While the battle inside the facility raged over and over with a great destructive yield and fury. It all appeared miniscule in compression to the battle that unfolded outside between the titans known as Natalia Ddraig king the Queen of Avalon and Nimue the leader of Zodiac.

The destruction left in the wake of the Queen and the Lady stretched for multiple kilometres, leaving forests burnt to cinder and mountains uprooted out of the very ground.

Natalia jumped out of the way to avoid a hailstorm of swords from Nimue who levitated in the air to avoid getting in Natalia's reach. The swords left massive craters in the earth as they landed.

"What's the matter Natty?" Nimue taunted her as she continued her tactic of flying out of range and pelting Natalia with her swords.

"Not brave enough to face me now are you."

"Only in your dreams, you ignorant fool." Natalia shot back as she slammed her fists into the earth and sent the magical energy within her and outpoured it into the earth.

A fifty meter radius of earth around her began to morph and shift into a colourless transparent liquid also known as water. It was soon a knee deep body of water and Natalia stood upon the waters surface as if it was still solid.

"Gotcha," Natalia grinned. She focused on her power coursing through the water and sent jetstreams of water upwards.

The panicked words " Wal-O-gamelot " Escaped from Nimue's mouth as the jetstreams came towards her. A white mist formed around the leader of Zodiac and it quickly solidified until a one hundred meter tall tower stood where Nimue had been.

The collision of the jets of water and the tower shook the lands as if the a very powerful nuclear explosion's had just been detonated nearby and yet the tower stood without a scratch. A section of the tower dispersed, revealing Nimue within it with a smug grin.

"Dear, oh dear." Nimue was wagging her finger at Natalia like one would a naughty child. " I don't remember you being this good with the mystic art's Naty. Colour me impressed indeed."

Natalia looked at that tower and the magical energy that rippled off of it, told her what it was. " That tower, that is a piece of my Gamalaot, what have you done to my city you bastard whore!"

"Why do you care so much. After all, you abandoned it," Nimue brushed her off with a scoff. " I have simply given it a greater purpose, just as I will with you."

"Purpose?" Natalia couldn't believe What she was hearing. These twisted words still sounded alien from Nimue's mouth. " It already had a purpose. It protected the realms as I had instructed Gwalchmei and the table of round to do and as I last checked, it was carrying out it's purpose."

Nimue's face twisted into a sneer, " That fool and the rest of the knights round would never bring true needed change to the world. I am putting them to better use as well."

"How dare you!" the rage building in her bones was ready to completely spill over. "They were your friends, your family!"

"My so called family turned on me the moment I proposed world peace!"

" Because what you are doing is insane! " Natalia couldn't believe the mental gymnastics Nimue was setting up to justify this frankly insane plan.

"Insane!" Nimue seemed more outraged than before, her breathing was much deeper and quicker like a bull with the colour purple burning in her eyes. "Insane, how is it insane for me to want to end this war and save millions?"

" Because it will cause the death of billions in a best case scenario or kill pretty much everyone in any realistic scenario!" Natalia just wanted for her to understand.

"You can't make a good omelet without cracking a few eggs."

"Is that what people are to you?" She still couldn't believe what Nimue was saying "A bunch of damn inconsequential eggs that can just be broken because you want to play at being a god!"

" Enough! " Nimue shot back as the skies darkened skies with purple lightning dancing across the black skies. " I will not be lectured by you of all people. You cowardly child, you who abandoned our purpose, you who robbed me of my purpose!"

Natalia readied herself for another clash as hundreds of large great swords began to materialise around the water spirit. Within an instant the sword's shot forward like bullets fired from a semi-automatic.

As the sword's neared Natalia she wisely moved out of the away to avoid getting stabbed by the hundreds of projectile's and being turned into a porcupine. the swords began to rearrange the thousands of kilometres of earth around them.

More and more swords shot forth as they chased down Natalia. They made corners when she did, they raised higher when she jumped and their altitude lowered when she slid down any of the large city block sized boulders that now blocked her path after being smashed from their resting palaces by Nimue's swords.

This cat and mouse game increased in it's intensity as more and more swords were shot by Nimue who wore a terrifying smile of joy. Natalia could do nothing but run as trying to tank any of Nimue's swords would just cause her unneeded injuries.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Any injury will just slow me down." she thought as she ran.

She could try to get close and attack but the sword's streaming in the air now numbered in the thousand's if not millions. Some of them flew towards her while others seemed to surround Nimue and created some kind of shield around her making her virtually impossible to see or approach through the metallic rain.

"I need to end this offensive now." Natalia thought as she kept on outrunning and outmaneuvering the sword's. "I can't keep this up forever and sooner or later i am going to make a mistake. Either minor or major it will increase my chances of death by a lot."l

As if to prove her right a small arming sword graved by she left cheek drawing a bit of blood. Natalia internally cursed as she began to pour large amounts of mana into Excalibur.

She jumped further and further away from the swords before she stopped and turned to face the incoming wave of death. She got into a swinging stance as she constructed her mystic code. The sword began to glow and change until it was a completely white rod of energy in her hand.

She opened her mouth to state the words that would finalise the completion of her Alpha-spell as Nimue's swords got even closer and closer.

" Tanau-Britannia!"

She swung the sword and from it a massive wave of white divine energy shot forward as a six thousand meters high tsunami wave of divine energy hotter than the surface of the sun itself. It consumed everything it fell upon from the land and to the swords that had been coming to kill her.

This wave continued unopposed as a symbol of her might and power for a full two minutes before it died down. In it's wake was nothing more than a crater of black scorched earth that measured at five thousand meters deep and ten thousand meters wide.

It was a dark ashen hole with some underground water beginning to leak in that was instantly evaporated. The thing of most importance in the hole was the tower, Wal-O-gamelot.

The tower unlike when it effortlessly stopped her jetstream was now mangled while pieces of it were ripped off , melted off or just turned to dust, and finally the tower had lost it's once marble white shine for a scorched black coat.

Rather than dispersing into a mist like it did before the tower simply crumpled to the ground with Nimue kneeling at its center. Natalia could see her breathing heavily from even a few thousand meters away. She appeared to have suffered from serious bruising upon her forearm's.

"I don't remember you ever having anything like that." Nimue's breathing became heavier as she rose to her feet with a chuckle before she gasped in pain as she held her ribs. "But it wasn't enough was it Natalia. I am still alive girl king."

"What's the matter Nat." Nimue continued taunting her but there was something in the water spirits steps. A limp, a strain, a certain lack of any power in stance. "Ain't got it anymore?"

" Say's the woman who is on her last leg's." Natalia didn't know where it came from but she felt a swell of pity for her old friend. " In honor of everything we both went through in the past, I implore you Nimue, please stand down and call off this insanity."

Nimue gnashed her teeth as she shook with rage as she raised her hand towards Natalia " My insanity!?"

" Nimue, just stop." Natalia demanded with her sword at the ready to strike again with another Tanau-Britannia if she had to. " I am warning you for the last time. Stand down or else I shall destroy you."

"Here's what I think of your warning!" Nimue's eyes became purple orbs and black veins now pulsated against her pale white skin and Natalia's eyes became wide as she recognised what she had suspected for so long.

"Nimue, what have you done to yourself."

But she didn't respond and all that happened was that ground beneath Nimue erupted into a body of muddy purple water which had horrors swimming just beneath the surface.

From the waters came a massive hand that shot forth at such blinding speeds Natalia had no time to react before it caught her. She fought against the hands tight grip to the best of her strength but the it proved her match in this tag of war.

" Damn this things." She remembered these bindings and the place to which they dragged her. "Not that stupid island."

The hand pulled her down further and further towards the crater and the cursed waters. She struggled more and more against it and gravity itself seemed to increase in power in every second.

" Don't bother fighting it." Nimue called to her. " We are in the Nexus of Narratives now. Your status as Arthur weighs you down. You can't escape your destiny my king, fate dictates that lady of lake be one of those who ushers the wounded king to Albion, and here fate is near absolute."

Natalia didn't have time to fight Nimue in a contest of words as she tried to fight bindings that were now just dragging her down faster and also tightening around her neck and lessening her supply of oxygen.

This loss of oxygen was making her head feel light and her eyes grow heavier. Before she knew it, her footing was lost and she was being dragged down to those cursed waters. She caught a last glimpse of Nimue who was smiling before she sank to the depths of the waters of Albion, and the dark aquatic vortex dragged her deeper and deeper through depths unknown.

Natalia was granted release as she felt her body now resting upon wet sand with waves of water periodically washing over her.

"You know, when I decided to walk this beach, a mermaid was the last thing I thought I would see." a mans voice whispered into her ear and Natalia felt a shiver down her spine because of it.

"Have the illusions started already?" Nimue's style might not have been illusions back then. But after everything that just happened, it was clear that Nimue had changed with the year's.

She felt a pair of lips touch her cheeks with light blue hair coming into view as the voice asked. "This have to at least be a dead give away Nat?"

With this rather shallow confirmation Natalia diverted her eyes to the right where her husband sat cross legged with his sword Durandal resting besides him.

"You're real?" She knew the question sounded foolish but she wasn't going to put up with any trick of Nimue.

"Should another kiss be in enough?" Roland or the illusion leaned in close to her face and she could feel his hot breath beating against her skin. "Or should it be a kiss on those tender lips."

Yep, this was her Roland. She reach her head forward and drew his lips upon her own. After a few seconds she lot go of their kiss and embrace to ask. "How the hell did you get here. I remember Nimue dumping us here when she first attacked but after that I thought she transported you to a cell?"

"She did ." Roland answered as he rose to his feet and lent her a helping hand as well off the wet beach. " But then a few minutes ago everything went crazy in my section of the prison. People started fighting eachother and some cells began opening up. Then before I stepped out my cell boom and i just turn up here with good old Durandal besides me."

"Wait..." Natalia stopped him as she remembered something from her mind that had been shuffled away thanks to concentration on fighting Nimue. " You Didn't meet Christian did you?"

" Christian ?" Roland seemed Confused. "No, I haven't."

" Which means you don't know," she whispered lowly in despair.

"It means I don't know what?"

"Nimue is trying to become an Archetype-King of this Nexus plan."

Roland looked alarmed as he should have been. " But I thought Merlin said it was purely theoretical ?"

"It is." She sighed slumping as she wondered what happened to her wizard of old. " And that's not even the worst part. She is trying to fuse our and the Nexus."

"That will cause unimaginable amounts of destruction," Roland gasped. " I mean she could kill everyone."

" We have to do something about it."

"Yeah, I know." Roland had his hand resting on his chin as was deep in thought. "Getting out of this place though, it's gonna be a challenge."

"What do you mean?"

" The first time I got here I was able to open a gap with Durandal just fine before Nimue yanked me into her cell." he knelt down and began to play with some sand between his fingers. "But now, it's like everything here has gotten infinitely stronger."

"It's because we are in the Nexus. Everything hear becomes near absolutes to the Narrative. I can't leave unless Britain is in hour of need and since Nimue already burned it to the ground... yeah."

"Maybe." Roland rose again. " But I don't think it is strong enough to be a match against the two of us."

"You want us to completely destroy Albion?" She was surprised that she had not thought of this at all.

"Of course." Roland drew his blade from the ground. " So how big do you reckon this place is?"

"About the size of a continent, last I checked." Natalia answered as she remembered her many treks across this land in the past.

"Last you checked?"

" Well, were do you think I would take my old lover's for romantic moments before I met you." she was playing of course and the over exaggerated gasp and pain look on Roland's face confirmed that he knew that as well.

"You mean to tell me that some lucky punks got a beautiful island vacation with a beauty like you, and all I got was a flower, a wonderful marriage and some great children."

"Tell you what, let's burn this dump to hell and we can have a date on our own island."

Nimue might not have heard them shout out their Alpha-spell's names but she did feel as the physical continent and waters of Albion were atomised and that false reality collapsed by the Avalonian rulers combined power.

This was when she knew, she would either have to become the Archetype-King now or never...