Kael launched forward, moving faster than thought. One moment he was standing, the next, his abyssal blade was already descending toward Sylas's throat.
Sylas barely managed to dodge, twisting midair as Kael's void-forged strike ripped through space itself. Where the blade passed, existence buckled, as if reality itself couldn't withstand its presence.
Kael didn't let up. He moved like the abyss itself—formless, unstoppable.
His second strike came from Sylas's blind spot, a crescent arc of darkness aimed at his ribs. Sylas summoned a golden shield, but when Kael's blade connected—
The shield shattered.
Sylas coughed, stumbling back, golden ichor dripping from a new wound on his side. His expression twisted into something between pain and disbelief.
"How?" he growled. "How are you matching me?"
Kael vanished again, reappearing directly in front of Sylas, his eyes glowing like the endless void.
"I'm not matching you," he said. "I'm surpassing you."
He thrust his palm forward, and abyssal force exploded outward.
Sylas was hurled backward, slamming into a crumbling pillar with enough force to split it in half. The divine energy around him flickered.
Kael pressed the attack. He warped through the battlefield, his movements effortless, as if the rules of space and time no longer applied to him.
He struck again—Sylas barely dodged.
Another strike—Sylas failed to block.
A third—this time, Kael's blade carved deep into Sylas's shoulder.
The newly ascended god screamed, golden blood spraying across the broken ground. His divinity flared wildly, but Kael could feel it weakening.
For the first time, Sylas looked afraid.
Kael stood over him, the abyss swirling around his form like a living storm. "You thought divinity made you unstoppable," he said, voice calm, unshaken. "But you never understood power."
Sylas gritted his teeth, trying to summon another golden spear.
But Kael snapped his fingers.
The shadows obeyed.
The spear in Sylas's hand disintegrated into nothingness.
Sylas's eyes widened.
Kael tilted his head. "Figured it out yet?" he asked. "Your divinity doesn't work on me anymore."
The realization dawned on Sylas like a death sentence.
His power the stolen divinity of gods was being unraveled.
The abyss wasn't just matching him. It was consuming him.
Kael lifted his blade for the final strike
But before he could end it, something changed.
The sky fractured.
A new force one even older than the abyss itself began to stir.
Kael felt it before he saw it.
Something else was watching.
Something greater.
And suddenly, the battle between them was no longer just theirs.