William watched in awe as Eve swung her massive, pink, bladed bat into Ruin's back with such tremendous force that fragments of his armored scales exploded outward, spiraling into the abyss like shattered glass. Pride and disbelief warred within him. She's grown so much. Could she truly be the one to help me harness this power?
BOOM!
The impact hurled Ruin tumbling through the dark ocean depths, only for Rain to raise both arms and conjure a titanic trident of roaring tides. It surged through the gloom and struck Ruin's chest with unrelenting force, driving him into the seabed with an earth-shattering explosion.
KRRRSHHHHH!
The ocean floor splintered for miles, jagged fault lines radiating from the point of impact. Atlantis trembled violently as fractures ripped through its foundations, veins of molten magma blazing upward to illuminate the chaos.
RUMMMBLE!
Ruin struggled to rise, but the ground betrayed him. A geyser of molten rock erupted beneath his wings, consuming him in a raging torrent of blistering flame. His shadow twisted in agony within the inferno as the boiling water churned and frothed around him.
William, Rain, and Eve spread out in a triangular formation, their figures stark against the fiery apocalyptic glow. For long, tense moments, they held their ground, watching as the molten magma slowly cooled, transforming layer by layer into black stone.
Finally, it hardened, not into brittle rock, but into a colossal spire of diamond-hard crystal. Its jagged tip thrust skyward like a defiant middle finger raised to the heavens, a mocking testament from the abyss.
Trapped within that cursed crystal, Ruin's form had changed. No longer humanoid, he now stood revealed in his full draconic glory. Wings unfurled, fangs gleaming, his eyes burned like twin furnaces of wrath. His titanic body was encased in timeless crystal, frozen yet alive. Those smoldering eyes roved, calculating, scheming.
The ocean around them grew eerily still, the silence suffocating as a tomb.
And then—
CRRRRRRACK.
A hairline fracture snaked through the crystal prison, pulsing with molten light.
William's jaw tightened, his voice resolute. "It's not over."
The fracture widened, its molten glow twisting into something far more sinister. Within the crystal pulsed a shadow, not magma but a malevolent blackness, thick, insatiable, and writhing like tendrils of a living void.
CRACK.
The diamond spire groaned under the strain, its pristine surface now streaked with veins of midnight, pulsing like corrupted arteries. From within, Ruin's draconic eyes burned brighter, twin infernos of hellfire driven by something far beyond mere flesh and flame. He wasn't just resisting the prison, he was corrupting it, bending the diamond to his will.
"Damn it…" William muttered through clenched teeth, his chest tightening. He could sense it, the abyss wasn't attacking the crystal from the outside; it was festering, decaying it from within.
BOOM!
The first explosion sent a shockwave reverberating through their bones, cracks splintering across the prison's surface. Jets of abyssal energy surged outward like black lightning, twisting the surrounding water into writhing, shadowy currents.
Then came the final rupture.
KRRRRRRAAASSSHHHH!
The crystalline spire shattered outward in a storm of diamond shards and abyssal fire. The ocean howled as the shockwave erupted across the battlefield, as devastating as a nuclear blast.
William's body screamed in agony as razor-edged shards tore into his arms and torso, his accelerated healing barely keeping him on his feet. But Rain and Eve—
"AAAGHHHH!"
Both were flung aside like shattered dolls. Rain's trident disintegrated into shimmering streams, his body twisting violently through the depths as blood darkened the waters around him. Eve slammed against a jagged ridge of seabed stone, her pink bat spiraling away as she crumpled, lifeless, her suit barely holding together against the deep gashes tearing into her flesh.
"Rain! Eve!" William bellowed, surging forward, but his voice was swallowed by a deeper, more ominous sound.
From the crumbling wreckage of the diamond prison, Ruin emerged. His form was encrusted with shards of abyssal crystal, a grotesque armor that glistened in the dim light, while veins of darkness pulsed and slithered across his scales. His wings unfurled, blotting out what little light remained, and the abyss radiated from him in crushing, suffocating waves.
He was free, stronger, more terrifying, and completely unbound.
William tightened his fists; every fiber of his being ignited with fury and desperation. He was alone now.
And Ruin knew it.
The dragon's fanged maw curled into a malevolent grin, abyssal fire bubbling between his teeth as he growled a single word that reverberated through the ocean itself:
"Perish."
Deep violet flames erupted from Ruins' draconic maw, surging toward William like an unstoppable tidal wave, his own orange flames flickering like a mere candle against the brilliance of a radiant purple sun.
There was no escape, no way to halt the oncoming inferno, and no time to shield himself as the flames closed in with terrifying speed.
"BRING IT ON, YOU BASTARD!"
WHOOSH!
Instead of succumbing, William chose defiance, launching himself forward in a fiery assault of his own. His flames roared to life, a blazing testament to his unyielding resolve against the inevitable.
The glowing markings across William's body surged with blinding intensity as he charged into the abyssal blaze, their light searing through the water like the energy of a submerged, volatile reactor. With a final, thunderous roar, his flaming maw opened wide as the two opposing infernos collided.
RUMBLEEEEE!
The abyssal inferno engulfed William entirely.
The violet blaze raged like a sentient tempest, coiling around him, pressing against his flesh with oppressive force. His orange flames roared in defiance, but against the abyss, they were as feeble as a candle in a hurricane.
"NAAGHHH!" William's scream pierced through the suffocating heat as he forced his flames outward, clawing and pushing to forge a path through the devouring darkness. Every fiber of his being erupted in rebellion, his muscles quaking as the abyss burrowed deeper into him.
The radiant markings etched across his skin flickered erratically, their once-blinding brilliance now faltering against the onslaught of violet corruption.
I won't break… I can't break!
But the abyss was unyielding.
The fire stripped away his resilience, layer by layer, his skin blistering and charring under the ceaseless torment. Jagged cracks splintered across his arms and chest, glowing like molten fissures, each breath a ragged, searing struggle.
William gritted his teeth, his voice raw and strained. "Not… like this!"
The flames surged harder, searing past his defenses, scorching not just his body but his very essence. The abyss clawed at his soul, murmuring seductive promises of surrender, of release. His flesh blackened further, splitting open to reveal a fiery glow beneath, as though liquid magma coursed through his veins.
Blood boiled away before it could flow, leaving blistering scars along his seared and broken body.
Yet William surged forward.
Each agonizing stroke against the unyielding tide, each faint flicker of his dwindling flames, was a declaration. A rebellion. A promise that even if the abyss swallowed him whole, he would drag its essence into oblivion with him.
But despite his relentless determination, the violet inferno was consuming him.
His legs collapsed beneath him, his fire flickered into fragile embers, and his vision dissolved until all that remained was an infinite sea of violet, a vast, merciless void of annihilation.
And still—
With flesh splintered, burned, and disintegrating under the immense strain, William unleashed one final roar, guttural and feral, a sound that carried both unyielding defiance and bottomless despair.
"RAAAAHHHHHH!"
William's body was a war zone, torn asunder and rebuilt in an endless, agonizing loop.
Every eruption of violet fire ripped through him, disintegrating flesh and muscle until only bone and glowing marrow remained. But his blood, thick, molten, alive, surged forth in furious torrents, sealing the wounds with jagged, frenzied bursts of regeneration.
This was no healing. This was combat.
Charred remnants of skin peeled away, replaced by raw, pulsing crimson tissue. His right arm shredded into ribbons, blood spraying outward before hardening into sinew and reforming into muscle. His chest cavity splintered open, ribs torn apart, only to be stitched back together with blood's relentless tendrils binding bone to bone.
Each drop of blood burned like molten iron, scorching his veins as it worked. He was caught in a ceaseless cycle of death and rebirth, his body collapsing and reconstructing itself in grotesque, violent rhythms.
Yet, with every revival, less of him remained.
Half his skull was obliterated, leaving an empty socket dripping liquid fire where an eye had once been. Most of his left side had disintegrated, reduced to a blood-forged scaffold of a torso held together by sheer will and instinct. He was no longer a man but a silhouette of flame and bleeding flesh, barely human in form.
But Ruin no longer cared.
The dragon's immense, humanoid form towered above the inferno, obsidian wings spreading wide in a display of terrifying majesty. Flames still poured from his fanged maw, violet fire cascading like a torrent of destruction, but his gaze had already shifted upward.
To him, the battle was over.
With a resounding beat of his wings, Ruin surged into the depths above. His massive body ripped through the ocean, dragging the inferno behind him, the currents twisting into chaos in his wake.
The sea split as he ascended, forming a vortex that spiraled into a colossal spout, piercing the surface and reaching into the night sky. Higher and higher it climbed, so vast that the crown of water froze into a jagged spire of ice in the upper atmosphere.
For one fleeting moment, it glittered like a crystalline spear aimed at the heavens—
And then it shattered.
KRRRAAAAASSHHHH!
The frozen peak disintegrated as it plunged back into the ocean, unleashing a cataclysmic cascade of ice and water that sent tidal waves roaring outward for miles.
When the chaos settled, Ruin was gone.
But his fire remained.
The abyssal flames continued to pour downward, consuming William, tearing him apart in an endless cycle as his blood fought desperately to restore him. He was trapped within an inferno designed to obliterate him, burning against an adversary who had already left the battlefield.
The violet flames writhed around William, a living storm of annihilation. Each passing second brought an agony so profound it became his existence. Tendrils of abyssal fire lashed and tore at his flesh, boiling his blood and shattering his bones as if they were nothing but brittle glass. Yet, no matter how many times he was destroyed, his body reformed, tendons knitting together, muscles hardening, skin melting into molten scar tissue that cooled into something tougher, denser, and more resilient.
Pain became his rhythm; death, his forge. Each cycle of destruction and regeneration hammered him with a purpose he could not yet grasp, forging him in a crucible of fire and blood shaped by the abyss itself. His marrow burned with molten energy, veins glowing with intertwined strands of orange and violet, like lightning streaking through the heart of a dying sun, infusing his essence with raw, violent power.
The abyss probed him, tested him, pushing him toward surrender, but he resisted with every fiber of his being. His flames roared in defiance, not merely reacting but proclaiming his will. With every shattered bone and torn sinew, his body adapted, learned, and evolved into something beyond mortal comprehension.
His left arm, obliterated countless times, reformed anew, muscles denser, bones reinforced like tempered steel, fingertips radiating heat so intense they glowed like embers, capable of incinerating even the abyss itself. His chest, once scorched and hollowed by the violet fire, now pulsed with an inner furnace, a molten core of energy that could channel his will into pure destructive force.
Every scream and roar of pain became the strike of a hammer against the anvil of his soul. He was not merely enduring the flames; he was transforming through them. The abyss was a master sculptor, and William was its unwilling masterpiece, forged and reborn in its relentless fires.
Time stretched endlessly, the abyssal inferno unyielding, yet amidst the chaos, a spark of understanding ignited within William's mind. This was not punishment, it was transformation. Every shred of flesh and sinew torn apart and reborn marked a step toward a power beyond his wildest imagination. He was transcending humanity, becoming a force so immense that even the universe would have to take notice.
Then, as a particularly ferocious wave of violet fire tore through his torso, he felt it: the moment of awakening. His body, scorched, shattered, and rebuilt countless times, vibrated with the resonance of pure energy. The molten blood flowing through him crystallized into living veins of power, glowing like interwoven conduits of fire and fury. His eyes, one blazing orange, the other now a searing violet, burned with an unearthly brilliance.
This time, William screamed not in pain, but in recognition of his rebirth. The crucible of the abyss had remade him. The flames that sought to destroy him had instead forged him into something far beyond mortal, something indomitable.
As the inferno raged on, he raised his gaze to the void where Ruin had vanished. Seeing nothing, his eyes erupted in flames of orange and violet as an all-consuming rage churned within him, deeper and more primal than anything he had ever known.
RAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!
William opened his mouth and unleashed a roar of unrestrained fury into the heavens as, unknowingly, a sphere of condensed flame formed within his screaming maw.
BOOOOOOSHH!
A beam of raw rage and frustration ripped through the ocean depths, erupting violently to the surface and streaking past Earth's atmosphere. It barely missed a satellite in high orbit before disappearing into the boundless void of space.
As William's screams ceased, the flames in his eyes dwindled like fragile candles, flickering weakly before extinguishing completely. He drifted motionless, unconscious and suspended in the vast emptiness.