The clash between Kai and the Catalyst shattered the last remnants of the sky.
Above the broken world, there were no stars left.
Only the void…
and two figures battling at the edge of existence.
Kai Arashi, the Abyssal King, fought with everything he had —
wings of void, fists of cosmic flame, will forged in agony and hope.
But the Catalyst…
They were something else.
The Catalyst's true form loomed like a collapsing sun, a paradox of creation and destruction entwined into an unstoppable storm.
Every strike they threw was a rewriting of the world's rules —
gravity twisted, time shattered, light and darkness bled together.
Kai roared, charging through a hurricane of pure existence.
Each movement of his body sent cracks spidering through the dimensions themselves.
His Abyssal Crown burned brighter and brighter —
pulling on every stolen power, every ounce of defiance he carried.
But the Catalyst was endless.
Every punch Kai landed merely birthed new arms of light and shadow.
Every ability he copied was overwritten by the Catalyst's supreme fusion of forces.
High above, the Catalyst spoke, voice booming across every layer of reality.
"You are powerful, Kai Arashi."
"But you were never meant to survive.
You are an accident… a dying flame pretending to be a sun."
They lifted their hand.
A spear of pure paradox — light twisted through darkness, entropy chained into form —
formed above their palm.
It pointed directly at Kai's heart.
Kai floated midair, breathing hard, blood leaking from dozens of wounds.
His black armor was cracked.
His wings flickered.
The Abyss Copy System screeched warnings in the back of his mind.
[System Integrity: 6%. Catastrophic Failure Imminent.]
The Abyssal Crown on his head…
shook.
For the first time, Kai faltered.
His strength was running out.
And the world — the future he fought so hard for —
felt impossibly far away.
Arin, below, screamed his name.
"KAI!!!"
Her voice sliced through the chaos like a knife.
It was the anchor.
The thing that tethered him to himself.
Kai looked up.
At the Catalyst.
At the dying sky.
At the broken Academy below.
At Arin.
And he smiled.
"Even if I die," he whispered,
"I'll still be free."
The Catalyst hurled the spear.
It shrieked through existence — unstoppable — aiming for Kai's chest.
Kai didn't dodge.
He didn't block.
He accepted it.
The spear struck him dead center.
The world froze.
The impact ripped through Kai's body,
shattering the Abyssal Crown into a thousand burning fragments.
Black flames poured from his wounds.
His systems collapsed.
His armor dissolved into ashes.
Kai fell.
He fell through shattered clouds, through broken light, through dying dreams.
As he fell, he thought:
Of the boy who once wanted to be seen.
Of the broken world he wanted to fix.
Of the people who still believed in him.
And he smiled through the blood and darkness.
Because even as the Crown shattered…
He had won.
He had chosen.
Freedom, even if it cost him everything.
Below, Arin caught him before he hit the ground.
Her hands burned with holy light, desperate, trying to heal wounds that refused to close.
"Don't you dare die," she sobbed.
"Don't you dare leave me here alone."
Above them, the Catalyst lowered to the ruined earth,
watching Kai with unreadable eyes.
The battle was over.
But something far greater had been born in its place.
Something the Catalyst had not foreseen.
Something the world had never known:
Hope.