Ziraiah raised her hand, her golden aura blazing.

  “You two wait it out. I’ll go first.”

  Valerius frowned, arms folded. “Why should I?”

  “Because I said so,” she shot back, eyes locked on Pungence. “And I want to pull out all the stops.”

  Before either brother could argue, the ground trembled. A massive stone hand erupted from the mountain and clamped around Pungence’s leg, dragging him down into the rock.

  The air thickened — moisture condensing, swirling into a torrent above the crater. With a snap of Ziraiah’s fingers, the water condensed into a spear and slammed downward, tearing through the mountain in a roaring cascade.

  For a moment, the world was nothing but dust and steam.

  Then Pungence was gone.

  “—Not... enough,” a deep voice murmured.

  Ziraiah’s eyes widened. He was right infront of her, palm drawn back only an inch from her ribs.

  “Inferior Blow.”

  The punch detonated like thunder.

  BOOM.

  The mountain exploded into rubble, shockwaves flattening peaks for miles. Ziraiah’s scream tore through the air as blood burst from her mouth, her ribs snapping like twigs. Her body was blasted away like a ragdoll.

  But even before she struck the ground, Eryndor was upon Pungence. His right hand glowed, flames surging with terrifying heat.

  “My Turn!”

  The edge of his palm came down like a blade. Fire erupted from the strike, splitting the sky — carving a sixty-kilometer-long crater into the earth. Mountains collapsed in halves as the fiery blade cleaved straight through them.

  Eryndor’s burning hand stopped at Pungence’s forehead.

  The Titan did not move. Not a scratch marked his skin.

  “Too weak. Concentrate your mana.”

  With a casual push, Pungence’s palm slammed into Eryndor’s chest.

  “Inferior Blow.”

  BOOM.

  The shockwave shattered the heavens, sending Eryndor hurtling through dozens of mountains. His ribs cracked under the impact, blood trailing in the air.

  The plateau they had been standing on no longer existed.

  Pungence now floated above the wasteland, arms folded.

  Valerius stood below, staring up. His teeth clenched. Then, in an instant, he was gone.

  The air warped — he reappeared at Pungence’s side, fist arcing toward the Titan’s head.

  CLANG!

  Blocked. With the back of his hand.

  Valerius vanished again, reappearing behind him. Then again. And again. At Mach 4000, his body blurred, his fists raining from every angle. Each strike cracked the air, shockwaves splitting mountains in every direction.

  But Pungence blocked them all. His one arm moved like red steel, vanishing into blurs as he deflected every blow. To anyone watching, it was as though Pungence’s limbs were disappearing from the sheer velocity.

  Then, with crushing force, Pungence caught Valerius’s right hand mid-punch.

  Before Valerius could pull free, the Titan’s left hand lashed out.

  CRACK!

  The slap echoed like a cannon. Blood and five teeth flew from Valerius’s mouth as his body spun violently. He was launched like a meteor, crashing through mountain after mountain until a crater twenty kilometers wide opened where he landed.

  Pungence’s voice roared out, amplified by his Bravo until it shook the skies themselves:

  “Haaaahahahaha, surely you can do more than this… huh, Delindors?”

  The ground trembled.

  From the shattered crater, Ziraiah rose once more. Blood streaked her lips, but her eyes blazed with defiance. Slowly, she raised her hand. The world itself seemed to answer.

  All around, debris from the obliterated mountains — pebbles, boulders, fragments the size of castles — began to lift. Tens of thousands of shards hovered in the storm, orbiting her like a crown of ruin.

  She thrust her hand forward.

  The storm of debris shrieked through the sky, all of it converging on Pungence at impossible speeds.

  But then he vanished.

  Her eyes widened. She spun just in time to see him beside her.

  His fist swung — but Ziraiah twisted away, his strike missing by inches.

  “Good,” Pungence said, smiling faintly. “You dodged this one.”

  Without hesitation, she bolted, flying hard. Her body weaved in sharp arcs, banking wildly, trying to lose him. Behind her, Pungence gave chase — a storm given human form.

  She hurled the debris back at him in volleys, massive boulders screaming through the air. Pungence wove through them effortlessly — slipping between gaps, smashing some apart, redirecting others with his forearm. His movements were sharp, surgical, a dancer among meteors.

  She dared a glance back — and saw him weaving closer, eyes locked on her. Then—

  He disappeared.

  Her breath caught. “No—”

  The next instant, a colossal palm slammed into her back.

  “AHHHH!”

  “Inferior Blow.”

  Her scream split the sky as pain ripped through her spine. She was launched downward, smashing into the earth below with a cataclysmic impact. The ground split for miles, tremors rolling outward like an earthquake.

  Pungence hovered above, voice calm but unyielding:

  “As long as your opponent is faster than you… you will always be at a disadvantage. Work on your reaction speed.”

  ---

  Valerius’s arm cut the air like a blade.

  WHOOM.

  A crescent of Bravo ripped outward — green, crackling, violent — racing straight for Pungence.

  The Titan caught it. With one hand.

  He twisted his wrist and flung it back.

  Valerius’s eyes widened. He barely threw himself aside as the Bravo wave screamed past, tearing a trench through the plateau behind him.

  Eryndor floated down beside him, calm as ever. His emerald gaze flicked toward his brother’s broken grin.

  “You do comprehend, I trust,” he remarked dryly, “that you appear utterly absurd with half your dentition absent.”

  Valerius spat blood and smirked. “Shut up.”

  They exchanged no further words. Instead, they launched together.

  BOOM.

  Twin streaks tore through the storm, converging on Pungence.

  Eryndor’s hands ignited, and he hurled spheres of flame — dozens, then hundreds, like miniature suns. They shrieked through the air in relentless waves, but Pungence slipped between them, weaving effortlessly as though the fireballs obeyed his dance.

  Then the air twisted.

  Eryndor clenched his fist and pulled. Invisible hands seized Pungence’s frame, dragging him violently down.

  Flames erupted across Eryndor’s arms. Two swords of living fire formed in his hands, blazing white-hot. He swung down, blades screaming.

  CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

  Pungence deflected them all with nothing but his right hand. Sparks danced off his skin, flames parted like mist.

  Then Valerius was there.

  He aimed for Pungence’s face with a piston punch. The Titan tilted his head — but found himself staring into a condensed sphere of compressed air, hovering right where his head moved.

  BOOM!

  The sphere detonated point-blank, the cannon-blast slamming into his face. The world shook.

  Pungence crashed to the ground in a crater of smoke and dust.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  But when the haze cleared, he stood tall. Unshaken.

  Valerius was already there, aura burning. His right arm vibrated violently, charged with everything he had. With a roar, he drove his fist into Pungence’s face.

  CRRRRRRRAAACK.

  The impact split the world. A crater ninety kilometers wide ripped open, green lightning bursting outward, flattening mountains in every direction.

  Silence.

  The dust cleared.

  Pungence still stood in the same spot. His face turned slightly to the side. Not even a bruise.

  He smiled.

  “…Cry of Absolute Authority.”

  His voice carried like thunder across the ruined plateaus. His eyes flicked to Valerius, burning with recognition.

  “The will of the ultimate warrior. Wonderful. There aren’t many who have it. But…” He leaned down slightly, his smile faint. “…you’ve got no control. Not yet. That, at least, we can fix with time.”

  Then the sky split open.

  A shadow blocking out the sun — an asteroid, massive and jagged, two hundred kilometers wide, tearing through the atmosphere. The heavens burned around it as it screamed toward the plateau.

  Valerius’s jaw dropped. “What the—”

  Pungence only looked up and roared in triumph.

  “Haaaahahaha, now that’s more like it! Only when you’re pushed to the limit… do you grow!”

  His body blurred.

  BOOM!

  He launched upward like a comet, headfirst. The asteroid split apart as he crashed through it, the explosion lighting the sky like a second sun. Fragments rained down like burning meteors.

  And before the siblings could even breathe, Pungence was back.

  He appeared in front of Eryndor, fist already pulled back.

  “Inferior Blow.”

  BANG.

  The punch caved into Eryndor’s chest. Blood sprayed from his lips as his body was hurled upward. He shot into the sky like a ragdoll, breaking through the clouds — higher and higher — until he vanished into the stratosphere, two thousand kilometers away.

  Ziraiah wasn’t finished.

  Her body shook, blood dripping from her lips, but her hands never faltered. Around her, the world responded.

  Thousands of spears — water and fire, shaped and hardened — formed above Pungence, blocking out the sky.

  She screamed and hurled them downward.

  SSSSHHHHHHHHH—BOOM!

  The spears fell like a storm of divine judgment, endless and unrelenting.

  Pungence looked up. His expression didn’t change.

  He raised a single finger.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  With the tip of his finger, he deflected them all. Each spear shattered at his touch, no matter its speed or size. Sparks and steam rained around him as though he were brushing dust from his shoulders.

  But Ziraiah wasn’t done.

  “Not… yet!” she roared, clapping her hands above her head.

  The surviving spears fused together, swirling into one titanic weapon — a mountain-sized spear of fire and water, blazing so fiercely the air around it ignited. The very mountains began to burn.

  Pungence glanced up, almost impressed. “Hmm.”

  Chains of water burst from the ground, wrapping around his arms and legs, even his face. For the first time, his breath was cut off.

  “You can do simultaneous casting,” he said calmly, muffled by water. “Impressive. Gozay’s Spellbounds are nothing compared to you.”

  But Ziraiah’s glare burned hotter. She screamed, forcing the spear downward.

  And then the ground began to glow.

  A magic circle — twenty kilometers wide — carved itself into the plateau, lines blazing red. The sky darkened.

  From above, Eryndor returned like a falling star, his body wrapped in flames. His voice cut through the storm:

  “Do not presume to condescend to us.”

  The world shattered.

  The spear of fire fell.

  The magic circle detonated.

  A red blast erupted from the ground, so bright it turned the entire sky crimson. The explosion lit the heavens, visible all the way from Zitry.

  In her window, Mercy gasped, her face bathed in red. Alvin stared wide-eyed from the academy. Sierra and Victoria pressed against their windows.

  At the Pungence Estate, Andrea stood in the yard, arms crossed. The red light scorched the horizon. She exhaled softly.

  “…Don’t go too hard on them, Pungence.”

  ---

  On the plateau, Valerius crouched low. His aura raged, green lightning flashing across the ruin. He roared, Bravo tearing from his body. The ground crumbled beneath him — Ten meters. Twenty. Thirty.

  His hair floated upward in the storm. His legs clanged with a metallic bang as they turned green, hardened like living steel.

  And still his power climbed.

  The storm had only begun.

  ---

  Green lightning erupted from Valerius, crackling outward in violent waves.

  The instant Eryndor and Ziraiah’s attacks fell silent, Valerius launched.

  BOOM.

  Mach 5000.

  He tore through the mountains like paper, each impact leaving nothing but collapsing stone and molten edges in his wake. The world blurred — a streak of emerald destruction — until he angled himself forward, body taut, right leg pulled back.

  His iris burned faint green. The faint markings etched on his face began to glow. His leg vibrated, screaming with kinetic force.

  Then—impact.

  BAAANG!

  His foot struck Pungence’s face with biblical force.

  But it never touched.

  Everything between Valerius’s foot and Pungence’s head compressed into a single invisible point, space itself trembling at the strain. The ground for 120 kilometers caved inward, pulled by the sheer collision of forces.

  Valerius’s jaw was locked, his veins bulging, pouring every shred of himself into the strike.

  And Pungence? He was smiling.

  “Hahahahaha! From the day our paths crossed, I saw it burning in you — the will that defies defeat, the will of the Ultimate Warrior!”

  The Titan’s hand rose, catching Valerius’s ankle mid-kick. His other palm stretched toward the trembling orb of compressed energy between them. The sphere pulsed, unstable, ready to annihilate everything.

  “No,” Pungence muttered.

  The orb detonated — but only inside his hand. He contained it, every shard of destructive force swallowed into his palm. Smoke hissed from his fingers. His grin never faltered.

  He swung Valerius down and slammed him into the stone.

  CRACK.

  Valerius coughed blood, his roar echoing across the plateaus.

  “You’re stronger than most Bravo users already,” Pungence said, his voice a rumble that filled the mountains. “Almost touching the rank of a High General. But as you are now?” His green eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t even make the World Ranking. Not yet. You’ve been isolated for three years. You don’t know how wide the world really is. To reach this level of bravo mastering in just two years. You're the only one in history to achieve such a feat. You, Valerius, will go down in the world Record.”

  Before Valerius could rise, a spinning disk of water screamed toward Pungence. He caught it with one hand, fortified it with his own strength, then hurled it back ten times stronger.

  ---

  To Be Continued...