The plaza was silent, but the air was screaming.
The heat radiating from Solus was intense enough to warp the visual spectrum. The white marble floor around him had turned into a pool of glowing slag.
"You are arrogant," Solus spoke, his voice vibrating in Cain's chest. "You broke my gate. You stole my coat. You killed my pet. And now you stand before the Sun itself and refuse to kneel."
Cain rolled his shoulders, feeling the Warlord's Pelt tighten. The coat was working overtime, absorbing the ambient heat to keep him from combusting.
"I have bad knees," Cain quipped.
Solus raised a hand. He didn't cast a spell. He simply exerted his will.
[Divine Domain: The Solar Cage]
The world shifted. The city of Solara vanished. The screaming civilians, the guards, Isolde—all gone.
Cain stood alone on a platform of solid light, suspended in the center of a burning star. Everywhere he looked, there was only fire. Endless, white, blinding fire.
"Welcome to my reality," Solus said, floating ten feet above the platform. "Here, there are no shadows for you to manipulate. There is no matter for you to break. There is only light."
Cain looked around. He shielded his eyes. "Bright. Tacky. You really need an interior decorator."
Solus pointed a finger. [Solar Flare].
A whip of plasma lashed out.
Cain dodged, but the air itself burned him. His coat smoked. He rolled, coming up on one knee.
"Can't touch me?" Solus mocked. "I am pure energy. You are just meat."
Solus unleashed a barrage. Beams of light crisscrossed the platform, moving at light speed.
Cain moved.
He didn't try to outrun the light—that was impossible. He aim-dodged. He watched Solus's eyes and fingers, predicting the path of the beams before they were fired. He was a blur of black motion against the white background, weaving through a storm of lasers.
But he couldn't get close. Every time he tried to jump at Solus, the god simply floated higher, raining down destruction.
"This is boring," Cain panted, skidding to a halt. His skin was red and blistered, though healing rapidly. "You just fly around and shoot? Play a different game."
"I am a God!" Solus roared, the flames around him intensifying. "I do not play games!"
"Then let me teach you one," Cain said.
He reached into his pocket. He pulled out the Ring of Burden.
He didn't put it on. He held it in his fist.
"Isolde told me this domain is a 'Pocket Dimension,'" Cain shouted over the roar of the fire. "It's a bubble of space you created with mana."
Solus paused. "It is infinite. It is inescapable."
"Nothing is infinite," Cain corrected. "Everything has a limit."
Cain looked down at the platform of hard-light he was standing on.
"If this is a room... then it has a floor."
Cain jumped.
He didn't jump at Solus. He jumped straight up, twenty feet into the air.
At the apex of his jump, he clenched his fist around the Ring of Burden. He activated its weight multiplier. But he didn't stop at ten times. Or twenty.
He pushed his Heavenly Restriction to the breaking point. He poured every ounce of his "Void" nature into the ring, creating a gravitational anomaly.
"MAXIMUM DENSITY."
Cain fell.
He dropped like a neutron star.
He hit the floor of the light-platform.
CRACK.
It wasn't a normal sound. It was the sound of reality fracturing.
The hard-light floor couldn't support the sudden, infinite weight of Cain's impact. The magic shattered.
A web of black cracks appeared in the white void. The "infinite" sky of fire began to peel away like old paint.
Solus's eyes widened. "What have you done?!"
"I broke the glass," Cain grinned, sinking his fist into the fracturing reality.
He grabbed the edge of the crack. He pulled.
RRRRRIIIIIIP.
Cain literally tore the dimension open.
The white fire vanished. The Solar Cage shattered into a million shards of fading mana.
They were back in the plaza. The real world rushed back in—the dust, the screaming guards, the terrified Griffin.
Cain stood in the center of the crater he had just created, steam rising from his body.
Solus hovered above him, looking stunned. His perfect domain had been shattered by a man who simply stomp-kicked it too hard.
"Impossible," Solus whispered. "You broke a dimensional barrier with... with gravity?"
Cain looked up, wiping blood from his nose.
"I told you," Cain said, drawing the Dragon-Bone Splitter from his shadow. "I'm heavy."
He pointed the massive sword at the sun god.
"Now, get down here. The floor is open."