Lightning clawed the sky as Matt stepped through the newly activated Star Gate. The air screamed with static. One blink—and he was no longer on solid ground.
He fell.
The world around him was fractured sky—floating isles suspended in an endless thunderstorm, broken ruins drifting in orbit around a massive obsidian spire. Arcs of electric blue fire danced across shattered palace fragments. Every gust of wind howled like an angry god.
Stormvault.
A realm sealed by the will of the Enternals.
Matt twisted midair, summoned a burst of Void beneath his boots, and landed hard on a circular platform surrounded by levitating monoliths. Sigils sparked on the stones, forming a temporary bridge toward a nearby spire.
As he sprinted forward, a growl echoed from the clouds.
Something massive moved.
Skybeasts.
Creatures forged from lightning and war. Wingless, eel-like leviathans with golden bones and mouths of electric teeth.
Three of them circled.
One dove.
Matt leapt.
He landed on the beast's back, plunged his Shadowsidian Blade into its spine, and rode it downward like a meteor. The creature writhed, disintegrated into sparks, and dropped him onto another crumbling tower.
A second beast followed. Matt spun midair.
Void Technique: Rift Fang.
A rift split from his palm, and a chain of void-light lashed outward, wrapping the beast's neck. He yanked—hard—and redirected its momentum into a wall of runic glass.
It shattered.
Silence returned.
Until a voice boomed from the sky.
"WHO DARES WALK THE SKIES OF KINGS?"
Thunder cracked the realm open. The obsidian spire split at the top. A cage of lightning pulled apart, revealing a figure inside—bound to a throne of living sparks.
Eight feet tall.
Skin bronze, veined with thunder.
Eyes like stormfire.
Armor plated in ancient stormsteel.
Myuthor — King of Thunder.
He didn't move at first.
But then… he twitched.
Then turned.
And looked directly at Matt.
"Flame… Reborn."
Matt's heart skipped.
"You know me."
"Only your wrath," Myuthor said, voice cracked and ancient. "Only your betrayal."
Lightning cracked across the chamber.
"I remember the Exiled Flame. The god who promised freedom. The fool who died."
Matt stepped forward, blade drawn.
"I'm not dead."
Myuthor growled. "Then you're late."
The cage shattered.
And the storm king attacked.
The duel lit the skies.
Matt flew backward from the impact of the first blow—Myuthor's fists struck like falling meteors. He barely blocked with the Shadowsidian Blade, his arms screaming from the impact.
"Fight me, coward of the stars!" Myuthor roared.
Matt struck back—rapid slashes, Void pulses, Rift dashes. None of them broke the king's stormsteel skin.
Myuthor countered with a Thunder Nova, blowing Matt through a palace wall. He skidded across the floating debris.
Blood hit the wind.
He stood, shaking.
Void Level: Rising. Corruption: 42%.
The voice in his head grew louder.
"Let go. Burn the sky."
Matt closed his eyes.
Then opened them.
Void Surge Activated: Phase Shift.
Time blurred.
He vanished and reappeared mid-air, above Myuthor, sword engulfed in a black-red vortex.
Void Technique: Starfall Execution.
He fell like a comet.
The blade struck Myuthor's shoulder, piercing the stormsteel for the first time. Blood—not lightning—sprayed from the wound.
Myuthor staggered.
Then grinned.
"You're still him," he whispered. "But angrier."
He grabbed Matt by the throat and hurled him into the sky.
They clashed mid-air.
Blade met axe, fist met ribs, thunder met void.
Until—
They fell together, locked in combat, crashing through three floating isles as lightning rained around them.
They landed in the core chamber—the Stormheart—where Myuthor had once ruled.
Both lay bleeding.
Breathing.
Alive.
Matt stood first.
Myuthor looked up, weakly. "Finish it."
Matt didn't move.
"I came here to awaken you, not kill you."
The storm king blinked.
Then slowly, painfully, rose.
"You'd show mercy to a traitor?"
"I know what it's like to be betrayed by gods."
Myuthor stared.
Then… dropped to one knee.
"I will follow the flame again. One last time."
Stormvault Unlocked. Thunder King Awakened.
New Technique Gained: Stormpulse Core.
As the sky calmed, a constellation shifted on the starmap hovering in Matt's gauntlet.
Next target: a sea of molten bones.
Domain of Namgari — King of Fire.
And beneath it all, the Void whispered:
"Your throne draws near."