The second clash never landed.
Not in Ithakar.
Not anywhere close.
The moment both gods moved again, the air screamed.
Rhyx shot forward first, fire tearing a red path across the sky. Vael vanished a heartbeat later, leaving nothing but a ripple of pale light behind.
They met above the clouds.
Then kept going.
Higher.
Faster.
Gone.
To the people below, it looked like two stars collided and then disappeared.
The pressure vanished with them.
The heat faded.
The silence lifted.
What remained was ruin.
Theron pushed himself up slowly, coughing as dust filled his lungs. The temple behind him had lost half its columns. The steps were cracked. The streets below were chaos. People shouted, cried, searched for each other.
But the sky…
The sky was wrong.
A thin line still stretched across it. Red on one side. Blue on the other. Like a scar that hadn't decided which color it belonged to.
"They left…" someone whispered nearby.
Theron didn't answer.
He didn't think they left.
He thought they moved somewhere worse.
Far above the world, where the air thinned into nothing, Vael and Rhyx collided again.
This time, there was no ground to break.
No sea to split.
Only open space.
Their fists met, and the shock didn't explode outward.
It folded.
Space bent inward around them like cloth pulled too tight. Light twisted. Distance warped. For a moment, it looked like the universe itself flinched.
Rhyx laughed, breathless, excited. "Better."
Vael said nothing.
He struck again.
Rhyx blocked.
Then countered.
Each hit came faster now. Cleaner. Sharper. They weren't testing anymore. They remembered.
Every movement flowed into the next like a pattern carved long ago.
Then Vael changed it.
He raised his hand.
Everything stopped.
Not just Rhyx.
Everything.
The drifting particles. The distant stars. Even the light between them froze in place.
For the first time, Rhyx's grin cracked.
Vael stepped forward through the frozen void.
Alone in motion.
And drove his fist straight into Rhyx's chest.