The Black Sun sat above like a curse, swallowing heaven and earth. The wind had no sound, the mountains no strength, as if the world itself bent under what stood before it. Rei was gone. What remained was Raga.
Black lines crawled across his body, pulsing like chains alive. His eyes burned with that inhuman gleam, hair rising against the air as if gravity itself dared not touch him. Smoke hissed from his skin, every breath thick with fire and shadow.
Xeran froze, his chest tightening. For the first time, doubt crept into his stillness.
His voice was low, measured. "So this is it… the power that killed him."
But even as he spoke, he forced calm into his tone. His eyes narrowed, studying the black fire coiling around Raga. "A human body should not be able to carry you. His flesh should have torn itself apart long ago. Unless…" His gaze flickered, sharp. "That Enso of his. It doesn't just hold you back. It anchors you. It keeps you alive."
Raga tilted his head slowly, his voice layered and hollow.
"You done with your little theories, flesh-pile? What do you think you can do with only one hand?"
Xeran didn't answer. His jaw flexed. Veins burst across his arm, muscles twisting grotesquely. Decay surged not outward, but inward.....rotting his own body in controlled sacrifice, reforging it instantly into denser, more monstrous flesh. His arm doubled in size, cords of tissue writhing like snakes.
And then he moved.
The ground didn't crack. It vanished. In less than a blink, his fist tore toward Raga's head, carrying the weight of a world behind it.
Raga leaned, dodging with the grace of smoke. For a moment, it seemed the strike had missed.
But Xeran's body convulsed mid-motion. His decayed arm collapsed into nothing, its mass flowing instantly into his leg. The limb swelled monstrous, muscle upon muscle, and his kick lashed sideways.
The impact landed.
Raga's ribs howled, his body hurled across the shattered land. Black cracks ripped through the air itself as he tore across the battlefield. He landed on one knee, steam writhing from the wound at his side.
Xeran grinned, his teeth stained dark. "Even you can be touched. This is my Wither Recast. "
Raga touched the mark on his ribs. Black smoke curled from his fingers, his body trembling for only a breath. Then he raised his head, his eyes burning hotter.
"You've just written your own death."
He vanished.
In the next instant, Xeran's head was trapped in his palm. The Elder had no time to resist.
"Inferno."
The word struck like a decree.
From every side, fire erupted. Not flame, but black and red inferno, thick as molten blood. It poured from the skies, from the torn earth, from the void itself. All of it converged on one point.....Xeran's body.
His scream split the horizon. Flesh bubbled. Layers of skin decayed and renewed only to be devoured again, each cycle collapsing faster than the last.
Raga slammed his head into the ground. The stone split. Again. Again. Each impact roared like meteors falling, pillars of fire swallowing them both.
"You keep decaying your skin," Raga hissed, his voice echoing like iron dragged on stone, "but what happens when there's no skin left to decay?"
Xeran roared back, fury tearing his throat raw. "I am endless!"
Raga's fist hammered into his chest, cracking his ribs like twigs. Another to his jaw, another to his gut. Each strike drove deeper, black fire embedding itself into his bones.
The Elder blocked with his single arm, but it trembled, the strength of decay struggling against something it couldn't erase.
Still, Xeran would not fall quietly.
His veins bulged. The ground around them turned gray. Trees in the far horizon shriveled into ash. The earth sagged, collapsing into powder. Even the air itself thinned.
"This is not flesh alone…" he growled, his voice booming with something ancient. "This is Hollow Rot."
A wave rolled out, gray and absolute. Stone dissolved. Water evaporated. Sound itself vanished. The world crumbled into nothingness.
For the first time, Raga stilled. The black lines across his skin pulsed, glowing hotter. The smoke around him shivered.
The Hollow Rot crept toward him, eating everything in its path.
And then, Raga stepped forward into it.
The world expected him to vanish. To decay. To crumble. Instead, the black fire roared brighter, his body a silhouette of chains and shadow.
"You think you decide what rots?" His voice split the silence like thunder. His grip clenched on the Blade of Resolve, flames dancing along the steel. "No. That right belongs to me."
He surged forward, through the Hollow Rot, untouched. His laughter spilled into the void, sharp and merciless.
Xeran's heart lurched. For the first time, the weight of fear pressed his chest.
The Elder swung his leg again, muscle warped, grotesque. Before it landed, Raga's hand was already on it.
Black fire crawled. Flesh hissed.
"One hand gone. Now one leg," Raga whispered, his tone almost gentle. "What will you decay next? Your soul?"
The fire climbed, devouring flesh up to the thigh.
Xeran ripped free with a roar, the ground turning to ash in his wake. Another surge of Hollow Rot erupted outward, consuming the battlefield. But Raga walked forward through the storm, fire streaming from his skin, laughter climbing higher.
And as his shadow towered over Xeran's broken frame, his voice dropped, final and unrelenting:
"Pray your brothers come quickly. Because you won't survive me."