Xeran's voice cut the silence, heavy and sure.
"Your strength is limitless, demon. But under the Black Sun, mine is infinite."
His single arm flexed, charred flesh steaming, his words rolling like thunder.
"I lost an arm. I lost a leg. But you forgot, decay isn't always external."
Raga's eyes narrowed. Rei's chest throbbed, Enso rattling inside him like a caged beast.
"If you won't decay, then your Enso will. And when it does… your body will collapse under me. You'll self-destruct."
Xeran braced. His leg, still blackened from Inferno's fire, twitched. He growled deep, then pushed every fiber of muscle into it. The flesh began to slough, burning parts flaking away as new, raw muscle knit itself together. Veins twisted into ropes, skin peeled back, layer upon layer of sickly tissue spilling forward until a leg of pulsating meat stood where bone should have been.
And then he ripped it off.
The sound cracked the air. Blood and muscle strings whipped out, snapping as he tore his own leg away. Before Raga's eyes, the severed limb swelled, warped, and split into something new. A second body. A second Xeran.
Both of them stood, each with one arm, steam rising from their frames. Their eyes burned the same. Their fists flexed the same. Two Xerans.
Raga's grin faltered for the first time.
"You pulled yourself into two?"
The original's lip curled. "This power only works when I take it myself. You thought you burned me. But you've only made me multiply."
The two Xerans crouched, then launched. The earth fractured. They blurred forward, faster than sound, faster than thought. Raga vanished into the shadows of speed, reappearing behind one of them, his hand already reaching for the spine.
But the other Xeran's arm snapped back, without looking, and caught Raga's wrist mid-motion. The ground split from the sheer pressure. Then came the slam.
Meteor fists, pounding, relentless. Flesh like steel pounded Rei's body, rattling his bones beneath Raga's control. Each strike cratered the ground. Each hit forced Raga to guard, but the combined rhythm of two Xerans battered his defenses down. His body sank, inch by inch, under the hammer of decay.
Raga vanished again, smoke trails ripping behind him. He reappeared above, going for the second Xeran's neck. The original didn't even look. His free arm shot back, catching Raga's hand, and hurled him like a ragdoll.
Through the sky, he soared. Then the world blackened.
Both Xerans leapt, bodies merging mid-air, fists colliding together into one monstrous strike. They descended as one, like a star falling from heaven, smashing into Raga's gut with nuclear force.
The world cracked.
Not just the ground, but deep into the crust. Earth caved under the blow, rocks molten from impact. They buried Raga beneath, shoving him deep into the abyss of stone.
The copy's face twisted with cruel glee. His palm opened, reaching for Rei's chest, veins pulsing with decay.
"I'll rot this boy's Enso. Let's see your demon breathe without his cage."
His hand hovered, when Raga's thumb touched his knuckles.
One word. Low. Deadly.
"Hells Gate: Adnate."
The world shook.
The ground beneath the copy erupted. Black hands clawed from the abyss, grotesque, endless, grabbing, choking, dragging. They swarmed him like starving hounds, sinking their claws into his body, dragging him down screaming.
The copy Xeran's roar twisted the air. "NO!"
The earth split, fire bursting up. And then he was gone. Dragged into hell itself. No escape. No return.
The original Xeran froze, horror breaking his mask. He leapt, grasping wildly for his copy's arm, but it was too late. A shadow loomed above him.
Raga!!!!
He slammed his palm against Xeran's back, hurling him with effortless dominance. The Elder's body tore through buildings, walls crumbling into dust as he skidded across the city's bones.
Before Xeran could breathe, Raga was above him again, descending. His fist crashed into Xeran's chest. For an instant, nothing. Then it was as if a million fists landed all at once, crushing him deeper into the ruins, cracking the air itself.
Xeran gasped, staring up, bones splintering inside him.
Raga floated above, his body outlined in shadowed fire, eyes glimmering with endless hunger. A god of ruin.
"Time control? Useless.
Decay? Useless.
Against me… everything you are is useless."
His palm rose.
A flicker. Tiny. A glowing ember of black-red energy, no larger than dust, spiraled into existence in his hand. It was so small it looked harmless, so faint it barely even glowed.
Xeran's pupils shrank. His instincts screamed louder than ever before.
Raga smirked.
"That was amusing. But it's over. Taste a fraction of my true power."
He flicked the ember downward.
It touched Xeran's chest.
At first, silence. Nothing.
Then the world screamed.
The city vanished in a single blast. Not fire, not light...obliteration. A black inferno spread outward, swallowing stone, metal, flesh, air itself. Buildings vaporized, the ground peeled back, everything alive turned to ash. The crater deepened for miles, the shockwave flattening forests beyond sight.
In the heart of it, Xeran's body writhed, decayed, erased, screaming as the fire chewed through layers faster than he could regenerate. No skin left to decay. No flesh left to rot. His endless layers met endless fire. Until nothing remained.
Ash fell like snow. The land was silent.
Raga lowered his hand, expression blank. His body pulsed with demonic lines, shadows curling around Rei like chains. He tilted his head, voice carrying like the toll of judgment.
"You brought this hour of decay. But under me, decay itself burns."
He floated down, boots crushing the dust that once was Xeran.
Rei's heart barely beat. His body quaked under the strain. But Raga only laughed, dark, raw, terrible.
"Next."