The abyss was no longer a battlefield.
It had become a forge.
The fractured light of Vemy's new ring spun behind him, each shard of Prismarine fire orbiting in jagged arcs, unstable but burning with his will. The Ring God's laughter still echoed, but it had pulled back into the fissure, leaving behind something else—someone else.
A shape coalesced from the chains. Human in outline, but too sharp, too refined, each movement leaving ripples of divine resonance. His eyes burned with twin halos. His blade—if it could be called that—was a single edge of condensed light, humming like reality itself feared its cut.
The Ring God's voice whispered through the abyss, but softer now, more intimate.
"Your defiance deserves an opponent worthy of it. Face the First Ring-Bearer. The one who learned to kneel… before you ever dared to stand."
The warrior raised his blade. His aura was suffocating, yet precise, honed down to a single strike.
Vemy's chest tightened. His fractured ring flared in answer. "Then I'll break the path you walked."
They moved.
The first clash was instant. Blade against spear, shard against halo. The abyss lit up with raw collision, every impact sending cracks of light spiderwebbing across the void. Vemy's Prismarine fire screeched against the divine edge, unstable, wild—but alive.
The warrior's voice cut between strikes, sharp as his blade.
"Your ring is fractured. Incomplete."
A parry, a twist, his blade grazing across Vemy's ribs—searing agony.
"You burn recklessly. That flame will consume you."
Vemy snarled, wings beating to launch him higher. "Better consumed by my own fire than chained by yours!"
He swung his spear in a wide arc, Prismarine shards detaching from the ring and firing like meteors. The warrior deflected three, bisected two, but the sixth tore across his shoulder, leaving a streak of molten light.
For the first time, the First Ring-Bearer bled.
The warrior staggered—then smiled.
"Good. You force your shards to obey… but do you command them?"
Vemy didn't answer. He couldn't. His body screamed, every nerve aflame, the Senso Bean's high finally burning out. His lungs pulled fire instead of air. But still, he pressed forward.
The warrior's blade blurred, cutting through his storm of shards, dismantling them one by one. Each strike was a lesson. Each wound a correction.
"Your orbit is sloppy."
Slice—another shard gone.
"Your defense is desperate."
Crack—the shaft of Vemy's spear splintered under the blow.
"Your flame has no rhythm."
The warrior spun, cutting through Vemy's wing. Pain exploded as he plummeted, shards scattering like broken glass.
The abyss swallowed him.
…
For a heartbeat, silence.
Then, deep inside the void of himself, Vemy heard it—his flame. Not as a chain. Not as an echo. But as a rhythm that was his. Jagged. Human. Defiant.
His ring pulsed. The fractured shards around him stopped scattering—then bent. Orbiting tighter. Sharper. Forming new patterns.
Vemy rose, bloodied, but smiling through the haze.
"My rhythm doesn't match yours. It never will."
The fractured ring spun faster, jagged orbits weaving around him like a storm made of knives.
The warrior's eyes narrowed. "…At last."
Their second clash tore the abyss apart.
Shard-storm against divine blade. Prismarine chaos against perfected rhythm. Every strike was a scream of will, every dodge a gamble of survival. Vemy began weaving his shards mid-swing, pulling them in and out of orbit to strike in sync with his spear. Not perfect, not polished—but his.
The First Ring-Bearer's strikes slowed, then faltered. He was bleeding now, his perfect rhythm broken by defiance that shouldn't exist.
Finally—Vemy's fractured ring shattered forward, all shards converging into one spear of fire and crystal.
He thrust.
The blow pierced through the warrior's chest, Prismarine fire erupting from the wound in jagged arcs.
The First Ring-Bearer staggered, coughed light, and then laughed. Not mockery. Not disdain. But pride.
"You… are unchained."
His body dissolved into shards of light, scattering into the abyss. Only his words remained, echoing.
"The path is yours now."
The abyss stilled. Vemy fell to his knees, his fractured ring dimming but still orbiting behind him.
For the first time—he had not just resisted. He had won.