The golden sky burned above the wasteland, wind howling through the broken mountains. Umair stood tall, his one remaining arm dripping with Solar energy, eyes fixed on Rayen.
"You can't defeat me," Umair spat, voice echoing across the red dunes. "You're just a shadow pretending to be strong."
Rayen didn't answer. His face was calm—too calm. A faint ripple of darkness swirled at his feet, and then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone.
Umair's eyes darted left and right. "What—where are you?!"
From the shadows stretched across the sand, Rayen's voice whispered, cold and steady. "Behind you."
Umair spun around just as a dark hand burst from the ground, grabbing his leg and yanking him into the sand. Before he could react, Rayen emerged from a swirling shadow behind him, eyes glowing a deep obsidian.
"Too slow," Rayen muttered, his voice low with rage.
He blurred forward, his fists coated in dark energy. "Shadow Jab—100x!"
A storm of punches erupted, each one striking with terrifying precision. Umair couldn't even raise a defense—the hits came from every angle, faster than his eyes could follow. The wasteland echoed with the crack of fists colliding against flesh and sand flying in every direction.
"AHHHHH!" Umair screamed, staggering backward under the barrage. "STOP!"
But Rayen didn't stop. His expression was unreadable, his movements inhumanly fast. Each jab left trails of shadow in the air, wrapping Umair in a cage of darkness.
Desperate, Umair roared, summoning a volley of molten shards. "SOLAR SHARDS—BURST!"
The air exploded into streaks of golden fire. Rayen's eyes narrowed; he countered instantly. "Shadow Jab—DEFLECT MODE!"
Every punch he threw shattered the shards mid-air, turning the wasteland into a storm of light and darkness colliding. Sand turned to glass under the heat. The sky itself seemed to flicker between gold and black.
"Revenge…" Rayen's voice deepened, almost demonic. "Only… REVENGE!"
He dashed forward, punching Umair again and again, fury burning through every move. Umair tried to counter, his Solar waves slamming into Rayen's shadows, but this time Rayen was faster—stronger—driven by rage.
"You killed him!" Rayen roared, slamming a punch into Umair's ribs, cracking them. "You killed Raj!"
Umair fell to one knee, breathing hard. "He was weak…"
That word snapped something in Rayen.
Dark energy flared around him, shadows rising like flames. Umair smirked faintly, trying to pull off one final trick—his trap from before. But this time, the shadow moved faster. Umair blinked, realizing too late—he was the one trapped.
Rayen appeared behind him, fist glowing with black fire. "This ends here…"
He drove his punch through Umair's chest. The Shadow Jab—Full Power pierced clean through, bursting out of Umair's back in a shockwave of darkness. Umair gasped, eyes wide, a trickle of Solar light leaking from his wound before it faded.
He fell. The red sand swallowed his body slowly, leaving only silence.
Rayen stood still, chest heaving, shadows fading around him. His fists trembled—not from exhaustion, but from the storm still burning inside.
And high above, on a crumbling cliff, a figure watched—silent, hidden by the golden glare.
"So… that's the Stable one," the stranger murmured, eyes glowing faintly. "Interesting."
The wind howled once more, carrying away the echoes of battle.
To be continued in Chapter 4.