Far from the fortress walls, beyond the screams and clash of men, two beings fight like gods cast down to earth.
No. They are more than monsters.
They are calamities given form.
Each movement tears the land asunder. Each breath twists nature itself.
The plains turn into a wasteland of molten stone and yawning craters. Rivers of fire run where grass once swayed. Forests burn at the horizon, collapsing like candles before a storm. Even distant mountains groan beneath the weight of their fury.
The Lava Giant towers over the battlefield—a mountain of flame and despair.
Its body is a living furnace; molten veins pulse with blinding orange light.
Magma oozes from its wounds like blood, spilling in rivers that devour everything they touch.
Each swing of its arm tears the sky apart, sending waves of molten shards crashing to the ground like fiery rain.
Its roars shake the air—primal, endless, ancient.
And before it stands Commander Arvell Dyne.
If the Lava Giant is destruction incarnate, Arvell is the will of humanity made manifest.
He moves through fire as if it is air.
A radiant white aura surrounds him—fierce and pure.
In his hands, his greatsword hums—a low, furious sound that splits the roar of the world itself.
Each swing is a storm unleashed.
Each strike erases matter, leaving the air howling in its wake.
But against the Lava Giant, it is not enough.
For every wound he carves into the beast, molten flesh closes again.
For every explosion of light, more magma surges forward, devouring his path.
And still, Arvell does not stop.
To defeat a force of nature, one must become a force of nature.
I am that force. And now—he is.
The Lava Giant roars, and the sky dims under its voice.
A dark hue radiates from its molten body, warping the air, melting everything it touches.
The ground beneath its feet cracks and turns to sludge.
Without hesitation, the Giant lowers its stance. The earth quakes. And it charges.
Each step is a thunderclap, each motion a storm of flame and fury.
Commander Arvell does not flinch.
He raises one hand, calm amid the chaos.
In an instant, a thousand aura beams shimmer into existence around him—gleaming lances of pure white energy.
They shoot forward like a swarm of hungry beasts.
His voice cuts through the storm, sharp and commanding, carrying the weight of countless battles.
"Return to where you belong."
The beams strike the Lava Giant in a storm of light and fire.
The ground ruptures.
The shockwave tears apart everything for miles—soil, stone, and even air.
But from the blazing dust, the Giant emerges once more.
Its massive form is disfigured, its body fractured—yet not destroyed.
Molten flesh stitches itself back together as if mocking the Commander's effort.
"...Disgusting," Arvell mutters, his tone colder than the steel in his hands.
The Lava Giant is endurance made flesh—regeneration without limit, destruction without thought.
Even a single wound is meaningless.
Arvell knows this.
And yet, he shows no sign of hesitation.
He tightens his grip around the claymore.
The weapon hums faintly in his grip.
It is the only sword capable of withstanding his power—an S-Rank relic, bestowed upon him by the former Lord of Thorne the day he swore his oath of loyalty.
This sword has served him in countless battles.
It has cut down horrors as great as this one—and worse.
And now, once again, it is time.
The blade vibrates softly, as if excited for the battle to come.
White aura ripples along its edge.
The ground beneath Arvell splits and smokes as he raises it.
The storm howls.
Fire meets Aura.
And the battle between calamities begins anew.
"I've faced many like you before," Arvell says, his voice cold and steady. "Fools who blindly rely on their so-called toughness."
With every word, the aura around his sword intensifies, growing into a storm of blinding white light and crackling force.
Winds howl. The ground splinters beneath his feet.
Even the Lava Giant—that walking furnace of destruction—hesitates for a moment.
It feels the pressure.
That overwhelming, suffocating power that seems to tear the very air apart.
But arrogance burns hotter than fear.
The Giant's molten eyes flare.
It raises its massive arms in front of its chest, magma pouring down its body like armor.
"Your arrogance will be your downfall," Arvell growls. "You foolish beast."
He hurls his sword forward with a roar—a motion so fast that the world itself seems to split open.
The blade screams through the air, wrapped in a tempest of divine white aura.
The Lava Giant braces.
Its crimson hue flares, the air melts around it as if reality itself resists its defense.
But the instant the sword makes contact—the world shatters.
The giant's molten arms split apart like clay.
The sword cleaves through its chest, bursting from its back in an explosion of light and molten blood.
"You thought you could block it, fool?" Arvell's voice booms, echoing through the inferno.
The giant staggers, a deep, thunderous groan tearing through the burning plains.
Its body convulses as lava spills like rivers from its wounds.
And yet, even as the world trembles around them—his eyes remain fixed, cold and resolute.
Because he knows: a calamity doesn't die that easily.
---
Clash of Titans
And he is right.
The Lava Giant's body begins to churn—magma bubbles, molten veins writhe beneath cracked, obsidian skin.
The missing parts of its torso and arms reform in seconds, reshaping from raw, liquid fire.
Within moments, the monster stands whole again.
Its veins glow brighter now, bulging like rivers of incandescent lava beneath its hide.
Commander Arvell watches silently, his expression cold, utterly unreadable.
His mind processes the regeneration; no surprise, only calculation.
Then, both move—and the world blurs.
They vanish, leaving only afterimages colliding in the air.
Claymore meets molten fists.
A thousand strikes exchange in a single breath.
Each impact thunders through the plains, churning the earth, igniting the skies.
Flames consume forests, the ground itself splits into rivers of molten rock.
The heat is a physical, suffocating thing—yet through all the chaos, neither of them burns.
Their battlefield is a storm of destruction—and they stand untouched at its heart.
The Lava Giant swings a punch, its arm the size of a carriage.
Arvell meets it head-on, his blade shimmering with condensed aura.
Each counter comes with mechanical precision—perfect, emotionless, unstoppable.
Frustration twists the monster's molten face.
It rears back and roars—a sound that splits the air like thunder.
Flames spiral around it, forming a swirling whirlwind of fire and molten rock.
The sheer heat warps the air, tearing the surrounding landscape apart.
Then, with one colossal motion, the Lava Giant hurls the inferno toward the Commander.
The attack strikes like a divine judgment, obliterating everything in its path.
The ground turns to glass. The sky becomes flame.
The giant stands amidst the destruction, its breathing heavy, a deep satisfaction filling its non-existent lungs.
No one could have survived that.
But then—
The thick smoke parts.
And through the hazy curtain, Arvell emerges.
Untouched. Unshaken.
Around him, a storm of blades revolves—ethereal swords formed entirely of pure aura, spinning in perfect harmony.
They devour the flames before they can even reach the Commander's cloak.
"Third Movement…" Arvell's voice echoes coldly, cutting through the silence. "Iron Tempest — Guardian Vortex."
The Lava Giant's molten eyes widen in stunned disbelief.
"Where did all that confidence go, monster?" Arvell's tone drips with contempt.
He sees the creature's hesitation—the flicker of doubt.
"If you think an attack of that level could harm me—then you're an idiot."
He lifts his claymore high above his head.
The ground splits beneath his feet as pure, white-gold aura surges upward, condensing into the blade until it gleams like a second sun.
Winds scream, clouds tear apart, and the very earth itself recoils from the catastrophic power gathering in his hands.
"Sword—mightier than a thousand weapons…" Arvell whispers, the sound amplified into a booming pronouncement.
The air vibrates.
The giant stumbles backward, an instinctual, primal sensing of death overriding its brute strength.
"Iron Tempest, Fourth Form—Crushing Storm Descent!"
The blade comes down.
BOOM.
The world explodes.
A pillar of blinding white-gold light engulfs the battlefield, flattening distant mountains.
The air turns molten. Trees vaporize instantly.
The shockwave tears through the plains, carving a scar so deep it could swallow rivers.
When the light fades, a chilling silence follows.
Commander Arvell stands at the epicenter, his cloak shredded, his eyes still cold and steady.
Around him—nothing remains.
The ground is a sheet of melted glass. The horizon, a smudge of smoke.
No sign of the Lava Giant.
For a brief, fleeting moment, Arvell allows himself the faintest smile—the stark, cold look of a warrior who finally believes the calamity has fallen.
He sheathes the claymore.
The fight is over.