The rift screamed.
It wasn't sound as mortals knew it, but something deeper—vibrations that clawed at the marrow, that twisted thought and breath into fragments. The battlefield groaned under the weight of it.
Jaylin's boots skidded against the fractured stone as he forced his body upright. His aura flickered, thin as candlelight beneath a hurricane. Sweat slid into his eyes, but he didn't blink. Not when Vemy still stood ahead.
Vemy was no longer simply standing—he was anchored. His claws dug into the broken earth, chains of shadow snaring his limbs, binding him upright when gravity tried to crush him flat. His breathing came harsh, ragged, but steady.
Above, the rift widened further.
Through it, not a face, not a body, but the sheer weight of something infinite leaned closer. A presence that reduced mountains to grains of sand. To it, every life below was a whisper lost in a storm.
And still… Vemy lifted his head.
The abyss armor screamed against his skin, biting, cracking, reforging. But his eyes—burning with that jagged flame—didn't lower.
The cloaked figure's laughter carried across the ruin. "Look at you, refusing to kneel even as a god's shadow falls. But tell me, vessel—how long before your chains snap? How long before the abyss devours you whole?"
Vemy's voice scraped from his throat, rough but unyielding.
"If I break… it won't be by your hand."
His shadow surged upward, clawing at the heavens. For a heartbeat, abyss and divinity collided—darkness snarling against brilliance, oil crashing against fire. The battlefield shuddered, a shockwave blasting outward that sent Jaylin stumbling back a step.
Jaylin gritted his teeth. "He's… holding it back?"
No—fighting it.
The clash wasn't external alone. Within Vemy, the abyss pressed like a storm tide, tempting him to drown in its endless depth. At the same time, the god's presence bore down, demanding submission. Caught between the two, his veins burned like molten iron. His heart thundered like a drum of war.
Every instinct begged him to surrender—to abyss or to divinity, it didn't matter. Either would end the pain.
But surrender meant erasure.
He saw flashes. Not of glory. Not of power. But of moments small, fragile, human.
Jaylin's hand dragging him to his feet after a fall. The fleeting warmth of laughter shared around a dying fire. The memory of a promise—unspoken, but carved into his very marrow: I will not vanish. I will not fade.
Vemy roared, dragging the abyss tighter around his heart. The chains groaned, splintered, then reformed stronger. They no longer felt like shackles. They were his defiance given shape. His crown of thorns.
The god's pressure pressed harder, testing him. The air split with cracks of light, burning through shadows like spears. One lanced across Vemy's shoulder, searing flesh. He staggered—but did not fall.
Jaylin surged forward, intercepting the next strike, blade screaming against light. His arms shook violently, bones screaming at the impact. Still, he forced the words out:
"You're not alone in this!"
For a moment, Vemy's vision cleared. Amid abyss and godfire, Jaylin's figure stood unbroken—small, fragile compared to the infinite—but unshaken.
That sight grounded him more than any chain.
The cloaked figure's smile faltered. He raised one hand, voice sharp as knives. "Pathetic. Two sparks flaring against eternity. I will show you—"
But before he could finish, the rift itself moved.
A hand the size of mountains pressed against the tear. Not physical—something greater, made of pure will. The god's presence no longer simply gazed down. It reached.
The sky itself bent. The battlefield howled.
Jaylin's knees hit stone. His lungs refused to draw air under the crushing gravity. His vision swam.
But Vemy stood.
His chains flared, abyss fire burning brighter, higher. He thrust his claws upward, intercepting the unseen hand. Shadows clawed at light, sparks exploding in all directions. The ground beneath him cratered, stone liquefying under the sheer pressure.
The god's voice, vast and indifferent, rolled across the battlefield.
"—A FRACTION OF MY GAZE, AND YOU DARE RESIST?"
Vemy's jaw clenched so hard blood seeped from his gums. His arms trembled, legs cracking under strain.
And still—his voice thundered back:
"Then look closer—
and watch me refuse!"
The abyss screamed. The light howled. The battlefield split into black flame and divine brilliance, both refusing to yield.
Jaylin, through blurred eyes, forced himself upright once more. His voice was hoarse, but filled with iron.
"If he can stand against that… then so can I."
And for the first time, the cloaked figure's grin faltered, replaced by something else—
A flicker of unease.