They danced between fire and blood.
The Crimson Temple was no longer sacred—it was a field of destruction. The columns, marked by deep cracks, groaned as if weeping, and the air pulsed with the smell of ashes and burned flesh.
Akira, now unrestricted, let his presence grow like thunder about to burst. No power suppression. No limits. He was an emperor in his rawest form.
Dr. Isha, on the other hand, moved like an intelligent and relentless viper. His eyes behind the mask assessed, memorized, calculated. His hands created. His portals cut through the air like fissures in reality itself.
Chains sliced through space with a deadly whistle.
Akira spun his kusarigama with surgical precision, the weight of the blade guided by centrifugal force and the energy growing around him—a purple aura, dark as freshly spilled ink, emanating from the dimension of shadows.
Isha barely dodged. One portal formed between him and the blade, but it was torn in half by the shadow energy coating the weapon. It wasn't ordinary magic. It was pure annihilation, from a place that accepted no reality.
— I can see. — Akira whispered, his eyes bright and cold.
With his ocular ability activated, every movement of Isha was read like an open book. Akira advanced, spinning the kusarigama around his body, cutting portals, splitting the ground, tearing tentacles, and dismantling Isha's attacks one by one.
The speed was insane. Each strike left trails of energy in the air, as if the world around them was being torn apart.
Isha retreated, quickly conjuring multiple rotating portals around his body, firing beams of energy, black arms, spinning blades from within them—all created from techniques he had stolen from dozens of Sifs. But nothing held Akira back.
The emperor advanced like an ancestral animal. With a violent spin, he struck Isha in the chest with the chain's weight, dragging him nearly twenty meters. Isha's body hit one of the temple's fallen statues and collapsed to the ground.
Isha stood up staggering, spitting blood, his chest dented from the blow.
— You will pay... — he murmured, his eyes narrowing in absolute hatred.
He snapped his fingers.
Twelve portals appeared around Akira in a spiral. Tentacles emerged from each, writhing like serpents trapped in hatred, aiming for the emperor's heart.
— Show me more. — Akira said, smirking, and charged again.
The fight reached another level.
Isha retreated and studied. Every exchange, every movement of Akira, was absorbed, decoded, perfected. Isha's black scythe, fused with multiple stolen essences, changed form. As he learned, it gained new blades, shapes, attack patterns.
In a moment of cruel precision, tentacles pinned Akira's legs and arms. Isha ran in an arc and struck him with the scythe three times in succession—deep cuts on his back, shoulder, and rib.
But Akira didn't scream.
— Every strike, Akira... — Isha snarled. — Every wound is a mark. When there are enough... you will be mine.
The ground trembled.
Dark purple circles began to form under Akira's feet. A grotesque veil covered the temple. It wasn't shadow—it was something corrupted, diseased. As if a cancer had taken the darkness itself.
— With the right number of marks, I can summon the Corrupted Realm into a single being. A feat only I can achieve... a gift from the horror that created me.
Akira fell to his knees, his body paralyzed. The air grew thick as mud.
Isha approached, triumphant. The shadows around him bowed to his presence.
— It's disgusting to see such power in your hands. You, a blessed emperor, beloved, respected... — he whispered with disgust. — I will tear it from you. Every drop. I will purify this power through pain.
But Akira lifted his head. And smiled.
— Is that all, Doctor?
From his body, a shadow rose, like an ancestral war spirit. A demonic silhouette, wreathed in black flames, with hollow eyes and broken wings.
Everything went black.
Time stopped.
Isha was the one paralyzed now. His portals cracked. The chains fell. The energy dispersed like dust.
And then...
BOOM.
The veil shattered.
It was Isha who flew, thrown like a ragdoll, crashing through the debris and landing in the flames. His body spun in the air and hit the ground like a bag of broken bones.
The mask cracked. Fell.
The face behind it was hideous.
The flesh seemed melted, as if corroded by years of torture and experiments. The nose was gone. The lips, stitched in the past, had deep scars. His eyes... weren't eyes. They were two black holes, bottomless pits, soulless.
Akira approached slowly. The silence weighed like stone.
But then... Isha began to laugh. A low, hoarse laugh that didn't match his condition.
He looked up at Akira, blood dripping from his chin.
— Tell me, Akira... what do you do when you're born... condemned?
His voice changed. Became firmer. More... human.
— When your father looks at you and sees a monster? When your mother... the only person who wanted you... dies raped and beaten for going out to buy medicine for you?
Akira stopped.
— A few blocks... Akira... she died just a few blocks from home. Disfigured. Because of you.
The fire crackled around them. The air grew thin. The world stopped to listen.
— And in the orphanage, Akira... — Isha continued, slowly rising — you're beaten every day. Tied up. Cut. Violated. With no one to hear. No one to care.
He looked at the sky, where there were no stars.
— Until one day... someone appears. Someone to save you. But it's not God. Not a hero. It's the devil himself, wearing a lab coat. A man who takes you in, yes... but to use you. To open you up. Dismantle you. And rebuild you as an experiment.
Tears burned his wounded skin, evaporating in the heat.
— And he teaches you. Gives you knowledge. Power. And with that... you destroy everything that made you suffer. But that's not the end, is it? The hatred continues. The pain never stops. Because even after all that... you still miss your mother.
He raised his hand. A sphere of red and black energy grew, like a heart pulsing with hatred and despair.
— So tell me, Akira... what would you do? What would you do if you were me?
Akira closed his eyes.
— I can't forgive you... — he said, his voice choked. — No matter how real your pain is... what you did to my comrades, to innocents... is unforgivable.
Isha smiled. And for the first time... it seemed sincere.
— I never forgave anyone either.
The sphere in Isha's hand grew. It was like a second, dark sun.
— Then come, Akira. Let's find out... if my hatred is enough to kill an emperor.
Akira clenched his fists.
He took the first step.
Sayuri, Julian, and Kion merely watched from afar, almost motionless. Eyes wide. They knew.
The battle had reached a point... where only an emperor could enter.
And there, between fire, blood, and the past... two broken worlds would collide.
To be continued…