The sky above them was broken.
Clouds hung in black loops, trailing ash and fire like the bleeding edge of a blade drawn across reality. The earth trembled underfoot with each step the two titans took toward each other again, both of them marked by the war already waged both of them still burning.
Navik Vyer's boots cracked what remained of the plaza stone beneath him. His chest heaved with an unnatural calm, nostrils flaring as steam hissed from the fractures in his armor. The jagged crown of Noctirum fused across his spine pulsed with each breath. He was ancient power molded into the shape of a man and that shape was now fractured.
Across from him, Shivam's fists bled light. Hair slicked back with sweat and soot, his shoulders rose and fell with a rhythm forged in fire. His knuckles trembled, not with fear, but the sheer weight of the energy he was holding back.
They had already traded blows that cracked the city's bones. Now, it was about to get worse.
"You're still standing," Navik said, voice echoing like a bell tolling from the hollow of a mountain. "I felt your bones break, boy. I tasted your blood in the air."
Shivam spat a thread of crimson to the side and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "And I felt the weight of your lies fall from my back."
Navik tilted his head slightly, eyes glinting. "You wear rebellion like it makes you real. But you're nothing more than a reaction a ripple in the pool of time. And like every ripple, you'll fade."
Shivam stepped forward, dragging the edge of his heel through the scorched ground. Sparks lifted from his skin, pulsing with a dim, rhythmic glow.
"We didn't come to kill gods," he said, voice steady. "We came to remind them they bleed."
That was all it took.
Navik surged forward, arm cocked back like a battering ram, and Shivam launched to meet him. The impact of their collision rippled through the ruins like an earthquake. Glass that hadn't yet shattered exploded in a single, synchronized breath. Dust lifted in waves. Time stuttered.
Navik swung again, blade like fingers slashing across Shivam's side, drawing a thin streak of blood. Shivam grunted but responded with a reverse elbow to Navik's ribs the blow landing with a pulse of pure energy. Cracks formed across the older man's armor. They danced between destruction, slipping between each other's strikes with movements that defied weight and gravity.
Their fists were conversations. Their feet were declarations. Their battle became language ancient and immediate.
Navik lifted both arms and slammed them down toward the ground. Shivam caught the strike mid air, but the force buckled the earth around him, sinking the stone beneath their feet in a sudden crater. Shivam roared and shoved upward, breaking the deadlock and uppercutting Navik into the air but Navik flipped, landing on a floating chunk of debris, barely winded.
"You fight like you've already died," Navik said, dropping back to the surface in a thunderous stomp. "Is that what she taught you? That pain is purpose?"
Shivam's jaw clenched. He moved faster now striking low, pivoting on one foot, landing a palm strike that knocked Navik sideways into a collapsed spire. It broke like glass under his weight.
"She taught me to stand," Shivam answered, walking slowly toward the debris. "Even when the world didn't want me to."
From the shattered stone, Navik rose again slower, but smiling now. "Good," he said. "Then you'll die standing, too."
They collided again, harder this time fists meeting with such force that the ground cracked into floating plates. Each blow thundered outward, shattering what remained of the Dominion's high citadel wall. Debris rained like iron snow.
In a single fluid movement, Shivam dodged a crushing blow and slammed his foot against Navik's thigh, then spun, elbowing him square in the neck. Navik staggered but countered by grabbing Shivam's cloak what was left of it and yanking him forward into a brutal knee to the stomach.
The sound of it echoed louder than the collapsing towers.
Shivam stumbled, coughing, but didn't fall. He caught himself, eyes glowing now not with rage, but clarity.
This wasn't about revenge. It never had been.
He leapt again, shoulder first, tackling Navik through a charred stone arch. They skidded across the battlefield, sparks flying as their bodies scraped across the wreckage like fallen meteors. The momentum stopped only when they slammed into a metal barricade which bent, then snapped in two.
Breathing hard, Shivam pushed off him and stood.
Navik laughed low and rasping, but amused. "You're starting to look like me, Shivam. Bloodied. Broken. Alone."
"I'm none of those things," Shivam said, wiping blood from his brow. "But you? You're starting to look afraid." Navik's laughter stopped. Behind Shivam, the others had begun to arrive.
The moment stretched thick with heat and dust as Shivam locked eyes with Navik, their ragged breaths filling the void between strikes. But something shifted behind him, just beyond the crater's broken rim.
Boots struck stone with determined rhythm.
Aman was the first to appear, storming down the slope with fire in his eyes and bruises etched across his jaw. No words, no hesitation he launched himself straight at Navik, swinging a Noctirum fused Spear. Navik turned just in time to absorb the brunt of the blow with his shoulder, but the impact cracked more of his armor and sent him reeling back several paces.
"Thought you'd take him alone?" Aman growled to Shivam without looking at him.
"I was buying time," Shivam muttered, wiping a fresh line of blood from his lip.
"Then let's spend it together."
Behind them, Naina dropped into a crouch beside a fractured barricade, already loading a Noctirum coated arrow into her reinforced compound bow. She scanned the movement patterns calculating trajectories as calmly as if she were still in the training yard. She loosed one.
The arrow screamed through the air, curving unnaturally and struck Navik's left arm just as he raised it to summon energy. The metal hissed, reacting violently with the unstable currents in his veins, and Navik snarled in pain. Dikshant also sending his Noctirum blades which exploded into Navik's face disrupting his balance.
That was the signal.
From above, Aanchal swung in from a collapsed scaffolding, her sword whirling like silver wind. She landed cleanly, carving a deep line across Navik's exposed flank before tumbling backward into a defensive crouch.
Then came Adhivita walking, not running, through the ruin as if the battle bowed to her pace. Her coat whipped behind her, scorched at the edges. She raised one hand toward the Dominion forces circling the field and murmured something under her breath.
The ground under the enemies fractured. A low hum rippled outward as dormant tech mines she'd planted days ago activated in sync. The resulting shockwave sent at least a dozen guards flying in different directions.
Aman moved towards the center, pulling Shivam out of Navik's range and covering him with a barrier projection that pulsed like a shifting dome of hexagonal light.
"We've got you for ten seconds," he shouted. "Use them."
Shivam didn't answer. He didn't need to.
He stepped forward, slowly, past the line of his friends now fending off the Dominion elite. His aura pulsed darker now, less like fire, more like gravity. It didn't scream anymore. It hummed.
Navik noticed.
"You're changing," the warlord muttered, brushing away scorched armor with a twitch. "What have you done to yourself?"
Shivam didn't stop walking.
"Learned to stop fighting like a storm," he said. "And start fighting like the mountain beneath it."
Then he moved.
The speed was unreal clean, intentional. He ducked under Navik's retaliatory swing, pivoted behind him, and delivered a staggering blow to the back of the warlord's knee. As Navik dropped, Shivam caught him by the shoulder and hurled him overhead, slamming him into the dirt hard enough to leave a crater.
Aman whooped from across the battlefield. "He's finally learning throws!"
Navik erupted from the dust with a fury that twisted the air. His hands flared with jagged energy, black and blue and pulsing with corrupted Noctirum. He slammed his fists together, sending a wave outward that buckled the terrain, toppling what little remained of the outer citadel wall.
But the team held.
Naina's arrows kept Navik off balance. Aanchal darted in and out of blind spots like a flicker of light. Adhivita ripped open Dominion armor with sheer force of will. Dikshant coordinated the team's positions through a tactical HUD in real time. Aman blocked what the others couldn't.
And Shivam…
He moved through them all like a conductor between lightning bolts.
He stopped reacting. He started anticipating.
When Navik tried to slam him again, Shivam dodged, caught the warlord's wrist mid swing, and redirected the force into a throw that launched him through a shattered support pillar. He didn't roar this time. No fury. Just focus.
The others felt it too. Something had shifted.
Shivam's aura no longer flared wildly. It condensed dense, stable, grounded. The color of it wasn't fire or light. It was pressure. Purpose.
And for the first time, Navik looked… unsure.
"You're not supposed to be able to do this," Navik growled, dragging himself to his feet.
"I'm not supposed to be anything," Shivam said quietly. "That's why I win."
Thunder cracked behind them. The sky wept ash. The city groaned under the weight of gods warring in its bones.
Shivam vanished. The sound came next not a sonic boom, but something deeper, like pressure dropping in an instant. A breath stolen from the world. Shivam slammed into Navik with the force of a dying star, his shoulder ramming into the warlord's chest and lifting him clear off the ground. They rocketed backward, colliding through a tower wall, a collapsed pipeline, a chunk of flying debris each impact rippling outward in waves of kinetic destruction.
Navik fought back mid flight, striking elbows into Shivam's side, throwing up a shield of raw energy. Shivam ignored it. He pushed harder, accelerating mid air, wrapping both arms around Navik's waist and flipping slamming the warlord spine first into the top of a broken reactor core. The metal screamed as it dented inward.
A second later, Shivam was already moving again.
He rose into the air, hovering slightly, energy collecting in a spiral around his limbs not chaotic, but magnetic, natural. The deep hum of power vibrated through the bones of every rebel still fighting below.
Navik rose to his knees, breathing heavy. "You burn too hot," he growled. "You always have. You're going to destroy yourself."
Shivam stared down at him, floating just above the cratered field.
"Better me than everyone else." And then he dove. The punch wasn't a strike it was an ending.
Fist met chest. Light exploded in all directions. A dome of golden blue energy expanded outward in slow motion, flattening debris, extinguishing flame, silencing all sound. The entire battlefield froze as if caught in a snapshot of godhood.
Navik's body folded inward from the impact. His armor cracked first across the sternum, then radiating outward like spiderweb fractures in obsidian. The core in his chest, powered by tainted Noctirum, sparked and twisted under the force. For the first time since the war began, the Warlord of the Dominion screamed not in rage, but in pain.
He was sent flying.
His body tore across the earth, grinding through stone and ash until he finally stopped still, broken, armor flickering like a dying storm.
Dust rose around Shivam's feet as he landed. He stumbled forward once, then again, and dropped to one knee. The glow from his eyes faded. Steam rolled off his shoulders. His skin was covered in deep, red hot lines like veins overcharged by raw voltage. The others watched, frozen. Time didn't seem to move.
"Shivam…" Adhivita's voice barely carried over the silence. He looked up once. Just once.
And then his body gave out. He collapsed forward into the crater unconscious, unmoving. His aura vanished like a breath in cold air. The battlefield held its breath. No one moved. No one dared.
Navik slowly dragged himself up from the ruin, his body slumped but still intact. He looked down at the blood in his hands, the cracks running across his chest plate, the sparking fractures in his core… and then at the crater where Shivam had fallen.
He stood tall. There was no joy in his voice just finality.
"He's dead," Navik said, his voice echoing across the ruined field. "Your symbol is gone."
His words echoed through the ranks of rebels and Dominion alike. The sky itself seemed to pale. For a moment, the world forgot to breathe. And in that stillness, the rebellion trembled.
For a moment, the battlefield was made of silence. Shivam lay still in the crater, smoke rising gently from his back, his body unmoving. The rebels stood frozen some mid swing, others mid run suspended by disbelief.
Navik's voice rang out again, louder this time. "You fought well, but your star has fallen. Surrender now, and I may spare what's left of your bodies."
His words were oil on an open flame.
Aman moved first. There was no roar, no warning. Just movement. He sprinted toward Navik with inhuman speed, slamming his shoulder into the warlord's chest before Navik could fully rise. The impact dragged both of them across the stone courtyard in a blur of force. Aman didn't stop he couldn't. He drove his Spear into Navik's ribs, again and again, metal crunching against armor, flesh, and broken power cores.
"I don't need a symbol," he snarled. "I need to see you bleed."
Navik finally retaliated with a savage headbutt; cracking Aman Stopped it with his shield but the shock sending him stumbling. But by the time he turned, Dikshant was already behind him sliding into position and activating a Throwing his knives near Navik's boots. The floor exploded upward, hurling the warlord into the air just as Naina's arrow found its mark.
The Noctirum tipped shaft embedded deep into the exposed fractures on Navik's side, and the reaction was instant. The corrupted energy in his system flared in rebellion, causing his limbs to seize, convulsing midair.
Aanchal was already in motion.
She vaulted from a fallen support beam, her blade flashing with heat. Her strikes came in twos and threes precise, fluid, devastating. She carved three lines across Navik's torso before landing in a crouch, rolling to avoid his retaliating shockwave.
He hit the ground hard for the first time in years, on the defensive.
"You think this changes anything?" Navik bellowed, slamming his fists into the earth. The ground quaked. Entire chunks of the palace walls collapsed behind him. But they weren't listening anymore.
Adhivita stepped forward with one hand raised. Her control over her Noctirum whip look like a second sun. She also twisted the gravity field mid air, turning shards of metal into weapons. The debris around Navik lifted like a crown of knives and then launched. The barrage hit home.
Navik staggered backward, shielding his core. The rebels didn't pause. Aman returned with a vicious hook to his jaw. Dikshant dropped an overcharge field. Naina's arrows rained down like guided stars. Aanchal sliced across tendons. Adhivita detonated the metal lodged inside him.
Each hit carved a scar into the tyrant's legacy. But it wasn't enough.
With a surge of raw power, Navik released a radial shock that hurled them all away. The air ignited. Ash and blood mixed on the stones.
Aman hit a wall, cracking it with his back. Naina rolled over debris, clutching her shoulder. Dikshant's armor shattered. Aanchal coughed blood into the dirt. Adhivita fell to one knee, the light around her dimming. Still, they rose. One by one. Bruised. Bleeding. Breathless. They didn't speak they didn't need to. They stood not just for Shivam, but for each other. For every moment they'd nearly died and didn't. For every promise they made in whispers and battlefield oaths.
They knew this was the edge. And still, they fought.
Shivam floated.
He wasn't falling. He wasn't rising. Just drifting, weightless in an ocean of darkness. Around him, fragments of memory pulsed: the Samaypur battlefield where he first bled for someone else. Adhivita's laughter when they first met in those alleys, Aman's fist bump after their first spar, Laughter with Naina talking to her like an elder sister, fighting with his little brother, the moment his mother called him brave
They flickered and then faded until only black remained. Then a voice broke through.
"You can do this," his mother whispered, as if sitting beside him. "Believe in yourself." Shivam's eyes fluttered, but didn't open.
Another voice followed deeper, rougher, ancient. "Boy," Noctirum rumbled, vibrating the void around him. "It's time. Show him. Free the world."
The dreamscape twisted. He saw not himself but versions of himself: a boy running from fear, a teen consumed by rage, a fighter who never forgave. They stared at him silently. He stepped toward them… and let them go. One by one, they dissolved not destroyed, but released. Then came the stillness.
And from that silence, power rose not blinding, not violent. Elemental. Like the first wind before a monsoon. Like the breath before a choice. His aura returned, not in a flare but a heartbeat. Measured. Pure. A single pulse echoed outward and the void trembled.
Somewhere deep in the palace core, below the ruins of the throne room, a chamber of polished silver lit up with red sequences. A panel unlocked. Monitors glitched into view. A lone figure stood at the center masked, gloved, surrounded by ancient Dominion tech. The Scientist.
The console flared. Across its surface, a countdown began:
"Spatial Lattice Unlocked. Energy Chamber Primed. Space Time Ripper: 67%."
The figure typed a single line of code. Then they smiled. Above the ruined battlefield, the wind reversed. Ash lifted upward. The sky trembled. A deep, pulsing hum spread like a drumbeat beneath the ground. From the center of the crater, light began to rise.
Shivam stood, quiet and shining no longer a weapon, but a force of balance. His aura didn't scream. It commanded. Where he walked, dust calmed. Where he looked, silence bowed.
Navik turned, eyes widening just slightly. Shivam met his gaze. Not a word. Only the storm breathing in. And the world, for the first time, beginning to change.