Far above the reach of the Black Water, two ancient, wingless shapes glided through the dying air..
Reiga moved through the sky with impossible, aquatic grace, less like a flying beast and more like a leviathan swimming through an invisible ocean. Its wingless, serpentine form was massive and ominous.
Running along its spine were skeletal, vertebrae-like plates that glowed white-hot against the darkness of its hide. Its four limbs were lean and powerfully built, tipped with razor-sharp, predatory talons.
A chaotic, ink-like mane of black fur flowed along its spine, tail, and jawline, writhing unnaturally like a storm trapped in liquid. The rest of its body was armor-plated in obsidian scales so deep they seemed to devour light itself.
From its elongated, crocodilian head lined with interlocking fangs, a single, terrifying pale-blue iris stared outward, its narrow black pupil sharpened like a blade.
Opposing it was Yang, the White Dragon.
Yang was long and serpentine, coiling through the air with slow, deliberate grace. Four slender limbs extended from its scaled form, ending in talons that hovered weightlessly above the world. Its scales were as white as fine porcelain, matching the sun above, yet they were faintly transparent, as if woven from pure light and mist rather than flesh.
The pale illumination of the hollow sun passed directly through its body, leaving shimmering distortions in the air as it glided downward.
The two cosmic beasts did not roar, nor did they charge like wild animals. They moved toward each other with solemn, devastating gravity.
Dozens of meters in the air, the two dragons slammed their massive skulls together in a bone-shattering headbutt. The impact echoed across the Inner World. A colossal, circular shockwave tore outward from the point of contact, driving through the air and violently flattening the world around them.
Below them, the surface of the Black Water reacted instantly, an immense, perfectly circular ring of displacement blasted outward across the liquid, sending towering, overlapping ripples crashing toward the collapsing horizons.
The dragons remained locked in midair, their crocodilian snouts pressed hard against each other. White-hot skeletal plates grinding against porcelain scales, their muscles strained against pure force as the surrounding air violently shook.
With a low, resonance-heavy shift, they parted.
They began to orbit one another in a rapid, deadly dance. Yang coiled like a whip, snapping its slender body inward to lash out with razor-sharp talons. Reiga twisted through the sky like an eel in water, barely slipping past the blow, its sweeping antler-like horns narrowly grazing Yang's transparent scales.
Yang feinted, sweeping its tail through a current of purple lightning, but Reiga ducked beneath the arc with agility, snapping its interlocking fangs shut inches from Yang's throat.
Sweeping down from the upper currents, Yang retreated toward the lower realm, coiling its body just above the firm surface of the Black Water, far away from where Amon and Albion's desperate situation was occurring.
High above, Reiga halted its movement, hovering in the sky like a dark omen beneath the hollow black sun. He opened his massive, crocodilian jaw. Deep within its throat, a dark, dense sphere of energy began to condense.
Below, Yang tilted its pale head back, its jaw opening wide to emit a high-pitched, piercing screech. At the center of its maw, a brilliant, blinding sphere of pure white energy flared into existence.
As both beasts channeled their power, a sharp, crackling static electricity hummed throughout the realm. Thin, branching tendrils of lightning crawled across Reiga's obsidian scales and danced along Yang's translucent porcelain skin.
Yet, despite the terrifying pressure radiating from their maws, a truth existed within this realm: Yang and Reiga were not real.
Unlike Amon, who was a true being born of Albion's non-human lineage, the two dragons were mental constructs, manifestations born of Albion's accumulated emotions long before he ever joined the Phantom Lord guild.
Back when Albion was just an abused, isolated boy, long before he obtained Codex Magic or the weight of his own magic, he had the simple mind of a five-year-old.
His entire world was defined by pain, neglect, and cold isolation. His only sanctuary, the sole flickering warmth in a hollow existence, was fantasy books.
Those stories had been his only comfort, and so his subconscious learned to speak in their language. But because a broken child knew nothing of Ethernal Manipulation or dragons themselves, the dragons he imagined couldn't cast real spells. They didn't wield raw magic like Amon. They were just guardian beasts born from the desperate imagination of a lonely child.
To an isolated five-year-old reading a fairytale, a dragon was not a creature bound by limits or energy reserves. A dragon was the ultimate, invincible force. Because they were born from that untethered childhood reverence, Yang and Reiga possessed no concept of limits. Their power was as infinite as a child's belief in them.
Both dragons unleashed their breath attacks simultaneously.
From high above, Reiga fired a concentrated, beam-like torrent of black energy. From below, Yang discharged a roaring wave of blinding white fire.
The two beams met directly in the center of the Inner World.
The collision created a blinding, catastrophic explosion that lit up a full quarter of the entire mental realm.
The sheer force of the explosion shattered the surrounding sky like glass, accelerating the collapse of the realm's outer borders. Dense, glowing smoke and lingering white-and-black embers billowed outward, enveloping the sky in a thick, weightless fog.
After Albion had confronted his past, he had slowly begun to develop a genuine sense of self. For the first time in his miserable life, he began to realize that his existence had value, that his pain mattered, and that he deserved to live.
That realization grew so potent that it gave physical shape to the unseen presence that had always lingered behind the dark eclipse sun: Reiga, the Black Dragon.
However, Reiga operated on cold logic. He believed that the only way to truly save Amon—and by extension, save Albion from destruction—was to eradicate Amon completely.
Albion refused this. Eradicating Amon went against his core ideology of compassion. To kill Amon would be to admit that hatred could only be met with destruction, proving Amon's dark worldview right. Albion wanted to save his split self, not erase him.
Because of this disagreement, Reiga stayed his hand in the physical realm. He allowed the battle below to play out, genuinely curious to see which path was correct: the path of ruination through absolute hatred that Amon walked, or the path of compassion and self-sacrifice that Albion chose.
High in the sky, the dust began to clear.
Yang remained coiled near the Black Water, its porcelain scales shimmering under the pale light. Reiga hovered far above, its single blue eye fixed on the white beast below.
Despite the immense distance separating them, when the Black Dragon spoke, its voice echoed with a deep, echoing resonance that rattled the realm.
"Why do you continue to sin in his name?" Reiga asked, his voice sounding like grinding stone. "You know as well as I do that Albion's path of compassion is the only true way forward. Hatred will only consume us all."
Yang's crocodilian face softened into a solemn, heavy expression. Its narrow pupils remained fixed on the Black Dragon.
"I am loyal to Amon…because he was the one who needed me most."
"When Amon first came into existence," Yang continued softly, "he was not born with an identity. He was not born with a purpose. He was simply the vessel for everything that little boy forced himself not to feel. Because Albion was treated as though he had no value, Amon inherited that emptiness. In his earliest moments, he was nothing more than an unwanted consciousness floating in a dark, empty void... until this Inner World formed around him."
Reiga did not interrupt. He watched the white dragon with understanding.
"Amon was completely alone," Yang said, his translucent body shifting slightly against the liquid floor. "And then, Albion's love of fantasy began to manifest within this space... and I appeared."
He lowered his head slightly, his eyes filled with grief.
"I was born from the small, hidden part of him that still desperately wanted to believe something existed to protect him. Albion could not consciously imagine a parent to save him. But his love of fantasy gave his subconscious a language. So... it created a dragon."
Yang looked up toward Reiga.
"And because Amon was the only active consciousness in this realm when I manifested, my purpose instinctively drew toward him. Not because he commanded me. Not because he created me. It was simply the pull between two abandoned things."
Yang paused, a quiet, solemn air settling around him.
"Amon likely isn't even aware of this. He wasn't in the past, and whether he understands it now is something I do not know... nor do I care to ponder. My duty is to him."
High above, Reiga closed his jaw. The single pale-blue iris narrowed, a heavy, sorrowful stillness settling over the dark leviathan.
"I see," Reiga whispered, his massive tail sweeping slowly through the dark sky. "Then you leave me no choice."
He shifted his posture, his white-hot spine plates flaring with terrifying, limitless power.
"You should have been on our side, Yang."