The air between them screamed.
Starsever and its corrupted twin met in a flash of gold and black, the impact detonating like a thunderhead breaking open. The chamber's marble floor fractured outward from their feet, tiles snapping into jagged shrapnel that spun through the air as both combatants slid back, boots grinding trenches into the stone.
Alter's breath came in deep, controlled pulls, though the golden blood leaking from the gash along his side was spreading across the shredded plates of his armor. The cracks along Starsever's edge caught the chamber's shifting light, humming faintly with the resonance of the World Origin. It was all that kept the blade — and him — from breaking entirely.
The clone mirrored him exactly. The corrupted Starsever dripped with abyssal energy, its black fire curling in reverse spirals, eating the air around it. Its stance was perfect. Its timing was flawless. Its movements… were his own.
The only difference was the soul behind the strikes.
The clone moved first — a darting step that was too fast for mortal eyes, closing the distance in a heartbeat. The twin blade came sweeping upward in a murderous arc, aimed to cleave Alter from hip to shoulder.
Alter twisted his wrist, catching the strike flat-on, letting the force slide along his blade instead of meeting it head-on. In the same motion, he stepped inside the clone's guard, his arms blurring through the triple-impact of Heaven's Dismantle — neck, ribs, wrist — three clean hits that cracked like gunfire. Sparks burst from each strike, scattering like molten stars.
The clone flowed with the momentum, pivoting instead of resisting, and answered with Abysswalker's Brand. Its palm slammed into Alter's chest like a battering ram, the voidsteel gauntlet sinking through armor and bone as if to crush his heart outright.
The shockwave was instant. The chamber walls buckled with the release. Alter's vision blurred white for half a heartbeat as his knees nearly gave out — but he refused to fall. Instead, he spun with the hit, redirecting the force, and slammed an uppercut into the clone's jaw with Celestial Vein Rupture. The technique locked its movement for just a fraction of a second, the golden light searing through its abyssal bindings.
That heartbeat was all he needed.
He stepped in again, ripping a claw-hand slash through the air — Void Fang Rend — the tear in space slicing a thin, perfect line across the clone's cheek. Black-glass ichor hissed as it hit the floor, eating through the stone with a corrosive whisper.
They broke apart. Both were bleeding now. Both breathing harder.
But neither stepped back.
Across the chamber, Solien and Val'zaruun were tearing reality apart in their own storm. Solien's spear burned with streaks of starlight, each thrust a compressed singularity that warped the air around it. Val'zaruun's abyssal greatblade answered with arcs of black flame and crushing gravity, every swing leaving a wake of distorted space that bent light itself.
When their weapons met, the shock ran through the entire capital. Buildings outside the chamber cracked and collapsed, streets split open, and dozens of mortal warriors — divine and abyssal alike — were thrown into the air by the force.
Solien roared, driving his spear forward in a comet-like thrust. Val'zaruun twisted into the attack, locking the spear with the spine of his greatblade, then sent the god skidding back with a booted kick that shattered the tiles beneath his heel. He followed with a horizontal slash so heavy that the shockwave flattened everything in its path for twenty paces.
The world outside this heart of battle was a living apocalypse.
Celestial fortresses hung in the skies like burning moons, their rune-engines spilling light and fire into the abyssal fleet. Massive warships, carved from the bones of long-dead leviathans, burned in the void, their hulls collapsing as celestial artillery tore through them. Dragon roars mingled with the shrieks of abyssal war-beasts as they clashed in aerial melees above the fractured city.
Every explosion painted the war in shifting day and night. Every second, gods and demon gods fell from the sky, their bodies tearing through towers like meteor strikes.
Inside the chamber, Alter's focus narrowed again. The clone blurred forward, Thousand Cross Fang unfolding in a storm of rapid-angle slashes that came from all sides at once. Alter's instincts took over, Starsever intercepting each strike in a chain of perfect parries, his movements a razor-thin dance between death and survival.
His muscles screamed. His lungs burned. Blood dripped freely now, slicking the grip of his sword — but his smile was sharp, feral, unshaken.
"You'll never be me," he said, his voice low and edged.
The clone tilted its head, empty-eyed, and pressed harder.
The black and gold flames between their blades roared into a vortex, the shockwave erupting outward and tearing the chamber floor into molten chunks. The air itself vibrated with the clash, bending light around them.
They broke apart again — not slowing, not faltering — both charging for another collision that would either decide the duel or tear the heart of the capital open.
And all around them, the war raged without pause.
The chamber's heart was a furnace of tearing light and shadow, every strike between Alter and the clone detonating in ripples that splintered the Abyssal capital's inner walls. The clone moved with the exact same poise, the same lethal precision — every parry and counter felt like Alter was striking a mirror made of wrath and memory.
Steel screamed against steel as Starsever met its twin in a high-arc clash. The collision released a sunburst of golden sparks that swirled in the smoke-choked air before being devoured by the oppressive abyssal gloom. Alter's shoulders ached, golden blood still seeping from wounds he'd earned hours ago, but his stance didn't falter.
The clone blurred forward, stepping through space in the exact cadence Alter himself used when pressing an advantage. It opened with Void Fang Rend, the clawed palm slicing through a distortion in the air — Alter leaned back, narrowly avoiding the spatial tear, but the follow-up came instantly: Thousand Cross Fang, each angle of attack perfectly anticipating where Alter's guard would be weakest.
Alter caught the last thrust on his gauntlet, his forearm singing with impact. "So you think you are me?" he growled, pushing off the ground.
He answered with Life Sprinkler, golden afterimages exploding outward into the haze. The chamber flooded with multiple Alters, each moving in spiraling trajectories, their blades tracing arcs of sovereign light. The clone didn't hesitate — it mirrored the technique. Now the room was a battlefield of seventy-two phantoms, each pair clashing with the speed of lightning storms colliding.
Every impact shook the floor, fissures crawling outward from where their feet struck stone.
Not far from them, Solien's duel with Val'zaruun had devolved into a brutal contest of attrition. The Demon God's strikes were weighty enough to cave in walls, each swing of his abyss-forged glaive bending the air like a tidal current. Solien countered with his own god-tier technique, Spear of Dawnfall, thrusting beams of condensed celestial fire in rapid, punishing intervals. But Val'zaruun's laughter rolled over the clash — deep, jagged, and utterly unshaken.
Behind them, the war raged on. Seraphina had regrouped with the Celestial Host, her blade trailing streams of molten gold as she carved through two lesser Demon Gods in a single, roaring advance. Divine Lords clashed with their abyssal counterparts all around, the scale so vast that the chamber's walls no longer felt like boundaries — the battle's violence was beginning to erode the very plane, voidlight bleeding in through widening cracks overhead.
Alter pivoted, catching his clone in a bind. Their blades locked, and for a heartbeat the world compressed to the grinding pressure between them. Then — a pulse. Not from Alter, not from the clone — from inside him.
The World Origin stirred.
Power rippled through his veins, enough to make the chamber quake again. The clone's expression shifted for the first time — not confusion, but calculation. It broke the bind, leaping back, its aura spiking as if it had recognized something dangerous.
Alter rolled his shoulders, feeling the weight of exhaustion but also the unmistakable edge of renewed strength. "Now we see who deserves the crown," he said, voice low.
Both sovereigns blurred forward — one born of flesh and trials, the other forged as a perfect imitation in the abyss. Their collision ripped the air apart.
And through the walls, the rest of the war screamed and thundered without end.
The floor buckled.A shockwave tore through the chamber as Solien's greatblade slammed into Val'zaruun's war-spear with enough force to rupture the inner sanctum's main support pillar. The crack shot up the obsidian column like lightning through glass, splitting the ceiling wide. Through the rent above, the abyssal sky bled voidlight, a turbulent whirl of black and crimson bleeding into the capital's core.
Alter's clone used the distraction to press forward.Its Starsever swept low, aiming to take his legs out from under him. Alter twisted, parried, and countered in the same breath with a Voidlock Spiral roundhouse that sent the clone skidding back. The impact rattled the stone beneath their feet, and molten fissures licked up from the ruptured ground.
But there was no time to follow through—Seraphina burst into view from the left flank, vaulting from the back of a collapsing demon siege beast. Her silver-flame spear ignited mid-flight, cleaving two Abyssal Lords in half before she landed hard on the fractured floor, already scanning for an opening toward Alter's position. The battlefield between them was a wall of chaos: collapsed stone bridges, geysers of molten void, and the crushing weight of god-tier clashes rattling every breath.
On the far side, Veyna Lux and Jaris Tenvahl were a streak of crystal and lightning, cutting deep into an enemy formation to clear the path for the advancing War Gods. Garran Flamecoil roared again, his great axe wreathed in burning wyrm sigils as he hacked through the last defense line around one of the sanctum's anchor pylons.
The pylon gave way—A roar, deafening and ancient, surged from deep below. The entire sanctum shook violently, fragments of the floor peeling away into the void beneath. The combat zone shrank again.
Alter's clone adapted instantly, shifting its stance into his own Sky Piercer: Zero Distance form. It lunged point-blank, aiming for his heart. Alter stepped inside the thrust, slamming his elbow into the clone's jaw, then driving a Sovereign Fang Collapse straight down through its shoulder. Golden light sprayed across the shattered floor.
The clone staggered but did not fall.It twisted, eyes narrowing in something almost like respect, and its blade came up in a mirrored arc. Starsever met Starsever again, the clash detonating in a shockwave that forced nearby combatants to shield their faces.
To the right, Solien's duel with Val'zaruun had turned savage. The Abyss King drove him back with a storm of spear thrusts, each one heavy enough to crater the stone. Solien bled freely from a gash across his ribs, but his expression was calm, steady—every counterstroke carried the full weight of a War God's will.
Above them, Shaltheris's talons raked across Azzorath's chest, tearing through abyssal armor in a spray of black ichor. The Demon God roared, slamming both clawed hands into the dragon-lord's chest and sending them both plummeting through a spire.
The sanctum was now a collapsing funnel of stone and void. There was no safe ground left—only shifting islands of ruin, each locked in its own desperate, god-tier battle.
Alter's eyes locked on the clone again. His breath was heavy, his ribs screamed with every movement, and his golden blood ran freely down his side. But there was no retreat. No other fight mattered more.
The clone smiled.And they both moved.
Two sovereigns. One war. The sanctum itself breaking under their fury.
The inner sanctum shook like the spine of a dying world.
Solien's greatblade met Val'zaruun's abyss-forged spear in a clash so violent the surrounding stone rippled like liquid before shattering. The central support pillar split from base to crown in one heartbeat, a vein of molten crimson light racing upward until the ceiling burst apart in a rain of obsidian fragments. Above, the abyssal sky tore open — a whirlpool of voidlight and black flame bleeding into the capital's heart.
The shockwave rolled across the chamber, hurling lesser abyssal structures into the void beyond the sanctum walls.
Alter's clone seized the moment, Starsever slashing in a low, lethal arc. Alter dropped his stance, parried, and countered instantly with Voidlock Spiral, his spinning heel kick wreathed in golden draconic aura. The impact sent the clone skidding backward, gouging a molten trench through the fractured floor.
Another tremor cracked the battlefield apart. Segments of the sanctum dropped away into a roiling abyss below, where something vast and sleeping stirred in irritation.
Seraphina cut across the chaos, her silver-flame spear carving through a Demon God's torso in a single fluid motion. Her divine aura burned so bright it cast shadows even in the abyss. Landing hard on a slanted fragment of sanctum stone, she looked toward Alter — but between them, the air was thick with collapsing reality. Floating shards of black crystal, arcs of wild divine lightning, and streaking meteor fragments churned in a storm born of too many god-tier powers unleashed at once.
To the left, Solien's duel with Val'zaruun became a blur of afterimages. The Abyss King's spear thrusts landed with enough force to warp gravity in the chamber, each strike dragging space itself toward its point. Solien's counters cut clean through the pull, his bladework precise, each arc brimming with annihilation-light. Blood — divine gold from Solien, abyssal black from Val'zaruun — splattered across the sinking stone.
Far above, two more gods clashed in midair — the radiant form of Shaltheris, wings of white flame spanning a hundred paces, locked in a vicious aerial death spiral with Azzorath. The Demon God's claws raked deep furrows into the dragon-lord's chest before a retaliatory tail strike smashed Azzorath through a floating sanctum spire.
Below, the sanctum floor was now a chain of fragmented battle platforms, each barely holding together under the strain of combat that should have split the realm apart.
Alter and the clone closed the distance again. The clone shifted into Sky Piercer: Zero Distance, aiming directly for Alter's heart. Alter stepped inside the thrust, driving his elbow into the clone's jaw and following with Sovereign Fang Collapse, his descending strike detonating a pillar of golden fire through the clone's shoulder.
The clone staggered… and smiled. It twisted with blinding speed, blade flashing in a mirrored arc. Starsever clashed with Starsever again, the explosion of force bending the nearest platform's surface like a wave before it cracked apart entirely.
The gap between the gods narrowed to nothing.Breath ragged. Wounds open. Aura tearing the air.
Val'zaruun snarled, hurling Solien back with a shockwave that shattered a platform into dust. He raised his spear toward Alter — but the clone intercepted, striking at both sovereign and Abyss King in a move so fast it blurred the edges of reality itself.
The sanctum's heart was fracturing. The plane could not take much more.And still, none of them stopped.
The sanctum's collapse was no longer a looming danger — it was the air they breathed.
Chunks of the capital's heart drifted like floating continents, colliding in bursts of shattered stone and molten light. Gravity buckled in unpredictable waves, pulling and flinging debris through the void. Through it all, Alter and his reflection stood on a fragment no larger than a throne room, each gripping Starsever.
Golden aura poured from the real Sovereign; abyssal fire wrapped the clone. Their stances mirrored perfectly — down to the breath.
"You are me," the clone said, voice rippling with warped resonance.
"I am the only one," Alter answered.
They struck.
The first clash detonated in a cone of light and darkness, the shockwave vaporizing the air around them. Starsevers screamed against each other, throwing arcs of molten metal-like sparks in every direction. Each impact pushed both fighters back, then pulled them in again, like two halves of a collapsing star.
A final collision came like a hammer to reality itself. The force was so absolute that both blades were ripped from their hands, spinning off into the void. Starsever's twin flames faded from sight.
There was no pause.
Both surged forward barehanded, fists blurring into the opening of the Demon God Killing Martial Arts.
Fist of Ruin. Alter's downward strike cratered the platform under the clone's feet; the clone's counter shattered the ground beneath Alter.
Heaven-Piercer Step. Two blurs shot upward, colliding midair in a shockwave that ripped the fragment in half.
Void Fang Rend. Their clawed palms tore at each other's armor, sparks and fragments of golden and abyssal scales flying like shrapnel.
Bloodlash Howl. Both spun in perfect synchrony, their kicks slamming together and creating a visible ring of force that expanded outward, knocking other nearby gods momentarily off their footing.
They fell into a spiral of mirrored destruction — every technique met with an exact copy. Soulbreaker Dive to the ribs. Graviton Sever slamming bodies into broken stone. Hellpulse Eruption sending waves of burning chi through each other's cores.
But Alter began to shift. Subtle adjustments — a fraction faster here, a tighter angle there — until the mirror began to crack. His strikes carried more weight, his steps more intent. Shadowbane Twister broke the clone's footing for the first time; Demon's Jaw Crush staggered it.
They reached Abysswalker's Brand at the same instant — golden seal burned into the clone's chest, black seal etched into Alter's ribs. Both faltered from the sudden drain.
The final technique loomed.
🜏 Creator's Banishment.
The air went still, reality trembling under the pressure of their gathering force. Both drew in everything they had left — body, soul, and will — into a single killing strike.
They vanished.
For a moment, nothing moved. Then, a collision without sound but with enough force to fracture the sanctum's core in a single instant. Golden and black energy burst outward like twin suns colliding.
When the light faded, they stood back-to-back.
The clone's chest was spiderwebbed with golden cracks. It glanced down at its core, light spilling through its form like water through broken glass. It tried to speak — but shattered into motes before the first word formed.
Alter stood breathing hard, golden blood running freely from his wounds. "I told you," he murmured, "you're not me."
Around him, the war raged on. Solien and Val'zaruun's duel tore through what remained of the sanctum's upper platforms, Seraphina's silver flames flaring as she clashed with two Demon Gods at once. The collapse was entering its final stage.
Alter turned toward them, fists still clenched, eyes burning. The fight was far from over.