior. Once against an elental ravager. Both tis, he hadn't just won—he'd dominated.
"If they're that strong," T'zarek continued, "how are we supposed to rise again? They could crush us with a thought."
Draeven didn't look back. "Good. Let them be strong."
That shut the others up.
He kept walking, voice steady. "Don't forget our goal. If the ones they send are this powerful, it ans the rest are weaker—or they'd just wipe us out. This one's a ssage. A warning."
"A deterrent," Vek'tal echoed grimly.
"Exactly," Draeven nodded. "But that just ans they're afraid of what we might beco."
They continued down the ruined hall, shadows flickering from shattered lamps, boots crunching over fallen stone.
anwhile Storm's hideout had beco a wasteland. The mushroom tree was gone—reduced to scorched timber and ash.
The area flickered with lightning. And amidst the storm, a colossal white tiger roared crackling with lightning as it clashed with the Magus.
All it's fur were white, with a horn on top his head hat look like lightning.
His body had grown massive—twice the size of any Brute Ravager. Striped fur shimred with arcs of electricity, and every clawstrike ca with a thunderclap that shook the treetops.
The Magus didn't move.
Storm landed like a cot—CRASH!—his claws slamming down in a double arc ant to slice the Magus in half.
But the attack hit nothing.
The Magus reappeared behind him with a soft crackle, lightning trailing from his cloak. "Predictable," he murmured.
Storm spun, jaws open—CHOMP!—but bit into pure air as another afterimage fizzled out.
BOOM!
A counterspell detonated beneath his paws, blasting the Ravager backward. He rolled through trees, shredding bark and mushroom cap alike, then righted himself midair, landing in a crouch with sparks crackling from his mane.
His lips curled back in a snarl. Storm didn't have Inferno's raw heat—but he was faster. And this wasn't over.
Lightning flared. A dozen afterimages of Storm blitzed toward the Magus from all directions.
The Magus raised one hand.
A rune flared in a circle around him—one, then ten, then a hundred. A storm of incantations blood in a spiral, catching the clones mid-stride.
BZZZZZT—!
They all collapsed, shredded by invisible threads of magic. Storm's real body shot up from below, mouth glowing with a compressed bolt of thunder, ready to fire it point-blank.
BAM!
The Magus caught it. Fingers closed around the energy like it was nothing more than smoke. "Cute," he said, then squeezed.
BOOM!
The bolt exploded in Storm's own face, sending him reeling, blood trailing from his mouth as he crashed into the remains of the tree crown.
The Magus approached slowly, cloak flickering with each step, his expression bored. "You're quicker than the others… but your control is worse than them."
Storm roared, leapt again—but he was slower now. The Magus's hand shot up, and chains of light wrapped around the Ravager mid-flight, dragging him to the ground.
BAM!
He hit hard. Craters spiderwebbed beneath him.
But Storm's rage didn't fade. His body twitched, then surged with renewed power—lightning bursting from his core. The chains cracked. Then shattered.
BOOM!
He shot up like a missile, tackled the Magus mid-air, and drove him through the treetop and into the dirt below.
The impact shook the ground. But even then… the Magus didn't look fazed. Lying beneath Storm, pinned, he smiled. "Better."
Then his body turned into lightning vanishing from Storm's grip.
The next mont, he reford above him. And dropped. His heel struck Storm's spine with the weight of a falling star.
BOOM!!!
The ground exploded in light and force. Mushroom trees for miles snapped like twigs. The shockwave tore across the landscape.
When the dust cleared, Storm was sprawled in a crater, his form twitching, half-conscious, blood crackling from ruptured veins.
The Magus stood over him, the storm fading behind his eyes. "Show more!"
He could have finished storm, but the Magus decided to see how storm use his lightning, he hoped he can learn so new thing from him, for his own magic but so far he see nothing new.
Storm let out a roar that shook the mushroom trees, electricity crackling wildly across his fur.
His body trembled as every bolt, every spark, gathered into the horns crowning his skull. The lightning began to swirl, condensing into a sphere of violent energy— a deep, shimring violet.
The Magus paused. His eyes narrowed, intrigued. "Purple?" he murmured. "That's new."
He tilted his head, analyzing the mana. It wasn't just lightning anymore—sothing else had been mixed in.
For the first ti since the battle began, the Magus stopped moving. His interest had been piqued.
'Let's see what this does…'
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