The air around Kuoh trembled.
The night sky had been swallowed into an unnatural twilight, thick with black, churning clouds that pulsed with draconic malice. Thunder cracked like divine war drums, lightning clawed through the heavens in violet streaks, and the very fabric of reality rippled from the sheer pressure of the two powers clashing in the heart of the storm.
At its center, standing unbent beneath the weight of apocalypse, was Riser the devil who had once been nothing but just a strong noble son, is transcending breaking his limits threw each exchange.
He stood alone, body wreathed in enchanted white fire, eyes narrowed and burning like twin stars.
Before him loomed a nightmare from myth.
Vritra.
The Dragon of Darkness and Binding. The exiled god beast. Once shackled by ancient gods, now freed, and furious.
The dragon's wings spanned the horizon, eclipsing the fractured moonlight. His scales were a sea of night, veined with glowing purple channels of toxic, primordial power. The air around him cracked with entropy. Just being near him felt like standing on the edge of death.
"You have grown bold, boy," Vritra growled, each syllable a chorus of death, like the earth itself screaming. "To stand here before me soaked in flames, stinking of pride. You carry yourself like you're something special you are nothing! But a filthy devil pretending to be something he's not. A child."
Riser stepped forward, hoisting his great golden sword axe behind him. The heat of his aura lit the ruins of Kuoh like dawn. His clothes were scorched, his boots cracked, but his spine was straight. Unbending.
"This land belongs to Kuoh," he said, voice steady, layered with power and conviction. "And Kuoh belongs to me."
Vritra's wings flared, kicking up a hurricane of corrupted wind. "You claim dominion over a world you barely understand. Do you think fire alone will save you?"
Riser raised his weapon. A sphere of blistering light formed above the point Cruel Sun. A miniature sun made manifest, pulsing with pure nuclear fury. The clouds parted at its birth, sky melting from its heat.
Vritra's slitted eyes narrowed. "So you've continue to touch divinity."
"No," Riser said, his voice like steel drawn from flame. "I forge it."
The Battle Ignites
With a roar that shattered mountains, Vritra lunged.
His claw, the size of a cathedral, swept down with crushing speed. Riser didn't flinch. He released the sun, swinging the axe in a blinding arc
CLANG!
The shockwave cracked the earth. Skyscrapers shattered. Roads split open. Trees were turned to splinters. Riser casually observed his destruction, watching the remains of a clocktower. Dust billowed like volcanic ash.
A trickle of blood escaped his mouth.
But he grinned like a pure demon.
"You're strong," he said maybe the strongest I have ever faced. "Good. I was starting to worry you were all bark."
Vritra snarled, then opened his maw wide. A tide of shadowflame black and violet erupted from his throat. It scorched the very concept of light, devouring color and sound in its wake.
Riser met it with a even larger Cruel Sun.
The sun shot forward and collided with the torrent mid air.
BOOOOOOM!
The sky imploded.
The blast turned everything within a mile to ash. Mountains in the distance cracked. The shockwave reached lakesides, where tidal waves rose in protest and steam began to rise.
And from within the firestorm, wings of flame unfurled.
Riser soared out, bathed in molten light, his body a beacon of fury.
"I warned you," Riser shouted, voice thunderous, amplified by divine resonance. "This is the power of the sun, dragon."
Another Cruel Sun formed on his axe twice as large almost like the sun just descended from the sky, dense with cosmic heat.
Vritra's eyes widened, then narrowed into slits. "Fool!"
The dark dragon raised a barrier of jagged, black crystal a ward of divine origin, lost since the war of the gods.
The Cruel Sun slammed into it.
It didn't shatter. It didn't crack.
It vaporized.
A chunk of Vritra's chest exploded, sending ichor and burning scales across the battlefield. His scream split the heavens.
But he did not fall.
He surged forward, faster than reason, and whipped his colossal tail now glowing with Void Venom, a toxin forged to kill lesser gods.
It struck.
Riser was launched into a mountain, which promptly disintegrated.
Smoke rose. Dust billowed.
Silence.
Then
A glow.
The rubble ignited. A solar flare burst from the mountain's corpse as Riser emerged, body bruised and torn but standing regenerating easily. The toxins being vaporized by his sun core.
His shirt was completely gone. Blood traced his chest. But his aura was brighter. His flames bent the light itself, and his glare seared into the soul.
"Still not enough."
Vritra's expression shifted. Behind the hatred a glimmer of intrigue.
"Why do you burn so bright, devil?"
Riser pointed Rita Ignis Regum at the dragon. The Axe hummed, a song of suns yet born.
"I am Riser Phenex," he said, voice rising. "Not just a devil. Not just a ruler. I am the sun. The fire that burns the old world away."
A War of Titans and the world was watching
Vritra snarled. "Then I shall be the void that consumes your flame."
Dark spheres of anti magic appeared around him Nether Orbs, capable of dissolving spells, souls, even time itself.
He hurled them like meteors.
Riser danced through them, weaving between space and spell. Each dodge left trails of flame. He vanished, then reappeared mid flight
"RAAAAAH!"
He slammed the axe into Vritra's chest with both hands.
KA BOOM!
An explosion of light erupted.
The shockwave forced even the divine to look away.
Gods, angels, devils all watched through mirrors and crystal balls. Beings of every pantheon whispered the same truth
Riser Phenex was no longer bound by devilkind's limits.
Smoke and fire raged across Kuoh's outskirts.
Charred earth. Boiling rivers. Broken ley lines.
And floating high above it all Riser.
His body was bleeding, glowing, radiating divinity. His hair floated like flame. His eyes were gold eclipsed with white heat.
Below him, Vritra crouched, one wing broken, the other sagging. His body leaked black ichor, and his breath came in ragged, thunderous huffs.
But his eyes they burned still. With pain. And respect.
"You burn like no devil I've ever known," the dragon said hoarsely.
Riser twirled Rita once in his hand. Another Cruel Sun began to form larger than any before.
"This ends soon, dragon."
But Vritra smiled.
Not with mockery.
With promise.
"You know nothing devil."