CHAPTER SIXTY-ONEPrimordials 2The sky did not just thunder.It screamed. Muri and Kael'Tharos stood a mile above the ocean, trading blows in the kind of silence that exists only between two things too fast for sound to track. Every exchange came with a crack that was not like a whip, not like thunder, but like the sky itself splitting open. Shockwaves rippled out in visible circles, flattening clouds and disturbing the sea below.Kael'Tharos fought like a man who had spent centuries studying violence as a science. His fists moved in tight, small arcs, each punch a precise strike aimed at the smallest cracks of Muri's guard. He dodged Muri's jabs with small shifts of his shoulders, countered with hooks that carried the heat of dying stars."Come on, blind one," he taunted, weaving through Muri's swings."Is that all the Warden's power does for you? You hit like a girl." He laughs.Muri said nothing but threw a straight right. Kael'Tharos caught it on his forearm and shoved him bac

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREEIntervention The Fragment Soldiers walked into the fight believing that they were ready. They had spent years hunting fragments, stealing miniscule lost essence and grafting god-blood into their spines. Each one carried a sliver of a Primordial's soul in their chest and wore it like armor. It made them faster, sharper, harder to kill and gave them abilities they only had imagined in their childhood. It made them believe they could stand face-to-face with a god and not flinch.The eight who charged and pushed to the front of the battle were the proof. Hammer and Anvil moved with the ease of soldiers who had fought together for a century, Gale and Skyrend dropped from the sky in perfect formation. Cinder and Furnace walked through flames that should have consumed them and lastly, Boulder and Quake struck the waves with their fists and made the water tremble.They looked at the three Primordials waiting for them and did not retreat but charging in bravely, they atta