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The broadcasts swept across the world like the beats of a collective heart.
Screens in bustling squares transmitted the battle. Newspapers abandoned headlines; every portal showed a single name:
MEI NUHAY vs. THE KING OF THE ABYSS.
In evacuation centers, families watched with fixed eyes, hands clasped, tears and prayers mixing with shouts and cheers. In an ancient Sif temple in the east, bloodied warriors fought corrupted beasts but paused for moments—eyes on the small crystal viewer where Mei stood, even while burning and wounded.
At the International Spiritual Defense Headquarters, generals from various nations were gathered in maximum tension.
— If she falls, we have no option — one said. — We may need to launch… everything.
— Spiritual nuclear bombs were prohibited by treaties, remember? — another retorted.
— This isn't about treaties! If that thing breaks the last barrier, there will be no planet left.
Silence.
One of the elders leaned forward. It was Danteus. Leader of the Sifs, survivor of ancient wars.
One of the few elders Mei respected.
He watched the fight, motionless. Then he spoke:
— Launch nothing.
— And if she dies?
Danteus replied with a half-smile.
— I entrusted the flame to her. And she is still burning. Wait.
...
Battlefield.
The ground was crumbled into flaming craters. Skies scarred by dimensional rifts pulsed with the abyss's breath. Mei faced Dante, the two floating amidst debris, their auras in fury.
— You are persistent — Dante snarled. His body was covered in black plates that regenerated in real time, abyssal flames flickering on his fists.
— And you reek of desperation — Mei retorted, a crooked smile on her face.
Dante charged with absurd speed. The fist covered in black energy cut through space and struck Mei in the stomach. She flew back but spun in the air and returned with a flaming kick that hit Dante's shoulder. The explosion displaced the air, cracking the surrounding buildings.
— Still think I'm just a spark, little king?
Dante retreated, spreading his arms. Abyssal symbols appeared in the air. — Dark Summoning: Hounds of the Void!
From the cracked ground, deformed creatures emerged, howling. Four legs, bone claws, eyes without irises. They charged, but Mei was already spinning in the air.
— Imaginary Technique: Triple Solar Ring!
Three circles of flames appeared around her, spinning in opposite directions. Upon contact, the hounds dissolved into ashes.
— Try again, dear. Those beasts wouldn't scare even my 16-year-old self.
Dante appeared behind her, summoning a black fire spear. Mei blocked with her arm, which burned and partially melted. She screamed and kicked Dante in the chest, throwing him against a building.
She retreated in the air, regenerating her arm with temporal reversal.
— This is getting tiresome…
He emerged from the rubble with a low laugh. — You're starting to feel it, aren't you? Your power is vast, but finite. Mine… is not.
Mei rolled her neck, bones cracking. — You talk too much for someone who still hasn't beaten me.
Dante roared and extended his hand. A circle of black fire opened in the sky. From it fell a titanic creature—a demon covered in thorns, with four arms, two faces, and a suffocating aura.
— This one was meant to end armies — he said. — But perhaps it will make you sweat.
Mei analyzed. "Every summoning costs energy. Even if he receives it from the abyss, he needs the crown. It glows… every time he casts or regenerates. The pattern… is unstable. But constant."
The demon descended like a hammer. Mei dodged and launched a flaming blast. The creature was hit but still advanced.
Dante appeared beside her, and both began exchanging blows in the air—fists against elbows, kicks against flames, dimensional bites against imaginary techniques.
The nearest building collapsed from the impact of their collision.
In the midst of combat, Mei thought:
"The crown pulses with each regeneration… when he absorbs power. At that moment… it opens. It can't deliver and protect at the same time."
She spun in the air and struck Dante with a flaming punch straight to the face. He flew back, balancing in the air with an explosion of shadows.
Immediately, the crown glowed and began releasing energy to regenerate him.
— Now! — Mei shouted.
She concentrated flames in her hands, creating an unstable core of energy.
— Creation Technique: Solar Particle Pulse!
The sphere spun, vibrating with rapid beats. She aimed.
The sphere pierced the air at high speed and penetrated the crown's protective layer at the exact moment of energy transfer.
CRAAAAACK!
The crown trembled, one of its spikes cracked. Dante screamed, being thrown back.
The summoned demon turned to shadow.
Mei fell to her knees, exhausted. The entire world watched.
— That's it, you damn… — she murmured, panting. — You… I've got you figured out. The next one... will be to finish it.
Dante stood up, his face in flames, rage pulsating.
— You dare…?
Mei spat blood and smiled.
— Not only do I dare, but I will.
The ruined city became the stage for another brutal assault. The two collided in the air, flames and shadows spinning like cyclones. Mei moved with intelligence, avoiding direct attacks, always watching the crown, always waiting for the next opening.
But now… the battle had changed. It was no longer power against power.
It was chess. And Mei was winning the board.
The world barely breathed.
With every blow exchanged in the torn sky between flames and darkness, everyone felt as if destiny hung by a thread.
— Let's end this. — Dante's voice echoed with multiple layers, his eyes completely consumed by the void.
The crown spun frantically, cracked, but still alive.
Mei, panting, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, arched her back and rolled her shoulders, her muscles visibly exhausted, but her eyes—those eyes—remained full of insolence and determination.
— End it? I haven't even started having real fun yet.
Dante raised his arms.
The ground around them trembled.
Abyssal runes emerged like black roots, tearing the earth. Columns of energy exploded from the ground, summoning colossal creatures: skeletal dragons, knights of the void, dimensional serpents.
The sky darkened. Ashes rained. The air distorted.
— This is the full might of the abyss, Mei Nuhay. The end of the world… personified.
She laughed. A hoarse laugh.
— Looks like the ugliest family reunion I've ever seen. All that's missing is the cake.
She spun in the air, dodging the first attacks, leaping between buildings, using debris as shields and weapons. She touched an unstable wall, channeled heat, and exploded it into an avalanche of flaming stones over the demons.
— Combined Technique: Solar Shrapnel!
Dante appeared behind her. Mei threw herself from a building, spinning in the air with a descending kick.
BOOOM! The impact created a crater in the ground, cracking everything around.
But Dante counterattacked with a black fire spear, tearing through her left shoulder.
Mei fell rolling, her arm hanging useless for a moment. She dug her hand into the ground, gritting her teeth.
— Corporal Temporal Reversal… come on, go back, go back… — and the arm regenerated in seconds, at the cost of vital energy.
— Already tired? — Dante mocked. — You will fall. You're just a mortal.
She smiled again, blood on her teeth.
— A mortal who's still slapping your face.
She ran through the rubble, used the reflection in a puddle of blood to calculate the exact position of the enemies, and exploded a group with an inverted leap that created a 360° wave of fire.
Then she created multiple small spheres around the field.
— Saturation Technique: Mini Suns!
The spheres hovered, unstable. Mei used them as platforms, leaping between them, each one amplifying her speed and heat.
She spun and kicked Dante with brutal violence. Each blow dragged his body meters backward.
— Pressure Technique: Stellar Dance in Combustion!
Dante screamed, releasing an explosion of shadows that swept the skies. He conjured chains, energy dragons, a triple spear, and created a domain of frozen time for seconds.
Mei was trapped in the middle of the technique—time slowed, the world in blue and gray.
But she used the Pulsar's heat to accelerate her particles.
— Not even time can hold me. — And she tore through the domain as if ripping paper.
They collided. Ten, twenty, thirty blows per second.
Mei took a direct blast to the abdomen. Dante had his collarbone shattered by a flaming elbow.
Mei fired a concentrated ray at an angle that reflected off her own spheres and struck Dante from the side, breaking part of his shadow armor.
Dante summoned a gigantic creature made only of thorns and liquid shadows.
Mei spun in the air, concentrated everything left of the Pulsar, and said:
— Okay… enough. Let's see who disappears first.
— Forbidden Technique: Solar Fusion — Devastating Supernova!
— Abyssal Extinction Technique: Veil of the End!
The world froze.
The techniques collided.
Light and shadow clashed on an absolute level. The sky was torn. The ground evaporated. A wave of destruction traveled for miles.
Nearby rivers melted, buildings vanished, the place became a massive crater.
It was like the birth of a new star and the end of a reality simultaneously.
Everything… exploded.
...
Silence.
The sound of wind. Ashes falling.
And then… a silhouette.
Dante.
Bleeding. Half his face destroyed. His body in tatters, the crown floating erratically, cracked in three of its four energy points. One knee on the ground…
But smiling.
— Heh… finally… she fell…
He slowly stands up.
The broadcast camera captures his face. The world holds its breath.
— The star… has been extinguished?
Danteus, at the HQ, remains silent, eyes half-closed.
— Not yet…
To be continued...