The sky had already been broken long before the first blow was struck.
It was not a simple fracture, not a tear one could mend with time or distance. Space itself had collapsed inward, folding like shattered glass held together only by rage. Colors that had no names bled into one another, and the horizon stretched endlessly, trembling as though it feared what stood beneath it.
At the center of this ruined firmament hovered a man.
He stood upright in the void, feet planted upon nothing, yet the pressure of his presence crushed the air below him into screaming shockwaves. Two long horns curved from his forehead, obsidian-black and etched with glowing crimson veins, like magma flowing beneath ancient stone. They rose high and proud, symbols of a lineage that refused to bow to heaven or earth.
From his back extended two enormous wings of fire.
They were not feathers, nor scales, but living infernos shaped into wings—each flap igniting storms of flame that twisted into spiraling suns. Heat radiated outward in waves so intense that the distant mountains below had long since melted, their stone liquefying into glowing plains of slag.
His eyes burned brighter than his wings.
They were not merely aflame—they were furnaces of will, pools of wrath so deep that even the void recoiled from his gaze. Power rolled off him in suffocating tides, ancient and absolute, as though the laws of existence had been forced to kneel simply to allow him to stand.
Opposite him, occupying nearly the entire sky, was the dragon.
It was vast beyond comprehension—its body stretching across more than a hundred kilometers, a living continent of scales and fury. Each scale was the size of a city, layered upon another in endless rows, shimmering with hues of deep emerald and molten gold. Veins of lightning crawled across its hide, cracking and bursting like stars being born and destroyed in the same breath.
Its wings alone blotted out the heavens.
When they unfurled, they eclipsed the broken sky, and when they beat, worlds screamed. Storms were born and died in an instant, crushed beneath the sheer force of their movement. Oceans that once existed far below had been boiled away hours ago, leaving only scarred seabeds glowing red with heat.
The dragon's eyes were larger than mountains.
Within them burned an intelligence as old as creation, twisted by hatred so profound it had become indistinguishable from instinct. Its breath steamed through fractured space, each exhale tearing open rifts that bled raw chaos into the battlefield.
The two stared at each other.
Between them lay centuries of blood, civilizations erased, promises broken, and a hatred that had fermented until it surpassed reason itself.
The dragon spoke first.
Its voice was not sound—it was pressure, a roar that crushed reality and forced meaning directly into the soul.
"YOU STILL LIVE."
The words detonated outward, shattering the remnants of distant peaks and flattening what little remained of the land below into a smooth, glassy plain.
The horned man laughed.
It was not a sound of amusement, but of scorn—a sharp, burning echo that cut through the dragon's roar like a blade.
"Live?" he snarled, spreading his flaming wings wide. "I endure. And you—you still dare to exist before me?"
His voice carried with it a will so fierce that the sky fractured further, spiderwebs of broken space spreading outward from his form.
The dragon's pupils narrowed.
"THIS WORLD WAS YOUR SANCTUARY. I BURNED IT. YOUR PEOPLE SCREAMED YOUR NAME AS THEY DIED."
The man's laughter vanished.
For a heartbeat, the battlefield fell silent.
Then the air screamed.
The man moved.
There was no warning, no buildup. One moment he hovered in place, the next he was gone—space collapsing inward where he had been. He reappeared an instant later at the dragon's snout, his fist already swinging.
The punch landed.
There was no explosion—there was erasure.
Space caved in on itself, forming a massive vacuum that swallowed light, sound, and matter alike. The shockwave that followed rippled outward, flattening everything beneath it. What had once been a mountain range was instantly reduced to a perfectly smooth plain, its very atoms rearranged by the force.
The dragon roared in fury and pain.
Its head snapped back, scales shattering like falling stars as blood the color of molten gold sprayed into the void. Each droplet burned like a miniature sun before evaporating into nothingness.
"INSIGNIFICANT INSECT!" the dragon bellowed.
Its tail whipped through space.
The movement was slow only by cosmic standards. In truth, it struck faster than thought, smashing into the man's side with force that could have annihilated a continent. Space itself shattered, forming a massive裂—an open wound in reality that screamed as it expanded.
The man was sent flying.
He crashed through layers of broken space, each impact sending ripples of destruction across the battlefield. He finally stopped after plowing into the ground far below, carving a canyon hundreds of kilometers long.
The land did not merely break.
It ceased to exist.
The man rose from the crater, his body wreathed in flame. His armor—blackened, jagged, and alive—reknit itself around him as though reality itself obeyed his will.
Blood ran down his chin.
He wiped it away with the back of his hand and smiled.
"Good," he said softly. "That's how I know you remember."
The dragon descended.
Its massive body coiled through the sky, crushing dimensions beneath its weight. As it opened its jaws, the inside glowed with catastrophic light—energy condensed from ages of hoarded power.
"I REMEMBER EVERYTHING."
The breath attack erupted.
A beam of annihilation tore forth, wide enough to swallow cities whole, its core burning white-hot while its edges shredded reality. Wherever it passed, space collapsed entirely, leaving behind nothing but a howling void.
The man did not dodge.
He raised one hand.
Flames gathered around his palm, condensing into a dense, spinning sphere. The air screamed as heat and power compressed beyond reason.
The beam struck his shield of fire.
For an instant, the world froze.
Then the collision detonated.
A silent explosion expanded outward, flattening everything within thousands of kilometers. The shockwave raced across the planet's surface, vaporizing what little remained of the terrain and leaving behind a smooth, glass-like crust.
The man was pushed back, his feet carving trenches through molten stone, but he did not fall.
He roared.
It was not merely anger—it was grief given voice, loss sharpened into fury.
"YOU TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME!"
His wings flared brighter than ever, flames shifting from crimson to blinding white. Power surged through him, ancient seals shattering one after another.
He vanished again.
This time, he appeared above the dragon's head.
His leg came down like a falling star.
The kick struck with such force that the dragon's skull cracked, massive fractures spreading across its head as space collapsed inward. The dragon was driven downward, its enormous body slamming into the ground with a soundless impact that shook the planet's core.
The world screamed.
Magma erupted from countless fissures, and the planet's crust split apart like fragile glass.
The dragon thrashed, roaring in agony and fury.
"I SHOULD HAVE KILLED YOU THEN!"
The man descended slowly, hovering above the dragon's shattered head.
"You tried," he said, voice cold and steady. "And now—it's my turn."
The dragon surged upward, claws slashing, jaws snapping.
They collided again.
Fist met claw. Wing met wing. Fire clashed with lightning.
Each strike shattered space itself, tearing open rifts that bled chaos and light. The battlefield became a storm of destruction, the planet beneath them breaking apart under the strain of their hatred.
They screamed at each other as they fought—ancient curses, promises of annihilation, names that carried the weight of dead worlds.
There was no retreat.
No mercy.
Only the certainty that this hatred would end in death.
And as the shattered sky burned brighter than ever before, the universe itself seemed to hold its breath—waiting to see which of these monsters would be the last to stand.