Extra's POV: I am the Sixteenth Son

The world of Ascalon had several governing rules that determined who survived and who didn't. One of them, in fact, the most important rule, was power.

Power to conquer one's foes, power to stand at the top, power to rule an empire, and power to wreak havoc. It was survival of the fittest. Only the strong decided how the world would progress.

To ensure one had such power, they would have to climb the peak to seek strength. Domain, total strength, total power, absolute power.

The power to kill hundreds with just the flick of a wrist. This was the height of a Grandmaster's strength and the qualification one needed to reach that rank.

Elowen had said this very word, and it would now decide the direction of their clash.

The earth didn't just ripple, it screamed. Cracks shot across its surface like lightning made of stone, splitting the battlefield into a web of jagged scars. The wind grew dense, thick as blood, pressing against everything until even breathing became a struggle.

From where Elowen stood, a spiraling vortex erupted like a tornado made of pure fury. It lifted her toward the sky, her hair whipping around her face like silver flames. The wind cut through everything for about 200 meters, leaving deep gouges in the earth before stopping with an almost musical hum.

Then the impossible happened.

The ground below didn't just rise, it tore itself apart with the sound of a thousand stones grinding together. Massive chunks of earth floated upward like islands being born from chaos. It was as though invisible hands had grabbed the very fabric of reality and pulled it into a new shape.

The earth below began to dissolve into floating platforms while clouds rushed in to fill the empty spaces like hungry ghosts. The edges of this strange new world began to solidify, forming a cocoon that sealed them both away from everything else.

This was Elowen's fighting chance, a world carved from her own will. Her Domain. And Roch was trapped inside it like a fly in amber.

Elowen floated in mid-air beside a core of pure light that pulsed like a heartbeat. The ground where Roch stood bucked and rolled like a wild horse, throwing him off balance again and again. His usual stone-cold expression cracked like a mask, replaced by something that looked almost like... fear?

Finally, Elowen spoke with the voice of a goddess.

"This is my Domain, Skyborne Dominion. You pushed me this far, so I'm giving you what you want, a proper response."

Roch's face was a mask, but sweat beaded on his forehead. Anyone with eyes could see he was struggling now. Elowen waved her hand, and the wind around her began to swirl with a whitish color that looked solid enough to touch. Three bird constructs formed from the spinning air, massive things with wings like sword blades. Elowen stood on one while the other two dove toward Roch like hunting eagles.

The two bird constructs shot forward with the speed of arrows, their wings cutting through the air with a sound like tearing silk. Roch didn't flinch, just raised his palm and pushed it forward. A force exploded from his hand like an invisible cannonball, hitting the two constructs and shattering them into wisps of wind.

But they reformed instantly, flowing back together like liquid mercury, and zoomed past Roch. Their wing-tips left deep slashes across both sides of his body, painting his golden robes crimson.

With a grunt that sounded more like a growl, Roch staggered to one knee. He had underestimated the raw power of Elowen's Domain, thinking his experience would be enough. But the commander was really an Eisenklinge, the bloodline that spat in the face of the world's laws.

Blood dripped from his wounds onto the unstable ground, each drop sizzling as it hit. "Well," he muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, "this is turning out to be more entertaining than I expected."

– – –

Erik ran like death itself was chasing him, because it was.

His legs pounded against the earth, each step sending shockwaves up through his bones. His breath came in ragged gasps that tasted of blood and terror. Behind him, the screams of dying soldiers still echoed in his ears. Ashlin was gone. Dorian and Eoin too. His heart felt like it had been ripped from his chest, but his body refused to stop moving.

Then, as he reached the tree line, he felt it.

The wind.

It didn't just blow, it howled past him like the voice of some ancient god, carrying with it pressure so intense it made his eardrums throb. The trees around him bent like they were bowing, their branches creaking and groaning in protest. Erik skidded to a halt, his survival instincts screaming at him to run, but his eyes refusing to look away.

He turned, just once, to look back.

And there it was.

The cocoon.

A massive sphere of churning wind and light that looked like a storm god's egg, spinning in the air above the battlefield. It hovered off the ground, defying gravity through sheer force of will. Lightning flickered across its surface like veins of pure power.

Even from this distance, Erik could feel it in his bones, a pressure that made his teeth ache and his vision blur at the edges. The air itself seemed to vibrate with barely contained violence.

A Domain.

"Commander..." he whispered, his voice barely audible over the supernatural wind. His throat felt raw, like he'd been screaming for hours.

Then he turned and kept running, his legs pumping like pistons.

Because now, the battlefield no longer belonged to soldiers. It belonged to gods playing with forces that could reshape the world.

– – –

Roch had been thrown around like a rag doll and was now painted red from head to toe. He was down on one knee, gasping for air like a drowning man, a far cry from his earlier unshakable composure.

But his eyes... his eyes were different now. They burned with something that looked almost like excitement.

He had had enough of playing defense.

Right now, his fist was clenched so tight his knuckles had turned bone white. He looked Elowen straight in the eyes, and slowly, deliberately, his lips curved into a predator's grin.

There was one reason he had taken everything she'd thrown at him, he was testing the waters, seeing how deep they ran. Could he win against her in a clash of Domains? That question had been eating at his mind like acid, but now he had his answer.

Yes. Elowen was stronger than most newly awakened Grandmasters, but she was still newly awakened. Still inexperienced. Still vulnerable.

He would teach her what real power looked like.

His entire demeanor changed in the span of a heartbeat, from wounded prey to apex predator. And then the words Elowen never thought she would hear escaped his mouth like a curse.

"Domain!"

The moment he spoke, the world exploded into chaos.

Inside Elowen's sealed cocoon, reality began to tear itself apart. Her sky-blue domain started to crack like glass under pressure, dark veins spreading across its surface like infection. The floating platforms beneath her began to shake and groan as something else, something foreign and hostile, pushed against her reality from within.

A deep metallic hum filled the air, like the sound of a thousand swords being drawn at once. The wind itself seemed to grow heavier, denser, as if iron dust was mixing with every breath.

Elowen's eyes went wide as she felt it, another Domain, expanding inside her own like a tumor made of pure will.

"Impossible," she breathed, her voice barely a whisper. "You can't activate a Domain inside another Domain!"

Roch's grin widened as he slowly stood up, his wounds still bleeding but his confidence returning like a tide. "Oh, but I can. You see, little girl, experience isn't just about time, it's about understanding. And I understand something you don't."

Around him, the air began to shimmer with heat waves. Tiny metal fragments started appearing out of nowhere, bits of iron, steel, and other metals that seemed to be pulled from the very atoms in the air. They began to orbit around him like a miniature solar system, each piece humming with magnetic energy that made the air itself vibrate.

"Two Domains can't occupy the same space," Roch continued, his voice growing stronger with each word. "So when they try to..." He snapped his fingers with a sound like breaking bones.

The collision was instant and devastating.

Elowen's sky-blue world cracked like an eggshell hit by a hammer. Dark fractures spread across her floating platforms, and several of them simply shattered, falling into the void below with sounds like thunder. The wind that had been under her complete control began to spiral chaotically, no longer obeying her will.

Where Roch stood, a sphere of twisted metal and magnetic force expanded outward like a cancer. This was his Domain, Polarity Crucible. It was smaller than Elowen's, but it was dense, focused, and absolutely brutal in its efficiency.

The two Domains didn't merge, they went to war. Every inch of space became a battlefield where wind clashed with metal, where Elowen's flowing sky met Roch's rigid magnetic field. The very air crackled with the tension of two gods trying to sit on the same throne.

Elowen gasped as she felt her Domain being pushed back, compressed. It was like trying to hold back an avalanche with her bare hands while the mountain itself was falling on top of her.

"This is what a real Domain clash feels like," Roch said, his voice echoing strangely in the conflicted space. "Your pretty sky is no match for my crucible."

But Elowen wasn't about to roll over and die.

She gritted her teeth, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth as she poured more power into her Domain. The wind around her began to spin faster, forming a tornado of pure force that pushed back against Roch's magnetic field like a battering ram.

"You want to see what my sky can do?" she snarled, her voice carrying across both Domains with the force of a hurricane. "Then let me show you what a real storm looks like!"

Three more bird constructs formed from the chaotic wind, but these were different, larger, more solid, and crackling with compressed air that looked sharp enough to cut through steel. They dove toward Roch like missiles fired from the gods themselves.

Roch raised his hand, and the metal fragments around him formed a shield that gleamed like polished silver, but the birds didn't try to break through. Instead, they exploded on contact, releasing bursts of compressed air that sent shockwaves through his magnetic field like ripples in a pond.

The Polarity Crucible wavered for a moment, its perfect order disrupted by the chaos of Elowen's wind.

"Clever," Roch admitted, actually sounding impressed for the first time. "But you're still thinking like a soldier, not a god."

He clenched his fist, and every piece of metal in his Domain suddenly reversed its magnetic polarity. The shockwave that followed was like a thunderclap made solid, it tore through Elowen's wind constructs like paper, shattered two more of her platforms into dust, and sent her tumbling through the air like a broken doll.

But as she fell, something ignited in her chest. Not just anger, something deeper. A memory of why she was fighting.

Her soldiers. Her people. Erik, running for his life through the forest while death chased him.

She wasn't just defending herself anymore. She was defending them.

"No," she whispered, then louder: "NO!"

The wind responded to her desperation, but not the way it had before. This time, it didn't just flow, it exploded outward in all directions, carrying with it not just force, but her will, her anger, her absolute refusal to be defeated.

The explosion was beautiful and terrible. Wind made visible, spinning in spirals that looked like liquid lightning. It crashed against Roch's magnetic field with the force of a natural disaster, and for the first time since his Domain had manifested, the Polarity Crucible actually shuddered.

Roch's confident smile faltered like a candle in a hurricane.

"What..." he began, then stopped, his eyes widening as he realized what was happening.

Elowen wasn't just fighting back anymore. She was evolving.

The real battle was just beginning.