Daxon, Lyria, and Cassynne moved swiftly through the dark, narrow hallways—silent but resolute, cutting down any black-masked bastard they ca across.
Each room they opened held fragnts of nightmares.
So rooms were filled with trembling victims chained to blood-soaked tables, others were half-filled with screams that stopped the second the door opened... and so had only silence.
The silence was the worst.
They entered one such room—a massacre.
Bodies lay scattered across the floor. Human children, beastman children... lifeless, cold.
Lyria’s steps faltered. Her eyes widened in disbelief, and her body moved on its own toward a small kid—a tiny, frail body with matted hair and a still, peaceful face that should’ve been squirming with life.
She knelt beside the kid, her breath shaky, her hands trembling. Tenderly, she held the child’s small fra in her lap.
"This..." she whispered, voice cracking. "How could they do this to a child like this...?"
Her eyes were burning with tears now. The heat of grief turned to rage. Her mana flared sharply—hot, unstable, suffocating the room with her fury.
"Lyria," Daxon called, firm but pained. "We need to move. We... we’ll mourn later. There are still others to save."
Cassynne looked away, jaw tensed, fists clenched so tight her knuckles went white. She couldn’t look at the carnage long.
A mont of silence passed—then Cassynne broke it.
"Guys..." she said, voice low. "The shaking and shockwaves... they’re gone. But I still feel that sinister presence."
She swallowed, glancing anxiously at the ceiling.
"Did that Zayne guy... lose?"
anwhile — outside, where Darron and Zayne were locked in battle...
The ground was shattered and broken in a wide radius, rubble and dust clouds still settling from their earlier exchange.
Darron stood in his fully transford state — body enlarged, veins glowing faintly beneath the skin, jagged claws, and eyes burning like a feral beast. His breath fell heavy, rage lingering in each exhale.
Across from him, Zayne rose from a mound of cracked debris, brushing off dust from his long, now slightly dirtied black coat. His expression was calm, his light purple eyes practically glowing—more amused than irritated.
"Look, man," Zayne said, glancing down at the smudges, "you made my clothes dirty. That’s just rude."
Darron’s mouth tightened. Anger flashed in his reborn, blood-red eyes—he’d expected fear, or at least awe. Instead the man before him joked.
Darron’s jaw clenched in fury. Still joking. Still mocking .
Without another word he lunged.
A fist like a battering ram shot forward. Zayne caught the blow as if it were a child’s tap, fingers closing around the wrist. For a breath they locked—muscle against muscle, corrupted fla against calm ember.
They pushed. Darron ground his teeth, forcing pressure like a crushing tide. Zayne only smirked, steady as stone.
Then Darron tried to change the angle. Using that montary grip, he heaved—aiming to throw Zayne skyward, to use montum and weight. Zayne didn’t falter.
With a snarl, Darron’s hand blitzed forward-faster, wilder this ti-and grabbed Zayne by the coat, hoisting him off the ground with a single arm. Then, with raw brute strength, he swung Zayne upward, intending to slam him back down and grind him like dust.
But mid-swing—Zayne stopped falling.
He floated there. Weightless. Smirking.
Confusion flickered in Darron’s eyes, but it was too late.
Zayne suddenly pulled on the arm still clinging to him and spun—dragging Darron off-balance, the air around them swirling as they twisted together in an unexpected arc.
"Round and round you go," Zayne murmured, voice light, almost playful.
Darron’s feet left the ground as he was yanked higher, manhandled by soone half his mass.
Then—
BOOM!
Zayne’s spinning montum twisted into a burst of force as he launched Darron away like a broken cog in a machine. The brute sailed through the air, crashing violently into the ground just a few feet from where his machete-saber lay embedded in the dirt.
The earth cracked beneath him. His body was mostly unscathed, but the insult burned deeper than any injury.
Zayne landed softly, dust swirling around his boots.
He pointed casually at the blade buried in the ground.
"Go on. Fight with your saber."
His lips stretched into a grin.
"Your so called warm-up isn’t cutting it."
Darron pushed himself up, trembling—not from pain, but from the rising boil of humiliation and fury twisting inside him.
This guy... this annoying bastard... I’ll kill him.
Darron ripped his machete-saber from the dirt, the tal hissing slightly as the heat of his rage bled into it.
Across from him, Zayne lowered into a relaxed stance — both palms open, lightly angled, a flickering red-orange fla wreathing each hand. He looked almost casual, like a street brawler just waiting for the bell.
"Co on," Zayne taunted, fla mana swirling like living fire around his palms.
Darron lunged.
He spun mid-step, saber carving a vicious circular slash that sliced the air right where Zayne stood. But Zayne had already moved — a burst of mana lifted him upward in a quick dash, causing the blade to cut nothing but wind.
But Darron wasn’t done.
He roared, jerking his machete upward in an arcing counter-slash — the blade now wrapped in a blood-red inferno, fla licking like a predator hungry for flesh.
Inferno Blade: Abyssal Fla Slash
a jagged, blazing arc burst from the blade, surging toward Zayne with demonic force.
In answer, Zayne simply inhaled, gathering mana into his core.
Then he released.
Crimson Ember Style: Scorch Pulse Breaker
A pulse of fla-mana burst from him — not a shield, not a wall, but a spherical shockwave of heat surging in every direction. The slashing inferno shattered on impact, its flas snuffed out instantly.
Darron was blown off his feet, body blasted backward by the explosive wave.
A pulse of fla-mana burst from him — not a shield, not a wall, but a spherical shockwave of heat surging in every direction. The slashing inferno shattered on impact, its flas snuffed out instantly.
Darron was blown off his feet, body blasted backward by the explosive wave.
But Zayne didn’t wait.
His eyes flashed, and the air cracked beneath him as he shot forward — legs blazing with bright red-orange fla mana, each stride leaving scorching trails like burning cots streaking behind him.
Crimson Ember Style: Inferno dash.
Zayne twisted mid-air and dropped — heel-first — into a brutal, fla-clad dropkick that struck Darron square in the chest.
The force sent Darron flying, crashing him into the hardened stone boundary of the massive underground space. Stone cracked, dust fell.
And then—movent.
With a guttural growl, Darron burst back out, steam rising from a scorch mark on his torso. The shallow injury healed before it even scarred, black vessels weaving the flesh back together.
He spat, frustrated.
"You... why are you so damn strong!? Earlier, I punched you in the face."
Zayne floated just above the ground, dust and embers swirling around his feet.
"Oh," he said with a shrug, smirk widening,
"Those attacks?
Yeah, that was charity only."
Darron’s breathing grew ragged. Fury surged — but beneath it, fear.
He knew. He couldn’t win. Not like this.
I can’t defeat him... but I can still erase everything.
Every experint. Every secret. Every trace of our organization.
And that smug bastard’s overconfidence?
I’ll use it.
Darron launched upward with explosive force, flas rippling off him like liquid shadow-fire. He shot toward the ceiling of the underground space — Zayne watched, but didn’t move.
Instead, Zayne crossed his arms, eyes sharp.
"He’s about to finish this. All right," he smirked. "I should do the sa."
Up above, Darron hovered near the ceiling, gripping his machete saber tight. The blade scread with dark mana, swallowing all light around it.
He raised it high — an executioner’s strike.
Corrupted black and blood-red flas surged violently, twisting into a spiraling storm of destruction.
With a roar, he swung down:
Inferno Blade: Cataclysmic Oblivion Slash.
It looked the world split.
A massive, massive arc of corrupted fire scread downward, ripping through the air in a devastating wave. Its heat could lt steel, its power erase life — it was annihilation itself.
---
anwhile,
Daxon, Lyria, and Cassynne — , exhausted, but determined — led the survivors out of the building. So limped, so carried others. So barely clung to life. But they moved. They escaped.
And as they reached the outside and looked up—
Their hearts froze.
A vast tidal wave of corrupted black-red fire was raining down upon them.
"It’s over," soone whispered.
"We worked so hard..." Daxon muttered, numb.
"In the end..." Lyria said, her voice hollow, "it doesn’t even matter."
" That Zayne guy really lost."
Hope flickered out from every face.
Then—
"LOOK!" Cassynne shouted.
They followed her gaze.
There, rising in front of them, stood Zayne — surrounded by a blazing red-orange fla aura, flowing like molten gold.
He looked up. Smiled.
"Let’s finish this."
---
Above, Darron laughed bitterly through his exhaustion.
Even if he lives... he can’t save them. And with them gone, so goes all evidence.
Zayne moved.
He concentrated his breath. Extre of fla mana from his body folded — into his fist.
The temperature soared.
He launched upward like a rocket, leaving the earth scorched below — and then threw his fist.
A radiant, colossal fla sphere detonated from his punch, forming into the shape of a massive blazing and shining fist.
Crimson Ember Style: Inferno Starburst Fist.
It collided with the falling wave of blood red fire like a sun devouring a teor.
A blinding light exploded. The victims shielded their eyes, many collapsing in pure instinct.
But Daxon, Lyria, Cassynne — they looked.
They saw.
The massive radiant fist tore through Darron’s obliterating wave, shredding it like paper — then kept going.
Darron’s eyes went wide with pure horror.
"No— NO!!"
There was no ti left for him.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!"
The colossal fist consud him whole, silencing his scream as it burst through the underground ceiling — blasting it open in a towering explosion of fla and light.
The entire base was bathed in the radiance of two red suns, as the orange red sky was revealed overhead.
And high above, in that blazing light — floated Zayne.
Fist still raised.
Smile still there.
A figure of impossible power.
Invincible.
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