Dancing on the golden ashes

"What's wrong? Scared of me?" I taunted, my voice dripping with that twisted satisfaction I could never quite shake. I loved that look in her eyes—the way they widened, flickered, like she was finally realizing it. That she, a god once above all, was now beneath me. At my mercy. Just like the rest.

"Fuck you!" she screamed, and her body erupted.

From her back, a tidal wave of bones exploded outward—millions of jagged spikes ripping into the sky like the wings of death itself. But these weren't wings. No… this wasn't flight. It was carnage. It radiated an aura of pure, annihilating destruction. And before I could even blink, they moved—each one turning into a sword, a spear, a razor. All of them surged at me like a storm of white fire, and I didn't even think about resisting. Not this. Not directly.

I ran.

Space distorted around me—reality itself bending and twisting as I moved, my body flickering like an afterimage. I tore through the folds of this realm, phasing from one spot to the next, my mana screaming with overuse, but I didn't care. I didn't need to anymore. At this point, my power was almost limitless. Nearly infinite. The very world fed me its energy like it wanted me to win.

But even then... I knew it.

If I got hit even once—if I mistimed a dodge, or if even one of those bone-blades grazed my core—it would be the end. There wouldn't be anything left to regenerate. Not even ash.

"Shit... she's stronger than I thought..." I hissed under my breath, panting as I flickered across this compressed battlefield—this narrow crucible barely large enough for both of us. Space wasn't just tight—it was a coffin waiting to shut. And she kept pushing. Pushing. Pressuring. I'd nearly died three times already. One of the swords had grazed the edge of my wing earlier, and even now, I could feel that cold numbness creeping in like poison. They weren't just fast. They moved like fucking lightning—like death itself trying to rewrite the laws of speed and certainty.

"Pull yourself together, Gaon," the eerie voice snapped in my mind, tone cold and sharp. "You need to kill her. Devour her. Not die trying."

"Shut the fuck up!" I shouted, my voice cracking with rage. "It was actually more chill when you were lying dormant!"

I wasn't just fighting her anymore—I was fighting the remnants of myself. But even then... even with all the chaos boiling inside me...

I wasn't done.

Not even close.

"I shall purge you from this planet, you good-for-nothing fake! You and your pathetic little demon toys—all of you shall perish! And when you're gone, I will wait. Wait for the day I ascend into the unknown—the realm of legend, the one no soul has ever reached... but I will! I am Kaelthira, the Original One! The demon who will cast this world into oblivion—for my people! I—!"

"You're just a coward." I cut her off mid-rant, my tone sharp and unflinching as I dodged another volley of bone swords. My scythe spun behind me like a loyal guardian, parrying and cleaving through her attacks before they could touch me.

"You left everyone to die because you were scared. And the one who actually died... was your sister, wasn't it?" I hissed, my voice rising with anger. "She was the real hero. The one whose name still echoes across these lands. I've never heard of you before this day—no one has. You're nothing. Just a cowardly nobody!"

She pissed me off—no, she disgusted me. A demon who let angels conquer and burn her planet to ash… all because she clung to some delusion of reaching a myth, a fantasy realm no one had ever seen, instead of fighting for the world right in front of her.

But those words must have struck deep—because in the very next moment, she stopped caring about her life entirely.

She was suddenly there, inches from my face, her expression twisted with fury and something else… grief. Tears streamed from her eyes, glowing like nebulae, and her claws—gods, her claws—burned with the color of the universe. Starlight coiled around her arms. Galaxies pulsed along her veins. It was as if the cosmos itself had chosen her as its executioner.

Shit…

I had no choice. No time to think. No time to breathe. Only time to fight.

She slashed.

And I moved—because if I didn't clash with her now, I'd be torn apart atom by atom. So I gave it everything. Every last drop of power. If I died… then so be it. At least I'd drag her to hell with me.

"What are you doing, Gaon?!" the eerie voice inside me screamed, panicked, terrified. "WE'LL DIE—!"

I know…

But that's never been how I survived. That's not how I became me. I never ran from the impossible. I broke it.

For them. The people who love me. The people who believe in me.

My claws extended—lengthening, thickening—shaped not by flesh but by sheer will. My scythe vanished behind me, no longer protecting my back. I called every shred of power into a single point, into this moment. The power of chaos surged—cold and hot, freezing and burning, cracking the very layers of reality. The world around us warped, light recoiled, time stuttered.

Everything dimmed... Everything froze. And then… My attack devoured the light itself. A blade of collapsing starlight, a singularity of wrath—no, not a falling star—

A falling universe.

And I… was its ruler.

BOOOOOOM!

The explosion swallowed us both, ripping through the fabric of the realm like the scream of a dying god.

My body tore. Ripped apart. I felt every muscle shred, every bone splinter, every nerve scream. Her main strike didn't cleave me in two… but those millions of bone blades—those did. They tore through me like a storm of razors.

I'm dying.

Shit.

I can't, not yet. I have to keep going. I have to keep fighting. I can't fall until I've killed him. Until the Creator dies by my hand. I swore it. I promised. I must survive. I must endure. For them… for everything.

And then, through the fire, through the dark, I heard something. A sound. Faint at first. Coming from within my hollow chest. A low, rising buzz...