Bakuzan took a deep breath.
His breath calmed, his mind regained its clarity. He had let himself be carried away — a rare thing.
But he knew: anger was the mask of the weak, and he had no right to fail.
Opposite him, Sakolomi remained motionless, haloed by a shimmering energy like a mirage.
— You impress me, murmured Bakuzan as he straightened his shadow sword.
But don't be mistaken… the fight is far from over.
He tightened his grip, twirled his blade. His gaze sharpened: if he could not defeat him by brute force, he would do it by a flaw, by observation, by pure calculation.
A thin smile, almost amused, crossed his face.
A rush of adrenaline burned beneath his skin.
— Come on… bro! he shouted, his voice vibrating with a pleasure he dared not name.
Sakolomi smirked. Their eyes met, and the world stopped breathing.
The next instant, time shattered.
A crash of energy echoed in the void like eternal thunder — Kaboom! — the planet beneath their feet exploded in a blinding rupture.
Continents disintegrated, oceans vaporized.
And yet, in this incandescent chaos, they kept fighting.
The two brothers danced among planetary debris, their silhouettes crossing at such speed that light seemed hesitant to follow.
Bakuzan wielded his shadow sword with divine grace; Sakolomi, fluid, countered with bare hands, his body vibrating with superhuman intensity.
The entire space trembled at every impact.
Bakuzan materialized a second blade, as fine as a thread of darkness, and struck.
The edge grazed Sakolomi's throat — shhkk — cutting only a lock of his black hair.
Sakolomi jumped back, panting, a nervous laugh escaping him:
— Nice reflex… I almost lost my head!
But before he could reply, spectral silhouettes appeared from nowhere.
White, floating, their faces masked by a blue triangle enclosed in a circle.
— …Your F-Kgod again? grunted Sakolomi, exasperated.
The entities swooped down on him.
The cosmos thrummed with a mechanical chorus as their energy chains clasped him.
Bakuzan seized the opening — and struck.
A blow of inhuman violence.
Sakolomi was hit square in the face, thrown through the void.
His trajectory pulverized a series of planets, reduced to stellar dust.
He rose, suspended in space, aura trembling, pupils burning with a stormy gleam.
The F-Kgod charged again, swift and synchronized.
But this time, Sakolomi intercepted them.
Each punch, each shock released a wave of pure energy that shattered the entities like broken glass.
The last exploded in a burst of blue light, and Sakolomi, panting, raised his head.
A whole planet was falling upon him.
— Seriously… he sighed.
He charged straight at it and destroyed it with a sharp blow, passing through it like a living meteor.
But as soon as the dust settled, other massive spheres appeared: hundreds, hurled like stones into the vast blackness.
Bakuzan, distant, brandished his two swords and unleashed a rain of worlds against his brother.
Sakolomi gave a fierce smile, cracked his fingers.
Then, with a brutal movement, he struck the first planet, shattered it, and deflected the others.
The cosmic masses altered their trajectories, heading straight toward Bakuzan in a symphony of explosions.
Bakuzan finished pulverizing the last planets still floating in the void. Around them, only fragments of extinguished worlds drifted through a sea of dead stars.
He drew a deep breath. His gaze darkened, then he concentrated around him an outpouring of mana — black and purple — so dense it twisted light. The entire cosmos seemed to vibrate at this mournful rhythm, as if holding its breath before the storm.
Opposite him, Sakolomi did the same. A red aura mixed with purple hues rose around his body, his energy distorting space, matter, and even the sense of time.
Then, without a word, the two brothers charged.
Their speed defied all logic — even dimensions seemed to lose them. They appeared and vanished through parallel worlds, timelines, and the deep layers of Delzluhûd. Each impact resonated across existential spheres, a combat of such intensity that even the highest Great Mythical Beings watched, fascinated, afraid to blink.
And suddenly —
A shock.
A cataclysmic explosion shattered universes like glass. The laws, the concepts, everything that made up the fabric of reality broke in a silent scream. The void imposed itself: white, infinite, motionless.
There, in this total absence of everything, Sakolomi and Bakuzan kept striking each other, each unleashing the absolute brutality of his being.
— I knew it… In close combat, you're always exceptional, big brother! shouted Sakolomi with a bloody smile.
Bakuzan said nothing. His gaze remained cold, focused, almost inhuman.
They charged at each other again.
The void trembled.
A fissure opened in the nothingness.
Their fists smashed simultaneously into their faces. A breath of energy ravaged the very remains of silence. Both recoiled. Bakuzan spat blood. Sakolomi too.
But Sakolomi, panting, smiled again:
— This fight might be harder to judge than I thought…
Bakuzan stepped back, eyes half-closed.
— Shut up.
Their breaths collided in the vast whiteness.
Sakolomi resumed, calmer:
— Can't take it anymore? We can stop here. You've had your proof… I've evolved. I can help you in your quest.
Bakuzan remained silent. He knew that so far, they had neutralized each other. Their strengths balanced perfectly. But a conviction still burned in his gaze: they had not given everything.
> So that's where the difference will be made… he thought.
He showed a predatory smile and pointed his shadow sword at his brother.
— We're going to the next level. I hope you'll hold on… without collapsing.
Sakolomi said nothing. He watched his brother, fatigue gradually devouring his strength. His gaze flickered. The void seemed to ripple, blurry, unstable. Bakuzan's silhouette blurred, distorted.
Bakuzan released all restraint.
His mana exploded into the void, surging like a black and purple ocean. His body began to grow, to deform, until it became spectral white, glowing like a dying star. In an instant, he reached an inconceivable size — his torso could engulf entire constellations, his shadow could swallow galaxies.
Opposite him, Sakolomi watched silently, a tiny point of consciousness lost in the vast white.
— You won't get away from me!
shouted Bakuzan, his voice echoing through the void like the rumble of a million collapsing worlds.
He struck.
Each blow was a cataclysm.
Shockwaves pulverized the remnants of already dying universes. Sakolomi was propelled into the void, bouncing on shards of reality disintegrating at his touch. Bakuzan, like an enraged titan, multiplied assaults: fists larger than galaxies fell relentlessly, crushing Sakolomi like a speck of dust in the palm of infinity.
— What's wrong? Not fighting back anymore?! roared Bakuzan, striking again and again, until the space around them distorted.
But something was wrong.
Sakolomi endured everything… without flinching.
No pain. No impact. Nothing.
His senses seemed to shut down, replaced by a strange absolute calm. He saw the blows coming, felt them without suffering. As if every strike from Bakuzan were a harmless breath.
A shiver ran through his tired body. His black marks spread, rooting deeply into his flesh, but the more they propagated, the more he felt that invulnerability grow — a paradoxical power that never stopped wearing him down.
Yet, Bakuzan had already hurt him. He had made him bleed.
So why not now? Why was this strength now powerless?
Sakolomi slowly opened his eyes. Two abyssal glows lit the void.
Bakuzan struck again —
But this time, Sakolomi raised his arms and stopped the gigantic hand between his palms.
— How?!
Bakuzan's scream tore the void.
Sakolomi did not answer. He vanished.
A moment later, Bakuzan's colossal head threw back violently.
An invisible blow.
Then another.
And yet another.
Each impact echoed like eons of thunder. Cracks spread over the giant's face, bursts of light springing from his cosmic wounds.
— Impossible! roared Bakuzan as he retreated, his body regenerating in a flood of incandescent mana.
But scarcely had his cells reformed when Sakolomi was already there.
A tiny fist —
A universe-shattering impact.
Bakuzan was hurled through the void, his screams mingling with the crash of broken dimensions.
He staggered upright, panting. Then raised his arms above him.
His energy converged, forming a gigantic orb, so vast it eclipsed even his own silhouette.
— WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!
he shouted, voice distorted by rage and pain.
The orb became monstrous — a thousand times larger than him, pulsing with maddening light.
And then —
Kaboom.
The explosion engulfed everything.
The void trembled, cracked, howled. Waves of titanic mana swept away all that could still exist.
At the center of the chaos, Sakolomi did not move.
He stood silent, his hair whipped by cosmic mana, eyes fixed on the blast. His expression betrayed nothing — neither fear nor anger.
Just that absolute calm, strange, almost inhuman…
As if nothing could ever touch him again.