The twin pillars of energy—one crimson and wild, the other violet and malevolent—collapsed inward, no longer stretching to the sky, but instead condensing into dense, volatile auras that wrapped tightly around their wielders. The sky, still painted in twisted hues of red, violet, and black, churned like a furious storm caught in stasis.

  Kazuki stood with his eyes narrowed, surrounded by the screaming wind and ribbons of flame dancing across his skin. His aura seethed like a living inferno, each pulse echoing like a heartbeat from a god. Across the mountain, Kairyuuha’s form crackled with raw destruction—his aura no longer energy, but a force of distortion, warping reality and bending light around him. He looked less like a boy now and more like a storm given form.

  The very mountain beneath Kairyuuha groaned before it split, deep cracks racing outward in every direction as if the stone itself was trying to flee. On Kazuki’s side, the peak fractured, trembled under his immense pressure, stones levitating briefly before disintegrating in the sheer energy pouring off him.

  Even the air feared them.

  It screamed and howled, trying to escape the battlefield, bending and shattering like glass near their bodies. Everything slowed. Everything held its breath.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Then, Kairyuuha’s voice thundered across the mountain with a smirk.

  > “Let’s see if you’ve grown, Kazuki. Start this dance.”

  Kazuki’s eyes narrowed—a storm answered a storm.

  In the blink of a breath, the two vanished from sight.

  BOOOOOM!

  The first clash shook the entire battlefield. A shockwave erupted like a meteor impact, flattening trees and hurling both demon and human troops to their knees in the distance. Their weapons—Kazuki’s twin demon-forged blades, and Kairyuuha’s warped, void-infused dagger—met with a scream of energy, brighter than lightning, louder than thunder.

  With every strike, they reflected off one another, flinging apart like repelling stars before slamming into each other again, faster, harder—fists colliding with blades, kicks slicing through the air, magic twisting the skies.

  Their auras left trails in the sky, like comets tracing their fury, crimson and violet streaks chasing each other in a dance of pure carnage.

  Kazuki roared, his blades igniting with black fire, and slashed—again and again, each move flowing into the next like a deadly waltz. Kairyuuha responded in kind, teleporting mid-combat, launching spatial tears that Kazuki just barely twisted around.

  Every collision detonated another shockwave, cracking the sound barrier repeatedly, rupturing the battlefield below with lines of devastation. Trees were uprooted. Stones were liquefied. Even distant clouds rippled from the sheer force of their conflict.

  And yet—they moved faster.

  They vanished, reappeared in the sky, clashing again, thunder answering thunder. Kazuki twisted mid-air and fired a volley of flaming arrows, each one trailing threads of cursed flame, homing in on Kairyuuha with surgical precision. The sky itself seemed to ripple as they blazed forward.

  Kairyuuha stood unmoving as they drew closer—mere meters, then inches from contact.

  In that instant—less than a second from impact, with death in the air and fire reflecting in his eyes—he smirked.

  The flames bent inward. The air held its breath again.

  And the chapter ends.