The black blade of Adgrun's great axe whistled through the air—and missed.
It struck the obsidian ground with a thunderous CRACK, igniting a violent eruption of flame that exploded outward in a wave of incandescent orange. The shockwave shook the battlefield as molten stone burst skyward, casting flickers of red light across the scorched plains.
Adgrun rose from the flames like a demon from the pit, fire erupting from every pore of his muscular frame. His molten veins glowed through crimson scales, smoke trailing from his mouth as he exhaled raw heat. His very presence warped the air around him.
Across from him danced Izzox, a blur of blinding gold. Light radiated from his every movement—his form ethereal, his eyes twin suns. Where Adgrun looked forged from brimstone, Izzox glimmered like a heavenly spirit descending from the clouds.
The two titans clashed not with fists, but with essence—fire and light colliding in bursts of elemental fury.
Izzox circled Adgrun in rapid, staccato bursts of yellow energy, teleporting in flashes of brilliance. He never stayed in one place long enough to be caught. From every angle, his gleaming sword sent precise beams of concentrated light slicing toward his fiery opponent.
Adgrun grunted, teeth bared as he turned and twisted to dodge. One beam hissed past his ribs, another grazed his shoulder. He swatted at one directly ahead, then spun mid-step to narrowly avoid another aimed at his back.
"They move as fast as him," Adgrun growled inwardly, eyes blazing. "And he's launching multiple at once…"
He was on the defensive, and he hated it.
"I wanted to help at the cliff, but this bastard's keeping me locked down."
The blur of light surged again, looping just beyond the radius of Adgrun's fireburst. Izzox never crossed into close range—unless he had a clean strike. He was baiting Adgrun and toying with him.
But Adgrun had seen enough.
He wouldn't win this by playing defense, not against a phantom.
He narrowed his eyes, fire bleeding from the corners as he tracked the blur.
Then—there.
The light began to veer in for a diagonal slash.
Adgrun moved.
His body surged with infernal energy, and his axe, now swung overhead in a brutal arc, glowing from the fire that coursed through it. A black blade whistled through the air like a reaper's scythe.
The golden streak moved straight for him.
But Izzox's speed, his greatest strength, was also his constraint. Once in motion, he needed to plant his feet to change direction—and that pause, that sliver of a moment, was enough.
His eyes widened.
Adgrun's axe screamed toward him, mere inches away from slicing through his chest.
Then Izzox planted. In the blink of an eye, he stopped.
The streak of light collapsed into his Dragonkin form. He stood tall and poised, golden light spilling from his eyes and mouth like a living sun. A smug, unshaken expression lingered on his face.
Before Adgrun's axe could land, Izzox shot upward—a streak of brilliance vanishing into the sky.
But Adgrun was already one step ahead.
As the axe buried itself into the ground, he poured over half his mana into the strike. A surge of molten energy ignited beneath the surface, veins of lava spreading from the impact point.
Infernal Flow: Cataclysm Eruption.
A column of fire—no, a pillar of destruction—erupted skyward with apocalyptic force, engulfing the space Izzox had just fled into.
There was no outrunning this one.
The explosion towered into the heavens, swallowing even Adgrun himself. But he welcomed it—his body immune to flame, his soul forged in it.
Above, Izzox hovered for a breath.
Then, fire met him.
His golden brows furrowed, not in fear, but in challenge.
He raised his radiant sword overhead, light streaming from the blade's edge like liquid dawn. Then, with both hands gripping the hilt, he swung downward.
Light Severance.
A brilliant crescent of light—shaped like the arc of his blade—sliced through the sky, colliding with the oncoming firestorm.
The two forces—light and flame—collided with a world-shattering roar.
For a heartbeat, the sky held still—fire and light locked in place like two gods wrestling for dominance.
Then—
BOOM.
They detonated.
An explosion twice the size of Adgrun's original blast erupted. The shockwave obliterated everything within its radius. Fire and light spiraled together into a supernova, carving a crater so deep it split through layers of the battlefield.
The obsidian plain cracked open like glass, scorched stone peeling away as the sheer force rippled across the landscape.
Adgrun was hurled backward into the smoke, flames trailing from his body like a falling meteor.
Izzox, struck mid-air, vanished behind the blinding light.
And for a moment—
Silence.
Then, in the haze of ash and heat, two voices echoed the same word across opposite ends of the battlefield.
"Shit."
As the smoke from the explosion cleared, the two generals lay sprawled on opposite sides of a massive crater.
The land between them had been gouged out by divine forces—raw, violent, and unforgiving. The crater's edges glowed faintly, still smoldering with traces of yellow light and orange fire, while the very center hissed with heat, radiating steam and magical residue into the air.
Both warriors groaned as they slowly pushed themselves upright.
The explosion had split its wrath evenly. Izzox, immune to light but not flame, had taken the full force of Adgrun's infernal blaze. Adgrun, protected from fire but not light, had been seared by Izzox's celestial beam. Neither had walked away unscathed.
'Feels like I got hit by a starving mammoth going full speed...' Adgrun muttered inwardly, placing a clawed hand on his horned head. His crimson scales, once glowing with heat, were now dulled and scorched in several places.
The flames pouring out of his body flickered weakly. Fire sputtered from his eyes and mouth like dying torches. Even the burning aura that always surrounded him struggled to stay alight.
Across the glowing chasm, Izzox wasn't faring much better.
The radiant light that usually cloaked his form was stuttering—flickering like a faulty arcane lantern. His golden scales cracked with faint glowing fractures, and beams of light leaked from the seams like the shell of a star splitting open.
Adgrun grunted, low and annoyed. 'Why won't this bastard just let me kill him already?'
Then a crooked grin tugged at his lips.
'No… no. That wouldn't be any fun. We've danced this dance too many times for it to end so easily. If I'm going to kill him… it needs to mean something.'
He straightened his spine with a groan, gripping the black-bladed axe at his side. His arms trembled, his body ached, but his will was unshaken.
"Hey, Izzox!" he shouted across the crater, voice harsh but clear. "I hope you've gotten stronger since the last time we fought!"
The flickering light on the far side gave no verbal reply. But slowly—deliberately—Izzox nodded.
Adgrun's grin widened.
'I've got less than half my mana left… but it'll do.'
With that thought, he began circulating the remaining flames within him, focusing, compressing, refining—sending streams of blazing mana through every fiber of his scaled body at impossible speed.
And then it changed.
The orange fire that had once danced along his limbs and eyes flared once, and turned blue.
A piercing, azure inferno erupted from him. No longer flickering or unstable, this was controlled, lethal heat. The very air around him ignited. His eyes and mouth became fountains of blue flame, and steam rolled off his armored chest in waves.
If before he had looked like an infernal demon…
Now, he stood as an infernal demon lord—the battlefield bending to his presence, the earth groaning beneath his feet.
Across the chasm, Izzox raised his chin.
The pale yellow of his aura shifted, too, softening, condensing, and then surged outward as he circulated his mana. It poured through him gracefully, illuminating his frame like a holy sculpture come alive.
His light changed.
It became white—pure, divine, blinding. It was so bright that his figure disappeared entirely, his form now a radiant silhouette carved from celestial brilliance.
No details could be made out. He was light incarnate—an archangel of war.
If one stared at him for too long, their eyes would surely burn away.
The Demon Lord and the Archangel stood once more at the edge of battle.
And though their bodies ached, though the crater between them marked the devastation of their last clash, neither flinched.
They would finish what they started.