The silver dragon stood tall, lightning dancing along his scales as though the storm itself had chosen him as its vessel. His narrowed slit pupils shimmered with predatory hunger, yet the angel before him seemed untouched by fear. Her calm radiance spread outward like a quiet hymn, her aura softening the shattered landscape around them. The ground between them pulsed with tension, like the stillness before a tempest.
Then the silence ended.
The dragon lunged forward, his body collapsing into a streak of silver light. The sky tore open as his claws descended, each strike shattering the air itself. Yet as the angel lifted her hand, his blows dissolved into motes of harmless dust. Her aura rippled outward, erasing the violence as though it had never existed.
"Your light may erase my claws," the dragon growled, his voice carrying the weight of a thousand storms, "but lightning purges, and nothing escapes tribulation."
He vanished, reappearing behind her, fangs crackling with soul-burning thunder. The angel spun, wings of pale gold unfurling, each feather humming with sacred purity. The bolt that should have incinerated her soul fragmented against her radiance, scattering like sparks against a river. Yet though her skin remained flawless, her light dimmed, a fraction less luminous.
The dragon noticed.
He pressed harder, teleporting faster, each appearance punctuated by thunderclaps. His strikes grew wild, claws coated in electricity potent enough to reduce mountains to ash. The angel moved with serene precision, her every gesture dissolving destruction into nothingness, her face calm, her aura soothing. But her glow flickered like a candle caught in wind.
Then, the dragon shed his five meter form, shrinking into a compact two-meter figure, his scales tighter, his frame sharper, his movements impossibly swift. No longer a massive beast, he became a living blade of lightning. His speed broke through the limits of sight, and when he struck, even her radiance struggled to keep pace.
A claw raked across her barrier, and though no wound appeared, the divine light rippled violently, struggling to restore itself. Her voice, calm but strained, carried across the battlefield.
"Your storm… is relentless. But purity endures."
The silver dragon laughed, a raw, thunderous sound. "Endures? No. It breaks what cannot evolve."
He unleashed his true tribulation—his body transformed into a storm incarnate, his lightning crashing down in sheets that split stone, burned air, and tore apart space. The angel's aura flared desperately, each wave of light clashing with heavenly thunder. The battle became a cathedral of destruction and grace: heaven's hymn against the judgment of storms.
For the first time, blood seeped through the dragon's scales, glowing silver, dripping into the cracked earth below. Each injury seemed only to sharpen him, his lightning intensifying, his power thickening with fury. The pain made him ruthless, the storm made him pure. He was becoming what his nature demanded—a dragon forged in tribulation.
The angel stood, her hair glowing like strands of sunlight, her hands trembling as she purified each assault. But her radiance dimmed further, her aura thinning, like a sky robbed of stars. She remained untouched in flesh, but her energy had paid the price. Her voice faltered. Her hymn weakened.
The dragon saw his chance.
With a roar that split the desolate heavens, he condensed all his lightning into one claw, a bolt so pure it scorched his own scales to contain it. He thrust forward, his form vanishing into a streak of annihilation.
The angel raised her arms, light blooming around her like a dying sun. For a breath, both forces clashed—storm and sanctity, thunder and hymn. The planet quaked under their collision, stone shattering, sky cracking, rivers of molten light spilling across the land.
Then silence.
The angel fell to her knees, her aura still shimmering but faint, like the final glow of twilight. Her body remained untouched, fair and unmarred, but her strength had been spent, her radiance broken. She bowed her head, wings folding in defeat.
The silver dragon stood over her, his body bleeding, scales cracked, yet his eyes gleamed with savage triumph. Lightning coursed through his veins more violently than ever. The battle had carved strength from his wounds, and in pain he had found evolution.
He exhaled, smoke rising from his nostrils as he glanced toward the other battlefield, where his brother clashed with the tyrannical man.
"My brother still fights," he rumbled, voice heavy with pride and fury. "Then my storm must fight too."
Without hesitation, he turned, leaving the angel crumpled in fading light, and streaked across the ruined land toward the red dragon's struggle. His thunder rolled after him, heralding his arrival, as though the storm itself had chosen sides.
…
Khai's spear spun in his grip, humming with the sharp edge of silence itself. With a single thrust, the ground before him split open, a canyon of unraveling threads stretching like veins across the battlefield.
Damien only smiled, stepping into the crackling storm of collapsing earth. His halberd flared to life, crimson chains spiraling around its blade. With a casual swing, the world bent under his command, the threads Khai had unraveled snapping taut and binding themselves together again—enslaved to his will.
"Still so righteous, brother," Damien said, voice edged with mockery. "But righteousness is just another form of control. Mine is simply stronger."
Khai's deep blue eyes narrowed, the weight of grief burning within them. "You call this strength? You've chained your own soul. I'll be the one to cut it free."
He stepped forward, spear raised. Space rippled. The silver weapon shot forward, a line of light tearing through the air—yet before it could touch Damien, his chains lashed out, wrapping around the spear's shaft, sparks hissing as Oblivion met Dominion.
The clash shook the barren land, lightning veins crawling across the ground as fragments of reality shattered like glass around them. For a heartbeat, neither side yielded—then both were blasted back, dust swirling between them.
Damien straightened, halberd humming with caged fury. "Good. You haven't dulled. This might even be fun."
Khai spun his spear once, planting it into the earth. "Fun? No. This is where it ends, Damien."
The two brothers locked eyes—chains rattling against unraveling silence, oppression colliding with erasure. The storm of their auras swallowed the stars above, promising a battle that would shake not just the land, but the bloodline itself.