The colossal cyborg dragon roared, its jaws opening wide.
A blinding red light gathered deep within its throat before erupting into a massive plasma cannon, large enough to erase an entire city.
The beam shot straight toward Tora, who was still suspended in the air.
Instead of dodging, Tora burst into wild laughter. "HAHAHA! FREE ENERGY!"
The massive man swung his twin axes forward.
The blades, once ordinary, now shone brilliantly, absorbing the heat and pressure of the plasma cannon within seconds.
With one brutal swing, Tora split the massive beam in half as if parting the sea.
The divided blast slammed into the hills behind him, flattening them instantly.
The dragon's eyes widened.
Its internal systems failed to process how its ultimate attack had just been cleaved apart by something as small as a human.
But the shock didn't end there.
"Hoo… you're way too focused on Tora, Big Lizard."
A soft, cold whisper echoed right beside its ear.
The dragon's optical sensors spun wildly, only to find Scyte standing upside down along the edge of its metal snout.
Using the momentum from the explosion, the agile youth had leaped in complete silence.
Scyte grinned.
He spun his wooden scythe at a speed no normal eye could follow.
SYAAAT! SRAAAK! CRASHHH!
In less than two seconds, Scyte unleashed hundreds of pure energy slashes, forming a net of death.
The strikes shredded the dragon's mechanical wings, sliced through its biological muscle, and tore apart its titanium armor like wet paper.
A storm of machine oil and thick blood sprayed into the air.
The dragon let out a distorted scream, like metal being crushed.
With what strength it had left, it swung its massive claw, the size of a building, aiming to crush Scyte.
But Scyte only chuckled.
He lightly jumped, landing atop the very claw meant to kill him, then dashed forward at lightning speed along the dragon's arm, heading straight for its chest.
"Tora! The core's in the chest!" Scyte shouted as he leaped and drove his scythe deep into the gap of the glowing red reactor.
He poured all of his cutting energy into it, causing the core to crack and flicker violently.
From above, Tora's shadow swallowed the sun.
The muscles across his body tensed to their absolute limit, veins bulging as if they were about to burst.
He gripped his axe with both hands, channeling all the natural energy and plasma he had absorbed.
The weapon now radiated a savage light, expanding dozens of times beyond its original size.
"DIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!!!" Tora roared.
He descended like a comet, bringing his axe down directly onto the dragon's head.
KRAAAAKKK!!!
BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!
The impact was absolute.
Tora's axe split the dragon's steel skull, tore through its neck, and connected with the explosive energy released from Scyte's attack at its chest.
The mountain-sized body was literally cleaved in half from head to chest.
The reactor's detonation unleashed a shockwave that swept across the remains of the forest for tens of kilometers.
The colossal corpse crashed to the ground with a thunderous impact, creating an even larger and deeper crater, as if the earth itself groaned under the weight.
Thick dust rose, blotting out the sun.
A few seconds later… silence returned.
From within the dense smoke, Scyte descended gracefully, spinning his scythe to shake off oil and blood before landing silently atop a broken horn of the dragon.
His clothes remained spotless.
Meanwhile
CRASH!
Tora kicked away a chunk of the dragon's steel jaw and stepped out, his body covered in blood, oil, and ash.
His chest rose and fell, his breathing slightly heavy, but a wild, satisfied grin remained etched across his face.
"Hah… damn it, my cloak's all sticky now," Tora muttered, wiping his dirty face as he hoisted his axe back onto his shoulder.
Scyte chuckled, slipping his hands into his pockets. "Told you… just a warm-up. Fun, right?"
Tora snorted, though he couldn't hide his satisfied laugh. "Heh… not bad. Got my muscles moving again."
Just as the two of them were about to sit atop the dragon's corpse to catch their breath…
Their insane combat instincts flared again.
They felt it.
Two very familiar auras… approaching from the far edge of the forest that had now been reduced to nothing but flattened ruin.