Time lost meaning.
The battle had long surpassed hours, days, or even eras. The sky had been shattered and reshaped so many times that the concept of direction no longer existed. Up and down were suggestions at best, swallowed by the chaos of two beings who existed beyond the restraint of worlds.
The horned man tore through the void, his flaming wings leaving burning scars across reality. Each beat of those wings birthed storms of white-hot fire that spiraled outward like dying stars. His fists moved faster than causality, every strike compressing space until it screamed and imploded.
The dragon answered with fury just as vast.
Its coils wrapped around broken dimensions, anchoring itself as it unleashed torrents of lightning and annihilation breath. Each roar carried power enough to erase memories from the land itself. Its claws tore through the man's defenses again and again, ripping scales of flame from his wings and carving glowing wounds across his armor.
They clashed.
Again.
And again.
Every collision birthed devastation beyond comprehension. The planet beneath them—if it could still be called a planet—had long since fractured into drifting continents of molten stone and collapsing cores. Seas of magma churned where mountains once stood, while the sky above folded inward, collapsing into spirals of broken light.
The horned man grabbed the dragon's jaw mid-roar and wrenched it open wider.
Flames poured from his arms, flooding the dragon's throat with incandescent destruction. The dragon shrieked, the sound tearing apart several layers of reality at once.
"SCREAM LOUDER!" the man bellowed. "LET THE DEAD HEAR YOU!"
The dragon retaliated by slamming its head forward, smashing the man through three collapsing dimensions before coiling around him. Its massive body constricted, scales grinding together with enough force to crush moons into dust.
"YOU WERE BORN TO FAIL!" the dragon thundered. "YOUR STRUGGLE IS MEANINGLESS!"
The man roared in response.
Fire erupted outward from his body, expanding violently. The flames did not merely burn—they consumed laws, rewriting the nature of what they touched. The dragon's coils were forced apart, scales cracking and exploding as the fire devoured their structure.
"I WAS BORN TO END YOU!"
He surged forward, horns glowing brighter than ever before, and drove his head straight into the dragon's chest.
The impact shattered the battlefield.
Space collapsed into a singular point before exploding outward, flattening everything within tens of thousands of kilometers. Entire fragments of the broken world were erased, leaving only emptiness where matter once existed.
The dragon staggered back, blood pouring freely now, its golden ichor evaporating into streams of radiant mist.
Yet it laughed.
The sound was deep, terrible, and filled with malice older than stars.
"LOOK AT YOU." Its voice rumbled through the void. "STILL STRUGGLING. STILL BLEEDING. YOU LOST THE MOMENT YOU CHOSE REVENGE."
The man wiped blood from his eyes, his breath ragged but his stance unbroken.
"Revenge?" he spat. "No. This is justice."
He raised both hands.
Symbols ignited across his arms, ancient sigils burning through his flesh and armor alike. The flames around him condensed, growing denser, heavier, until they warped the void itself.
"FINAL CALAMITY—"
The dragon's eyes widened.
It responded in kind.
Lightning gathered along its spine, flowing toward its maw. Its scales shifted, realigning themselves into patterns that resonated with the deepest layers of existence.
"PRIMORDIAL EXTINCTION—"
Their voices overlapped.
The techniques were unleashed simultaneously.
Two apocalyptic forces collided in the center of the battlefield, and for a moment, nothing existed at all.
No light.
No sound.
No space.
Then the explosion occurred.
It was not a burst—it was a collapse. Reality folded inward, consumed by the clash of absolute power. The remnants of the world were obliterated, reduced to nothing more than drifting fragments of raw energy.
When the chaos finally settled, both combatants still stood.
Barely.
The horned man's wings flickered, their flames dimmer, unstable. Cracks ran along his horns, leaking molten light. His armor was shattered in places, exposing scorched flesh beneath.
The dragon's body sagged, its vast form trembling. Entire sections of its scales had been blown away, revealing glowing muscle and bone. One wing hung at an unnatural angle, torn nearly in half.
They stared at each other across the void.
Hatred burned in both their eyes, unextinguished despite exhaustion.
"WHY WON'T YOU DIE?!" the dragon roared.
The man laughed weakly.
"Because you're still breathing."
They charged again.
Their final clash was slower, heavier—each movement laden with the accumulated weight of countless battles. Fist met claw. Flame met lightning. Each strike still shattered space, but the cracks no longer spread as far.
The universe itself seemed weary.
Then—
Everything stopped.
No warning.
No buildup.
The horned man froze mid-strike, his fist inches from the dragon's jaw. The dragon's claw halted mid-swing, lightning frozen in place along its talons.
The flames flickering around the man's wings went still, suspended like painted fire. The dragon's breath attack vanished, snuffed out as though it had never existed.
Even the broken void fell silent.
Time had not slowed.
It had been seized.
A thin crack appeared in the space between them.
It was small—barely the length of a human hand. Compared to the massive rifts they had torn open with every clash, it was insignificant.
And yet—
Both of them felt it.
A pressure descended, subtle but absolute. Not hostile. Not benevolent.
Final.
The crack widened.
From it emerged light—pure, untainted, brighter than any flame or lightning they had wielded. It did not burn the eyes. It erased the concept of shadow.
A figure stepped through.
They were humanoid in shape, draped in a cloak of flawless white that did not ripple or move, as though untouched by reality. Where their face should have been was only brilliance—an overwhelming radiance that concealed all features, rendering identity meaningless.
Behind their head floated a ring of light.
Not golden.
Not silver.
Blackened, yet luminous—a paradoxical halo that absorbed and reflected existence at the same time.
The figure hovered calmly, unaffected by the shattered battlefield.
The dragon trembled.
For the first time since the battle began, fear entered its ancient eyes.
"…WHO—"
The being raised a single finger.
The dragon's voice died instantly.
The horned man tried to move.
He could not.
His rage screamed within him, but his body refused to respond. Every ounce of power he possessed—every technique, every flame—was sealed by an authority so overwhelming that resistance was laughable.
The being looked between them.
Or rather, the light where its face should have turned from one to the other.
It spoke.
Its voice was soft.
Not loud.
Not commanding.
Yet it resonated through every layer of existence, bypassing ears and minds alike.
"Enough."
Two simple words.
They were not shouted.
They were not infused with anger.
They were stated as fact.
The universe obeyed.
The being snapped its fingers.
There was no explosion.
No light.
No sound.
The horned man and the dragon were erased.
Not destroyed.
Annihilated.
Their bodies vanished without resistance, reduced to nothingness so complete that even the memory of their forms faded from the void. Their rage, their hatred, their centuries of conflict—gone in an instant.
Only two things remained.
Two cores.
One burned with dim, dying flame, cracked but intact.
The other pulsed faintly with residual lightning, its surface fractured and hollow.
They fell.
Silently.
Downward, through the broken sky, toward the shattered remains of the world below.
No souls followed them.
The being watched for less than a heartbeat.
Then it turned back toward the space crack.
Without another word, it stepped through.
The crack sealed itself seamlessly, leaving no trace behind.
Silence reclaimed the battlefield.
The void began to heal.
And far below, the two lifeless cores struck the ground, embedding themselves deep within the broken planet—awaiting a fate yet unknown.