I pointed a finger toward her and activated the Law of Polarity. A powerful attractive force locked onto her position, dragging her downward as though the planet itself had claimed her. Her wings flared wide, wind and sound laws activating simultaneously as she attempted to counter the pull. Sharp currents spiraled around her, pushing against the invisible force trying to pin her.
I increased the attraction gradually rather than all at once, forcing her to expend more and more energy resisting it. Her body descended inch by inch toward the cracked surface below. Frustration flashed across her face as she launched three razor-sharp wind blades straight at me. With a casual flick of my wrist, the blades shattered before reaching my body.
Behind me, the stone Elemental exploded out of the rubble with a roar, fragments of rock flying in all directions.
Before he could gather himself for a proper counterattack, I tapped my foot against the ground. Essence surged downward, and a massive explosion detonated directly beneath him, blasting his heavy form upward into the air. From behind the explosion, another earthen palm burst forth, catching him mid-flight before slamming him back into the ground with crushing force.
BOOM!
At that exact moment, a violent detonation echoed from the side. I tilted my head and saw the lightning Elemental crash to the ground as one of the pursuing bolts finally struck her. Before she could recover, the remaining bolts caught up in rapid succession.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Each impact carved deeper into the already devastated terrain, leaving a massive crater where she lay injured and struggling to rise.
I turned my full attention back to the Feran woman, who now hovered just a few meters above the ground, held firmly within the growing pull of polarity.
"It wouldn’t look good if I only hurt the other two. Equality for all, you see," I said lightly as I looked at the Feran.
Wind gathered at my fingertips as I invoked the element, and thin blades no longer than a finger began forming in the air around me. One became ten, ten became hundreds, and within seconds thousands of compressed wind shards hovered in a dense formation. With a subtle motion of my hand, they surged forward in a concentrated wave.
She strained against the increasing pull of polarity, wings flaring wide as she generated a spiraling wind shield around herself. The vortex wrapped tightly around her body in layered rotation, designed to deflect and scatter incoming attacks.
However, the moment the shield fully formed, the swarm of blades struck. The outer rotation collapsed first, then the inner layers shattered under the overwhelming number of impacts. The wind blades punched through the remnants and tore into her body.
A sharp scream ripped from her throat as a shower of blood scattered across the cracked battlefield.
"So loud," I remarked.
I increased the gravitational pull sharply. Her body was yanked downward and slammed face-first into the fractured ground, the sound of impact cutting her scream short. Even then she refused to yield, pushing against the surface with trembling arms while trying to re-engage her wind laws to lighten the force.
I increased the attraction again, not in a single spike but steadily, forcing her muscles and laws to strain under compounding pressure. The ground beneath her began to fracture further as her body was pressed deeper into it.
Behind me, the stone Elemental erupted from the rubble once more, roaring as chunks of broken rock fell from his shoulders.
I turned calmly to face him.
"Tell me," I said, "what happens to stone if you heat it too much?"
I snapped my fingers.
A narrow vortex of fire ignited around him, perfectly sized to match his massive frame. It did not expand wildly outward; instead, it spiraled tightly, enclosing him in a controlled column of rising flame. The tornado began to constrict gradually, and with each rotation the temperature climbed.
He roared again, slamming both fists outward in an attempt to break through. Chunks of molten rock blasted against the inner wall of flame, but the vortex absorbed the impact and continued tightening. His stone body began to glow faintly at the edges, the brown veins beneath his surface flickering erratically as the heat seeped deeper.
He attempted to reinforce himself with his major law, but I could clearly sense its limitation. His mastery was shallow, barely level one in refinement. Against sustained elemental compression, it was insufficient.
The flames intensified, shifting from orange to white-hot at the core. The outer layers of his rocky body began to soften, edges losing rigidity as sections cracked and partially liquefied under extreme heat. His roars shifted from defiance to strain as he tried to maintain his body.
Meanwhile, the lightning Elemental struggled within the crater I had carved for her. Sparks flickered weakly around her limbs as she attempted to rebuild momentum. I extended a thin strand of spatial compression around her, not to crush but to limit the range of her reformations, preventing her from dispersing fully into lightning again.
None of them were dead. None of them were even close.
But all three now understood the gap.
I looked between them calmly.
"I asked you for information," I said evenly. "You chose theatrics instead."
The fire tornado continued tightening around the stone Elemental as molten fragments dripped from his frame. The Feran lay pinned and bleeding against the ground, wings trembling under relentless force. The lightning Elemental struggled to rise within the crater, contained but conscious.
I folded my arms.
"Let’s try this again," I said quietly. "Where is the Trunk Gate?"
None of them answered.
The lightning Elemental continued trying to gather charge despite the spatial restriction around her. The stone Elemental forced molten layers outward in an attempt to break the tightening fire column. The Feran, pinned to the ground under crushing polarity, strained against the force even as blood seeped into the fractured earth beneath her.
I let out a slow breath.
"Why are you making this difficult for yourselves?" I asked, almost genuinely curious.
I lifted my hand slightly.
A new bolt of violet lightning formed directly above the lightning Elemental, suspended for a fraction of a second. Her eyes widened as she sensed the concentration of power overhead, but the compression around her prevented a full dispersion into elemental form.
The bolt descended.
It struck her squarely, detonating against her body with a violent surge of current. The smell of burned flesh filled the air as her right arm was completely severed at the shoulder, reduced to charred fragments by the impact. Her scream tore through the battlefield, sharp and raw, but I did not shift my expression.
I turned my gaze to the stone Elemental.
With a subtle push of will, the fire tornado intensified. The flames shifted toward a blinding white core as the temperature spiked dramatically. The ground beneath him began to liquefy, rock turning to molten slurry that pooled around his feet. His outer layers sagged under the heat, cracks widening as internal pressure built within his structure.
He roared, but his voice had lost its earlier certainty.
The Feran’s bones were already beginning to fracture under the increasing force pressing her into the earth. She was the most injured of the three, her wind law destabilized by the sustained suppression.
I tapped my foot once.
The ground beneath her rippled, and jagged spikes of hardened earth shot upward, piercing through her limbs and torso in precise placements that avoided immediate death but ensured immobilization. Her scream came out muffled against the ground as blood spread across the cracked surface.
I stepped forward slightly.
"Any answer, friends?"
The Feran was the first to break. I felt the shift in her resistance before I saw it. The tension in her wind law slackened, and the frantic push against the polarity force weakened. She stopped struggling.
With a simple motion of my hand, I pulled her free from the ground. The spikes receded and the crushing force lessened enough for her to hang suspended before me. Her wings drooped behind her, feathers torn and soaked in blood, her entire body marked with wounds from the blades and pressure.
"Yes," I said evenly as I stood before her, meeting her eyes. "I am listening."