“There he is!” Spotting the Wave line of the communication Cast activating from Zmey, Augen plunged himself through the layers of snakes and grasped his hands around Zmey’s body as the latter splattered a cloud of venom all over his face. However, the Rupturing Armor vaporized Zmey’s desperate attacks easily with small pieces of flash burning out from Zmey’s neck.

“It’s too late now…” Zmey laughed maniacally even as blood streamed down his neck while he looked at Augen’s distorted face through the Rupturing armor, “She’s dead! She is DEAD! And that’s because of you!”

“I trust that my friends would have saved her.” Augen said, feeling more and more snakes latching onto his hands and fingers and trying to pull them apart and free Zmey, “Just as I will do my job to take you down, she will do her job to save Tonya.”

“But you don’t know, do you? There's no way you really know.” Zmey sensed the hesitation and pain in Augen’s voice as he taunted further, "And you wondered if I could retract my order, which is why you haven't killed me. You are bound, as much as she was."

Augen roared with rage before he swung around, throwing Zmey’s body through rows of tents as he slammed his back straight against one of the wooden columns. With a pained grunt, Zmey pressed himself up as blood stained the front of his armor. However, before he could sneak in another breathe, Augen’s outlines appeared right over him, and he picked him up by the jaw before he clubbed him straight across with his Rupturing Armor deactivated at the hands.

However, with each hit, Zmey simply relished the pain more, and his laughs echoed through the streets of the Dune's Hive.

“Stay away from him!” Voices of the people's shouts drew Augen’s attention as he turned to sense the Wave signatures of the Dune’s Hive crowds slowly surrounding him, “Leave him alone, you assassin!”

“Get away from him!” One kid shouted, throwing a rock in Augen’s way as it was immediately disintegrated by his armor, “Stay away from our protector!”

“Don’t get close! He’s too dangerous!” Zmey said, his voice suddenly channeled into a heroic tone, “Don’t you dare touch my people! Your target is me!”

Augen cursed and backed away from Zmey. He’s obviously not going to attack the regular citizens of the Dune’s Hive, no matter how misguided they may be from Zmey’s manipulation. At the end of the day, he was still the one to protect them, and he was still important to them, as far as they knew. But if he just let Zmey get away with the attack on the Dune’s Diamond and threats on Tonya’s life…will there ever be an end to this conflict? Will the Dune's Diamond finally get fed up and decide to erase the entirety of the Dune's Hive?

As Zmey stood across from him with his snakes slowly surrounding Augen, whose obscured face didn't exactly help with how the people interpreted his intentions. He knew that this is a crucial moment in the history between Dune’s Hive and Dune’s Diamond, and his decisions and actions are going to drive the future trajectories of these two cities one way or another. Right now, he's acting as a representative of Tonya's lineage, not an agent of vengeance.

“My name is Augen Zuku!” Augen said slowly, lowering his Rupturing Armor and revealing his true body and face to the rest of the citizens of the Dune’s Hive as he took off the bandanna, revealing the scarring of his eyes underneath, “I have come here not to seek out a battle against Zmey Korol, your beloved protector, and leader, but to save the people of the Dune’s Diamond, against which Zmey had already organized an attack for.”

“They don’t care about us!” Another older woman shouted from across the yard, “If they do, then that old slimy bastard will have given us all the water we needed like all of those years prior! If they had, then we wouldn’t have needed Zmey to protect us from all of the bandits that spun out from the Dune’s Diamond!”

“Things will change!” Augen declared, “I know it will because my friends had found a way to work around the matter of water! I will make that old man Zhad distribute the resources fairly and according to whatever agreements you once had.”

“Those are just words!” Another village man pointed, “You have come in here and attacked our people, and you think you can just get away from this?!”

“These are not just any ordinary words…no…” Augen looked down at Zmey, “I don’t suppose you told your people about the Water farm that had dealt with the issues of the drought back in the Dune’s Diamond or the fact that the surviving princess of Necrovia was once in this camp? The fact that there's a better way, yet you decided to keep it a secret for yourself?”

"You think you words hold any meaning here?" Zmey declared, "The Dune's Diamond had been oppressing our people for far too long, and you think you can change that? The princess was never here, or else I certainly would have let the people know. Just another lie from the agents of the Dune's Diamond."

"If that's the case, then why would you raise an army greater than anything you've done before? Why would you incite a change without the Dune's Diamond having a change?" Augen pressed as Zmey ground his teeth together, “The reason that you hid the truth away from your people…the ones you swore to protect and serve, was it because it’s so that you can keep up with your accumulation of wealth and power?! Was it because you can stay on top once the crisis is resolved?! Perhaps, you never wanted the crisis to be averted.”

Augen pressed further as Zmey’s breaths became rapid, and he looked at the people that once had his back as clouds of doubt now filled their eyes.

“You are just spilling bullshit!” Zmey shouted, marching forward and pushing Augen back, “You know nothing of what I have done for these people!”

“And what are you going to do for them?” Augen asked, “Conscript them into war, make them fight your battle, and have them as stepping stones for your own ambition?! Even when there's going to be a better way? Do you enjoy standing on top of them, being their god?”

“Shut up!” Zmey slammed both fists down to his side as the snakes all joined around him, forming a tight snake mecha armor around hs body as a few of the snakes rammed through the crowds before joining by his side. Then, Zmey slowly rose through the air, supported by the snake as they combined to form a living armor around his body, “Any more words come out of your mouth, and you are dead!”

“Not so heroic now, are you?” Augen teased, looking towards his people, “I am with the surviving princess of the Glaza family, and I assure you all, that a better day will come.”

“How can you fulfill that promise?” One of the grandmas stepped forward, “We were promised so much, yet at the end of the day…we had always been on our own.”

“Because Zhad Glaza needed the support of the princess.” Augen said, “Truth be told. When Tonya and I were sent for this mission to investigate the rumored rebellion here at the Dune’s Hive, I was expecting a hostile village, not a gathering of people that symbolizes unity and perseverance. She saw the beauty in this town, and she will fight to save it. When she returned safely to Chad Glaza, she will make sure that a significant portion of the resources and wealth will be redistributed!”

“LIES!” Zmey declared, “You trust the word of an outsider when I had been here all this time?!”

“Give them a chance!” Augen shouted, “Give peace a chance! Give change a chance! Only those that wanted the status quo to stay the same will oppose such opportunities and possibilities!”

“No more from you.” Zmey shook his head when he raised his hand, controlling the snake mecha as the ball of snakes slammed to the ground where Augen was standing at. The snakes at the bottom exploded upon the impact, splattering their venom and blood everywhere as Augen darted out of the way.

Then, Zmey formed a whip from the entangled bodies of the snake before he swung it around with the utmost killing intent, the whip’s body sweeping and breaking down the houses nearby.

“HEY! MY HOUSE!” One of the villagers shouted as the gathering crowd scattered and ran for their lives.

“It will be put back together.” Zmey said, lunging forward as his snake mecha chased Augen through the streets with its gigantic body slamming through rows of houses and tents, "But he must die."

“Watch out!” Augen shouted, picking up one of the falling kids by the hand before conjuring an ice slide and shoving them to the waiting arms of her parents as the feet of the snake mecha stomped straight through his body.

“You would have killed her!” The dad of the child protested angrily when Zmey straight-up ignored him and continued pounding into the body of Augen as the snakes became eviscerated by his Rupturing Armor.

“DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!” Zmey growled, his voice echoing through the streets, “You and any one of your allies will all die! The Dune’s Hive belonged to me! Do you understand?! It belonged to ME!”

“No, it belonged to the people,” Augen said, pressing himself up as the Rupturing Armor continued to tear through everything around him. He stood up, facing against the next hit from Zmey’s snake mecha before he put a hand up, the semi-transparent silver surrounding his body suddenly turning grey, “Forbidden Autumn…Decaying Armor!”

In an instant, the Wave of corrosion and decay spread from one snake to the other, propagating rapidly through Zmey’s entire mecha before it crumbled down into dust as Zmey fell onto the ground. Then, as the wave of decay came for his body, he panicked and started running for his life when he ran through the people that once worshipped him.

“Let me go! Get out of my way!” He declared, raising his fist when Augen reached behind him and caught it.

“You don’t want to do this…” He said as Zmey suddenly spun around, kicking him in the stomach and sending him stumbling back, and his eyes were wide and full of panick.

“You! Shut up!” Zmey cursed, turning back and pointing at the citizens, “You ungrateful fucks! I saved you all this time, yet you turn on me on a dime like now?”

“That’s enough, Zmey…” One grandma said while holding onto her walking cane and stepping between Augen and Zmey, “Your rampage had already destroyed enough of this town…Please stop fighting.”

"Shut it, geezer." Zmey's fists became clenched, and a blade suddenly became unveiled from his wrists before he charged straight at the old woman, intending to step through her and Augen all of at the same time. However, before the blade could connect, Augen's hands reached around the old woman before the tip of the blade softened and turned into dust the moment it made contact with his palm, and the decaying wave rapidly traveled up Zmey’s arm as large chunks of flesh started to turn black and fall from his body.

“SCREW YOU!” Zmey screamed, grabbing onto his rotting shoulder girdle as the decay continued spreading all throughout his body, “You will never win! She is already dead! HAHAHAHA! The Dune’s Hive will never be at peace without me, and that's your fault!”

“In that case, then everything I said then is true...” Augen simply faced him, and he waited as Zmey’s presence in the Wave slowly started to fade into obscurity before finally deactivating his Forbidden Autumn cast, "Even though I had hoped for something different..."

The crowd gathered around the remains of Zmey, and they helped to walk the old woman to the side as Augen lowered his corrupting armor.

That was when the rustling of snakes started to fill the air, and all of the snakes around the settlements entered into a frenzy before they swirled around and encircled Augen and those that stood around him.

When the first snake lunged towards the villagers and bit into his legs and started ripping it apart, Augen’s heart started to sink.

With that, Zmey's final act had begun, and if he cannot have the Dune's Hive, nobody can.