Chapter 62: The Final Clash (2)
Mankhaura gritted his teeth, his jaw tight as his once-proud domain shrank around him. What had once been a seamless web of control—a fortress of rock, stone, and will—was unraveling.
The perfect equilibrium he had sculpted with painstaking precision was no more. The invisible tide of Thutmose’s will pressed down like a suffocating wave, reshaping the terrain with terrifying ease. The arena—the ground that should have answered to Mankhaura alone—was betraying him.
His floating boulders trembled in the air, their smooth orbit disrupted as if they, too, were unsure of who they now belonged to. Once honed to lethal perfection, his stone spears wavered under the pressure of Thutmose’s superior domain. It wasn’t just being pushed—it was being devoured.
He had no choice.
If the ground would no longer serve him, then he would rise above it.
With a guttural roar, Mankhaura unleashed a burst of mana through his soles. The boulder beneath his feet responded instantly, launching skyward with the full momentum of his will. The rest followed, swirling upward in formation, reshaping into a new aerial battlefield. Here, in the sky, he could breathe again. He could maneuver, adapt, and control. He was Earthborn—no one understood terrain like he did.
But when he looked down—his breath caught.
The full magnitude of Thutmose’s domain came into terrifying clarity from the air.
It was as though the arena had been absorbed into Thutmose’s being. Every inch of stone, every crack and groove, now pulsed with his rhythm. The ground below twisted, shifted, and molded itself to his desire like wet clay to a sculptor. The symmetry, the harmony—it was beautiful. And it was horrifying.
This wasn’t mere mastery.
This was absolute domination.