“No way!” Lagron shouted, staring wide eyed at them all with a disbelieving look on his face. “Say it again because I could’ve sworn, I misheard you just now.”

His lover, Amaranda, shook her head and smiled bitterly as she telepathically said, “You didn’t mishear me, Lagron. The battle… was a draw.”

The Dragon Titan seemed like he was about to pass out as he looked crestfallen as he muttered, “A… draw? No way…!”

It was several minutes after the end of the raging battle that had occurred, where the arena had been restored and they sat in the previously destroyed arena. After the battle ended, the two warriors began to plummet into the bottomless space when Amaranda used her magic to make them float and move them to where they hovered in mid-air. Then, with another wave of her staff, a solid structure formed beneath them, and she finally set them down gently.

Initially, the Chand family were very frantic as they quickly huddled around Lakshman and checked his condition. Only Amaranda, Wolfenstine, and Marilia were checking on Lagron’s condition. Everyone was relieved to find them just unconscious, and so the Magic Titan tapped her staff on the ground, which created a magic field around them before the two warriors began to glow in green healing light.

It took her several minutes of administering healing magic to close their wounds and make it seem like they had taken no damage at all while restoring a bit of their energy because it would be very risky for her to use the spell Restoration due to their high energy levels as it would put her life at risk. Thus, she only focused on restoring a bit of their energy so that they would wake up and begin recovering on their own, and a while later, the Phoenix Titan and the Dragon Titan opened their eyes.

“Man…!” Lagron said in a dejected voice, his expression saddening at the thought of not winning the right. “After all that training, all that strengthening, all that enhancements, all those skills, and even after transforming… it was still a draw.”

His words earned him sympathetic looks from everyone there, all except for Nara, who clicked his tongue and said, “At least you didn’t lose, so stop whimpering like a three-year-old child.”

“Huh?!” Lagron exclaimed, jumping up to his feet in great anger. “What did you just say?”

“Um,” Nara began in a start, blinking in surprise when he saw the hurt expression on the Dragon Titan’s face.

He had assumed that the warrior was hurt and moaned about it because of his pride, but that did not seem to be the case. Instead, it seemed that Lagron was deeply hurt that he could not completely best the rival that he seemed to share a long history with. So, the War Titan felt troubled for mistakenly assuming something and further aggravating the warrior’s already hurt feelings.

“He didn’t mean that, Lagron,” said Dominic to the rescue as he got between them. Then he glanced back at him and asked, “Right, Nara?”

“Ah. Y-Yes,” replied his friend, looking troubled and somewhat guilty.

Dominic scowled at him and demanded, “Do you think a simple apology would make me feel better after being mocked?!”

While Nara looked troubled, Dominic smiled and said coolly, “I suppose not, but the same goes for him when I defeated him.” Both Lagron and Nara looked confused as he went on to state, “When I defeated him, he became very annoyed and kept asking me how I, a warrior who fought with swords, could beat a man of his caliber?”

“Oh…? You did that?” Lagron asked, throwing a curious look at the War Titan.

“I… I was upset that I lost to him when I believed I was stronger,” admitted Nara in a resigned voice.

Lagron snorted and asked, “You felt like that after a single loss, but what about mine? I had been waiting for an extremely long time to beat him and after fighting him in an official battle, I still couldn’t beat him! Do you understand what’s going through my head, idiot!”

Nara looked troubled and ashamed of himself for getting carried away. It also made him realise that the conceited character in Lagron seemed to have changed. Instead of boasting his strength or showing off his swagger, he was being factual and down-to-earth with him. This small fact surprised him the most, and he lifted his head to look at him in amazement.

“Has he changed?” He thought as he watched Lagron looking frustrated and disappointed.

“At least, you didn’t lose to me this time,” said Lakshman coolly, making his rival turn to face him.

“I didn’t win against you either,” he said coldly.

Lakshman chuckled and asked, “Do you count a half glass half empty or a half full? Which would you choose?”

His question made Lagron slowly nod in understanding before he sighed and said, “But… a draw wasn’t what I expected.”

“In all honesty, I’m not bothered by the result one bit,” replied Lakshman with a laugh.

The Dragon Titan looked a little baffled by his rival’s response and asked, “Aren’t you upset at all that you didn’t win?”

His question made Lakshman chuckle and reply, “I didn’t fight to win; I fought to give you want you wanted. I gave you the fight, and you didn’t lose and that’s what you’ve been griping about for almost forever. So, in a way, I feel I did win even if the actual result is a draw.”

“I agree with his majesty,” said Lina, suddenly entering the conversation with a bright smile. She faced Lagron as she said, “Sir, you were incredible! I have never witnessed such a powerful battle in all of my life other than the time I matched to catch the glimpse of the battle that occurred between the Phoenix Titan and the Calamity Titan. So, I feel really happy and blessed to meet such strong and powerful figures in our history! I really do, so please don’t feel down. It’s not a loss, it’s just a draw so it’s okay. It’s okay!”

She insisted on the words “It’s okay” that made Lagron look surprised.

Lakshman smiled at his protégé’s attempt to convince his rival and followed it up with, “She’s right, Lagron. It’s okay because you didn’t lose. In fact, getting a draw against me means that we’re now equals! So, I think it’s something to feel happy and proud, especially for you since you’ve longed to show that you wouldn’t lose in a fair fight against me, and you did today! So, well done! Really!”

The Dragon Titan looked at them and breathed a sigh as he relented to their convincing words by admitting the outcome of their fierce battle.

“I guess a draw is better than actually losing to you, and it shows that I’ve improved a lot as well. So, it’s not bad,” he said and nodded to himself as he accepted the positive side of things. “Alright. I can live with that,” but he suddenly pointed at his rival and said, “but don’t just settle down thinking I’ve given up! Let’s fight again, this time to settle a winner!”

Lakshman saw the determined smile on his ancient rival’s face and smiled in return as he replied, “Sure.”

After Amaranda had restored a bit of their energy, Lakshman stopped her from restoring any more as it would deplete her own energy needlessly and assured them that recovering naturally is better than forcibly recovering. Everyone was confused, so he reasoned with them that the side effects of being recovered using magic all the time can have a lasting impact in the years to come. Understanding, Amaranda stopped restoring his energy and restored a bit more energy for Lagron before he, too, stopped her with similar reasoning.

Lakshman then focused on the destroyed arena and with a click of his fingers, particles of light began to converge in a single spot in front of them. Soon, the lights transformed into a solid structure and a few minutes later, restored the arena back to normal.

“Hey!” Marilia suddenly snapped crossly at him much to his surprise. “You don’t have that much energy on you, right? Why are you wasting it restoring that place?”

He was surprised by her question before he smiled and said, “Relax, Marilia. I barely used any energy,” and explained that the lights were the elemental construct of the dimension space and upon his call, they merely used the energy floating around to move and restore the arena back to the way it was before the battle started.

She, as well as Sumara and Amaranda, were impressed as Marilia said, “That’s quite good.”

“Being an owner of this kind of space gives you rights to do a lot of things,” he told them with a smile. Then he looked towards the exit, which was found with a walkway to the portal leading back to the outer world and said, “Let’s go back.”

They all nodded and as they floated to and landed on the arena to walk towards the exit, Sumara nudged his shirt and asked, “Can you… teach that spell to me if… it’s possible?”

He was slightly taken aback by her asking him such a question. Before becoming his wife, she was his first magic tutor that his parents, Indra and Lakshmi, procured, and though much of what she taught him was trashed due to the Decisive Player’s interference, he was still grateful for the time she spent in teaching him. These feelings of his only amplified now that she was his wife and made him wish to do whatever she wanted from him.

“Sure. Anything for you, Suma,” he replied to her, using a shortened form of her name as a nickname for the first time.

She was startled by him suddenly calling her by a nickname that made her instantly blush. But she was happy to hear him accept her proposal and hugged his arm while murmuring her gratitude to him shyly. He smiled and stroked her hair smoothly while his remaining wives slightly walked close to him while praising his battle.

Lagron watched the Phoenix Titan being praised and turned to Amaranda to ask, “Aren’t you going to praise me?”

Amaranda, in turn, tilted her head at him and asked telepathically, “Do you want me to praise you?”

Her question irritated him and he replied, “Fine. Don’t bother then.”

Sensing his emotions, she smiled and walked closer to wrap her arm around his and bring him closer as she planted a kiss on his cheek before saying telepathically and using the nickname that she used when it’s just the two of them.

“Well done, Lan. That was a great battle, and I am very happy to see you not lose. Still remember this: whether you win or lose, you are the love of my life.”

The Dragon Titan did not say anything, but she could sense his energy and felt him blushing, which was correct as he was blushing crimson while trying hard to contain his emotions. The others noticed this and began teasing him, to which he snapped at them irritably while Lakshman and Wolfenstine started a conversation regarding the dimension creation and its structural background for something the Hybrid of Vampire and Werewolf was thinking.

A few minutes later, they walked out of the portal to bask in the dazzling light from the sun. However, it did not feel as dazzling as they thought it might be, considering the numerous blinding lights that they had to cover their eyes from passing through the dimensional space. So, the sun seemed tame in comparison to what they had to go through there.

“Ah man!” Zen stretched his hands as if he felt sore. “I feel stiff!”

“Why are you making complaints when it was Lagron and Lucky that fought so hard?” His wife, Sasha asked while looking at her husband crossly.

“Oh, come on, Sasha,” he tried to reason with her. “I practically did nothing and just stood there watching them fight.”

“Oh! So, you’re saying you got tired by doing nothing?” She asked him, looking bemused. “In that case, you can come and help me with cleaning the dishes the next time you feel like that.”

“Ah!” Zen exclaimed, looking alarmed and quickly making a pleading posture to his wife. “Please, Sasha! Anything but that! I’m not cut out for that sort of work!”

Their exchange made everyone laugh, and they talked about what they were going to do next. Marilia said she would stay for a while at the Chand’s house and so did Dominic, Shalany, Nara and Valerian. Amaranda said they would return to the Spirit Turtle while Lagron merely nodded his head in agreement without looking at anyone. Zen, with a scowling Sasha, said they would return to the Floria Kingdom to resume their work, with Wolfenstine following their sentiment by saying he wanted to return to his workshop as Lina also wanted to return to the Astral Academy to get back to her studies.

“Alright. I’ll see you later then,” said Lakshman to the others as they were about to depart from there.

It was at that moment that every one of them heard a sinister voice reverberate through their minds.

“Found you.”

An instant later, all of them sensed an enormous build up of energy gathering in the sky, and they saw an enormous ball of energy form within seconds that hid the sun and blackened the sky. Everyone stared up at the enormous black ball of energy with horrified expressions and before they could do anything, the gigantic energy ball began descending towards the ground rapidly.

“Oh no!”

“What the hell?!”

“It’s going to hit us!”

“We need to escape!”

“We can’t!” Lakshman shouted, staying calm as best as he could despite the tough situation they were faced with.

“But, Lucky! That ball will destroy this whole place if it hits!” Dominic said, hurrying over to him. “You sense how much energy is in there, right?!”

“I know that!” His best friend rounded on him, startling the Sword Titan. “But you don’t seem to realise that this isn’t the only place that’ll get destroyed! If it hits, the entire Floria Kingdom and all nearby areas will be destroyed!”

“It’ll be just like what happened at Rodfox Kingdom!” He finished in his mind, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists tightly as he looked up at the rapidly descending massive black ball of destruction.

Everyone was shocked upon hearing his assessment of the damage, and they soon realized after quick thinking that he was right. This meant that they had to stand their ground and do their best to destroy that enormous attack at any cost.

“Alright then!” Dominic said, pulling out his sword in preparation to fight.

“Let’s do this!” Nara said, punching his fists together with a grin on his face.

“We better get the ladies into the house and reinforce it with barriers,” suggested Zen as he looked at his wife, who was looking scared.

At that moment, they heard Lakshman say, “No. Everyone goes.”

“Huh?”

That was their reaction when an energy hand suddenly flew out from behind and grabbed their bodies tightly. Unable to fight against the strong grip, they were flown into the house and placed pinned to the ground. Lakshman had activated Elemental Coated Armour without their notice and moved his family, friends, and colleagues into his house. As he had them pinned to the floor, he looked at Lagron, who had deflected it and was looking up at the attack.

“Lagron?”

“Don’t even bother trying,” said Lagron, and he turned to smile confidently at his rival. “I know what you’re up to. If all of us did stop this thing together, it would’ve taken a lot out of us and leave us really tired. Obviously, this isn’t the end with us destroying it as there’ll always be a follow up to this kind of sneaky attacks! So, you want to leave them to fight whatever that might come after this. Am I right?”

At his question, Lakshman could only shake his head and say, “I can never hide my intentions from you.”

The two ancient rivals smiled at each other as the tension between them was a thing of the past as they decided to work together like they did in the past. So, only they remained out on the field while everyone else was tossed into the house before Lakshman erected a powerful barrier that kept the people on the inside from breaking out easily.

Lakshman clenched his fists tightly and let out a scream as he transformed into his final form. In this form, he looked up and raised his hand to aim it at the incoming massive attack before chanting the spell out loud.

“Maga Distrab!”

In an instant, his magic activated and swept forward to cancel and destroy whatever spell was being used against it. However, there was a loud sound of breaking glass but his spell got destroyed instead while leaving the attack intact.

“What?!” He exclaimed, looking shocked while widening his eyes. “Anti-counter shielding?!”

Lagron chuckled and said, “As I expected. Your counter spell hasn’t changed one bit since then. You’ve got to upgrade it. Seriously!”

“I’ll seriously consider doing that after we get through this mess!” Lakshman replied firmly.

As the attack descended, Lagron sighed and said, “I guess we got to do this the old-fashioned way!”

“In that case, let’s give it our all!”

“Definitely!”

With that, the two warriors began to power up to their very maximum, as Lagron transformed into his Dragon Fighter Form. Then the two took fighting forms by channeling all the energy they could muster into the palms of their hands. As they did, they began to chant the spell name with each position they took for the full power of their attacks to happen.

“Phonik!”

“Dragon!”

“Ala!”

“Buster!”

“Chala!”

“Drive!”

“RRRRRRAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

“CCCCAAAAANNNNNNOOOOOOONNNNNNNNN!!!!!!”

As the two warriors let out a mighty roar, they brought their palms forward and unleashed two immensely powerful red and blue waves of destruction at the incoming attack. The two attacks rocketed into the sky and seemingly converged to become one massive wave of destruction before flying and crashing into the massive energy ball of destruction.

On making contact, the two warriors suddenly felt a powerful force behind the attack and a heavy amount of resistance and began to struggle against it. Their friends and families sensed their struggle were shouting from inside the house in support and asking them to let them help. However, Lakshman and Lagron both ignored them and continued focusing all of their senses and energies at the single attack that was descending down on top of them.

They gathered all the energy they had and channeled it into their attacks. With their waves combining and increasing with additional supply of energy, the power of the single wave increased dramatically. As such, the massive attack soon came to a stop and slowly began to get pushed back. Soon, speed of the attack going backwards increased quickly as the opposing wave of destruction was pushed back with immense force.

“There it goes!” Lagron shouted triumphantly as the attack started flying backwards.

Just when it looked like they were succeeding, they heard the same sinister voices reverberate in their minds.

“If one is not enough, how about another?”

As it issued a dreadful question, the two warriors suddenly stiffened when they sensed yet another massive build up of energy from high above. A moment later, a similar looking enormous ball of energy formed and began to descend towards them. As it came, it collided against the first unleashed attack and began to push it back on its original course to hit its target.

The two mighty warriors suddenly felt an even more pressure than before and felt a heavy amount of resistance by the two massive balls of destruction. While this was happening, the winds blew wildly around them as the shock waves sent everywhere uprooted the trees and began to break and destroy the land near the ocean as the ground shook violently. Soon, even the warriors began to struggle in keeping their position as their feet dug into the ground and began to get pushed back while leaving deep grooves behind.

“Dammit!” Lagron yelled as he struggled against the two attacks.

Like him, Lakshman, too, was struggling against the wave, but he did not say anything. He was thinking back to the attack that had wiped out the Rodfox Kingdom, killed millions of innocent lives, including his parents. Now, twelve years later, he was present to face yet another attack, which was several times deadlier than the attack fired by the Calamity Titan, and if he and Lagron did not stop it, everyone there, including the whole kingdom, would be destroyed.

In a brief moment, flashes of the people he met, loved, cared about, befriended, and worked together with, flashed in his mind as all of them were panicking and were very afraid of what was suddenly happening in the vicinity. Then the images of the people that had died, those that he befriended, the monsters he rescued, and the faces of his parents that he failed to protect flashed in his mind.

“Are you going to lose?” Asked a familiar voice.

Surprised, he opened his eyes and turned to his left to see the ghostly figure of his childhood friend, Stuart, hovering above the ground. He was looking at him with a sad expression as he seemed to have no hope after seeing their desperate struggle against this seemingly unstoppable attack.

“If only you were at full power,” he remarked sadly before saying defeatedly, “It’s hopeless.”

That was when something inside Lakshman snapped and made him, once again, remember the faces of his parents and remember what he had witnessed in Mariana’s memories. The horrible destruction that seemed like there was no end to it until it consumed and annihilated everything in its path, and the same thing would happen to them if they were to fail.

“Fail?” Lakshman thought in surprise.

The sudden feeling shocked him as he remembered all the times he had failed before. It made him infuriated, and it was this fury that began to ignite his feelings of not wanting to give up no matter what. He swore he would not fail again; he swore in the Astral World that there would not be a next time, and this was the time for him to take action.

“It’s not over!” He said in a firm voice, which made Stuart look at him in surprise. Taking a deep breath, he shouted, “THERE. IS. NO. WAY. I’LL. LET. THAT. TRAGEDY. HAPPEN. AGAIN!!!!!”

With a roar, more and more energy began to be output into his attack as he shouted, “Maximum Release!”

In an instant, he began to surge with an explosive amount of power that channeled into his attack, which dramatically increased its size and power. Lagron saw him releasing every single ounce of energy he got and nodded in agreement as he, too, decided to do the same.

“Dragon Drive: All Out!” He yelled, and there was an unbelievable amount of power released from him that fueled his attack, increasing its density immensely.

Their combined attacks stopped both of the incoming attacks and began to push them back. The two ancient rivals and friends roared by sending every bit of all the energy they got to power their waves in pushing them back even faster. As the two waves got pushed back with immense force and went further and further away from them, the same chilling voice snickered before a violent spark occurred in what seemed like the two balls of destruction had exploded, which caused everything to get blinded by a blinding flash of light.

Somewhere, far away, in a dark room sat someone who had a large crystal ball hovering in front of them. They appeared to be watching the struggle of the Phoenix Titan and the Dragon Titan against the two waves. Letting out a sinister chuckle, the man raised his right hand and poked the crystal ball.

In an instant, the two balls of destruction were suddenly enveloped in a bright flash of light before the crystal ball cracked and exploded into countless pieces. The floor was soon littered with broken shards of glass, but the person hidden in the shadows did not care. He looked towards what appeared to be a number of people positioned in attention as they clearly waited for his orders.

He opened his mouth and issued them their orders in a cold chilling voice that would curdle the listener’s blood.

“Proceed with Plan Z.”