Lukas moved first, faster than what his gigantic body should have been capable of in his full draconic form. In an instant, he was upon the Monarch. There was no hesitation and not a single amount of restraint, only the unrelenting instinct of a dragon who was no longer holding back. The Internal Arts within him activated, veins thrumming with energy thus giving him physicality that went beyond what he had naturally been gifted with.

  His claws tore through the Monarch’s form, slashing into the waters that had shaped itself into the Monarch's form. The Monarch’s body rippled, its shape disintegrating into a cascade of seawater.

  Every strike Lukas made only tore the water apart, and every time, that same water coalesced again, swirling and reforming into the silhouette of the Monarch once more.

  But Lukas did not stop there.

  As the water began to knit itself back into form, Lukas reached out, not with his claws but with his will. His Divinity surged outward, vast and terrible, and the waters froze mid-motion.

  The Monarch’s eyes widened in disbelief. The tides that should have obeyed him no longer answered his call. All the water that the Monarch had summoned was slowly being stolen away from him.

  They may have wielded the same Divinity, but there was no equality between them.

  The Monarch had refined his power for centuries, yes, but Lukas’ was something transcendent. In fact, it was the culmination of mastery and fury, honed by the countless lives he had lived and lost within the Crest.

  Lukas' rage burned with the force of storms and his control was absolute.

  The Monarch was beginning to realize that the difference between a Dragon Lord and the King of Dragons was painfully clear. The water trembled, the shape of the Monarch half-suspended in the air, water beginning to collapse inward as Lukas’ magic devoured its structure. Waves of force rolled outward, tearing through the battlefield, splitting the air with deafening sound.

  Lukas’ eyes gleamed with cold, merciless light.

  Just as Lukas was about to crush and erase the Monarch’s form completely, he felt it. His expression shifted, a flicker of confusion appearing beneath his wrath. The power flowing through him began to tremble, as though something had reached into his veins and twisted the current of his magic. It was still there—his Divinity, vast and potent—but it was no longer his to command entirely. The connection between him and the sea faltered, the control he had seized slipping like water through his fingers.

  A sudden pulse rippled through the battlefield, deep and resonant.

  The Monarch, half-dissolved, grinned as his body was suddenly pulled back into coherence.

  Lukas’ control was being disrupted, severed in places and distorted in others. He turned sharply, eyes narrowing, searching for the source.

  Upon the back of a dragon made of water, sat Rowan of the Morningeyes Clan. That calm and cool demeanour of his still remained and Lukas could sense the slight hesitation in the beastman's movements, as if he did not truly wish to carry on with this battle. Rowan’s gaze was fixed on Lukas, not with hatred but with cold, measured resolve.

  Rowan’s power was radiant. The Eyes of the Morning, his clan’s ancient Divinity, burned within him like a rising sun. The light that poured from his gaze turned the battlefield into day, searing through the veil of chaos that surrounded the fight. Those eyes allowed him to see magic where others could not, allowing him to shape the flow of Mana as he saw fit, disrupting Lukas' Divinity. Combined with the Blessing of the Conquerors that allowed the Monarch to use his body as a vessel, living within the marks that had been burned across his skin, Rowan was unlike any opponent Lukas had faced thus far.

  Together, they had become something terrifyingly complete.

  Yet Lukas felt no fear. Because the two of them would fall all the same, just like the rest of his enemies.

  The transformation came like a flash.

  One heartbeat, a dragon of vast and terrible size loomed over the arena, the next, that monstrous shape folded inward, collapsing in inward until a humanoid figure stood in its place. Lukas’ hair whipped behind him like tendrils of mist, suspended in the air before he surged upward, borne aloft by a platform of solidified water that had shaped itself beneath his feet. Every motion was precision, every breath measured, all of it born from the control of a King who had long since mastered both his body and the vast Divinity that pulsed through his veins.

  Lukas soared through the air, vanishing from Rowan’s line of sight. His movements were too swift, his path too erratic for even the radiant clarity of the Eyes of the Morning to track. As long as Rowan could see him with those Eyes, as long as he could trace the current of his magic, the beastman would and could manipulate it. So Lukas became invisible through motion, becoming a blur, vanishing and reappearing as he moved through the Coliseum.

  The Monarch’s massive form—that towering dragon of living water —twisted violently, its serpentine body writhing as it struggled to follow Lukas’ impossible speed. Every wave it summoned was cut apart by the wake of Lukas’ movement, every attempt to crush him thwarted before it could form. From below the Monarch’s coiling form, there was an explosion of force as Lukas shot upward like a comet torn from the abyss, a streak of azure energy carving through anything in its path. Lukas tore through the Monarch's watery neck in a single devastating strike, a rift of mist and spray exploding in his wake. The Monarch’s body convulsed, its head snapping back as a cascade of its own liquid essence rained down across the arena.

  Before the Monarch could reform, Lukas was already there, right before Rowan. The beastman’s golden eyes widened, that light blazing brighter than ever as his instincts flared. Rowan raised his hand, ready to intercept any spell that Lukas might cast, spells that he knew must be coming. But none ever came.

  Because Lukas did not need the Divinity of the Seas to deal with Rowan.

  His fist connected with Rowan’s jaw before the beastman could defend himself. The sound of impact was brutal, sending shockwaves rippling through the air. Rowan’s head snapped to the side, his golden eyes briefly dimming under the sheer force of it. Lukas followed through immediately, his second strike slamming into the other side of Rowan’s face before he could even recover from the first.

  The blows were nearly surgical in precision.

  Each punch denied Rowan the chance to reorient, to see or to even think.

  Lukas’ fists became a relentless rhythm, each strike a calculated act of suppression.

  So long as Rowan’s eyes could not lock onto him, so long as the beastman was kept off balance, the Eyes of the Morning could not direct or disrupt the flow of Lukas' magic. And as Rowan reeled beneath the onslaught, his Divinity went to work, unseen by the Eyes of the Morning and thus unable to manipulated.

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  Below Rowan, the half-reformed Monarch shuddered violently, the water of its body twisting as if in pain. The tides it had tried to summon now betrayed it, shifting under Lukas’ command. Each blow Lukas struck against Rowan was not merely a physical assault—it was a smokescreen, a rhythm that concealed his true intent. It did not matter that Lukas was outnumbered. He was dismantling two foes at once—breaking the beastman’s composure while reclaiming the sea itself from the Monarch’s control. And as the final punch drove Rowan’s head back with a spray of blood and light, Lukas’ power surged outward once more.

  The moment Lukas’ control over the Divinity of the Seas surged beyond measure, the Monarch’s body of sentient water began to unravel all at once. The oceanic magic that had once given it life shuddered and broke apart, collapsing like a wave losing its shape against the shore. In that same instant, the tether that had held Rowan aloft shattered as well.

  Both the beastman and Lukas plummeted through the air, the roaring winds screaming past them before their bodies struck the Coliseum floor in an explosion of sand and dust.

  It had taken only moments—mere breaths—for Lukas to completely dominate them both.

  The Monarch’s command over the seas had been stripped from him as easily as a Crown from a fallen Lord, and Rowan’s brilliance, the glow of his golden eyes, was dimmed beneath the shadow of Lukas’ relentless power.

  Even together, they had been no match for the King of Dragons.

  The outcome was clear.

  This fight was already over.

  Lukas stood above Rowan now, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths, his body glistening with the faint shimmer of seawater and blood. He pinned the beastman beneath him with an unyielding strength, his hand pressed against Rowan’s shoulder, the other raised, ready to deliver the finishing blow.

  But his fist never fell.

  Instead, Lukas hesitated. He looked down at Rowan at the beastman’s face, battered yet unbroken, skin matted with blood and grime. The golden light that once blazed from his eyes flickered faintly now, no longer holding the same intensity it had just seconds ago. Rowan’s body trembled beneath him, but there was no hatred in his gaze, only exhaustion and something that felt like acceptance.

  Part of the reason why Lukas had won so easily was because Rowan's heart had never been truly in it.

  They had been friends.

  They could still be friends.

  “Yield,” Lukas whispered, his voice raw with restraint. “Yield, Rowan. This fight is over.”

  For a moment, it seemed like Rowan might have surrendered. His glowing eyes began to fade, the Divinity that had burned behind them retreating into stillness. The glow on his markings dulled, the power within him finally yielding to the inevitable.

  Lukas’ hand lowered slightly, though still ready to strike if he had to and hoping he wouldn’t need to.

  Then the marks upon Rowan's body began to glow once more.

  There was a sudden shift in the air and Lukas froze, his eyes darting upward.

  The ground beneath them vibrated, and the hairs on Lukas' arms rose as an immense surge of energy flooded the Coliseum.

  The Monarch’s Divinity. It roared back to life, stronger and more violent than before.

  Lukas’ eyes widened, disbelief and shock flashing across his face. “What… what is he doing?” he whispered, his voice full of horror.

  Then Lukas saw it, a sight that turned his anger to dread.

  From every direction, from every crevice and shadow, the seas themselves answered the Monarch’s call. The walls of the Coliseum shook as torrents of water surged up and over them, spiraling upward in columns so massive they nearly touched the skies. Those waters weren’t calm. They burned. Steam poured from them in thick, rolling waves; the surface shimmering with heat. These weren’t waves meant to cleanse or restrain, they were destruction incarnate.

  If they fell, it would consume everything in its path.

  Lukas’ heart began to race.

  He turned his gaze toward the stands—the countless faces frozen in horror, nobles and commoners alike, watching the cataclysm build before their eyes. And high above, in the royal booths and balconies, the leaders of Khaitish stood transfixed, unable to believe what they were seeing.

  There were no more protective barriers that would protect them from that.

  “Rowan,” Lukas roared as the waters continued to rise. “They’re your own gorydamn people! Put an end to this fight!"

  Lukas did not need to know the reason behind the Monarch' actions. Knowing would have mattered little against the cold calculus of his own convictions. The Monarch would do whatever served his aims, regardless of morality.

  Rowan lay beneath him, pinned and still, and Lukas watched the beastman’s face as if reading a map of betrayals. The beastman could not bring himself to speak, his chest rose and fell in the ragged rhythm of someone who had been carrying too much for too long.

  The Monarch did not address Lukas. His voice rolled through the Crown, aimed at the man who had been its vessel. The dragon's every word carried a venom so potent that it almost made his malice tangible.

  “And what good are they to you? What have they done for you, Rowan?” the Monarch demanded, every syllable a rasp of salt from the sea. “Did they not cast you out when they learned you were a cripple? You have spent your whole life fighting for them, you have given them EVERYTHING! Look at how they cheered for your demise. Your people have abandoned you!”

  Those words were not empty.

  Though Lukas would never bring himself to feel sympathy for the Monarch, he could see now that this anger was genuine. The Monarch’s fury was not mere hate directed towards the people; it was a twisted, possessive affection for Rowan. Under the roaring rhetoric was a raw, animalistic care, the kind that raised a predator to violence when its kin was threatened.

  "I have been with you since you were a child. I know how much you have been through." Lukas heard it in the way the Monarch’s voice softened, just for the fraction of a breath, when it spoke of Rowan’s pain. It was an ugly, warped love. But it was still love nonetheless.

  For a moment Lukas’s own resolve wavered.

  Because he could not deny the Monarch’s claims.

  Lukas himself had seen the crowd’s hunger, the way they had cheered when the twins fell, how their pleasure bordered the line of cruelty. The beastkin celebrated the death of their own, the death of those who had pledged their very lives to fight for them.

  He should have said something, should have tried to argue against him. But the Monarch’s logic was persuasive because it was the truth. Lukas had no real insight to offer because who could dispute the sight of those cheering masses? Who could deny that suffering had been met with laughter more often than with mercy?

  Sorrow settled into Rowan’s eyes, not the quiet pity of resignation, but the furious, aching sorrow of someone who has finally seen the shape of a wound and understood how deep it truly ran. It was horrifying in its clarity, because in that clarity the beastman recognized a truth Lukas himself had only glimpsed. The people Rowan had spent his entire life trying to save might not be truly even deserve saving in the first place.

  “You fight for their freedom, Rowan. And I have fought with you." The Monarch said to him then. "But what freedom is it that you think you will give them? Are they truly slaves if they already have what they want? Look at them, Rowan. They are not your people. They never have been. Kill them all, Rowan. Let them die so that Khaitish may be born anew.”

  Then sorrow turned, it combusted into rage, not the Monarch’s savagery, but something equal in intensity. Rowan’s eyes burned once more. The golden light came back, harder now, stripped of hope and bright with the same terrifying anger that had made them call Lukas' grandfather the Monarch of the Seas.

  If violence was the only language that Rowan's people wished to speak then so be it.

  Rowan spoke then, and his voice was quiet enough that the crowd could not make it out over the rising sounds of the battleground, but Lukas heard it as if it were spoken into his own ear. Those four words landed like an order and a verdict at once. In them was surrender and sovereignty braided together, surrender to the Monarch’s counsel and sovereignty in knowing that Rowan was done fighting for them.

  “Let it be done."

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