Kiaria laughed–sharp, careless–the sort of sound that turns small rooms colder. It was a childish prod, no more than a breath of arrogance, but the green shaded chamber tightened around it like cloth pulled taut.
The vengeful spirit answered without throat or mouth: a roar that unstitched the air. Its smoke-black form condensed, eddies of night thickening into viscous mist that crawled along the floor. Iron and the old stench of rot rode in that fog; faint agonized voices braided through it, like a choir stitched from broken things.
The beast companion moved before thought could call it back, faithful reflex outward of the bond between master and beast. Two heads low, coils rippling with Time-and-Space runes, it leapt between Kiaria and that living shadow as a living shield.
"Master–behind me!" the beast's mind pushed into Kiaria.
"Don't get reckless," Kiaria snapped, but his voice held no fear. He had the calm of someone who wanted to tempt fate.
The spirit's mist palms unfurled–hands formed from condensed night. They seized the beast by its throat and flung it like refuse. The creature struck the green wooden floor inside the transparent cube with a shaking impact; where its carcass hit, the black mist pooled and curdled into a bubbling, pitch-dark liquid. From that well rose thin skeletal hands–countless, clawing, screaming–encrusted with shadow.
The hands latched. The beast thrashed; Time-and-Space rifts blinked around it as it tried to rip free, but the black claws clung like sap. Every thrash only tangled the shadow further. The golden thread–the will-bond linking master and companion–grew taut and frayed.
Kiaria spread his arms and invoked the Star-Feather Technique. His body feathered into light; the Shadow Ghost form made him nearly weightless. He shot forward, an ink-streak across the scene, certain he could cross the liquid without touching it and pull the beast into the spiritual seam.
He slid above the black pool as if the world had been rendered in brushstrokes. The wind of the light body did not sink into the shadow–until he reached the beast.
The impossible revealed itself: the black hands had severed the golden thread. It wasn't mere flesh the hands held now but the stolen will itself. The bond was bitten through; the beast lay anchored in stolen purpose. Kiaria's fingers closed and found nothing to pull.
"No." He tasted the word like iron.
Diala's cry cut the air. "Kia! Pull it back–now!"
The beast sent one ragged mind-shout: Master… retreat. Its two heads whirled, trying to find a seam.
There was no seam left.
Kiaria's palm found the deck–green wood humming beneath his hand–and he did the thing he had sworn never to do. He dug down into the weave of the realm and pushed.
The world cracked.
With a sound like the sky splitting, the Blood Moon Void spiraled open.
The transparent cube, the green vessel, the corpses–everything in the outer world folded away. Kiaria, the beast and the vengeful spirit were pulled into a new plane: a domain that tasted of iron and old blood. Volcanoes belched with deep bled; blood rivers ran thick and warm; plates of land floated upon scarlet blood-lavas. Above them hung a massive Blood Moon, heavy and patient, its magnetic presence a slow, insistent pressure that pressed at bones and will.
Kiaria's move had been a gamble–yet in the Void the physics were his knife. The Blood Moon's gravity snagged at the black liquid. Where mist had been cohesive, tides of force tore it into billions of pin-prick droplets. The skeletal hands, confident and glue-tight, unfurled and broke apart under the pull. The beast's lock loosened; with a tear of will it tore free and hurtled back toward the seam Kiaria had opened. It dove through–reclaimed–vanishing into the spiritual fold.
Kiaria pushed again. The Blood Moon swelled, and in his mind a spectral palm–the echo of his strike–formed above it. He drove that phantom palm down. The projected hand slammed like an anvil on the Moon: the Moon lurched, falling, and its descent multiplied gravity into a crushing spear. The pressure concentrated like a fist aimed at the vengeful spirit alone.
The spirit stumbled. Humiliation bent it to its knees beneath that childish will. But rage is molten, and humiliation is the kindling of fury. The spirit's shadows flared and snapped: where once it had been a tethered wraith, now it broke its shackle and surged upward–no longer a haunting echo but something with bone and hunger. It erupted beyond its old bounds and, with a howl that cracked the Void, forced itself into a new shape: Demon Godhood.
"Finally," the spirit rasped with a voice like broken bells, "I break free."
The domain shattered under that birth. Kiaria's crafted gravity buckled like thin glass. The Demon Spirit re-formed into a monstrous coherence, and its first answer was contempt. It bent the world back on Kiaria.
A suppression like lead settled on Kiaria's chest. Lungs resisted; ribs felt crushed. The world narrowed to a pinprick. Pain sheared through him as if fists of thought were breaking bone from within. He vomited blood. The Zhar Do Globe around him flared–its runes trembling as it tried to hold the strain.
"YOU LITTLE–" the Demon Spirit snarled. "You mocked me. Now taste real subjugation."
Kiaria fought to speak. "C… can't… breathe–" The words were ragged, swallowed by pressure.
Diala knelt at his side, eyes bright and white with fear. "Kia! Stay with me. Don't–don't leave me."
The Demon Spirit leaned close like a predator savoring the final twitch. "Perfect. The sound of failure." It pressed, and Kiaria's limbs grew immobile, thought congealing into treacle.
Something broke in the deep pattern of the world–an old cadence that trembled through the void like a bell. The Dragon Emperors awoke.
First a tremor in the sea of consciousness, then a coalescence: two immense wills slipping free of sleep. The Golden Dragon and the Azure Dragon tore themselves from slumber, their presences slamming into the domain with the force of weather. The Zhar Do Globe flared as their old power hit it; the artifact groaned, but did not fall.
"Who dares wake us?" the Golden Dragon's voice echoed, slow and full of riverbed stone.
"Ah," the Azure Dragon rasped, a humorless laugh cracking through the smoke, "you–still bleeding, still pestilent."
The Demon Spirit answered, exultant and furious. "Old lizards! At last–my sworn enemies. I have waited centuries for this!"
"Save the boasts," the Golden Dragon said tersely. "We finish what is unfinished."
They took forms–humanoid shells for the moment–because in this place the illusion held less sway over them now. The fight that followed was not merely blows; it was the collision of eras. Claws of ancient aura met fists of black mist. Golden flame answered corrosive shadow. Each strike was a chapter, tearing runes from the air and sending shockwaves that made the Zhar Do Globe tremble like an animal.
Kiaria lay at the center of the storm, breath a thin thread, blood on his lips. The Demon Spirit unleashed centrifugal strikes aimed at mind and marrow. The Dragons poured out the fullness of a long, bitter craft–every scrap of rancor and technique they had stored in relics–but the spirit surged with fresh ferocity, raw and newly crowned in demonic godhood. Blow answered blow; neither side gave quarter. The Zhar Do Globe, exceptional artifact that it was, shuddered under the strain.
Diala remained cradled within its glow, white-faced but steady. The Dragon Emperors' claws flashed like lightning; the Demon Spirit roared and countered with a pressure that made the globe twist. At times it seemed the globe would splinter. Dust of rune-metal tinged the air.
Then, with a sound like spent thunder, both Dragons paused. Not because either had won, but because the cost of continuing would tear everything small and dear into pieces. They drew back into guarded stances, haggard breaths ripping through them.
The Golden Dragon's tone dropped to a low river. "Recuperate, child. Regain your breath."
"Cultivate," the Azure Dragon added, quiet and sharp. "Heal the fractures in your spirit. You will not stand if you push now."
The Demon Spirit gets mad. "We are not finished. I will repay you for what you did before. So, none of you are allowed to rest. Fight me. Fight… or she dies."
The Dragon Emperors had no choice except continuing the fight. They left a soft mist of recuperation over Kiaria and Diala, then withdrew into the sea of consciousness to gather their strength. The Zhar Do Globe held; its runes pulsed as it absorbed the last of the pressure. Kiaria vomited more blood; the taste of iron clung to the air.
Lying there, breath shallow, Kiaria felt his heart-demon stir–the ugly, insistent voice inside him dredging doubt and anger. Distraction bit at his focus: the domain's ruin, the sight of the Dragons' weary forms, the recent laughter of his own provocation turned near-fatal. Each thought pricked the wound.
Then, in the red lace of pain and breath, his Sect Master's voice returned–a clipped, iron memory: a mantra like a hinge.
The Evil Descends–Light Ascends.
Kiaria clung to the shape of those words. He forced breath into syllables, slowly at first, then measured. He began the motion: breathe in the darkness, fold it, lift the ember. The world remained bruised, but inside the bruise a candle ignited.
Diala sat beside him, fingers touching his wrist. "We'll get through this," she said, voice small but fierce.
He looked at her and managed a half smile. "Then stay–until the lie of cold becomes true."
The Dragon Emperors' mist settled around them like warm rain. The Ghost of Vengeance–now a wounded Demon Spirit–yet continuing the fight under Demonic fighting spirit. Dragon Emperors are exhausting–gradually Demon Spirit gains the upper hand.
Kiaria breathed the mantra again. The phrase steadied him, a scaffold against the chaos. He closed his eyes and began to cultivate through pain, patient as a man planting a tree that will not shade him in his lifetime.
Outside, the remnants of the battle stained the vessel's core chamber. The Zhar Do Globe hummed, still guarding the two small figures it enclosed. The Dragons gathered their scattered essence, old enemies with an old hatred being fanatic in fight.