She could see the sweat on his brow but still she felt it instinctively, she needed to end this quickly before he decided to stop having fun. Feather changed tactics, sending a rapid barrage of wind needles from multiple angles—attacks designed to make it impossible to block and to overwhelm him.

  Validus gazed at the wind needles approaching from every direction, then down at his crystal hammers with a calm and controlled expression.

  “Guess I can’t block this one, huh?”

  He grinned—the expression boyish and terrifying in equal measure.

  The needles came all at once, hundreds of translucent blades converging on a single point, covering him in an orb of deadly wind that shrank tighter, drawing closer and closer with every passing moment.

  "To shrink your winds into such a small and deadly attack, in such quantity and with such control—truly you are mighty, Elder," the voice from within the orb came, calm and untroubled despite the storm of death surrounding him.

  Feather's knuckles whitened as she tightened her grip on her staff.

  Validus spun his crystals, the circular wall of needles dissipating and breaking with every hit until finally revealing his form. Now he stood, weapon in hand, body covered in an armor of rock. The armor was not of bulky make but an elegant plated layer armor as if he were the living sculpture of a majestic knight, every inch of his body covered and the stone bending as if it were alive with every movement he made, even his eyes were covered leaving no slit to see. His weapon's speed was not deterred thanks to his seemingly living armor of plated earth, his enchanted meteor hammers making quick work of the needles around him.

  “Let’s see how much those weapons can handle!” Elder Feather shouted, spinning her staff as she continued floating in the air.

  A massive cyclone erupted around them, the winds howling with such force that nearby soldiers were knocked flat. Even the Sky Warriors struggled to stand, their command of Aeroquill barely enough to resist as the mighty winds called forth by their tribe elder threatened to sweep everything away.

  “Oh?” Validus watched as the powerful winds blew around him, his tone carrying the curiosity of a scholar. The river itself began to rise in ribbons, water spiraling upward into the air, stone and even trees followed, the latter slowly being uprooted. Yet Validus stood steadfast in his armor.

  “Knight Commander, please keep my tent from flying off,” Validus commanded through the powerful winds surrounding him, his voice somehow cutting through the calamitous maelstrom that howled around him.

  “Yes sir.” The knight in front of the tent responded with military precision while planting the tip of his sword deep into the ground, the silvery energy of his Silverquill erupting outward to engulf the tent in its protective light, creating a shimmering barrier that blocked the onslaught of the mighty winds.

  Within the cyclone, Validus stood calmly in his living stone armor, the plated earth flexing with each movement as debris and water swirled around him. His crystal hammers no longer spun, the sheer scale of the cyclone made it nearly pointless really.

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  “Impressive,” his voice carried through the howling winds, muffled by his stone helm. He tightened a hand into a fist a thin earthly glow growing brighter before finally loosening his hand, palm now lifted mid-height steady, and unshaken in the eye of the roaring tempest.

  Stone spikes began erupting from the ground around him, each one disrupting the wind flow. His Terraquill created a framework of earth that disrupted and weakened the cyclone’s perfect rotation. As spikes broke, new ones quickly took their place, eventually breaking the wind’s unity with steady stubbornness.

  Elder Feather watched calmly as her technique was being systematically dismantled, piece by piece. She nodded slowly as if expecting it then took a deep breath, before raising her staff high above her head. The massive cyclone suddenly collapsed inward, covering Validus in its blinding winds, all its spinning fury compressing into a single point before exploding outward in a devastating shockwave. The air itself cracked like thunder given form as debris, water, and stone fragments shot out as deadly projectiles in every direction.

  The shockwave hit everything around it with a dreadful force one might expect from such a calamitous wind. Trees snapped and flew through the air, the river erupted in massive sprays, and the ground cracked in expanding circles. Fifty feet away, the Knight Commander’s Silverquill flared brilliantly, his energy protecting himself and the tents, his voice boomed louder than even the explosion.

  “Knights!”

  “DO YOUR DUTIES!”

  The knights of knowledge quickly formed a defensive line in front of their soldiers, spreading out shields of silver that strained against the overwhelming pressure. Regular soldiers huddled behind this wall of protective energy seeking shelter from the calamity around them. One unlucky soldier however was too late to reach the barrier and was sent tumbling through the air. Yet fortune smiled upon him for he was caught by the mighty hand of one of the knights who immediately began channeling healing energy into the soldier's wounds while maintaining his shield of silver high against the continuing assault.

  “Well done Knight Captain.” the knight commander acknowledged.

  On the side of the Sky Children tribe. The Sky and Tempest Warriors bent and rolled with the blast, their Aeroquill helping them survive where others would have been crushed. Yet they did not emerge unscathed—many of the Sky Warriors lay injured from both the earlier battle and the catastrophic shockwave. Skyheart spat blood onto the torn earth as his body screamed in protest, beaten and battered, an arm hanging uselessly at his side, dislocated from when he had desperately shielded Sky Child from the blast.

  "Is it over?" one of the Sky Warriors whispered, her voice barely audible due to the ringing in their ears.

  The dust began to clear, and through the haze, a dark silhouette became visible. Slowly, a figure rose from the crater. Stone and debris fell away as Validus ascended on a pillar of rock.

  His once-elegant brown plated armor was gone—replaced by something far more formidable. A shattered outer shell of what looked like fractured diamond hung in jagged fragments, entire sections missing or dangling loose. Beneath it, the armor of earth and stone had turned black—the brown earthen plating now denser, stronger. But even this deeper layer bore scars; cracks ran across its surface, and chunks were missing from the shoulders and arms. His old armor evolved into an armor more suited for the threat he faced. Still it was clearly damaged, scarred and cracked, its purpose fulfilled.

  Elder Feather gazed at him, she no longer flew in the air but now had her feet planted on the ground, her breaths came in raspy gasps.

  For the first time in the battle, the High Sage showed signs of genuine exertion. While his breathing did not match her desperate gasps, it was still slow and heavy. Crimson blood trickled from his brow in a thin line that stung his eye. Dust clung to him—a testament to the attack he had endured—and though he stood tall, there was a slight tremor in his movements, further proof of the tremendous force he had exerted.

  “Impressive,” his voice carried across the battlefield. “It has been quite some time since anyone has managed to crack my defenses.”