The heavens of Dimension Prime were burning.
Ashes of shattered clouds drifted over citadels made of light, and the air itself screamed with the friction of gods. From horizon to horizon the armies of creation stretched—meta-humans, celestials, and the luminous hosts sworn to David, the God of Speed. Beneath their feet, the planet's crust glowed like a forge.
At the centre of that storm stood David, motionless for a heartbeat that contained an eternity. His armor was forged from the compressed energy of time itself, every plate humming with kinetic power barely contained. Around him the world slowed; even lightning crawled like liquid gold.
Across the chasm of broken reality towered Neroth, the God of Evil, a giant wrapped in obsidian flame. Each breath he exhaled became an army—void-spawned creatures birthed from his hatred, their forms flickering between flesh and shadow. His laughter rolled through the realms, deep and ancient, the sound of corruption rejoicing.
> "You were swift, little god," Neroth's voice thundered, "but speed is meaningless before eternity. I am the darkness between heartbeats."
David's hand flexed, lightning arcing along his fingers. "Then I'll erase the space between them."
A burst of light split the field as Ben, the Omnigene Wielder and God of Magic, descended beside him. His armor flowed like living metal, its color shifting with every spell he prepared. Upon his wrist pulsed the Omnigene, a morphic device of divine origin that let him channel entire species of power—flames of dragons, strength of titans, focus of archmages—all at once.
"Dimensional barriers are collapsing," Ben said, eyes glowing with runic patterns. "If we don't stop him here, he'll poison every world in the hierarchy."
David nodded once. Words were wasted when time was bleeding. He raised his gaze; his army saw it and moved.
Trumpets of plasma sounded. Spears of condensed energy hurled forward. Neroth's legions screamed and rushed to meet them, colliding in an impact so immense that continents cracked.
For an instant, motion ceased—then the war resumed in a blur of sound and color.
---
David ran.
Not across ground or sky, but through the intervals between them. To mortal eyes he vanished; to gods, he became a trail of light weaving through destruction. Every step he took was a storm unleashed: enemies evaporated in the shockwave of his passing. Yet for all his speed, the corruption spread faster. Wherever Neroth's blood struck, the soil blackened and rose as new soldiers.
Ben hovered above the chaos, glyphs forming halos around him. "Arcana Prism—Unseal!" he shouted. A sphere of pure sorcery expanded, cleansing hundreds of voidspawn in blinding radiance. But even as the light pushed outward, the darkness folded around it like an ocean swallowing a spark.
Neroth's laughter deepened. He lifted his blade—a monument forged from the bones of forgotten deities—and drove it into the earth. The world quaked. Geysers of shadow erupted, forming serpents that tore through both armies without mercy.
"Ben!" David's voice cut across the battlefield like thunder. "Contain the surge!"
"I'm trying—his essence corrupts the weave itself!" Ben extended both hands; threads of magic lanced into the sky, knitting rifts closed faster than they opened. Sweat ran down his brow, glowing with arcane fire. "If this keeps up, reality here will invert!"
David darted through the collapsing terrain, catching fallen allies, hurling them to safety, striking through storms of black fire. Each strike drained him; each breath tasted of ruin. He saw faces he'd sworn to protect disappearing into dust.
Something inside him began to fracture—a pressure at the edge of perception, as if the universe itself were warning him that the limits of speed had been reached.
> No… limits are chains.
He focused on Neroth, whose colossal form blotted out the stars. Every punch of that monster reshaped landscapes, every roar bent gravity. To defeat him, David knew he'd have to move faster than creation allowed.
Ben's voice echoed through the din: "If you go beyond the light barrier again, your body might—"
"—catch up later," David finished. He smiled, though blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. "Cover me, brother."
Ben clenched his fist; the Omnigene blazed to life, shifting through alien sigils. "Then let's make history regret us."
He slammed his palm to the ground. Columns of energy rose, forming a dome of protective runes. The battlefield froze for a breath. Within that stillness, David vanished.
To the watching armies, a single streak of silver lightning pierced the dark—a comet wrapped in storms. He struck Neroth's mid-section with the force of collapsing suns, launching the god backward through mountains of crystal. Reality shuddered; light bent and screamed.
But Neroth only smiled, black ichor streaming from his wounds. "You think yourself divine because you move quickly?" His voice became many. "I am the ending that waits even for gods."
He spread his wings of void. The sky tore open, revealing a swirling abyss that consumed light and sound alike.
Ben felt it first—a pull in his magic, as though his soul were being unstitched. "He's opening a dimensional grave!" he shouted.
David skidded to a halt, panting, eyes blazing white. "Then we close it."
He looked at Ben. In that shared glance, centuries of brotherhood and countless battles passed unspoken. Ben raised his left hand; David touched it, a spark of blue-gold lightning linking them. Power intertwined—speed and sorcery, motion and meaning.
---
That connection birthed a light neither had wielded before. The Omnigene responded, reshaping into a conduit that harmonized their divinities.
Ben's voice lowered to a whisper. "You'll have one chance, David. When I release the seal, run—not through space, but through fate itself."
David nodded. "I was born running."
Ben thrust both arms forward; magic erupted in a spiral of geometric fire. "Chrono-Arcane Drive—unlocked!"
Time cracked open like glass.
David leapt.
To mortal perception, nothing happened. But to the gods, a line of light split existence in two, weaving through the gaps of causality itself. Every heartbeat froze; every thought stalled. David outran sound, light, and destiny.
He reappeared above Neroth, hands blazing with condensed chronal energy. "For every soul you've devoured," he said softly, "I return your darkness to nothing."
He struck.
The explosion that followed consumed the horizon.