The sky had turned molten.
Beneath the raven's colossal wings, a sphere of roaring flame churned and swelled, devouring the air around it. The heat distorted the horizon itself. Grass ignited into ash. Stones cracked. Even the clouds above seemed to recoil from the inferno.
The fire was not natural.
It screamed.
Far in the distance, the Thunder Lord—who moments ago had watched with amused detachment—felt her skin blister beneath her armor.
"…This is troublesome," she muttered, her playful expression fading.
The air scorched her lungs. Even lightning could not survive in that furnace forever. With a final glance at the battlefield, she vanished in a flash of silver light—retreating unseen, thousands of miles away to her hidden sanctuary.
"If Silver dies… so be it," she whispered coldly.
Silver was in no condition to notice.
He lay crumpled against shattered stone. His skin was split and blackened. Blood pooled beneath him, hissing as droplets evaporated on the heated ground.
His breaths were shallow. Wet.
Each inhale felt like swallowing knives. Several ribs were broken—he could feel one grinding against another when he tried to move. His vision flickered in and out, darkness swallowing the edges.
"So this is… death?"
He tried to lift his hand.
It trembled, then fell uselessly.
The massive creature screeched triumphantly, lifting the blazing sphere higher. The fireball had grown enormous—large enough to swallow a fortress whole. The air roared around it.
Silver could feel it drawing in oxygen.
It was about to realese the flaming ball of fire, and then ,
"Pah."
The word cut through the chaos like a blade.
"Do you truly believe," the man said calmly, "that your flames can rival my Body Arrow?"
He did not raise his voice. He did not hurry.
His sword—long and unnaturally dark—remained extended before him already in mid-strike.
The raven shrieked and hurled the fireball downward.
The sky fell.
The inferno crashed toward the man, roaring with enough force to flatten mountains.
But he did not dodge.
He did not turn.
He did not even blink.
The flames struck.
BOOM.
The impact ruptured the earth. Fire expanded outward in a dome of destruction. Trees vaporized instantly. The ground liquefied.
BOOM.
The sword met the heart of the fireball.
BOOM.
Explosions rippled in violent succession, shockwaves tearing across the battlefield. Flame and steel collided in a storm of pressure and sound.
And yet—
Through the inferno—
The blade continued forward.
The man walked through the flames as if through morning mist.
The raven's cry faltered.
Its massive eyes twitched.
Fear.
For the first time since its birth, the ancient beast felt it.
The sword emerged from the collapsing fireball untouched. Not blackened. Not slowed.
The man's voice drifted upward, cold and almost bored.
The distance between them vanished.
The raven beat its wings desperately, but the pressure from the blade pinned it in place. The air itself seemed to solidify around the weapon's path.
"No," the man said quietly.
The sword struck.
For a fraction of a second, everything became silent.
Then—
The force detonated outward.
The impact did not merely pierce the raven; it erased it. The amplified strike carried enough power to sunder a mountain range. Space fractured around the blade's path. The raven's body shattered into incandescent dust before it could even scream.
The sky cleared.
Ash drifted downward like black snow.
Where once stood a legendary beast… there was nothing.
A strange fire began to coil around the man's body.
It was identical to the one the fire raven once possessed.
"Ha ha, a fire element ability?"
He said jovialy
"That's nice"
Then, he noticed something a body , possibly a dead body lay ahead.
He summoned a pair of large wings and began flying towards the body.