The void detonated the moment their powers collided.
Blue fire clashed with infinite rings, tearing open the black expanse into a storm of collapsing dimensions. Whole fragments of dead worlds tumbled through the rift—ruined cities, mountains of bone, broken moons—all sucked into the wake of their battle.
Vemy's body trembled, every nerve screaming as the Aetherion Blue flames devoured him from within. His skin split, glowing with cracks of light, but his grin only widened. "So this… is what it means to burn yourself…"
The entity moved. In one step it traversed the shattered void, its galaxy-rings spinning faster until they blurred into halos of annihilation. It struck with a palm that carried the weight of universes.
Vemy caught it head-on. His arm shattered at the elbow—bone, blood, and flame bursting outward—yet the Aetherion aura rebuilt it instantly, stitching him back together with living fire. He roared, driving a counter-blow that ignited the void into a sunburst of blue.
"GOOD!" the entity thundered, its voice resonating through every shard of broken dimension. "But flame is fleeting. Will your fire endure against infinity?"
The rings split, orbiting in countless layers. They became weapons, each transforming into spears, blades, and whips of impossible energy. They descended like a rain of galaxies, carving through everything.
Vemy screamed, unleashing his spectral figure in its full glory. It was no longer a shadow behind him—it merged with his body, fusing wings of Aetherion Blue flame to his back. Each beat of those wings shattered rings mid-flight, scattering them into ash. He spun, kicked, and blasted through the storm, a streak of blue tearing through the multiverse like a comet.
"Azure Strike!" His voice split the void. The punch connected, tearing half the entity's chest away in an eruption of flame. For the first time, the creature staggered.
But instead of falling, it laughed.
"Excellent. You've stepped onto the forbidden path. But you are still bound to fire… while I am bound to eternity."
Its body reformed instantly, rings multiplying until they eclipsed sight itself. With a sweep of its hand, time itself bent—Vemy's flames flickered, slowed, his body dragged backward into chains of causality.
"Not even flame escapes the cycle."
Vemy's breath grew ragged. His wings struggled against the pull, every ember dimming. Yet, in the corner of his vision, his tenth ring—shattered moments ago—still glowed faintly in fragments across his skin.
His grin sharpened.
"Cycle or not… I'll burn my own damn path."
With a roar, he crushed the shards into his chest. Pain tore through him as the fragments fused with his core, igniting a second surge of Aetherion Blue that split the chains of time itself.
The flames screamed, no longer bound to past or future.
The entity's eyes widened for the first time.
"You broke… causality?"
Vemy's wings spread wide, blazing like an eternal star. His voice was low, defiant, absolute:
"I'm not fire anymore. I am the blaze that outlasts infinity."
And then he struck—aiming to pierce through the entity's core.