Khael flexed his hand, the air distorting around it.

"You said you wanted to see which side breaks the world first, right?"

His gaze sharpened like a blade.

"Let's see how your void holds against a dragon's wrath."

Kero swung his blade, sending a barrage of shade-wind slashes spiraling forward each one tearing through the ruins like storms of ink. But Khael didn't flinch. His wings flicked once, and the sky itself bent.

The slashes shattered erased under the sheer density of his aura.

Khael was gone in a blink.

Boom!

Kero's body cratered into the ground, his blade barely blocking a follow-up strike that shook the entire field.

Khael's voice thundered above him:

"This is no longer your fight, Shadeborn."

He drew back his hand runic energy spiraling around his palm like a vortex.

"This is between your darkness."

He slammed his palm forward, the world roaring as light exploded outward.

"and my flame."

The Dragonite Form roared to life.

Every movement birthed shockwaves, every breath carried the weight of an ancient storm.

Kaen, watching from afar, could barely suppress a grin through his exhaustion.

"He finally used it…"

Rael chuckled despite the blood streaming from his lips.

"About time the dragon stopped pretending to be human."

Bakuza's grin widened. His eyes flicked between Khael's awakened form and his own burning voidflame aura.

"Heh… now this is the kind of madness I live for."

His flames swelled, spreading like the mouth of a volcano.

"Then let's see it, Dragon Knight, let's see if your second form can match my true hell!"

The battlefield convulsed ashes twisting, lightning ripping through wind, the ruins of Tildaroot reduced to fractured stone and molten rivers.

Khael's Dragonite form stood at the center of it all, wings unfurled, each slow breath sending ripples of power that distorted the very air. His eyes calm, burning, resolute—locked onto the two figures ahead.

Bakuza's Voidflame Titan towered behind a smirk, shadow and fire mixing like oil and blood. But before he could take another step, a hand cold, trembling with contained madness—gripped his shoulder.

"Let me handle him."

Bakuza paused.

He turned slightly, the black fire along his arm flickering as he caught Kero's expression half of his porcelain mask shattered, revealing the human beneath: pale, hollow-eyed, trembling with fury.

"Kero…" Bakuza said, amusement dancing in his tone. "You sure? He's not like before. That thing isn't a boy anymore, it's a calamity."

Kero's lips twitched into a broken grin.

"Exactly." He stepped forward, the void around him spiraling, wind and shade bleeding together into a shrieking vortex. "And I hate that look of his."

Khael tilted his head slightly, the faintest trace of a smirk tugging at his mouth.

"That look?"

Kero's eye twitched.

"That calm. That control. You think standing in the storm makes you its master?"

His voice broke into a scream.

"You think you're above the chaos when you are the chaos!"

He launched forward air splitting, shadows clawing.

Khael moved.

One flap of his wings and the world bent.

They collided midair.

Steel against stormlight.

Void against dragonfire.

Boom.

A shockwave flattened the entire northern ridge, the molten ground scattering like waves beneath their clash.

Kero spun, his blade cutting through reality itself. A thousand streaks of shadow filled the air like ribbons of death. Khael raised his arm, his scales gleaming with celestial blue each strand of Shinrei slicing through Kero's storm, scattering it into nothing.

"You're fast…" Khael said quietly, eyes narrowing. "But your heart's louder than your blade."

Kero roared "Shut up!" and his aura twisted violently. The half-mask shattered fully, revealing his face at last—eyes like black mirrors, veins glowing dark violet. Shade and wind fused into a monstrous cyclone that screamed with every emotion he'd ever repressed.

He vanished reappearing behind Khael, above him, in front everywhere.

Each strike struck faster, harder, more frenzied.

But Khael's form blurred through it all graceful, unshaken, his every movement rippling the ground with dragonic resonance.

Then a palm caught Kero's blade mid-swing.

Khael's voice was calm, yet heavy enough to crush the air.

"You've let the void speak for you too long."

Kero snarled, Shinrei screaming in resistance. "Don't you dare—"

"You've forgotten what it means to fight for something other than the scream inside you."

Khael's aura erupted Draconic Dominion resonating with Dragonite form, veins of molten blue fire streaking across the battlefield. Kero was thrown back, tumbling through stone, his cyclone ripped apart.

He crashed hard dust and void spilling from his mouth as he slid to a stop.

Bakuza chuckled lowly in the distance, arms crossed, Voidflame smoldering around him.

"Told you, Kero… he's not normal."

Kero spat blood, glaring back at Khael through the heat-haze.

"I don't care what he is."

He stood hands trembling, Shinrei swirling madly around him.

"I'll erase that calm from his eyes even if it kills me."

Khael spread his wings, the world's pressure bending toward him.

"Then come."

A flash of dragonfire burned through the sky.

"And let's see whose soul breaks first."

Flames, void, and lightning collided in the heart of Tildaroot the world itself struggling to breathe beneath the two figures who now stood opposed.

Kero his mask completely shattered revealed the face of a man once human, now sculpted by madness and grief. His hair, once pale silver, now whipped like ribbons of shadowfire, eyes glowing violet-black, veins pulsing with pure Shade Shinrei. The wind around him bent unnaturally a cyclone that howled like a dying god.

Across from him stood Khael Corzedar, his Dragonite form radiant and monstrous. His wings carved arcs of stormlight across the molten sky, and each breath made the world tremble. His scales shimmered between sapphire and silver, his eyes glowing with calm fire the look of someone who no longer doubted himself.

The air froze between them.

Then Kero spoke, his tone sharp, mocking, and burning with bitter pride.

"Even if you are a Dragon Knight…"

He pointed his blade toward Khael, Shinrei crackling like thunder between them.

"…you're still younger. A sixteen-year-old brat."

A sneer twisted his lips.

"You think you can defeat me? I've lived twenty-five years in battle. I've drowned in Shinrei wars, clawed my way through the Void itself!"

His aura spiked violently cracks forming in the air around him.

"Experience always crushes youth, boy!"

Khael didn't move. His gaze was steady, voice quiet but sharp enough to cut the air.

"Experience doesn't matter… if you lost the reason you fought in the first place."

Kero's grin faltered just for a heartbeat.

Then he screamed, "ENOUGH!"

The ground detonated.

A hurricane of pure Voidwind erupted outward, ripping through the ruins, flaying the very ground beneath. His sword dissolved into mist reforming into a pair of spectral wings and a thousand blades of wind that orbited him in a halo of chaos.

"FULL MODE—EYE OF THE VOID!"

His veins turned black. His Shinrei became something else something twisted and endless. 100 percent.

Reality around him warped.

Every motion, every breath, was pure death.

Khael's scales flared with teal and silver fire, the runes across his body pulsing brighter. The earth beneath his feet split open, and he exhaled slowly his dragon's breath shimmering like the stars themselves.

"Then I'll show you…"

He raised his arm, Shinrei coiling around him like a living storm.

"…the power I built through pain, not years."

He roared

"DRACONIC DOMINION—SECOND STATE: DRAGONITE ASCENSION!"

The sky collapsed.

Khael vanished. A single thunderclap followed.

Kero barely saw the movement a flicker of blue fire behind him, a whisper of scales.

Then pain.

A blow to his ribs shattered the cyclone around him, launching him across the molten ground.

He recovered midair, twisting through wind his Shinrei forming countless blades.

"YOU WON'T OUTSPEED ME!"

He slashed downward and the world turned to ribbons.

But Khael didn't dodge.

He punched straight through the storm.

"DRAGON FIST—VALTHERION IMPACT!"

A shockwave of condensed dragonfire tore the landscape in half.

The collision sent both flying stone shattering, molten rivers splitting in every direction.

They clashed again midair, ground, then sky.

Each strike was faster, louder, more catastrophic.

Kero's laughter echoed between each hit, unhinged and wild.

"YES! YES! THAT'S IT! SHOW ME THAT FIRE!"

He parried another blow, Shinrei whirling like a typhoon.

"But you're still holding back, aren't you, boy?!"

Khael's pupils slit like a dragon's. His wings unfurled wider, light rippling from his core.

"If I didn't, you'd already be gone."

Their next clash broke the sound barrier.

Kero's cyclone became a singularity of black wind, while Khael's dragonfire condensed into a focused storm of azure flame.

When they collided the entire horizon inverted.

The shockwave silenced everything.

When the smoke cleared, both were on one knee blood dripping, auras still raging.

Kero coughed dark blood and grinned, eyes gleaming with manic joy.

"Heh… fine… I take it back."

He raised his blade again, smirking through the blood.

"You're not just a kid…"

He tilted his head, eyes burning violet.

"…you're the storm that kills the gods."

Khael rose, flames spiraling around him like wings of judgment. His expression didn't waver.

"Then let the gods burn."

The next second they charged again, both shouting their final arts.

Khael: "ECLIPSE ART—DRAGONITE DIVINE BURST!"

🌪️ Kero: "EYE OF THE VOID—ABSOLUTE STORM!"

Light and darkness devoured the battlefield once more

the sound of their clash reverberating across all of Tildaroot.

To be continue