The Coliseum shook underneath their feet.

  Every step, every strike and every clash of flesh and scale sent tremors rippling through what had once been the Pride of Khaitish. Lukas and Rowan were no longer merely warriors; they were forces of nature given form, two titans colliding under the weight of ancient power.

  They moved in blurs. One moment they were human, the next they were draconic, then human again.

  Each transformation carried a violent burst of power, wind spiraling outward, stone and dust torn up in cyclones.

  To the naked eye, they were streaks of golden and azure blue light colliding again and again, their blows sounding like explosions of power within the empty Coliseum. The crowd had long since been evacuated, but their absence did nothing to dull the sense of awe in the air. Even the empty stands seemed to tremble in reverence.

  Lukas should have dominated Rowan when it came to physicality alone. His mastery over the Draconic Flow and the Internal Arts that surged within him made him nearly unstoppable but Rowan was somehow keeping up. But in reality, the beastman was simply slowing Lukas down.

  The first time it happened, Lukas barely noticed. He had shrunk back into his humanoid form to dodge a sweeping claw, only to find his body pulled forward again, scales tearing back across his skin as the transformation was undone before it could be completed. A breath later, Rowan’s knee drove into his chest, sending him crashing through a shattered column. The beastman had known exactly when his body would shift as if he were reading the rhythm of Lukas' Draconic Flow.

  Each time Lukas sought to retreat, to create distance by reducing his stature, his body betrayed him—the transition from dragon to man abruptly undone by Rowan’s manipulation, allowing the beastman to deliver blows that should have never landed. And when Lukas tried to close in, expanding into his draconic form to strike with overwhelming force, the transformation was once again reversed before completion, leaving his strikes short of finding its mark.

  The Reversal of the Draconic Flow was one that made it impossible for Lukas to challenge Rowan in this manner. And Rowan's mastery over it was not something that could be taught or even imitated. All of it required perfect timing and coordination, born from instinct. With the Eyes of the Morning, the beastman had refined that instinct into his weapon.

  Lukas gritted his teeth as he steadied himself. His every attempt to build momentum was being unraveled, his every transformation turned against him.

  Every impact that struck true carried the unspoken message that Rowan wished for Lukas to receive.

  The King of the Dragons was not in control of this fight.

  The arena could barely contain them. Their battle spilled from one end of the Coliseum to the other, two streaks of pure power carving through space. When their bodies collided, entire sections of the arena wall shattered like glass. When they missed, the sheer pressure of their movement sent shockwaves that split the stone beneath their feet.

  Rowan's expression was calm but his movements fueled by something primal and relentless. Lukas could feel the Monarch's will bleeding into Rowan’s every strike.

  But even then, Lukas had already begun to adapt to Rowan's Reversal.

  Slowly but surely, Lukas had begun to erase the little advantage that Rowan had created. And it was then the beastman realized that he would need more than just the Draconic Flow to even stand a chance at defeating Lukas.

  Everything had a flow to it. That was the foundation of Rowan's power.

  Every movement, every shift of energy, every flicker of intent carried a rhythm, an invisible current that tied one motion to the next. And Rowan could see it. The Eyes of the Morning granted him sight into that hidden world, a perception that stripped away the boundaries between motion, magic and meaning. If Rowan could see that flow, then he could study it. If he could study it, he could imitate it. The beastman had proven it with the Reversal of the Draconic Flow.

  But that was only the beginning.

  Lukas slashed forward, finally closing the distance that Rowan had desperately tried to create. The strike should have cleaved through flesh and bone, regardless of what form that the beastman wished to take, yet his talons met only water.

  Rowan’s body blurred, fluid and transient, his form dissolving like mist before solidifying again behind Lukas.

  It was familiar. Too familiar.

  He had seen this before. He had seen it in the worlds within the Crest.

  Memories surfaced in Lukas' mind, memories of battles fought within the Crest, where the Monarch’s power had once tested him beyond the limits of reason. Those fights had seemed eternal, stretching across lifetimes, every second a trial carved into his soul. The Monarch’s fighting style had been unlike any other—unrestrained and unrelenting. There had been no elegance, no deliberate restraint or measured grace.

  It was the art of annihilation, of domination through pure overwhelming presence.

  That was the art that Rowan had chosen to practice.

  Caution was an afterthought.

  There could be no hesitation.

  Every movement was driven by instinct sharpened to a killing edge. The Monarch had not relied on spells, nor on divine incantations. His strength came from his body—from the unceasing rhythm of motion, the merciless crashing of fists, claws, and tail. He fought like a storm breaking upon the earth, relentless and endless, the embodiment of motion given violent form. And now, that same rhythm lived through Rowan.

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  The beastman surged forward, closing the gap with terrifying precision. Lukas barely had time to draw breath before Rowan’s knee struck his ribs, his elbow followed through toward his throat, and a clawed hand swept for his spine. The Eyes of the Morning guided him through that dance of chaos, letting him read the flow of Lukas’ intent before the movements even began.

  Just like the Monarch, Rowan thrived in proximity.

  The beastman wanted to be close enough to breathe the same air, to force Lukas into a space where there was no time to think, no room to recover.

  It was just like fighting the Monarch all over again.

  The old Dragon had Lord forced his opponents into a rhythm they could not escape, until every movement became a reaction, every breath a desperate attempt to survive.

  But Lukas had once broken that rhythm.

  The Monarch had never learned the Draconic Flow for he believed in the supremacy of his draconic vessel. For that very reason, the Draconic Flow had been Lukas' salvation, his means to push back against an overwhelming tide. Yet now, as Rowan’s fists blurred before his eyes, that salvation betrayed him. Every time he attempted to reassert control, to invoke the Flow, Rowan reversed it—unraveling his transitions, dismantling his technique before it could take hold.

  But Rowan, with the Eyes of the Morning, dismantled it and had now made it his own.

  The Coliseum groaned under the weight of their battle. Stone fractured, pillars split, and entire sections of the structure crumbled into heaps of dust and rubble. The arena that had once been a place of glory and honour was now a graveyard of shattered stone and roaring energy.

  But Lukas refused to let himself fall into despair. He could not.

  For the only thing that awaited him within those depths of that despair was the same rage that now plagued the beastman before him.

  Lukas had fallen once before, in the Crest, when the Monarch had driven him past sanity and shattered his sense of self, leaving him to drown in his own fear and malice.

  From that fear emerged a never-ending need for more strength, more power.

  Lukas could not allow that to happen to him ever again.

  Rowan pressed forward with his assault, merciless and precise, every movement a mirror of the Monarch’s ancient power.

  The truth was that Lukas could have killed him at any moment. It was he who was hesitant to fight. Because the Head of the Morningeyes Clan, Conqueror and King of Khaitish, the beastman Lukas had once called his friend was slowly slipping away.

  Lukas could see it now with painful clarity.

  The spark in Rowan's eyes, that unique identity that made the beatman who he was, was turning into something else, into that same blinding rage that had once consumed the Monarch himself.

  Rowan was losing himself just like Lukas had lost himself in the Crest.

  If not for Styx who had been his anchor, if not for Thalarion’s wisdom and guidance, Lukas would have become no different than the Hydra. Reduced to a creature of pure instinct, stripped of will and thought, devoured by the current of his own power.

  Now, watching Rowan fight, Lukas saw that same abyss reflected back at him.

  In the magical glow of the beastman’s eyes—the Eyes of the Morning, now burning like molten gold—he saw the gradual unmaking of his soul. The flow of energy within Rowan pulsed erratically, like a storm devouring itself, each surge of strength pulling him further and further away from the person he had once been. The beastman’s sense of self—everything that made the beastman himself—was being drowned beneath the Monarch’s fury.

  The Rowan Lukas had known was slipping away.

  Perhaps the Monarch truly did care for the beastman. Lukas had never doubted that there was a bond between the ancient Dragon Lord and the Conqueror of Khaitish. After all, it was Rowan’s body that had allowed the Monarch’s soul to remain tethered to the Land of the Living. That bond, however genuine, had allowed the Monarch’s rage to spread like a disease through it. It had turned Rowan’s strength into cruelty, his conviction into wrath.

  It was turning the Conqueror into a Monarch. But it did not have to be that way.

  Lukas refused to believe it.

  The Monarch had asked Rowan why he should save those who did not wish to be saved. But what the Monarch never understood—what Lukas had come to learn across two lifetimes, through death and rebirth—was this.

  Sometimes, people did not know they needed saving.

  Sometimes, they needed someone to see them drowning before they even realized they were being pulled beneath the surface.

  “Rowan!” The scream tore through Lukas’s chest, raw and desperate, echoing across the ruins of the Coliseum. He drove forward, their bodies crashing into the stands, and for a single heartbeat, he managed to pin the beastman down; stone shattering beneath the weight of his power.

  “Please!” Lukas roared, voice breaking under the strain, not from exhaustion, but from grief.

  For just that moment, the fury in Rowan’s movements faltered. His body stilled, his claws trembling against Lukas’s grip. The sound of that plea—the vulnerability in it—tore through even the Monarch’s influence.

  “You do not know what I have been through!” Rowan's voice filled with anguish. “You do not understand what I have lost!”

  Their bodies slammed into the cracked stone walls of the Coliseum, sand and debris cascading around them like a storm. Lukas refused to let go, his hands gripped onto the beastman's shoulders, holding on as if sheer will could anchor his friend’s fading soul.

  Then, a radiant light began to rise. Magical energy flared between them, blinding in its brilliance. It was the power of the Crown and its glow could be seen even by those without the Eyes of the Morning. It spread across the battlefield like dawn breaking after endless night, its light touching everything in sight.

  But it reached not for the body, but for the mind. It reached for Rowan's mind.

  Through their connection, Lukas could feel Rowan’s pain, his fury, his grief. And in that single moment, Lukas understood that Rowan was right. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t. Not yet.

  But he could try.

  He had to try.

  Lukas met Rowan’s burning gaze, his voice steady as he spoke to not the Monarch whose rage threatened to overwhelm his soul, but the beastman who he had first crossed paths with in the Inner Cities of Nozar.

  “Then show me. Show me your pain, Rowan."

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