The crimson void no longer resembled a realm. It was a graveyard of collapsing laws—gravity undone, air made from memory, time pulsing like a wounded drumbeat. The last echoes of the world screamed in silence.
Dylan hovered just above the fractured ground, his body cloaked in flame-laced shadow. His wings flexed wide—one of raw black demonic matter, the other of crackling red energy. In his hand, Stormcutter pulsed with volatile spirit pressure, its edge arcing lightning into the wind.
Across from him, suspended by invisible threads of broken dimensions, loomed Zephyr—the alien-formed chronoblade.
His horns curled like obsidian thorns.
His skin shimmered with voidlight.
And in his hand, Edilion Fang had changed.
The blade no longer whispered. It screamed—white-hot and radiant, pulsing with collapsing stars. Glyphs spun along its length, forming and dissolving faster than the eye could track. Even to look at it was to go blind.
There were no more words.
Only war.
Dylan launched forward, wings beating like thunder, sword drawn wide. Zephyr met him in the sky.
They collided mid-air.
Sparks, shadow, and lightning flared in all directions as Stormcutter met Edilion Fang. The impact shook the void, splitting monoliths, folding clouds into ruptures.
Zephyr spun his blade in a wide arc—Dylan ducked and flipped backward, retaliating with a slice from below.
Zephyr blocked it with his forearm, and tentacles lashed from his back—bladed, writhing things, aimed to impale Dylan from all angles.
But Dylan was gone.
A beat of wings—and he vanished into the sky, spiraling upward.
From the storm above, Dylan raised his hand—and creatures began pouring from the torn fabric of reality.
Beasts born from storm and bone. Falcons made of screaming lightning. Wolves with fractal eyes and bone-forged claws. Humanoid echoes of the fallen cohort, each infused with fragments of Dylan's soul.
They descended like a storm.
Zephyr snarled, launching his tentacles to slice them apart—but Dylan had already begun casting his domain.
"Stormfield: Activate."
Lightning cracked.
A circular field—twenty meters wide—exploded around Dylan, centered mid-air. Electricity and howling wind surged outward, distorting the air, grounding light itself. Zephyr flinched as arcs of voltage lit the sky.
"Tempest Step—Stormcutter."
Dylan vanished.
Then reappeared.
And again.
Each time he moved, a shockwave of lightning detonated across the battlefield. Each teleport left behind a glowing wind echo, spectral and humming with static.
One strike hit Zephyr's shoulder—another slashed his side.
Each echo mimicked Dylan's movements—doubling his strikes for brief seconds before they vanished into wind.
Zephyr was surrounded.
The storm became a blur of movement—Dylan teleporting, dashing, slicing from impossible angles.
Zephyr bellowed and raised Edilion Fang—
But a decoy echo absorbed the blow, vanishing in a scatter of sparks.
Dylan appeared right behind him, blade drawn.
He struck downward—aiming for the back of Zephyr's skull.
Zephyr turned at the last instant.
"Edilion Unbound."
The sword lit up with a light brighter than suns.
Dylan's creatures screamed, blinded instantly. Several disintegrated mid-flight. The sky lit up with catastrophic brilliance. Even Dylan winced, vision burning.
That moment of hesitation cost him.
Zephyr spun with godlike force, parried Dylan's blade, and slammed the hilt of Edilion Fang into Dylan's chest.
The force launched him backward.
Dylan smashed into the edge of his own stormfield. The barrier cracked.
Zephyr pursued.
He tore through Dylan's summoned creatures like a divine reaper—tentacles slicing, sword cleaving, movements blurred by overwhelming force.
Beast after beast fell. Shadows ripped apart. The sky ran red.
Dylan tried to recover—healed a gash, summoned three wind echoes, vanished to the other side of the battlefield.
But Zephyr was adapting.
He read Dylan's pattern.
Chain Dash—3… 4…
Zephyr timed the fifth.
As Dylan reappeared mid-strike—Zephyr was already waiting, Edilion Fang drawn upward.
They collided.
A thunderous blast of energy erupted.
Both were hurled backward, smoking and scorched.
Dylan fell to his knees, gasping. The stormfield flickered.
Zephyr hit the ground—but rose fast. No hesitation. No pain.
Only fury.
The Ground Breaker
Dylan's breath caught. His energy reserve was dropping fast. Stormcutter trembled in his grip.
"One more shot," he muttered.
Zephyr descended—but stopped mid-air.
He stared at Dylan—then smiled.
And dove.
But he didn't strike Dylan.
He drove Edilion Fang into the ground.
The earth ruptured.
Not cracked—obliterated.
The entire field exploded into fire. Crimson void twisted into black flame. Reality reversed and slammed back in waves. The battlefield was rendered into scorched glass and shadow.
Dylan was caught in the blast.
His wings snapped—his body crushed under pressure and heat.
He hit the ground, unmoving.
The stormfield collapsed.
Flames burned around them. Wind howled with no sky left to hold it.
Zephyr stepped through the ruins.
Dylan lay on his knees, hands shaking, body bloodied and broken. Stormcutter was buried five feet away.
He couldn't reach it.
He could barely breathe.
Zephyr approached slowly.
He didn't smile.
He didn't gloat.
He simply raised Edilion Fang, its radiant form still burning like judgment.
Then lowered it—across Dylan's neck.
"It's over," Zephyr said. "Be proud of yourself."
His voice was low. Cold.
"You fought like a warrior."
TO BE CONTINUED…