CHAPTER 355: CHAPTER 354 - THE FINAL FIGHT BEGINS.

The green forest where the two titans had fallen was no longer a plain.

It was a wasteland of shattered hills and splintered earth—an ocean of craters steaming under a blood-red dawn.

At the center of one crater lay Crisaius, his form human but broken.

His naked form was half-buried in blackened rock, limbs twisted into angles no anatomy book would ever approve of.

Bones jutted like bent spears, muscles tore beneath scorched skin, and where the demon’s redirected blast had struck, raw flesh still smoked in open streaks of black and red.

The old man groaned, coughing out a wisp of ash. "Ughhh... this is exactly why they tell you not to sunbathe without protection. Look at this—instant tan. Raven’s gonna pull my leg for weeks if he sees this."

He winced as a rib cracked back into place with an audible snap, then poked the exposed muscle on his shoulder like he was inspecting fruit at a market.

"Hmm. Medium rare. Could’ve gone for well done, but hey, I’m not picky."

Chunks of rock skittered down the slope as he pushed himself upright.

The fall’s injuries were already mending—bones knitting, skin crawling with fresh tissue—but the deep, cursed burns from the demon’s attack refused to close, pulsing like molten brands.

Still, Crisaius only muttered, "Eh, cosmetic damage. Chicks dig scars."

That was when a low, guttural growl echoed across the wasteland.

The ground trembled, and far across the ruin, the demon stirred.

Its massive, obsidian body rose like a mountain from the rubble, wings cracking like broken thunderheads.

Crimson steam hissed from half-healed wounds, but its molten eyes burned with unbroken fury.

The two locked gazes.

"You... should have died from that fall," the demon rumbled, each word a quake.

Crisaius tilted his head, brushing dust from his singed hair.

"Die? Pfft. Lady Luck’s my woman, and she never lets me down."

He began a casual strut across the crater floor—

—Only to catch his toe on a pebble.

"Whoa—!" He flailed, stumbled, then awkwardly straightened, coughing into his fist. "...unless she’s mad at me. Lady Luck, if you’re listening, I swear I’ll send flowers."

For a while, the demon said nothing before its lips peeled back in a slow, predatory grin.

Its body was mending faster than Crisaius could blink—scars smoothing, shattered armor knitting back to flawless obsidian.

Each step it took cracked the earth like a drumbeat of doom, shockwaves rippling through the broken plain.

Crisaius flexed his clawless fingers and exhaled.

"Alright, big guy. Round two?"

Red and white light flared around his frame as scales flooded across his skin, horns curling from his skull.

The air screamed as his colossal dragon form erupted back into existence, wings tearing the clouds apart.

Yet inside, he knew that his power reserves were a ghost of what they’d been.

Every motion burned.

Every breath hurt.

It was clear to Crisaius: now that the moment was broken, he had no way of turning the situation around.

The worst thing was that the demon also knew it.

In a blur of crimson, it whooshed forward.

One instant, it was distant, and the next, a shadow blotting out the sun, its fist cocked like a falling star.

Crisaius snapped his claws, freezing time.

For a millisecond, the world went silent.

Clouds halted mid-swirl.

Pebbles hung midair.

The demon’s titanic fist gleamed inches from his chest.

"Ha!" Crisaius laughed, already twisting to dodge, but before he could, pain lanced through his ribs, white-hot.

His legs trembled, refusing the speed he needed. "Ah... right. Nearly dead. Forgot about that."

The air cracked like glass.

The time prison shattered.

The demon’s fist continued its deadly arc, its laughter rolling through the frozen shards of reality.

"Your tricks are done, old man. It ends—now!"

Crisaius’s eyes widened. "Uh-oh."

Then suddenly—

The world itself bent.

An invisible weight crashed down on the demon with the force of a collapsing star.

The ground shrieked as fissures spider-webbed outward.

The demon’s wings snapped tight against its body, bones creaking under the impossible gravity.

For the first time, since the fall, the monster staggered.

Its fist slowed... and stopped right before it reached Crisaius, who had raised his still-healing arms to defend.

Before the demon could even realize what happened, a blazing meteor of fire tore through the clouds, its trail splitting the heavens like a god’s spear.

The air turned to molten glass as it screamed downward, heatwaves rippling across the wasteland.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

The meteor struck at the dead center, swallowing the demon in an explosion of flame and earth that carved a fresh crater inside the old one.

Shockwaves ripped across the plains, hurling mountains of debris skyward and flattening the air into a deafening vacuum.

Crisaius shielded his eyes with a clawed arm, teeth bared as hurricane winds whipped around him.

When the inferno settled, what appeared in the view was the demon buried beneath a smoking pit large enough to swallow a fortress.

Floating high above the chaos was a single figure.

Argon.

His long coat flared against the updraft, a massive black sword strapped to his back.

He hovered there like a shadowed star, eyes calm and unreadable as the earth still quaked from his arrival.

Crisaius squinted up at him, smoke curling from his nostrils.

"Tch. Guy really needs to stop making these cool entrances. Some of us are trying to have a humble near-death experience down here."

Argon, on the other hand, wasn’t in the mood to waste time bickering with Crisaius, so he turned back to the demon, who he was sure hadn’t died.

Without thinking much, Argon slowly raised a hand. His crimson eyes narrowed, and the entire crater shuddered.

With a rumble like shifting mountains, the demon’s massive body tore free of the smoking pit, rising against gravity as if invisible chains hauled it up by the ribs.

Crisaius squinted through the haze, his dragon form smoking and battered. "...Man, how I wish I had space element instead of time."

Argon’s hand dropped.

BOOOOM!

The demon slammed back into the earth, carving a deeper crater. The shockwave rolled over the plains, toppling shattered hills like dominoes.

However, it didn’t end there as Argon raised his hand again—another thunderous impact. Dust geysered skyward.

Crisaius whistled low. "Hah, you’re like a kid with a yo-yo. Except the yo-yo wants to eat our faces."

The rhythm continued—lift, slam, quake, repeat. Each impact shook the air until even the clouds above warped into spirals.

Then silence.

The demon’s colossal frame lay mangled in the pit, smoke curling from its cracked obsidian hide. Not a twitch. Not a breath.

Crisaius tilted his head, his voice wary. "...Think it’s dead?"

Argon’s head snapped toward Crisaius, glaring. "Why?!" He growled, recalling how Raven had told him that things like that were called red flags.

Just then, as if affected by what Crisaius said, the demon’s fingers twitched, and the old man’s eyes widened.

"Again! AGAIN!" Crisaius barked, his voice booming across the wasteland.

Argon, gritting his teeth, didn’t hesitate. His arm snapped up, then down, faster, sharper.

The demon’s body became a grotesque puppet, hurled skyward, and slammed down in rapid succession.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Ground split in spiderwebs. Bones cracked like thunderclaps. The wasteland itself caved beneath the repeated strikes.

Crisaius winced with each crash, grinning despite his bruises. "Ahhh, music to my ears. Crack, crunch, splat—beautiful composition, my disciple!"

At last, the body sagged, motionless. No twitch this time. Only silence and smoke.

Argon descended, his boots landing before Crisaius with a heavy thud. His face was carved in steel. "We go to the Ashen Expanse. Raven is there. And I don’t have a good feeling about it."

But Crisaius shook his head, smoke hissing from his nostrils. "No. One of us has to hold the capital. If both of us leave, the whole damned kingdom’s naked. You go, I’ll stay. Or I’ll go and you stay."

Argon opened his mouth to argue, but before he could—

ROOOOAAAAARRR!

The earth split. The crater, now a pit deep as the underworld, exploded in fire and shadow.

The demon erupted upward, its wings shattering the air, its obsidian hide blazing with black-red flame. Molten fury coiled around it, brighter, deadlier than before.

Both men froze, their battle-honed instincts screaming.

The beast’s voice bellowed across the land, every syllable a curse. "YOU DARE FORCE ME TO USE MY TRUMP CARD I WAS SAVING FOR THE DEMON KING SELECTION?!"

Flames swirled into a storm around its massive frame, burning reality itself.

"NOW DIE!"

Its roar shattered the dawn, black-red fire painting the sky in apocalypse.

However, that wasn’t the only place where an apocalyptic scene was unfolding, as even in the Ashen Expanse, the situation was similar.

............................

The place convulsed like a dying world.

The ground beneath Raven and Graye heaved with a deep, grinding groan, splitting wide to vomit gouts of molten rock and scalding steam.

Jets of super-heated water screamed upward, flashing into vapor before they could fall back.

Black mist rolled in thick waves, a churning ocean of smoke and sulfur that ate the horizon and turned the dying sun into a dim smear of crimson.

Every few heartbeats, the earth boomed—a sharp, percussive detonation that sent sprays of glowing rock and liquid fire arcing into the air like fireworks from hell.

Raven planted his clawed feet against the trembling ground, crimson eyes cutting through the chaos.

Beside him, Graye’s armored form shimmered with a thin halo of mana, the cracks of her visor reflecting the constant eruptions.

Omni perched across Raven’s shoulders, humming like a lazy buzzsaw.

Even the sword’s usual swagger seemed muted by the oppressive, choking heat.

That was when the fog ahead shifted.

Its density thinned just enough for a colossal silhouette to emerge.

A dragon.

Not the crude, twisted beasts of the corrupted brood.

This one was ancient and vast, its outline warping the very mist around it.

Wings so big that one might mistake its shadow for clouds twitched against the dark.

A spined tail coiled and uncoiled with the weight of tectonic plates.

But the haze refused to give it form—only a monstrous suggestion of scale and hunger.

From within the vapor came a voice.

It didn’t speak so much as arrive, vibrating through bone and blood.

"Where," it rumbled, each word dragging the air like an avalanche, "is the last one who dares call itself... my child?"

The Ashen Expanse held its breath.

None of them answered.

Inside Raven’s head, Omni chuckled, his tone pure mischief.

"Well, boss, you’ve dealt with a deadbeat father before. Maybe teach this big lizard how to be a real father."

Raven’s scaled brow twitched.

"...Yeah. Maybe I should."

His chuckle came out low and nervous, a curl of smoke slipping from his fanged mouth.

He turned to Graye.

Through the shifting haze, her bright eyes shone with a mix of terror and a thrill she didn’t bother hiding.

Their gazes locked.

A single nod passed between them.

Boom.

The sound barrier shattered as they launched forward together.

As they did, two streaks of light—one purple and one red—ripped through the black mist toward the awakening god.