Chapter 379: The Clashing Realms

Chapter 379: Chapter 379: The Clashing Realms

Damon pulled his hand back from Kael’s sword. The blade left his palm with a faint scrape of metal on skin. He stepped back, creating distance between them.

Kael watched him with those hollow black eyes. The grey mist around Kael thickened, swirling like a living storm. The ground beneath Kael’s feet began to dissolve. Stone turned to powder. Powder turned to nothing.

Damon felt the pressure shift.

Kael was done holding back.

The grey mist expanded outward from Kael, a wave of decay that consumed everything it touched. The broken stone pillars crumbled to dust. The reinforced barrier groaned under the assault. The mist crept toward the dugouts where Ariel, Mio, Mia, Selene, and the others watched with wide eyes.

Damon raised his hand.

He called the Chaos Devourer.

The blade materialized in his grip, its dark surface drinking the light around it. The sword pulsed with a rhythm that matched his heartbeat. The spirit inside it stirred, ancient and hungry.

Damon planted his feet.

He released his domain.

The world around him shifted.

Space warped. The air thickened. Time itself seemed to slow as the Chaos Devourer’s power bled into reality. A sphere of absolute chaos expanded from Damon’s body, a zone where the laws of physics bent to his will.

The grey mist met the chaos sphere.

And stopped.

The two forces clashed at the center of the arena, neither able to push past the other. The ground between them cracked and split, a chasm forming where the opposing energies ground against each other.

Kael’s eyes widened.

"What is this power?"

Damon smiled.

"Chaos."

He swung the Chaos Devourer.

The blade cut through space itself, leaving a trail of distorted air behind it. The strike traveled faster than sound, faster than light, a wave of raw chaos aimed directly at Kael’s chest.

Kael raised his hand.

The grey mist condensed into a wall of absolute rot.

The chaos wave struck the wall.

The impact sent shockwaves through the arena. The barrier shattered in three places. Elders scrambled to reinforce it. Grand Marshal Vane descended from his platform, his hands glowing with Saint Spirit Realm energy as he added his own power to the barrier.

The chaos wave and the rot wall canceled each other out.

But the arena floor was gone.

Where the stage had been, there was now a crater fifty meters wide and thirty meters deep. The edges of the crater glowed with residual energy. Pieces of stone floated in the air, suspended by the lingering chaos.

Damon stood on one of the floating stones.

Kael stood on another.

They faced each other across the void.

Kael spoke.

"You’re the first person to match my domain."

Damon tilted his head.

"You’re the first person to survive a direct hit from my Chaos Slash."

Kael smiled. It was not a pleasant smile.

"Then let’s see who breaks first."

Kael raised both hands.

The grey mist exploded outward.

It filled the crater. It climbed the walls. It spread across the arena floor like a living tide. Everything it touched began to decay. The stone crumbled. The metal warped. The air itself became thick with the stench of rot.

The zone of entropy expanded.

Damon felt the pressure increase.

His chaos sphere began to shrink.

Kael was pushing harder.

Damon gripped the Chaos Devourer with both hands.

He focused his will.

The chaos sphere expanded again.

The two forces met in the center of the crater, a line of pure destruction where reality itself was being torn apart.

Damon pushed.

Kael pushed.

Neither gave ground.

The energy between them began to spiral.

It formed a sphere.

A sphere of grey and black, chaos and void, creation and destruction. The sphere grew larger, feeding on the power of both combatants. It spun faster, devouring everything in its path.

The barrier cracked again.

Grand Marshal Vane shouted.

"Everyone get back!"

The spectators scrambled away from the arena. The royal family rose from their seats. King Aurelius Solaris descended from the royal box, his hands glowing with golden light.

But he didn’t intervene.

He watched.

They all watched.

The sphere grew.

Damon felt the Chaos Devourer’s spirit stir.

Do not let it consume you, the spirit whispered.

Damon gritted his teeth.

He poured more power into the chaos sphere.

Kael did the same.

The sphere stopped growing.

It started to compress.

The two forces were crushing each other, compressing into a single point of absolute destruction. The pressure was immense. Damon’s arms trembled. His scales cracked. Blood dripped from his fingers.

Kael was faring no better.

His grey mist flickered. His body shook. The void energy inside him was burning out.

But neither of them stopped.

The sphere compressed further.

The light began to fade.

The sound died.

The arena went silent.

Damon could see the sphere now. It was no bigger than a fist. A perfect sphere of grey and black, spinning so fast that it seemed to stand still.

It was beautiful.

It was terrifying.

Damon knew what was coming.

The sphere collapsed.

A flash of pure white light consumed everything.

Damon felt himself being thrown backward. He crashed through the barrier. He crashed through the stone wall behind it. He crashed through the next wall, and the next, until he came to a stop in a pile of rubble.

He coughed violently, blood dripping from his mouth and staining his torn robes.

His body ached with a deep, grinding agony that pulsed through every cracked scale and broken bone.

Gritting his teeth, he forced his trembling legs to support his weight and stood upright.

He looked around. The arena was gone, replaced by a perfect sphere of nothingness where everything had been erased.

The entire center of the Great Solaris Arena was gone.

Where the stage had been, there was now a perfect sphere of emptiness.

The stone had been erased. The barrier had been erased. The ground had been erased.

Nothing remained.

Kael stood at the center of the void.

His body was covered in wounds. His grey mist was gone. His eyes were no longer black. They were normal. Human.

He looked at Damon.