THE LAST KEEPER

Inside the grand Convergence Hall of Alika City, the air was thick with the stench of ozone, alchemical smoke, and spilled blood.

Black banners bearing Senraki’s coiled serpent sigil hung over the shattered golden sun mosaics of the imperial dais.

General Senraki stood before the sovereign throne, reviewing tactical dispatches brought by blood-spattered rebel couriers.

”The western garrisons have fallen silent, General,” a masked lieutenant reported, kneeling on the bloodstained marble. ”Tsanka’s outer bastions are burning, and King Vanka’s forward legion has entered the northern pass.”

”Good,” Senraki said coldly, wiping Felunka’s dried blood from his meteoric broadsword. ”Execute the remaining council scribes and burn the imperial census records. When Lanka arrives, Alika will bow without resistance.”

Before the officer could stand, the entire mountain foundation beneath the palace shuddered violently.

A shockwave of raw, unbridled pressure ripped through the grand hall, extinguishing every torch in the chandeliers with a deafening CRACK.

The thirty-foot iron and obsidian gates of the Convergence Hall bowed inward, groaning under an impossible external force.

BOOM!

With an earth-shattering explosion that blew the massive gates into jagged shrapnel, the front entryway disintegrated.

A plume of golden dust and blazing bio-energy swept into the chamber, vaporizing the front ranks of rebel guards in a blinding flash.

Through the settling smoke strode a towering figure, his long ceremonial robes shredded and his skin radiating the terrifying, uncorrupted aura of the apex beast.

Supreme Mandra Taziraka had returned to Alika.

His eyes burned with pure golden fire, his muscular arms wreathed in roaring crimson bio-energy that manifested as the spectral claws of a primordial lion.

Every step he took cracked the polished marble floor beneath his boots, shaking the hall’s pillars to their foundations.

”T-Taziraka?” Senraki whispered, his face draining of color as he instinctively stepped back toward the throne. ”You were supposed to die in the western mountains...”

”Did you truly believe your alchemical puppets and poisoned daggers could extinguish the fire of this realm, Senraki?” Taziraka’s voice boomed like rolling thunder, shaking the dust from the ceiling rafters.

The Supreme Mandra looked upon the desecrated imperial hall, his gaze falling upon the bloodied northern command seal hanging from Senraki’s belt.

”You butchered Felunka in the courtyard,” Taziraka growled, the temperature in the room soaring as his primal aura ignited. ”You slaughtered the guards who swore their lives to defend these walls.”

Senraki gritted his teeth, raising his meteoric broadsword as dozens of armored rebel veterans formed a defensive line before the dais.

”Felunka was weak!” Senraki shouted, trying to mask the tremor in his voice. ”The old ways are dead, Taziraka! Tagayia was rotting from within! I offered us true power!”

”You know nothing of power, traitor,” Taziraka roared, his eyes flashing with lethal fury. ”Tsaka died in the west defending the innocent from your filth. My brother-in-arms gave his life with honor, while you crawl like a dog in the shadow of foreign tyrants!”

The mention of Shadow General Tsaka sent a ripple of primal fury through the Mandra’s frame.

”Cut him down!” Senraki screamed to his vanguard. ”He is only one man! Drown him in steel!”

Fifty elite rebel shock troops charged forward in locked formation, their heavy halberds and spiked shields pulsing with dark alchemical seals.

Taziraka lowered his stance into the primordial earth-form, his chest expanding as he drew the cold night air into his vital channels.

ROOOOOAAAR!

The Mandra unleashed the ancestral Beast Roar, a sonic wave of pure golden force that shattered the front rank of shields into flying splinters.

The kinetic blast hurled twenty heavily armored soldiers through the air like dry leaves, their breastplates caving in before they even touched the ground.

Before the remaining warriors could recover, Taziraka vanished in a blur of golden light.

He reappeared directly in the center of the rebel formation, his right hand swinging in a devastating claw-strike of concentrated bio-energy.

CRACK!

The strike cleaved through three armored halberdiers at once, the sheer kinetic shockwave tearing a twenty-foot furrow through the solid stone floor.

A rebel captain lunged from the flank, driving a poisoned spear toward Taziraka’s throat.

Without turning his head, Taziraka caught the spearhead barehanded, the hardened skin of his palm glowing with impenetrable beast armor.

With a single flick of his wrist, the Mandra snapped the steel spear shaft in two, drove the broken point into the captain’s chest, and hurled the corpse across the hall.

”Is this the army you promised to conquer the realm with?” Taziraka roared, advancing through the carnage like an unstoppable force of nature. ”Pathetic worms!”

Crossbow bolts dipped in paralyzing venom rained down from the upper balconies, deflecting harmlessly off the golden aura swirling around his body.

Taziraka stomped his right foot into the ground, sending a seismic shockwave surging up the marble pillars.

The massive stone columns fractured, collapsing the upper balconies and burying the rebel archers beneath tons of falling masonry.

Within less than two minutes, the entire rebel vanguard lay broken and pulverized across the floor of the Convergence Hall.

Senraki stood alone at the top of the throne dais, his hands shaking violently against the hilt of his broadsword.

For the first time in his life, the ruthless conspirator felt the true, suffocating terror of facing an uncorrupted master of the Art of the Beast.

”You cannot stop what has been set in motion, Taziraka!” Senraki yelled, his eyes wide with desperate madness. ”Thirty thousand Apex Soulless are already crossing the peaks! Glacial Lanka will swallow this capital whole!”

Taziraka leaped across the hall, his golden claws descending toward Senraki’s skull like the judgment of the heavens.

”Then I will bury them alongside you, Senraki!”

Senraki raised his meteoric broadsword in a desperate two-handed parry, channeling all his corrupted alchemical power into a frantic block.

BOOOOM!

The collision created an ear-splitting thunderclap that blew out every stained-glass window in the palace.

The meteoric broadsword bent violently under the weight of Taziraka’s strike, the bone in Senraki’s left shoulder shattering on impact.

Senraki spat a mouthful of blood as he was driven onto his knees, the marble steps cracking beneath his weight.

Realizing that another second in the Mandra’s presence meant certain death, Senraki slapped his right palm against a hidden trigger mechanism beneath the sovereign throne.

A dense cloud of blinding phosphor smoke and toxic alchemical gas erupted between them, obscuring vision and searing the air.

At the same instant, the floor beneath the throne tilted backward, dropping Senraki into a reinforced subterranean escape chute that sealed shut with a heavy iron slam.

Taziraka’s golden claw cleaved through the smoke, shattering the throne into rubble, but the traitor had already slipped into the deep transit tube.

The Mandra stood amidst the burning smoke, his heavy breathing calming as he surveyed the shattered hall and the corpses of the mutineers.

Outside the palace gates, the loyalist city guard and academy instructors, rallied by the Mandra’s return, began storming the streets to reclaim the capital.

Taziraka looked down at the blood on his hands, his golden eyes looking north toward the freezing mountain horizons.

”Flee to your masters in Lanka, Senraki,” Taziraka whispered, his voice dark with absolute resolve. ”There is no corner on this continent where you can hide from the Mandra’s justice.”

The capital was saved, but the grand battle for the northern frontier had officially begun.