The electricity around Mateo's body intensified, crackling like a storm contained within flesh and bone. The very air split with sharp snaps and hissing arcs of lightning as his aura swelled, preparing his body to absorb whatever damage was coming. The ground beneath his feet trembled under the pressure of the unstable current radiating from him.
And then—
Ali's silvery dragon eyes locked onto Mateo, cold and merciless. The moment his knees bent, even the faintest shift, he was gone. The earth exploded in his wake— a twenty-meter crater of scorched soil tearing open half a heartbeat later. Ali had already crossed the distance.
Mateo barely registered the movement before Ali's scorching hand clamped down over his face. Electricity roared in resistance, clashing violently with the silver fire that poured from Ali's skin, sparks and flames colliding in a blinding storm of light. Through the narrow gaps between Ali's fingers, Mateo saw it—the unblinking, abyssal gaze of the Dragon Eyes staring into him. Cold. Inescapable.
And then the world turned black.
BOOOOOOOOOOM.
Ali drove forward, leaning into his strike with the full force of his body. He slammed Mateo's head into the earth with such violence that the ground caved inward, cracking wide to form another crater. Dust and soil burst upward in a geyser as Mateo's body whiplashed, flipping backward under the impact.
A surge of electricity lashed out in desperation, arcs slicing the air and striking Ali—but the flames enveloping him devoured the lightning before it could pierce through. The fire shielded him like the armour of a dragon forged in a star.
Mateo's vision spun in chaos, his surroundings twisting in a blur of earth and light. His instincts kicked in—he directed his lightning inward, controlling the charge in his body to absorb and diffuse the damage. He managed to blast himself away, the explosion of electricity hurling him back at blinding speed.
But before he could escape—he felt it.
A grip, burning hot, coiled around his ankle like a vice. The searing pain was immediate, so intense he lost sensation in his foot entirely.
Ali had caught him.
With his right hand, Ali hoisted Mateo into the air as if he weighed nothing at all. Then, with brutal precision, he swung him downwards, smashing him into the ground. The impact shook the forest floor, dirt and rock scattering violently.
Ali didn't stop.
Again and again, he lifted Mateo's body and slammed him down, each strike more savage than the last. The ground cracked, split, and deep trenches formed where Mateo's body carved into the soil. The sound was relentless—a chorus of thunderous crashes echoing through the trees.
The world became a haze of pain for Mateo. His vision filled with spinning soil, shattered earth, and fire. His body screamed as agony coursed through every nerve. His electricity sputtered and flared desperately as if trying to shield him, but Ali's relentless onslaught overpowered it again and again.
Finally, with a savage spin, Ali hurled Mateo away.
The barbaric throw launched him like a rag-doll straight into the thick wall of ancient trees.
BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.
Each impact thundered through the forest as Mateo's body tore through trunks as thick as towers, splintering wood and igniting bark. His lightning discharged uncontrollably, detonating the trees he crashed through. Explosions of sparks and fire consumed the forest as he plowed through a line of them before finally sliding across the ground, leaving a scorched trail in his wake.
Mateo coughed, forcing himself to his knees, fury and disbelief twisting across his face.
'FUCK! WHAT IS THIS POWER?!' His thoughts spiralled, wild with shock. 'He's nearly at my speed—and stronger than me by far!'
Rage boiled. He roared, his voice lost beneath the crackling storm around him, and swung his arm violently. The gesture unleashed a shockwave of raw electricity, blasting apart a tree beside him in an eruption of splinters and fire. He shot forward again, lightning exploding from his body.
Ali answered in kind.
The silver flames around him surged, blazing hotter, and his Dragon Eyes tracked Mateo's every flicker of movement. He launched himself forward, a single jump carrying him over a kilometre, leaving behind a blinding trail of fire.
The forest trembled as the two titans clashed across it.
On one side, Mateo's GODSPEED and Lighting Aura transformed him into living lightning, a blur of blue and white tearing through the landscape, the sheer velocity splitting trees and igniting fires as he passed.
On the other, Ali carved through nature itself, his silver flames scorching everything in his wake. The hot wind rolling off him seared bark, ignited underbrush, and left nothing but a trail of molten ruin behind him.
They collided again.
Mateo's fist, wrapped in violent currents, swung in an overhead arc with terrifying speed. The blow cut the air apart, but Ali had already seen it—the Force Sense showing him the strike before it was even thrown.
Ali ducked beneath the lightning-charged fist, his body moving with fluid precision. His right arm coiled with devastating power, his muscles and aura surging together in perfect unity. Then he unleashed it.
A brutal uppercut.
His flaming fist crashed against Mateo's chin, and the forest erupted.
The shockwave detonated outward, shredding the air in a deafening boom. Fire and lightning spiralled together, tearing through trees and soil alike as the force of the strike launched Mateo skyward. His body twisted violently, arcs of lightning scattering into the heavens while Ali's silver fire raged beneath him.
The forest below was left in ruin, a burning wasteland carved open by their clash.
Ali leapt, chasing the streak of lightning that was Mateo's body as it tore across the sky. His murderous intent burned hotter than the silver fire cloaking him. His Dragon Eyes tracked every flicker of light.
'He's still faster than me', Ali thought. 'But I don't need to match him. I only need speed close enough to his'.
Mateo twisted midair with inhuman agility, flipping on his axis and lashing out with a brutal kick aimed at Ali's chest. The arc of lightning on his leg howled as it cut through the air.
Ali's forearm shot up and caught it clean, his muscles shuddering under the violent current. Sparks danced along his scorched skin as he forced the limb away. Then, with predatory precision, Ali spread his arms wide, opening himself for the counterstrike.
Mateo roared and threw his left fist, lightning blazing around it like a comet.
SPARRRRK!
The fist landed squarely against Ali's cheek. The explosion of light was blinding. But Ali's head barely turned, the strike echoing against flesh already hardened by cosmic fire. The burning cracks etched across his arms and chest glowed brighter, glowing veins of molten silver.
Before Mateo could recoil, Ali's arms snapped closed like a steel trap. He clamped both hands around Mateo's body, locking him in place.
Now, Mateo was at his mercy.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Mateo screamed, his voice breaking under the strain. His entire body surged, glowing so bright he became a miniature sun of violent electricity. The forest below flickered with the light, shadows flashing as the discharge tore outward in every direction. Bolts split trees, shattered rocks, and scorched the ground far beneath them.
But Ali held. His silvery fire resisted, pushing back against the sea of lightning that threatened to consume them both. Flames and electricity clashed violently, twisting together into a storm of chaos around their bodies.
Ali spun midair, dragging Mateo with him, and the two of them plummeted. From two hundred meters above, they fell like twin meteors locked together, trailing fire and lightning as they descended.
The pressure mounted. Mateo's lightning didn't relent. Stray bolts broke through Ali's flame shield, cutting into him, burrowing cracks into his bones. His nerves screamed as they fried under the surge, his body faltering for a split second under the unbearable strain.
But his will snapped everything back into line. His healing cells erupted into action, knitting together the damage even as it was being done. He gritted his teeth and crushed down on Mateo tighter.
Mateo's frantic gaze darted downwards, his neck cracking as he looked at the earth rushing up to meet them. Fear twisted his fury. The pressure on his ribs was unbearable, his bones creaking under Ali's grip. He could feel his ribcage splintering, lungs compressed until it was hard to breathe.
"FUUUUUUCK!" he screamed.
Twenty meters above the ground. Ali's cracked skin blazed brighter, glowing white-hot with silvery fire as he poured everything into this one strike. He drew on the cosmic fire inside him, every ounce of strength, and pulled downward with savage force.
And then—he let go.
Ali hurled Mateo down with every shred of power in his body. The fires burst from his eyes in molten streams, his aura searing the very air until it hissed and burned.
Mateo's vision shattered into fragments. Sky. Silver light. Darkness.
And then—impact.
KRA-KOOOOOOOOOM!
Mateo's body hit the earth headfirst. The world detonated. The soil didn't just break; it was blasted into the air like a volcanic eruption. A shockwave rippled outward, a hundred meters in all directions, uprooting trees and hurling stones skyward. The forest floor was obliterated.
Mateo's body kept drilling downward, smashing through rock and soil. The crater widened with each brutal meter until his body finally lodged deep within the earth. The silence after the chaos was deafening, broken only by the settling rubble and the hiss of fire and electricity.
Ali landed ten meters away, boots digging furrows into the ruined ground. His chest heaved, silver fire still cascading off his skin in waves, his eyes never leaving the crater.
From below, a twitch. The ground shuddered.
With an explosion of lightning, Mateo burst free, rock and soil scattering like shrapnel. His body slammed down onto the ruined ground before Ali, his cloak of lightning tearing outward with unbridled rage.
Blood spilled from his scalp, pouring down over his pale face in a red mask—before vaporising instantly under the heat of his own electricity. The raw charge arcing over him made the air hum like a living beast.
Mateo tilted his head back and breathed once. His chest rose, lightning pulsing with every heartbeat. Then he screamed.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!"
It was pure fury, a sound that split the sky.
From above, the clouds churned violently, drawn into a swirling vortex. The static and magnetic chaos around Mateo reached a breaking point. With a deafening roar, a colossal bolt of lightning speared down from the clouds and struck him.
The explosion of light blinded the world. Mateo's cloak of electricity intensified, wrapping him in a mantle of pure lightning. His body became lightning incarnate, blazing like a wrathful god.
And then he vanished.
Ali's Dragon Eyes barely tracked him before Mateo reappeared in front of him, speed pushed to the absolute limit. Not even Ali's cosmic fire could match this sudden burst.
But Ali had seen it coming.
His hands snapped up, forearms crossed in front of him, just in time.
Mateo's right fist slammed into Ali's guard. The impact thundered like the world cracking apart.
The two warriors burst out of the crater in a storm of destruction, bodies clashing as they blurred across the forest like two living natural disasters. From above, it was as if two titanic brushstrokes—one silvery-white, the other blinding blue—were painted across the earth, cutting through trees, splitting stone, and leaving nothing but chaos in their wake.
Ali caught a vicious kick midair, his hands clamping down on Mateo's leg with unyielding force. With a snarl, he swung his body like a hammer and smashed Mateo into the earth. The ground cracked like glass, shockwaves splitting outward in all directions. Without pause, Ali whipped Mateo around and hurled him, body-first through the ground.
The result was catastrophic. Mateo's body tore a trench ten meters deep and nearly half a kilometre long. Soil, roots, and shattered trees erupted skyward, the once-pristine forest scarred beyond recognition.
Ali wasn't merely fighting him—he was reshaping the terrain with Mateo's body, toying with him, dominating him, while Mateo's aura grew more unstable. His lightning cloak now surged so violently that his entire body seemed less flesh and bone and more raw, writhing electricity.
With a flash of light, Mateo erupted from the trench, panting, eyes wide with pain and rage. Before he could even recover, Ali was already upon him, his body cutting straight through a massive deer that had wandered too close. The deer's abdomen split open, blood splattering across Ali's skin only to sizzle and evaporate instantly in his silvery fire.
But Mateo was waiting. His hands clapped together, sparks exploding between his palms, and in the next instant a wave of pure azure lightning surged outward like a tidal wall, crackling through the air with enough force to vaporise stone.
Ali didn't flinch. His right leg stomped into the ground with enough strength to fracture the very earth beneath him. A violent wave of force erupted outward, tearing up trees, uprooting tons of soil, and sending entire boulders sky-high. The forest itself rose like a shield, colliding head-on with the wave of lightning.
BOOOOOOOOM!
The collision unleashed a thunderous explosion of fire and sparks that devoured the battlefield. Smoke, fire, and molten debris rained from the sky, but through the inferno Ali emerged again, unrelenting. He exploded forward, fists ready, silvery fire wrapped tightly around his body like a second skin.
Mateo's jaw clenched, his teeth grinding as each clash tore at him from the inside. The pain was building, carving into his body with every impact. His ribs screamed. His muscles trembled. His core ached as though splitting apart. 'I can't keep this up… I'm getting beaten down…'
Before he could even think further, Ali's fist buried itself deep into his gut. The punch was very painful. Mateo felt as if a blade had stabbed straight through his abdomen, his insides twisting from the shock. Blood burst from his lips as he was flung backward, body rag-dolling through the air.
But Mateo wasn't finished. His hand shot upward, tossing his coin into the sky. The artifact spun wildly, lightning spilling from it in torrents until the skies themselves answered.
A storm of lightning spears erupted from the sky, hundreds of them, raining down like divine judgment upon Ali. Each one shrieked through the air, glowing hot enough to turn stone to molten slag on contact.
Ali was undaunted. His Dragon Eyes slit tracked with terrifying precision, darting faster than human perception could comprehend. He wove through the deadly storm with grace that bordered on impossible, his body flowing between spears, twisting past death by hairsbreadths.
Some he even smacked aside casually with the flat of his palms, redirecting them into the earth where they detonated harmlessly.
The truth, however, was even more staggering. Ali didn't even need his eyes. His Force Sense had sharpened so monstrously in this battle that he could feel each spear before it fully took shape, predicting their descent and reacting before most would even register danger. His mastery was growing with every breath, every clash.
Through the storm, Ali advanced. His silhouette cut through the flashing rain of spears like a predator through smoke, closing in on Mateo without slowing.
Mateo wiped the blood from the corner of his lips, his breathing ragged. His upper body was shredded, skin blistered and torn, revealing a gruesome purple-and-black wound that had split across his hardened abs. The damage was deeper than it looked—the blow to his core had wrecked his insides, every breath stabbing his lungs with agony.
He had potions. Health potions, powerful enough to restore him in an instant, to erase this wound and put him back in perfect fighting condition. But he didn't move for them.
There was a reason. A reason Ali didn't yet know.
Consuming a Spirit potion was the reason…
Spirit Potions were among the most dangerous tools in all of Paradise—powerful beyond measure and invaluable in combat. As Mateo and Ali had shown, these potions allowed a player to unleash their strongest skills and spells at full force, drawing upon every last Spirit Point in their body, even in the middle of a fight when exhaustion should have crippled them.
But Paradise, in its cruel wisdom, imposed a cost. After drinking a Spirit Potion, a player was forbidden from using any other potion for a full hour. It was a universal law, etched into the fabric of the system, unbreakable by anyone—except one group. The alchemists.
The alchemists, blessed by the god who founded their guild, could bypass this restriction. They alone could consume potions freely, weaving power and survival together with no cooldowns, no chains. But Paradise was fair. Alchemists carried their own crippling weaknesses, flaws so severe that despite their unmatched advantage with potions, they had never risen to become the supreme guild above all others.
Back to the fight…
Mateo tried to shift the momentum, but Ali was already upon him. He surged forward like a silver inferno, closing the gap instantly. His leg swung low, snapping forward in a brutal kick aimed to cripple—but it was a feint.
Mateo realised it too late. Ali's true strike came from his right arm, thrust forward in a lethal spear-hand, every movement dripping with killing intent. The sheer weight of it froze Mateo's blood. It was the sensation of watching a blade drift closer and closer to your gut, knowing with absolute certainty it would pierce through, unable to do anything but wait for the agony.
But instead of despair, Mateo grinned.
He raised his own right hand and swung down with everything he had, lightning screaming across his arm as his fist hurtled toward the crown of Ali's head. This was what separated a born fighter from the rest—not skill alone, not strength alone, but the savage will to fight until the very last breath. To stare directly into the face of pain and death… and strike anyway.
Ali's lips curled into a smirk as his arm drove mercilessly forward. His hand punched through Mateo's abdomen, tearing into his intestines, burning his insides with searing cosmic fire. Flesh split, blood boiled, and the smell of scorched meat filled the air.
But Mateo's counter landed. His fist crashed down against Ali's skull, electricity detonating across his brain in a violent surge. The shock tore through Ali's nervous system like a thousand spears of light, blinding him, nearly knocking him unconscious on the spot. His vision swam, his thoughts fractured—only one thing kept him from blacking out completely.
The trump card inside his body.
The cosmic fire.
It burned constantly within him, an eternal blaze, sending shockwaves through his entire system. When his brain faltered on the edge of collapse, the fire roared, reigniting him, dragging him back from unconsciousness again and again.
With his arm still buried inside Mateo's gut, Ali raised his head slowly, his smirk widening. Their eyes met—Ali's dragon-like silver gaze locking onto Mateo's bloodied face. Mateo's nose was bleeding, his lips split, crimson spilling freely, but his stare was still defiant.
Then Ali struck.
He pulled his head back just two inches… before slamming it forward with monstrous force.
CRACK!
His forehead collided with Mateo's nose, shattering cartilage and bone in an instant. Blood sprayed into the air as Mateo was launched backward. At the same time, Ali yanked his arm free from Mateo's body with a sickening rip, the wound glowing red-hot as burned flesh hissed from the fire he left behind.
Mateo's body was sent flying, crashing violently through the burning forest. Trees snapped like twigs under his weight, flames consuming everything in his path.
Behind them, the aftermath of their battle stretched for kilometres. The once-vibrant forest was a wasteland of fire and ruin. Corpses of beasts littered the ground, roasted or torn apart by shockwaves they hadn't even been caught in directly. The earth was fractured, trees toppled, the sky black with smoke.
All of it… the carnage of just two men locked in combat.
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