The void was a storm of fire and lightning.
Chains lashed from every direction, blinding arcs of origin slamming into Prismarine wings, into crackling thunder, into fragments of what remained of the abyss. Every clash tore reality wider, every shockwave swallowing pieces of floating stone whole.
Vemy forced his fists forward again and again, each strike detonating like a star. Every blow shattered another chain—but at a cost.
Cracks were crawling up his arms now. Not fractures of bone. Fractures of soul. The Prismarine fire inside him was no longer just burning. It was eating. Gnawing at marrow, drinking from veins, roaring for more and more fuel.
His breath came ragged, searing his throat with every inhale. Blood steamed on his lips, evaporating before it even fell. His eyes blazed, but one flickered, dimming in and out, as though his body could not keep the blaze contained.
He struck another chain. It shattered—then his vision doubled.
For a split second he wasn't in the abyss.
He stood in a field of glass. Infinite. Empty. A mirror stretched in every direction, reflecting him a thousand times over. Every reflection burned.
Some bore wings larger than mountains. Others knelt in chains before thrones. And one—dead center—showed him ash, nothing but dust scattering into the void.
A voice whispered from behind the glass. Familiar. His own, but older, heavier.
"You cannot carry what was never yours. Give it back. Let go."
He staggered, clutching his chest, fire flickering wild.
"Not… yours to decide," he growled, but the words tasted hollow.
The Ring God's laughter thundered across both worlds at once.
"Yes. Break. Splinter. The vessel was always too small."
The abyss snapped back into focus as a chain whipped across his torso, slamming him against a fragment of stone. The impact shattered it to dust. His ribs cracked audibly, Prismarine fire bleeding from the wounds like liquid light.
Akiar was there instantly, storm slashing a dozen chains away, lightning carving a circle around them. But his eyes were sharp, narrowed on Vemy instead of the god.
"You're tearing yourself apart."
Vemy forced himself upright, wings trembling, breath jagged. "Shut up. I'm still standing."
"Barely," Akiar shot back. "That fire isn't your weapon. It's a curse. And you're one heartbeat away from being nothing but cinders."
Another chain screamed down at them, massive as a mountain. Together, lightning and fire struck it, shattering it to shards of voidlight—but Vemy stumbled after the clash, coughing blood that glowed molten.
The god's voice slithered close, intimate, inside his skull.
"Do you see, boy? You defy me, and yet you kneel to my chain with every breath. You are not free flame. You are borrowed. Fragile. And soon—empty."
The mirrors flickered in Vemy's vision again. The reflection of ash spread wider, consuming the others, swallowing his future piece by piece.
He clenched his fists, trembling. His body was breaking. His mind was fracturing. His soul was bleeding out into the fire.
And still…
He grinned through blood.
"If I'm just a vessel… then I'll shatter myself loud enough that even gods choke on the pieces."
His Prismarine blaze detonated outward, wings burning ragged, unstable, but vast. Lightning coiled with it, unwilling but drawn in, storm and fire fusing into something raw, something the abyss itself bent under.
The god leaned forward from its fissure, intrigued.
The vessel was breaking.
And that was when the flame inside Vemy whispered back.
Not the god's. Not the chain's.
Something deeper. Something that had been waiting.
"At last. You opened the wound wide enough."
Vemy froze, his blood boiling. The fire inside him shifted, darkened, pulling him inward.
The battlefield blurred.
And he fell—straight into the blaze itself.