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The blaze had turned everything into nothing.
The streets, the buildings, the sidewalks—all had dissolved like dust before the absurd force that had exploded in the city's center. Only violent winds remained, debris levitating at the whim of the pressure, soot covering the sky like eternal ashes… and the golden and crimson sparks falling like burning snow.
An overwhelming power.
And with it, a presence that could not be ignored.
It wasn't mythological, but unmistakable.
In the center of the flaming inferno, a silhouette emerged.
Mei Nuhay.
Smiling.
Parts of her body burned, blood streamed in crimson lines, but it was already beginning to regenerate. Her eyes shone with something beyond pain or triumph: it was satisfaction.
The smoke began to dissipate, revealing what remained of that battlefield.
"It worked," Mei thought. "I managed to subjugate the Abyssal Veil and that cosmic plane all at once."
What she had accomplished wasn't just the unleashing of a powerful technique, but the synthesis of an entire line of reasoning she had been weaving for years.
The original Devastating Supernova, conceived when she was just sixteen, was her first glimpse of this path. Back then, she thought like a cosmic engineer, gathering distinct techniques—gravitational implosion, flame compression, plasma dispersion—and fitting them together like gears in a war machine.
She saw techniques as variables and formulas she could manipulate. The result was a monumental explosion, capable of erasing entire battlefields. But, deep down, that technique was an incomplete experiment. A draft.
The Devastating Supernova.
Now, facing the crushing pressure of the Abyssal Veil, Mei realized that simply exploding wasn't enough. Pure destruction was merely a momentary end. To face something that seemed infinite, she needed a technique that didn't just end—but that endured.
That's how she revisited every fundamental principle, from the ground up. The Massive Black Hole, once just a compression technique, was elevated to the extreme: Mei compressed spiritual energy to a near-degenerate state, where particles and flames were forced to coexist at maximum density, resembling the collapsed core of a dying star. In contrast, the Planetary Nebula was expanded beyond its original form: no longer just a chaotic dispersion, but an interstellar breath that recreated the primordial chaos of space after a stellar death.
Mei was taking the techniques used as the basis for the Supernova and amplifying the power of each one.
Like someone recreating a formula for a greater result.
From this conceptual collision—implosion and expansion, order and chaos—a new point of equilibrium emerged. It wasn't a common technique, but a self-sustaining energetic system.
Mei understood: the Supernova had been like a simple equation, 3 + x. But the Sun being born now was a recursive, exponential formula. Each technique wasn't just added: it was multiplied, overlaid, self-reinforcing. The Black Hole served as gravitational confinement; the Nebula, as expansive fuel. Between the two, her spiritual fire underwent fusion, generating pressure and radiation in near-nuclear proportions.
Thus, the Sun was born.
Not an explosion, but an artificial star. A cosmic forge sustained by Mei's consciousness, where spiritual combustion competed against internal gravitational collapse, and from this dispute, balance was born. Unlike the Supernova, which extinguished itself in its own violence, the Sun pulsed. A blazing core that kept itself lit. A heart of fire that not only destroyed, but radiated, devouring everything while simultaneously illuminating the space around it.
In that instant, Mei hadn't just created a technique. She had created a star, small and ephemeral, but a star nonetheless—an artificial spark mirroring the laws of the cosmos.
The condition of risk also amplified the total power like the cherry on top.
And Mei suffered, she won but she suffered; she concentrated all her protection on her torso and head, her arms and legs were erased.
But they were regenerating, practically complete.
The explosion had swallowed everything, but Mei felt something that made her blood run cold.
The ground trembled.
And even from on high, from the rarefied sky the smoke exposed, she could see it: a vibration, a pulsation.
Like shimmering auroras in Antarctica, rippling in impossible colors.
It was the portal.
Growing.
Throbbing.
From the heart of that energy, a silhouette.
A man.
Crouched.
On his knees.
For a moment, Mei believed it was Dante. But as the dust settled, her eyes captured the truth.
It wasn't him.
It was the Prince.
He was kneeling, holding a woman in his arms.
Abyssal energy enveloped them, coursing through both bodies like a pulsating veil. But the woman… she no longer rose.
The man's expression was cold, heavy.
The surrounding silence seemed to respect that mourning.
— Seraphyne… forgive me. — his voice was grave, almost broken.
— I couldn't protect you. But I will carry you. I will fulfill our dream, with your soul and your heart joined with mine.
Mei kept her distance. The air around burned, not just from the remnants of the explosion, but from the energy radiating from that man. With every word, it was as if the weight of the Abyss itself vibrated.
And then, she saw it.
The impossible.
He was absorbing the woman.
Seraphyne.
Her body glowed, energy swirling around them like a vortex.
Mei did not hesitate.
Her limbs already regenerated.
She attacked.
Her fists cut through the air like thunder.
But the man merely turned his neck, slowly, and looked Mei in the eyes.
A gaze that pierced through her, that made her feel the void behind the power.
— Slow.
And he vanished.
Mei's blow struck only nothingness, dissipating the remaining dust in a brutal wave.
He was no longer there.
Only the void remained.
The shattered dome.
And the Prince.
Once kneeling, now standing.
His body glowed.
His aura overflowed with an Abyssal energy so dense the air around him distorted, as if it were impossible to contain it.
Mei felt a deep shiver.
It wasn't just power.
It was as if the Abyss itself had chosen a new avatar.
The Prince stood before her.
There was no more mourning in his expression.
Only the promise of destruction.
The Prince before Mei was not the same. Every inch around him seemed to pulse with energy, a force that crushed perception, bent space, making the air almost impossible to breathe. Mei felt the pressure on her senses—the weight of centuries condensed into a body that seemed young, but now exuded experience.
— Was he always this fast? — Mei thought, incredulous. — I swear I was going to hit him square…
She tried to sense Dante in the environment, his presence, any sign of where he might be, but the Prince's energy was absolute. Suffocating. It was as if all other presences were mere whispers before the roar of the Abyss emanating from him.
— Did that cosmic plane feed him or suppress him? — she continued, in thought. — No, it seems it was the portal… but just how far can these Princes go? And Dante… where the hell is Dante?
The Prince turned slowly, and Mei couldn't help but notice the change in his posture. Before, he was a brute, unpredictable force, a strangely powerful child. Now, every gesture of his was calculated, refined, precise, as if he had lived dozens of lives at war. His aura no longer flickered; it radiated a cold, deadly discipline.
— Look at me. — His voice cut the air, firm and sharp as a blade.
Mei met his eyes, and for an instant everything around seemed to fall silent. The woman he had carried within him had vanished, somehow fused with his strength, but the feminine presence now emerged as an echo, whispering vengeance.
— I will make you pay. — His voice intensified, laden with lethal determination.
— For killing me. — The female voice intertwined with his, forming a dark, vengeful chorus.
Without warning, they advanced. Mei barely had time to react. A blow sliced her face and hurled her backward, crashing through structures of concrete and iron with the brutality of a meteor.
— What…? I couldn't even see him… — she thought, stunned, feeling the force that surpassed anything she had ever faced.
Before she could react, he reappeared behind her, striking with surgical precision. Mei raised her forearm to block by pure instinct; otherwise, she would have been obliterated. The impact opened a crater under her feet, the ground giving way under the pressure of the released energy. Even while falling, the Prince attacked, using walls and debris as leverage with absurd speed, striking repeatedly, each impact reverberating through her body like hammer blows of pure force. He slammed her into an earthen wall in the sub-level, and Mei spat blood, absorbing the shock of the collision.
— That imbecile wasn't capable… but eliminating you… won't be as difficult as I imagined. — The coldness in his voice was cutting.
A blow to her stomach hurled her skyward. — Abyssal Lance. — The Prince formed a lance of pure Abyssal energy, firing at the still-stunned Mei.
— Nebula! — Mei reacted, launching her technique, and the resulting impact created an explosion that threw her against a nearby building, the pressure tearing through walls and scattering debris like a rain of shrapnel.
The Prince now seemed to defy gravity itself. He didn't fly, but he didn't fall, moving with lethal precision, attacking from impossible angles, each blow more devastating than the last.
— I expected more from you, Mei. — He said, almost amused by her resistance. — Your power is surprising, but I thought you'd be more problematic for the Abyss.
Mortals will always be mortals.
— After you, I will obliterate the rest of your race. — He continued, his voice cold and threatening. — And I will display your head on every continent of this planet.
A pressure began to grow around the battlefield. It wasn't enough to frighten him, but it made the Prince retreat, perceiving there was something more.
Mei detached herself from the wall that had held her, rising with near-solar energy radiating from every pore. Her eyes met his, shining with determination. Every muscle was tense, every spark of power ready to be unleashed.
— It seems there's still something in you. — He murmured, underestimating the strength concentrated in that single figure before him.
— Let's dance, then, Lord of the Abyss… — Mei replied, her voice firm and laden with challenge, as the wind cut through the debris floating around them.
Mei wasn't just the next to attack; she was the nucleus of resistance, the point of balance between chaos and order. And the Prince… he had discovered that fighting her would be more complex than any calculation of the Abyss could predict.
To be continued…
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