Ziraiah reacted instantly. Dozens of barriers bloomed in front of her — shields of crystal, flame, and air.

  CRASH. CRASH. CRASH.

  The disk punched through every one.

  Her eyes flared as diamond gauntlets formed over her hands. Layer upon layer of invisible shields wrapped her arms. She braced herself — and caught it.

  The force hurled her backward through mountains, each step gouging trenches into the plateau. Her gauntlets cracked. Blood spattered from her palms. Four fingers snapped away into the storm.

  The disk fell inert at her feet, heavy as steel. She staggered, panting, sweat and blood dripping down her chin.

  “Still standing,” Pungence called. “Good.I have gauged your strengths. I won't give you an obstacle you can't overcome.”

  Eryndor landed with a thunderclap, carving a crater two hundred meters wide. His arms shimmered, transmuting into a roaring machine gun. Diamond bullets sprayed forward like hail.

  DADA-DA-DA-DA-DA!

  The rounds pinged harmlessly off Pungence’s skin, bouncing away like raindrops on steel.

  Eryndor’s face twisted in fury. His nose and mouth dripped blood, but his voice roared. The gun iced over as it fired, each bullet now wrapped in frost.

  Pungence caught one in midair, rolling it between his fingers. “These little things will do nothing.”

  The ground erupted.

  Two colossal hands of stone burst from beneath Pungence, each the size of towers. They clapped together, slamming him inside a prison of rock. The impact sent tremors across the land, fissures ripping through entire plateaus.

  The stone hands compressed, merging into a massive ball.

  Above, Eryndor’s frame ignited. A hammer the size of a building appeared in his grip — a spiked behemoth, its handle one kilometer long. His emerald eyes glowed, flames coursing across his shoulders.

  With a roar, he raised the hammer high, then brought it down on the stone prison.

  KA-BOOM.

  The ball cracked, fire spewing from within.

  Eryndor’s right hand blazed, growing brighter, swelling until it became a massive cannon of flame. He exhaled, steadying his core, and released it.

  FWOOM.

  The beam exploded outward, melting the stone sphere instantly. The torrent carved through the plateaus, burning everything in its path.

  Pungence leapt free, his body still untouched. Eryndor’s arms swung wildly, controlling the beam, chasing him through the sky.

  SSHHHHHHHH!

  The colossal stream of fire tore across Heful’s horizon. It slashed across the tallest mountain at the capital's edge — splitting it clean in half.

  The beam scraped against the city’s protective barrier. The dome flared bright red as citizens looked upward in panic.

  “Are we under attack?!” someone shouted in the streets.

  “Look at the sky!”

  The beam swung again, once, twice, three times, each pass shaking the heavens.

  Above the chaos, Pungence dodged effortlessly, weaving through the beam as though it were little more than a game. His voice boomed through the storm:

  “Yes! That’s it, Eryndor! Drain yourself! That’s how you strengthen the core — push it until it tears!”

  He sidestepped, deflecting flames with his palm, smiling as he spoke.

  “Just like muscle. Tear it, endure the strain — and when it heals, it becomes stronger. Better.”

  Far away, in Heful itself, Andrea and Ria stood outside, their faces lit crimson by the sky.

  Ria swallowed. “…This is getting out of hand. Didn’t you say they went to the Ascended Plateaus?”

  “Yes,” Andrea replied calmly, her gaze steady.

  “Then why does the fight reach us here? The Ascended Plateaus is over ten thousand kilometers away.”

  ---

  Within Heful’s shining heart, the royal palace stood tall, its towers wreathed in banners of gold and crimson. Yet inside the grand hall, unease rippled like a storm through still waters.

  King Juval sat upon his throne, back straight, his blue eyes sharp. The sound of armored boots struck the marble as a guard rushed in, falling to one knee.

  “My lord!” he cried, breath ragged. “The barrier of Heful — it was just struck by a magic attack!”

  Juval’s jaw clenched. His voice cut the silence like steel.

  “From where?”

  The guard swallowed, his gaze lowered. “…From the east.”

  At once, Juval’s mind flashed back to a memory. Pungence stood before him, shoulders broad, voice calm but certain.

  > “I’m taking the children for a little training. At the Ascended Plateaus.”

  Juval’s eyes narrowed in the present. His voice dropped, tight with disbelief.

  “…Impossible. Pungence doesn't use magic.”

  The guard’s head lifted, pale with fear.

  “Then what struck us, my king?”

  Juval rose from his throne, cloak sweeping the marble floor, his expression thunderous.

  “If it reached here from the Ascended Plateaus… then either the children have unleashed calamity—”

  His voice faltered. “…or another power has interfered.”

  ---

  The Ascended Plateaus

  On the shattered stone, Eryndor fell to one knee. His flames sputtered, then died, smoke curling from his shoulders. His breath came ragged, eyes dimmed from mana strain.

  The plateau trembled.

  BAAANG.

  A portal split the air itself, jagged and black. From its depths, laughter spilled out — harsh, mocking, inhuman.

  A figure burst through at high speed, headed straight for Pungence.

  Lorde.

  His body shimmered like molten gold, but his form was cut from living light. In his grasp was a large blade, black steel edged with crackling energy. His grin spread wide, fangs glinting in the glow.

  “Ahahahaha!” His voice rolled across the plateaus like a storm, shaking the earth.

  “You think I was scared of you? Let's see if you can handle this, mortal!”

  His laughter tore through the sky as the blade descended.

  The plateau shook as a new presence split the sky.

  Lorde’s blade cut downward in a brilliant arc, the strike so vast it carved a trench a thousand kilometers long. The land itself screamed.

  But Pungence didn’t flinch.

  He simply raised his hand.

  CLANG.

  The blade of living light froze in his palm. Not a scratch marked him.

  “Leave,” Pungence said flatly, his voice rolling like thunder. “This training isn’t for you.”

  Their heights were equal, two titans standing eye-to-eye.

  Lorde bared his fangs, fury twisting his molten grin. “I don’t like the way you made me feel the other day. How could a mortal do me like that? I won’t stand for it!”

  The sky cracked again.

  BAANG.

  Another portal ripped open above the plateau. A golden blur shot out — Avostigo, his fists armored in massive gauntlets that glowed like miniature suns. He roared, swinging for Pungence’s head.

  But the Titan caught him with one hand, palm clamped around Avostigo’s face.

  “Don’t interfere,” Pungence said, his voice calm but absolute.

  Before he could even throw him aside—

  BAANG!

  A third portal tore reality apart right in front of him.

  Fenry exploded out of it, fist cocked. Lightning rumbled along his arm like the wrath of the heavens. His punch shot upward, connecting with Pungence’s chin.

  KA-BOOOOOM.

  The plateau cratered for a hundred kilometers. A branching storm of lightning burst outward, filling the sky with roots of white and blue fire. Clouds parted for hundreds of kilometers.

  The blast was so bright it was seen across kingdoms.

  In Zitry, Avin stood by his window, eyes wide. “What is going on…?”

  At Pungence’s estate, Eliana stepped outside, standing beside Andrea as the horizon lit white-blue.

  “Is all this from their training?” she whispered.

  Andrea nodded. “They’re so far I can’t even sense them… how could they have gotten this strong so fast?.”

  ---

  On the plateau, Pungence’s head tilted back slightly from Fenry’s strike. His jaw shifted — then stilled. He was unscathed.

  His eyes lowered, fixing on Fenry.

  Fenry laughed, crackling with arcs of lightning. “What kind of mortal are you?”

  Avostigo gripped Pungence’s arm, his voice a guttural snarl. “The kind about to pay for humiliating me.”

  The Ascended Plateaus shook violently. Mountains melted at the edges.

  Avostigo roared, “FEEL THE POWER OF THE SUN!”

  Above, light bent unnaturally. The sun itself seemed to fracture, its brilliance refracted into a single blazing point. A massive glass-like construct shimmered in the sky, several kilometers wide, focusing the daystar’s fury downward.

  Avostigo’s body glowed, his gauntlets blazing white-gold.

  Then the sun struck.

  A continuous beam of light and heat roared down, engulfing Pungence. The Titan was blasted from the plateau, driven thousands of kilometers into the earth, the ground vaporizing in his wake.

  ---

  Valerius was already airborne, tearing through the sky like a green comet. His eyes burned.

  In the Temporal Plane, the Cosmic Kingdom Book opened with a thunderous creak, pages flipping until it stopped at the fifth.

  Valerius yelled.

  “Avostigo.”

  Valerius’s body shifted instantly. His eyes sharpened into leonine slits. Golden hair erupted around his head and neck like a mane. His fingers curled into claws, his jaw extending into a half-beast snarl. His broken human teeth regrew as predatory fangs.

  He zigzagged in the air, velocity warping the clouds.

  Around him, mirrors of invisible force appeared one after another, hanging like phantom glass. The sunlight bent, bouncing between them — one, two, three — until thirteen mirrors chained together in a split instant.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  The beams converged, amplified, and shot downward in a single colossal pillar of condensed light.

  It struck the earth like judgment itself, aimed directly at Pungence.

  ---

  Valerius landed beside the spirits, blood dripping from his lip, his teeth half-broken but his eyes blazing.

  “Let’s go.”

  Lorde smirked, molten light dancing in his grin. “Finally taking command. Now that’s more like it.”

  Together, they leapt.

  Thunder boomed as four figures pushed off the air with Thunder Stride, streaking downward like meteors. The earth split open as they plunged into the crust itself, tunneling through stone as if it were paper.

  “Lorde—sword!” Valerius barked.

  The spirit laughed, hurling his giant blade through the rock. Valerius caught it mid-dive.

  “Fenry—lightning!”

  The cloud spirit howled, and a bolt kilometers wide crashed down from the heavens, striking the blade in Valerius’s hand. The sword blazed with living thunder.

  Above, the sun-beam still poured down on Pungence, a torrent of searing heat. But the instant it faded, Valerius swung." AAAAAH"

  The lightning blade cleaved through the dark, striking Pungence’s ribs with all the force of a god’s verdict.

  BOOOOM.

  The land cracked apart, an underground continent 2000 kilometers split wide. Pungence was hurled backward, buried in rock. But before the dust could settle—

  Lorde’s foot smashed into his face.

  A crater twenty-five kilometers wide erupted beneath the earth. The world shook as the fight descended deeper into the planet’s crust, shockwaves rippling across No Man’s Land. Earthquakes rolled outward, toppling mountains, swallowing valleys whole.

  The assault didn’t stop.

  Avostigo roared, his gauntlets blazing like suns. His fist slammed into Pungence’s chest, and every strike he threw bled pure sunlight. Each punch burst through the ground, geysers of solar fire erupting on the surface above.

  The crust of Yilheim itself became their battlefield.

  Fenry struck from behind, locking Pungence’s arms in a brutal hold.

  “Now!” he barked.

  Valerius and Avostigo launched forward together, their feet smashing into Pungence’s chest.

  KAA-BOOOM.

  The explosion carved a crater two hundred kilometers wide, magma bursting out in fiery rivers. Fenry roared, lightning coursing from his body as he shocked Pungence with everything he had.

  The Titan did not bleed. He did not falter.

  “So this is how you use your Seed,” Pungence said evenly, voice steady even as the world collapsed around him. “The ability to take on the attributes of spirits… a powerful trick indeed.”

  He raised his palm. Red steel glimmered.

  “Triple Inferior Blows.”

  BOOOOM.

  His strike landed against all three chests at once. Valerius coughed blood; the spirits spat white essence. They were hurled away, tearing through the earth for thousands of kilometers, the shockwave hollowing out entire ranges.

  In an instant, Pungence was at Valerius’s side. His voice cut like iron.

  “You don’t just summon beasts. You summon high-level spirits. Intelligent ones. That means your Seed isn’t ordinary—it’s at least Epic tier. Maybe even Legendary. No wonder you tried so hard to get it. Did you know?”

  The surface collapsed above them, three thousand kilometers of land caving in.

  High above, Ziraiah darted through the falling rubble, her body battered but her will unbroken. She caught Eryndor as he fell, his body limp, his mana spent.

  She gasped. “My God… did Val and Pungence do all this?”

  All across the battlefield, portals cracked open. One by one, they began to pull the spirits back.

  Next to Lorde, a vortex roared open, dragging him toward it. He snarled, resisting, claws sinking into the stone.

  “Valerius?! Are you kidding me?! You’re already tapped out?! I’m not done yet!” He cursed furiously. “Your stamina is absolute shit!”

  Another portal yawned open before Fenry and Avostigo. Despite their rage, the force pulled them in.

  “Valerius! Just one more,” Lorde hissed. His essence flared white-hot. “Don’t waste it.”

  Vitalis erupted through Lorde’s veins. His aura surged violently as he roared, throwing the blade with everything left in him.

  The portal consumed Lorde the instant the sword left his hand.

  Pungence’s arm blurred behind him. Fingers snapped shut.

  KAAA-BOOM.

  The caught blade detonated in his grasp, carving a crater one hundred forty kilometers wide. Lava burst from the ground, rivers of molten fire flooding outward.

  Valerius collapsed, gasping. “Uhh—” His body shook, lungs straining.

  Pungence landed beside him, completely unscathed. His massive shadow loomed over the boy.

  “Valerius. You’re most definitely on the level of a High General. But…” He tilted his head. “It looks like you’ve still got one drop left in you.”

  He gestured with a single hand, expression calm.

  “Come on.”

  Valerius vanished, Thunder Stride bursting beneath his feet. But his speed faltered—Mach 1000, no higher. He weaved through falling debris, chest heaving.

  Pungence chuckled. “Slower now, Valerius. You’re tired. An elite Bravo user should fight for days without faltering.” His smile curved, mocking but not cruel. “Your spirit was right—your stamina’s shit.”

  Valerius sprinted across the lava, Bravo vibrating through his arm. With a final roar, he drove his fist into Pungence’s chest.

  KA-THOOOM.

  The impact carved a crater twenty kilometers wide. Lava sprayed skyward in titanic fountains.

  When the fire cleared, Pungence still stood. He hadn’t budged an inch.

  He looked down. Valerius looked up.

  “Now that…” Pungence said, voice steady as stone, “…is everything you have.”

  Valerius’s body trembled, sweat streaking down his battered face.

  “No,” he rasped, forcing himself upright. “I’m not done yet.”

  Pungence’s eyes narrowed. His voice was calm, even — but iron.

  “That’s enough. You don’t need to continue. I’ve seen everything I need to see.”

  Valerius staggered forward, defiance burning through his fatigue.

  “I still have fire left in me.”

  The Titan exhaled slowly, his head tilting back toward the crimson-stained sky. When he looked down again, his gaze carried finality.

  “Valerius… you’re not hearing me.”

  And then—he let it loose.

  The world darkened as Pungence’s aura erupted outward, thick and suffocating, burning red like a living storm. The air warped. The ground groaned. A crushing weight pressed down on Valerius, heavier than mountains, heavier than the ocean.

  Valerius’s eyes widened. His breath came ragged and shallow. Sweat poured down his temples as his knees buckled. He had never felt anything like this—not even from the Giants. Not even from Esky. This was something beyond comparison.

  His body screamed monster. His instincts shrieked run.

  Pungence’s eyes flared, glowing deep scarlet. His voice rolled like thunder across the ruins.

  “I said… that’s enough.”

  The sound shattered what little defiance remained. Valerius collapsed onto his backside, hands trembling violently. His body moved on instinct, one arm stretched out before him as if to shield himself from the impossible presence looming above. His breath broke in panicked gasps. He wasn’t just facing a man—he was staring into the abyss of power itself.

  Far away—in another realm where silent watchers observed—chaos erupted.

  One figure shot up from his throne. “This cannot be.”

  Another rose, voice trembling. “Impossible.”

  A third leaned forward, eyes blazing. “How can a mortal possess such power?”

  One by one, these beings stood, their disbelief echoing through eternity. For the first time in eons, they were shaken.

  Pungence’s shadow fell long and unyielding over the broken boy. He stepped forward, every movement a hammer against Valerius’s soul, and looked down with absolute dominance.

  “Do you hear me now?”

  Valerius collapsed fully, his forehead pressed to the ground. His voice cracked, pathetic and trembling.

  “Yy…yes. Yyy…yes.”

  The red aura vanished as suddenly as it had come, sucked back into the Titan’s frame like a beast caged once more.

  And Valerius, body broken and spirit shattered, slumped to the ground—unconscious.

  ---

  Above, Ziraiah hovered with Eryndor limp on her back. She saw everything — the craters, the rivers of lava, the collapse of mountains. Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “Oh God…”

  Pungence glanced up at her, Valerius slung effortlessly across his shoulder. His voice carried calm and finality.

  “You’ve done well. I’m impressed.”

  He levitated upward, each movement slow and deliberate, Valerius still unconscious against him.

  “This one has surpassed you both already. Two years of training… and he’s ahead of you.” He adjusted his grip on Valerius and smirked. “Let’s go home. I feel like eating.”

  Ziraiah’s eyes narrowed. “How… are you doing this?”

  “Doing what?”

  “You’re floating. Val said Thunder Stride only lets you kick off air. Bravo users can’t fly.”

  Pungence laughed. A booming, mountain-breaking laugh that echoed across the ruined plateaus.

  “Don’t compare me to your brother, Ziraiah. I'm Pungence.”

  And with that, thy flew into the sky.

  ---

  To Be Continued...