The skies burned with divine fury and eldritch wrath as Zhongli and Robin continued their clash, two primal forces locked in a battle that could rend the fabric of the world. The golden mountains still shimmered, monumental and unmoving, as Robin's abyss twisted around them, attempting to erode the sacred foundations of the battlefield. But the land had chosen its guardian, and it would not yield.
Robin's wing beat with renewed power, flinging trails of voidlight in her wake. Her eyes pulsed with abyssal energy, glowing like twin dying stars as she launched herself downward again. She struck from impossible angles, her scythe screaming through the air in a blur of unrelenting fury. The weapon split the air, trailing waves of darkness that attempted to devour even light itself.
Zhongli parried with ageless calm. Each clash of their weapons released thunderous blasts of force, echoing across the landscape like drumbeats from a forgotten war. His polearm shimmered with divine might, every swing a declaration of celestial order. Golden shields bloomed from his steps, layered and interwoven, forming a dance of defense that nullified her madness-born assault.
Robin snarled and spun backward, landing hard on the curved flank of a shattered mountain. She reached into the air, slicing a tear into the void itself. Through the rift, spears of obsidian ice hurtled forth, their tips coated in anti-matter flame. Zhongli raised a hand, and a field of suspended stone formed in their path—floating monoliths orbiting him in protective sequence. The spears struck, exploded, and were consumed in golden light.
But Robin wasn't finished.
She drew in the abyss around her, compressing it into a single, black sphere that pulsed with malignant purpose. She hurled it at Zhongli, and as it traveled, the land beneath it decayed—flowers withered, stones crumbled, air itself turned to ash. Zhongli narrowed his eyes, then slammed the butt of his spear into the earth. A fountain of gold erupted upward, intercepting the sphere mid-flight.
The two forces collided.
The impact cracked the battlefield. An explosion of paradoxical energy surged outward: creation and destruction in equal measure. Mountains fractured. Abyssal storms were born and then consumed by divine winds. The fabric of reality rippled, stars flaring in the distant skies as if bearing witness.
Zhongli emerged from the light, his stance unbroken, though a faint line of dark energy marred his robe. Robin, thrown back by the feedback, somersaulted through the air and landed atop a new spire that formed beneath her, birthed by her own will.
"You're still standing," she said, panting slightly. "Fine. Let's bring out the real nightmares."
She raised her scythe high and slammed it into the spire.
The battlefield screamed.
The very ground buckled and split as a rift opened, wider than before. From its chasm rose a creature not wholly formed—a colossus of the abyss, writhing with eyes that bled shadow and teeth that defied logic. Its limbs twisted into incomprehensible shapes, constantly shifting as if rejecting the constraints of a sane universe. It let out a moan that echoed across dimensions.
Zhongli stood unmoved. "You call forth what should remain buried. Then allow me to remind you why such things were forgotten."
He lifted his polearm and drove it into the earth again.
From the depths of Tianheng, an enormous golem forged of mountain and gold answered the call. Shaped like a warrior god, with a helm of burning amber and fists like falling stars, it met the abyssal colossus head-on. The two titans clashed, their struggle mirroring their masters'. Void and stone collided in a storm of unrelenting fury, lightning crackling from the friction of realms.
Robin surged forward again, her scythe now enveloped in the raw energy of the abyss. She sliced at Zhongli, a blur of rage and precision. This time, he answered not with defense, but offense.
Their weapons collided, over and over, each strike producing ripples that warped the world around them. Time stuttered. The sun dimmed. Space grew elastic. They moved across the battlefield like twin storms, uncontained, unrelenting.
Zhongli vanished, only to reappear behind her, his spear thrusting forward. Robin twisted midair, barely avoiding the impalement, her wing flaring out as she counterattacked with a sweep of her scythe. Zhongli parried and flipped backward, golden dust raining around him, forming protective runes with every step.
Robin's laughter grew more frenzied.
"You really are eternal," she hissed. "But I don't need to kill you. Just break you."
She clapped her hands together, summoning a cascade of abyssal fragments—mirrors of alternate realities. In each, a different Zhongli was seen: broken, defeated, corrupted. The mirrors burst forth, attacking him not with force, but with possibility.
For a moment, Zhongli paused.
Then he spoke.
"Fate is not written in fragments."
He brought his palm to his chest, and light surged from within. The fragments were consumed by an aurora of ancient memory—Zhongli's soul, anchored by millennia of wisdom and trials, rejected the illusions outright. The energy backlashed, sending Robin skidding across the ground, shards of her own creation stabbing into her side.
She wiped the blood from her lips and grinned. "Gods, you really are something."
"You as well," Zhongli replied. "A shame we are bound to oppose."
The colossi behind them were locked in stalemate, neither able to best the other. Void tendrils had begun to worm around Tianheng's titan, while divine lances pierced the flesh of the abyssal horror. The battlefield, too, was transforming—sections swallowed by the void, others blooming with sacred crystal.
And then—
Robin shot upward, higher than before, into the clouds themselves. Darkness followed her, cloaking the sky in a dome of night. From within it, a new weapon formed—a massive scythe made of nothingness, drawn from the remnants of dead stars. Its edge radiated with hunger.
"Final act, Zhongli!"
She dropped like a meteor.
Zhongli closed his eyes, and when they opened, his body glowed with golden fire. He raised his spear and hurled it toward the falling figure.
The scythe and spear met in midair.
The sky split.
Heaven and abyss screamed.
Reality cracked.
A blinding light engulfed everything.
Silence.
When the brilliance faded, the battlefield was unrecognizable. The mountains were gone. The abyssal colossus had melted into ash. Only Zhongli remained standing amid a wasteland of golden dust and black crystal.
And Robin...
She knelt a short distance away, her wing torn, the scythe that she utilized now broken, her body flickering with unstable essence. Yet she looked up and laughed.
"You win this round, old man," she coughed.
Zhongli approached, slow and steady. He did not raise his weapon.
"Rest, Robin. There is no honor in destroying what still has the potential to change."
"Fine then...I shall restore everything back...to what it once was..."
Robin put her hand up to the sky as she muttered something to herself.
And just like that...
The dream was over.