The scream ripped out of him like something feral clawing through his lungs. Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth, one side black like liquefied shadow, the other gold like molten sun. His face twisted, veins crawling like worms under his skin.
"You… heretic filth," he spat, voice cracking under fury and despair. "You two… undying bitch how dare you ruin my ascension!? Do you know how many souls I fed it, how many bodies I burned for it, how much blood I spilled to reach this stage? I sacrificed them all! I sacrificed even them!" His breath trembled. A thin line of blood slid down from his eyes like rotten tears.
Before him, the shattered remnants of the gemstone, burning and getting devoured. He staggered toward it, reaching out with shaking fingers.
The vapours stopped coming out from his body on this realm. The boy's voice echoed quietly, yet it held a weight that crushed the air. "Don't touch it."
The being snarled, baring curved teeth. "And you think I'll obey—"
"My work is only telling you after that your choice. Also You won't understand even it devours you," the boy continued, eyes closed. "That fire isn't like some ordinary fire. It isn't divine, nor demonic. It's sage fire, my own acquired fire. After sitting under this tree for so long, I finally understand it and you are test subject"
A faint smile then crossed the boy's lips. "Its power is so overwhelming that I could erase those islands if I wished. It's nothing like your corrupted god-blood. It burns anything before it."
"You little bastard," the being hissed. "You dare speak down to me? I won't be fooled by your childish prattle!"
He grabbed the smouldering shard. Instantly, His fingers began to burn. Without any flame. Just flesh turning white, then grey, then powder and he felt no pain. His eyes widened in horror. The stone slipped from his melting grip. Before it could touch the seabed, it disintegrated completely, vanishing into flakes of glowing dust. The burning spread up his hand. His skin charred layer by layer, but no sensation reached him.
He trembled slightly as he did not understand his condition. The boy tilted his head. "Tell me… do you feel anything at all?" The being glared to him in sudden realization, hatred radiating from every pore. He muttered curses under his breath, ancient words meant to wither souls. At the same time, she snapped her fingers.
Suddenly agony exploded through the being's body. Pain crashed into him like a tidal wave of molten iron. He screamed like a raw, violent, animal. His flesh writhed as though it were trying to crawl off his bones. Even his blood began to burn, sizzling out of his pores like drops of fire.
"You—" he gasped between screams, "you damned... bitch... how dare you tamper with my nerves again!"
Her voice drifted from behind the boy. Cold, steady. "You did the same thing in our last fight. To capture the demoness." Her steps were soft, but the air trembled around her. "You rewired the pain centres of every soldier. You made them feel nothing. They died smiling."
She exhaled. "So don't act outraged now."
The seal on his forehead, demoness power rune, began to glow golden. Then it cracked. Fire seeped through the symbol like water through old clay. With a sharp hiss, the seal shattered, blood came out from that position like small river. His entire body quaked as the last piece of his controlled power collapsed.
But he choked out a laugh, half-cough, half-sob. Blood spattered down his chin. "Even without that… even burned… even crippled… you two cannot kill me. I am immortal. I'll use the last of my god-blood and—"
Something bright tore out of his chest. A sphere of luminous energy, shot toward the them. But it never reached. It struck an invisible barrier in the air, like a mirror made of rippling light. The blast ricocheted violently backward.
In the meantime, sigils carved beneath him flared open. A glowing array rose suddenly. Also his reflected attack struck him in that meantime, destroyed his arm, forming cracks along his ribs.
In a flash, he teleported outside. She appeared beside the boy, hovering slightly above the ruined seabed, her robes charred at the hems. "Why did you let him escape?" she asked quietly. "We could have finished it. If he uses the rest of his blood, he'll make descend his real body." The boy watched the burning fragments drifting downward like dying stars. His expression unreadable. "You need to finish what you started," he murmured. "Isn't that right?" For a moment, she said nothing. Then her eyes narrowed with realization. A faint smile touched her lips. "Right."
As she vanished from there also, boy opened his eyes. "Everything is moving exactly as planned," he whispered. "The stage is set." His fingers brushed the air where the gem had burned away. "But… I still don't know how to open those islands."
He sighed softly, almost irritated. "Whatever. I'll just ask her later."
...
The outside world greeted him with a storm of agony.
The moment the being materialized outside from his inner realm, he staggered forward on the air, growling through clenched teeth. His breath came ragged, and every exhale shuddered with pain. His burnt hand dangled uselessly, charred fingers twitching without life. The other arm, what remained of it, ended in a torn stump dripping sparks of golden blood. His energy flickered around him in wild distortions, like a dying lantern trying to stay lit in a merciless wind.
"You… you damn heretic bastards!" he roared, voice splitting. "Still alive!? You ruined everything! My ascension, years of preparation, so many sacrifices, all for NOTHING!"
He raised his half-burned arm, trying to channel healing, but the moment he summoned power… The fire came back. Searing, invisible, merciless, shooting across his nerves like metal spikes heated white-hot. He fell to one knee, gasping like a wounded animal. His scream echoed through the sea, cavern halls, bouncing between towering columns of sea waves. Tears, blood-tinged, shimmering in mixed gold and black, streaked down his face.
In his mind, a whisper of fear crawled up like a parasite:
How is he alive?
I destroyed his mortal body. I saw it burn.
Unless… he is dead, but still not dead…
No. Enough. They won't come here. They can't. Even she wouldn't have enough power to—
He forced the thought away and dragged himself upright, swaying like a broken marionette.
"There is only one path left," he breathed. "If I don't use it now… everything ends."
But then his gaze dropped towards sea, he saw an enormous lotus blossoms over sea and top of that sinking lotus, was… his own head. The same one he'd held moments ago before teleporting. Its face sagged, melting at the edges like wax dripping from a candle. Half its jaw was gone. Yet the expression on it, the smirk, was unmistakably mocking. A faint light still burning on his forehead.
Rage drowned out fear. He stomped toward it, raising what remained of his leg but he screamed as fire shot up from his foot. His flesh began burning again without flame, skin peeling back as if hands were tearing it from bone. He stumbled backward, losing balance, and flew several meters before crashing against a jagged column. He lay there for a breath… then forced himself up. Barely.
Hovering in the air, he summoned the last of his spiritual limbs, half a dozen, unfurled from his back like skeletal wings made of corrupt light. Palms formed a circle around him, from there. a beam of condensed essence shot forth, brilliant gold streaked with shadow, aimed directly at the severed head resting on the lotus.
The beam was inches from the head when the forehead light turned into an eye. A sword slash ripped through the beam. Without warning, her blade was already thrust forward and it pierced through the centre of his skull where the two halves joined, at a precise ninety-degree angle of te joint.
She pushed further, driving him backward. Her foot slammed against his torso, flipping over his collapsing form. Blue palm leaves burst from her legs as she thrust forward and stabbing him into the cavern wall as she anchored herself mid-air. Her eyes locked onto him. Like a predator eyeing prey.
The being could only stare, trembling, confusion and horror twisting through him. She was alive. She shouldn't be. He killed her. He remembered killing her, She read his expression and sneered. "Don't think so hard. I'm not him. I'm not here to answer your questions."
Her voice lowered, thick with venom. "Go to hell."
With one brutal swing, she hurled him upward into the cavern sky. Stone cracked from the impact as he smashed into the ceiling, dust cascading like snow. He floated there, body limp, bleeding light. Then, the sky split. Two moons bloomed above them. One white as death light. One red as fresh blood.
Her voice doubled, one human, one demonic, as half her body shifted, skin darkening, hair lengthening like writhing tendrils.
"Twin Moon Ursa."
The demonic half snarled, voice raw with wrath centuries old.
"How dare you hurt us?"
"You promised freedom!"
"You promised us bodies!"
She stepped forward, shaking with fury. The very air around her distorted, freezing and boiling at once. "But you lied. You drained our power. Used us for your filthy ascension. Tossed us aside like broken dolls." Her eyes, both pairs, blazed. "How dare you think we'd remain your slaves?" "How dare you think we'd be used, then thrown away?"
Her scream echoed across the cavern, rattling stone and shaking the black sea.
"Go into OBLIVION."
As she said it, the twin moons pressed down on him like grinding millstones. The being spat blood black on one side of his lips, molten gold on the other.
"You liar!" he snarled, voice cracking under the crushing weight. "How dare you betray me? I said I would give you everything! I said I would build you a body, a perfect vessel, why would you, why would you turn on—"
His words dissolved into a scream. The moons tightened. Bones snapped. Tendons tore. The silhouette of his body twisted into a grotesque knot as the celestial pressure increased. Light bled from his skin, spraying in violent arcs.
Above him, the woman hovered, her expression torn between rage and grief. Tears beaded along her lashes, but they never fell. "Let's end this," she whispered, voice shaking. "We can't reincarnate. We know that. But we can at least kill a heretic like you. Let there be peace… for our soul."
The moons flared. A single heartbeat passed. Then an silent, white explosion bloomed.
In beneath the waves roared upward in a spiral of black and crimson, swallowing everything. including the last scraps of the being's body. Boy's head was about to drown but she descended instantly and with a snap of her wrist, she seized the head before the sea could claim it.
The tiny light on the boy's forehead was dimming. She stared at him don't knowing what to do.
She suddenly felt something was wrong.
The Sea was retreating, faster. A roaring pull dragged water toward the sky, where fog condensed into serpentine shapes. The vapours twisted, coiling around a spinning point of yellow brilliance.
The light pulsed, hungry.
A seal, enormous and ancient, began to form beneath it, lines of runes threading through the air like molten veins.
She stiffened, clutching the head closer. The air thickened with a metallic tang that made her demonic half recoil instinctively. She rose higher, trying to get a clearer view, and froze when recognition struck her.
"No…" she breathed. "No. That can't be…"
But the truth was unmistakable.
"That's the blood of the ancient gods," she whispered, horror creeping into her voice. "I destroyed it, in our previous battle. There's no way, no way it could regenerate, no way his true body could reform, this violates nature's laws…"
She looked upward instinctively for the sky, but there was none. Only endless white brilliance pressing down like a lid. Silence smothered the atmosphere.
The yellow light expanded suddenly. Something inside it also awakened.
Her instincts screamed. She threw up a barrier, weaving layers of light and shadow so dense they crackled. A heartbeat later—
Boom.
A blast erupted from the seal, swallowing all fog, pulverizing the surroundings. The shockwave hurled her backward like a leaf in a hurricane. She clutched the boy's head tightly while tumbling through the air, smashing through stone columns before stabilizing herself many kilometres away.
When the dust cleared, she saw him.
The figure emerging from the light.
The one she had fought across lifetime, lifetimes so numerous she had forgotten what his true name had once been. A god who had slaughtered countless life just for fun.
He stood calmly above the raging sea, bathed in a halo of golden rings. His body was immaculate, sculpted like a divine statue. His hair glowed faintly, drifting weightlessly. His eyes opened, slowly, like someone waking from a long, pleasant sleep, and locked onto her.
A mocking smile spread across his face.
"Well now… good to see you again, Sovereign," he said, voice warm like an old lover's, an old tormentor's. "How have you been? Our last meeting wasn't terrible, was it? I still remember the way you screamed."
He stretched lazily, as though he hadn't just been reborn.
"Want to sit on my lap this time? I'll even hold you gently. Oh—and before you misunderstand anything, I'm not interested in your soul body. "But in that black bastard's head."
She tightened her grip. Her own eyes darkened. "Why?" she spat. "Want me to beat your ass again? And then call for help like before? Don't forget, no one will save you this time. The demoness is dead."
He chuckled. "You're mistaken, little Sovereign. Fatally mistaken." His eyes shimmered with cruel amusement. "Your power isn't the same anymore. You lost everything that made you dangerous. You can't last more than one round now. In fact—"
His smile widened.
"Your soul is collapsing."
Before she could blink, he vanished. When he reappeared, he was right beside her. His hand passed near her wrist, close enough to brush her skin, yet gentle enough she didn't feel it. But when he moved away…
He was holding the boy's head. Tossing it up and down like a coin and then his fingers tightened, slowly, almost delicately—and the skull cracked like thin porcelain.
"See?" he said, grinding the pieces into dust between his palms. "Don't use your curse power, ok. Because your curse worked on your own bloodline seal, but now… there's nothing left to protect." He shook the fragments from his hand as if brushing away crumbs. "Nothing left to defeat me."
He turned his cold golden eyes toward her.
She drew her sword with the weary dignity of someone who knew the outcome already. He clicked his tongue. "Ahh, ahh… don't." He raised one finger like a parent scolding a child. "Don't squander your final scraps of strength. Look up. Take in the sky. Feel the sea breeze. Listen to the world." He floated there, arms folded, enjoying the moment. "You won't see it again. Just stand still until you fade."
Half an hour passed.
But she didn't fade.
He sat on the air like it was a throne, one leg over the other, humming a tune. But when the minutes dragged on, a frown creased his perfect features. Finally he stood. "What's wrong with you?" he asked sharply. "Your soul should have unravelled already. Why are you still here?"
She didn't even look at him. She continued watching the Heartless Sea churn beneath them, its waves glowing with faint red veins. "Simply doing what you said," she replied softly. "Watching the sea. Watching the sky." A pulse of irritation flickered across his face. "Her power isn't collapsing…?" he muttered. "That boy's dead. No trace of him here. So where is this energy coming from?"
She flexed her fingers in front of her face, the illusionary flesh shimmering, glitching at the edges like fractured light. "Strange," she murmured. "I'm slipping out of the curse. But I can't return to a human body. I'll still have to leave… and be reborn." She lowered her hand. "That is the cycle."
"Then why aren't you going?" he demanded. She shrugged lightly. "Perhaps… there's a task unfinished."
He laughed, short and sharp. "I've heard that excuse across centuries. Enough." His eyes hardened. "I'll send you on your path myself. Any last wish before I erase you?"
She smiled with acceptance. His hand rose in a sweeping arc. A golden strike tore open the sky, brighter than dawn, shaped like a blade meant to cut a world in half. Its descent split the clouds into spiralling ribbons. She readied her sword, but her power sputtered, like a lamp losing oil. Her aura cracked and flickered.
"So," she whispered, closing her eyes, "this is the end. At least I'll die with dignity…"
She inhaled deeply, bracing for nothingness. But death did not claim her.
Instead, a voice laughed. A light voice. A familiar one.
"What are you doing? Not even going to tell your story?"
Her eyes snapped open. The boy, stood in front of her. He pressed a single finger forward, catching the world-splitting golden strike as if stopping a falling leaf. From that attack, two auras burst outward, black and white, coiling around each other like twin serpents that had waited lifetimes to be freed. Animals formed in the space of a blink:
A heavenly tiger with crystal fangs.
A gadura with thunder in its wings.
A qilin wreathed in embryonic flame.
Two dragons, black and white, spiralling upward in mirrored arcs.
Above the sea, a colossal kun peng rose from the water—its wings eclipsing the sky, droplets falling like rain made of stars.
Each beast turned toward the golden god with hatred.
The god blinked once and then laughed.
The heavenly tiger was first, its stripes burning like molten metal. It raked its claws across the god's chest, sending sparks and divine blood spraying through the air.
He retaliated instantly, striking the tiger with a palm that directly went towards sea beneath them. But the impact forged another creature from the shockwave, a serpentine wolf that lunged and tore a chunk from his arm.
The gadura swooped overhead, wings hurling crescents of air so sharp they carved mountains of water from the sea. He deflected two, shattered the third, but each fragment transformed into an avian beast of lightning that slashed into his shoulders.
The qilin rammed into him next, fire trails carving sigils in the air. The explosion sent him spiraling into the sky.
The black dragon intercepted him mid-flight, jaws clamping around his torso. The white dragon spiraled upward, twisting around its twin until the two formed a rotating yin-yang helix, shredding his body with rotational force.
Still he laughed—blood spraying from his lips.
"Good! GOOD! Show me more!"
The kun peng rose, shadow drowning the world. It slammed into him, driving him downward with such force that the entire sea split into two massive trenches. Before he could recover, the kun peng dove again, tearing at him with beak and wing.
Every attack they unleashed, every beam of divine energy, every wave of authority, fractured into new beasts instead of dispersing.
A beam became a fiery fox.
A shockwave became a silver bull.
A barrier collapsed into a thousand spectral wolves.
They swarmed him relentlessly. Slash. Claw. Roar. Beam. Bite. Impact. Impact. Impact again.
The god's expression finally shifted, from amusement, to strain, to growing alarm.
"How long… can this brat keep summoning them?" he hissed, forcing back the qilin with a burst of divine pressure.
He answered himself with a growl.
"This damn authority..."
To be Continued...