Oni began fighting Suiryu. The Tao brothers and Noah joined him.
Meanwhile, Suiryu's comrades, Opium and Osric, remained still, watching the battle without interfering.
Suiryu was overwhelming all of them alone.
His thunder blasts, storms, and blade were too much for Metsuju to handle.
Then Oni used his special power.
Hellish Torment: Ice.
When Oni uses this power on someone, their body begins freezing not enough to stop movement completely, but not little enough to endure. Darkness surrounds them. Their vision fades into blindness.
But Suiryu was the Sky God. It didn't stop him.
He endured the cold and fought using only his senses, without his eyes.
"Do you think you can stop me with your little spells? How pitiful," said Suiryu.
He launched a lightning bolt at Oni. Oni tried to block it, but blocking electricity is useless he was still shocked. The Tao brothers backed him up while Noah clashed with Suiryu using his Shadow Blade against Suiryu's blade of thunder and wind. Oni was still recovering.
Kyle lay broken beneath the ruins of the Sky Fortress.
Blood soaked the stone beneath him.
Darkness swallowed his vision.
Then
White.
He stood once more in the white expanse.
Silent. Boundless. Empty.
A presence struck him not with force, but with authority.
Kyle turned.
"Father…?"
Ryzen stood before him.
Unmoving. Watching.
"Am I dead?" Kyle asked quietly. "I failed… I couldn't defeat him."
"You lost," Ryzen replied. "That is not the same as the end."
Kyle clenched his fists.
Ryzen's gaze sharpened.
"Before I was a god… I was a peasant's son."
The white space shifted faintly.
"I fought to protect my village. I overthrew a king. My brother took the throne. I left to grow stronger."
"I met a dragon — Orwlevdis. I saved him from a serpent."
"He brought me to the Dragon Kingdom."
"There, I witnessed chaos."
"A fragment of Ebony's Roh had descended."
"It battled the primordial Dragon King, Tiamat."
"It vanished."
Ryzen's voice lowered.
"It reappeared in my brother's kingdom."
Kyle said nothing.
"I saw my people dying. My brother fallen."
"And I broke."
Silence.
"I fought without thought. Without restraint."
"It began consuming me."
"Tiamat dragged it away to finish it."
Ryzen's eyes darkened.
"While I was inside the entity, thinking about how I lost my family because of it, I realized I couldn't let it destroy more lives. I wanted to annihilate it. I wanted to kill it. And that intent made me awaken."
"And then I awakened."
"All my elements disappeared."
"No fire. No wind. No lightning."
"Only one thing remained."
"A pitch-black Roh."
"Destruction."
"The entity attacked again."
"I killed it."
"I remember nothing of that moment. Tiamat told me what happened."
The white expanse trembled faintly.
"I named that form Destruction."
Ryzen stepped closer.
"You think power comes from rage."
"It does not."
"Power comes from will. You must have the intent to accomplish something."
Kyle understood but remained silent.
"Kyle, this is your turn. You have lost your family. Do you want to lose your grandfather too? Your friends? The Metsuju members still have hope in you. You must go back."
Ryzen formed a sphere, and Kyle saw the Metsuju members fighting Suiryu slowly losing.
Kyle's consciousness returned to his body.
His wounds slowly began to heal. He stepped forward but sensed dozens of lives trapped somewhere nearby. He went there first and heard screams.
He found hundreds of injured and imprisoned people.
"PLEASE! HELP US! WE ARE STARVING AND DYING!" they shouted.
Kyle freed them from their prison. Some Sky Knights gathered around him.
"We are the Sky Knights. We rebelled against Sky God Suiryu for his wrongdoing. He did not kill us because we are strong. He thought we would crawl back to him if he imprisoned us and waited," one said.
Another stepped forward.
"Now we want revenge. We can fight together!"
"No. See those people? They are injured and dying. Help them first. Let me handle Suiryu," Kyle said.
"But he is a god. How can you defeat him alone?"
"Trust me."
After saying that, Kyle left. Anger burned within him but he calmed himself.
The only thing in his mind was to kill Suiryu.
With every step he took, pitch-black flames spread around him. His eyes turned white. From afar, every being could sense his presence.
Meanwhile, Suiryu held Oni by the neck, ready to kill him. Every Metsuju member lay unconscious.
Oni glared at him, blood dripping from his mouth.
"f*ck you,You are not a god, but a parasite clinging to the wreckage of your own divinity." he spat straight into Suiryu's face.
Suiryu's expression darkened. He tightened his grip.
Just as he was about to kill Oni
A fist came flying at blinding speed.
It launched Suiryu hundreds of meters away and caused a massive explosion.
Oni looked at him for a second
Then realized.
It was Kyle.