"You destroyed Azuraella's mountain," she said flatly, brushing imaginary dust from her shoulder as if obliteration were an inconvenience. "And then flung us both into Elysium—miles from the Acorn Recess—with that ridiculously loud, unsightly roar."
Her voice drifted into something slower, heavier, like a lullaby from a half-forgotten dream.
"Azuraella is feeling... sleepy. How devious. Was that your plan? Tire her out with peace and quiet?"
Her half-lidded eyes scanned the twilight-swept fields of Elysium, where golden lotuses swayed in a breeze that didn't exist. The heroes of old encircled her, dead but radiant—Achilles, Heracles, Orpheus, and more. They looked upon her not as a guest, but as something other. Some stared in reverence. Others, in dread.
They recognised her.
She wasn't just another ethereal beauty wafting through the afterlife.
She was Deicide Chaos.
Azuraella scratched her head like someone waking from a strange nap. "This realm is nested within Azuraella's own dominion," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. "She hardly needs the edge, but metaphysically speaking, it makes her... dominant."
Ouroboros stepped forward, boots crunching the blooming earth. His coat flared behind him like a banner of war.
"That roar wiped out over half your forces," he said, calm as moonlight, utterly unapologetic. "But let's not kid ourselves—they were cannon fodder at best. Decorative. Loud, but useless."
He raised his halberd—Nexus Piercer—its blade aglow with rippling temporal light.
"I chose this battlefield because it's as far from Tiamat as possible."
Then his smile thinned.
"Your metaphysical advantage?" he said, eyes gleaming. "Reversible. I'm not just a dragon—I'm Deicide Paradox."
Unimpressed, Azuraella hefted her weapon: the Endborn Cleaver, whose eleven entropy rings spun with eldritch intent. Each ring cast fragmented shadows that slipped across multiple realities.
Still half-dreaming, she blinked. "That title sounds terribly self-important."
Then he moved.
In a blur, Ouroboros lunged. Nexus Piercer screamed through spacetime, its cyan arc warping the world around it.
CLANG.
A sphere of chaotic force blinked into being—Azuraella's counterstrike. The halberd collided mid-swing, sending a shudder through the bones of reality. Space cracked like porcelain. Gravity whimpered.
The orb trembled. Then it stabilised.
Azuraella struck back.
The Endborn Cleaver descended—not upon flesh, but fate itself. Ouroboros blocked with a forearm honed by aeons of war, but the blade carved through him like molten steel through parchment. Blood, thick and slow, spilled down his arm as the entropy rings resisted his draconic regeneration.
He grunted. Then he grinned.
"Nice sword," he said through clenched teeth. "But that won't slay this dragon."
His Nihilpotence ignited. An aura of crushing nothingness wrapped around him, so dense that light itself bent away. The concept of presence faltered around him.
Azuraella blinked once, bored. "Your aura has a certain... charm," she admitted. "If underwhelming."
Then hers flared to life.
Her Nihilpotence drowned his like the ocean extinguishing a candle. Pressure collapsed the ground beneath Ouroboros' feet. The meadow whimpered. Elysium shuddered.
"Azuraella warned you," she said, yawning in the middle of her threat. "She's far, far beyond your league. Try harder. And kindly refrain from roaring again... Azuraella finds it grating."
Ouroboros said nothing.
He spat the long-stemmed pipe from his mouth—
And exhaled:
ECLIPSE BREATH OF CREATION.
A beam of pure reversal energy erupted from his lungs, cyan light that erased reality in its wake. The air fractured. The idea of Azuraella began to unmake.
And yet...
She stood.
Untouched.
The beam faded.
She exhaled—long and slow. Her breath shimmered with nausea.
Voidbound Exhalation.
The roar of anti-existence detonated across the field.
BOOM.
Half of Ouroboros' body ceased to exist. Voidfire swallowed muscle, bone, identity.
And yet—
He did not fall.
A flicker of will: raw, primal, unreasonable.
Theseus's Ship.
In the blink of a non-thought, he was destroyed—then reborn. His body reconstructed where he stood, whole and even more radiant. Shirtless. Divine tattoos of cerulean flame curled across his chest. His war paint blazed anew.
"...How about we take this to the unknown universe?" he shouted, voice caught in rising winds.
Beneath them, the ground rumbled.
A Colossal Divine Dragon of Pure Light erupted from below, its astral jaws open wide. It seized Azuraella mid-air and launched heavenward, Ouroboros clinging to its tail.
They ascended together.
And far above, in the distance, something moved.
Tiamat.
A storm given form. Her wings blotted out stars. Her many heads screamed with ancient madness. Gaia and Kronos fled before her—tiny, fleeing sparks.
Ouroboros swallowed, hard.
"...Tiamat... what have you become?"
The winds tore the words away.
And then—
The divine dragon breached the sky. Space split.
They vanished into hyperspace.
Destination: Unknown Universe.
Azuraella, still writhing in the dragon's celestial grip, finally let out a long-suffering sigh.
Then she snapped.
A condensed pulse of Warping Chaos erupted from her palms—a swirling implosion of impossible geometry—and tore straight through the divine dragon's spine. It didn't just die. It unravelled. Cells peeled into notes of music. Bone shattered into echoing equations. The creature let out a keening cry, then dispersed into radiant fragments.
Azuraella dusted herself off mid-air, completely unbothered.
"Is this where you propose to Azuraella?" she asked coyly, placing both hands on her cheeks and twisting her waist with a little flourish. "You're making her blush, you wicked beast."
"Nah, you beautiful menace," came the reply, sharp and bright. "This is where I rip you to shreds with the power of a Dragon King!"
Then he changed.
Ouroboros's body twisted and surged skyward, expanding into a radiant spiral of scales and flame. His draconic form erupted in shimmering Cosmic Azure, wreathed in a corona of Nihilpotence. Horns like fractal crescents jutted skyward, and his roar peeled back the stars.
He spun once, talons carving open the firmament—tearing a spiralling gate of primordial chaos and order into existence.
From that portal, two figures stepped forth—wreathed in divine majesty, outlined in stellar light.
Huanglong Shengdi, the Yellow Emperor Dragon of Balance.
Ao Guang, Sea Dragon Sovereign of the Heavenly Tides.
They arrived as battle-maidens—terrifying, elegant, and thoroughly unimpressed.
The unknown universe cracked under the pressure of their arrival.
Ao Guang's presence struck like a lightning bolt wrapped in sarcasm.
She landed with a ripple of Nihilpotence that knocked a flock of spectral stars into the known universe. Though small in stature, she radiated menace. Her long turquoise hair shimmered like storm-washed silk, matching the glint in her narrowed eyes. A black leather ensemble hugged her frame with just enough rebellion, and an ornate eyepatch gleamed over her right eye—equal parts war relic and high fashion.
In her hand rested the Nexus Piercer—the same absurdly massive halberd Ouroboros once wielded. It looked ridiculous in her grip, like she'd stolen it from a god three times her size and never gave it back.
"Qinglong Shen, you absolute moron!" she snapped, her voice cracking reality like brittle glass. "This is the second Voidkin you've summoned me to fight! I retired, you scale-brained celestial twit! Do you know what that means?! It means no more existential warfare! No more dimension-bleeding swordplay! I was learning calligraphy!"
She stomped once. Space rippled like water struck by a tuning fork.
"And another thing!" she snarled, twirling her halberd like a baton of doom. "Just because I lost one game of mahjong and swore by the Heavens to aid you in battle doesn't mean you can treat me like your personal anti-Voidkin support unit!"
Across the void, Ouroboros—now halfway between dragon and smug supernova—replied with maddening calm.
"Come now. Summoning you is an act of supreme respect. I'm acknowledging your unmatched battle prowess."
He smirked.
"Think of yourself as a living weapon. One that doesn't complain."
Ao Guang made a noise that could only be described as divine static.
Next to her stood Huanglong: tall, serene, and infinitely regal.
Golden hair fell like banners over her shoulders. Her eyes, molten with authority, did not sparkle—they judged. Clad in a flowing imperial robe embroidered with celestial dragons, she moved with the stillness of an ancient law. At her hip rested the Xuan-Yuan Sword, sheathed in an artefact older than kingdoms.
Unlike her tempestuous counterpart, Huanglong said nothing at first.
Until—
"So," Ao Guang muttered, glancing sidelong at her, "thoughts on fighting that?"
She gestured lazily toward Azuraella, who hovered nearby like a painting unravelling into life.
"The last Voidkin I fought was this ridiculously hot guy—black hair, ocean eyes, body carved like sin. I needed days to recover. Couldn't even go shopping. Do you know what a nightmare that is?"
"Azuraella is right here, you know," said Azuraella, her tone mildly amused.
She floated effortlessly among the suspended debris of fractured space, expression dreamlike. Her gaze drifted toward the nameplates still flickering above their heads—cosmic HUDs that refused to vanish.
"Azuraella is intrigued by Ao Guang's tale. K?ss'Ius is... certainly an interesting subject. He once painted Azuraella. Rather poorly. Far too grounded in realism. Azuraella prefers abstraction. Art that distorts, not depicts."
She paused, then tilted her head.
"Did he... depict your naked form? How scandalous. Azuraella would very much like the full story."
"W-WHAT?!" Ao Guang spluttered, face turning a shade of divine crimson. "Naked?! He didn't seem the type! I mean—not that I'd judge! Wait—how much does he charge?!"
Huanglong gave her a withering look, one that could silence suns.
"I—I mean it's purely academic curiosity!" Ao Guang flailed, half hiding behind her halberd. "You're all so nosy! I didn't realise Voidkin were into gossip!
"Fine. I'll tell you everything you want to know—but only if you erase yourself from existence and never return!"
Azuraella blinked slowly, genuinely confused. "That feels like a steep price for a story," she said at last, "...to erase oneself from existence. A bit extreme, no?"
Huanglong finally stepped forward, voice like winter over still water.
"Unlike Ao Guang, I never retired," she said. "As the sovereign of the Central Plain, I rarely have reason to draw my sword. Answering Qinglong's cry for help felt... appropriate. And perhaps, a little indulgent."
She rested a finger against her chin in contemplation. "The skills I once wielded to slay monsters and carve myths into the bones of time don't vanish with ceremony. They simply... sleep."
"Sleepy drippy," Azuraella added helpfully, eyes half-lidded with cosmic drowsiness.
Ouroboros snorted, crossing his arms. "Crying for help? Please. I didn't cry. You've got one wild imagination."
Azuraella perked up at that, a teasing smile spreading like mischief across her lips.
"Really?" she hummed. "Azuraella could've sworn she heard weeping. So many feelings."
She rubbed her eyes dramatically and pitched her voice into a wail worthy of the heavens.
"Oh nooo! Azuraella's too stronk! Somebody help meee~! Mamaaa~!"
Ouroboros growled, his aura snapping back into place like a coiled serpent.
"Enough playing around."
The air tightened. Reality itself winced beneath the pressure.
"Chaos," he said, eyes narrowing, "can you still perceive it? My Nihilpotence."
Azuraella, halfway to drifting off into a nap, blinked slowly. Tears welled in her eyes—not from emotion, but sheer, staggering fatigue.
"Azuraella sees your Nihilpotence," she replied softly, "as clearly as morning dew. But you... fail to see hers."
Then she tilted her head—lazy, yet precise—as her gaze fell on Ao Guang.
"Among you three," she added, tone almost bored, "the little woman is by far the most dangerous. She has ties to the Dragon of the Jade Void."
Ao Guang froze.
"...Excuse me, who are you calling little—!?"
She never finished the sentence.
Azuraella lunged.
A flash of warped entropy tore across the void—the Endborn Cleaver collided with the Nexus Piercer in a devastating shockwave. Reality howled. Space folded and screamed as chaos and void exploded outward in a storm of broken laws and reversed truths. Time hiccuped. Concepts buckled. Gravity hid in the corner.
The dance had begun.
Within moments, Huanglong and Ouroboros joined the fray, weaving through the maelstrom with terrifying synchrony. They moved as one—dragon, emperor, anomaly—each strike driving Azuraella backward. Yet for all their fury, she didn't seem cornered.
She was studying them.
Eyes half-closed in that dreamlike trance, Azuraella watched—measured—memorised. Her gaze lingered on Ouroboros in particular.
Every blow he struck became cleaner. Every breath deeper. His aura grew denser, tighter. His technique—the product of countless scars and mentors—sharpened in real time. His body burned brighter with every second.
He was evolving.
Transcending.
And Azuraella, in the midst of exchanging god-breaking strikes, uncovered the truth in his soul:
This man had once been awful.
Not rough around the edges awful. Embarrassingly awful. His footwork had been laughable. His sense for openings? Nonexistent. His defences—porous as sponge bread. He had been the metaphysical equivalent of a practice dummy.
She nearly laughed aloud mid-swing.
Once upon a time, Ouroboros had been a dragon-shaped punching bag.
And now?
Now he was dancing with the likes of her. And not just surviving—thriving.
The paradox of late-blooming greatness was delicious.
Ouroboros the Azure Dragon—once known as Qinglong—had ascended from disgrace to divinity. Of the three dragons, he possessed the greatest defensive mastery, his body a living fortress forged under the guidance of titanic legends: Lü Bu, Yuwu, Ao Guang herself, Sun Wukong, Akashirae, Nezha, Shenlong—and even the former Ouroboros, whose name he now bore.
From obscurity, he'd clawed his way into legend, now wielding the paradox of life and creation itself.
And yet, to Azuraella's discerning gaze, his manipulation of paradox was still a shadow—refined, yes, but still only a cousin to true chaos.
Her attention drifted to the space surrounding them. Or rather, what should have been space.
It pulsed.
A long, coiled entity surrounded them—a metaphysical dragon wreathed in wood and water particles, tail devouring its own head, a symbol of eternal recursion. Its eyes flickered like shooting stars. Its breath echoed with ancient languages. This was no mere observer—it was Ouroboros' true essence, manifested as a living realm superimposed over the battlefield.
A secondary domain.
A dragon world nested within layers of unreality.
And more alarmingly... it was feeding on her.
Azuraella narrowed her eyes, letting the essence brush her once more.
Was this Ouroboros Realm merely a pocket within her own Chaos Realm? Or something deeper—something nested inside the Unknowable itself?
If it was the latter...
Then perhaps she had miscalculated.
She would need to adjust.
But that thought was interrupted by a blinding flash of gold.
Huanglong moved.
To Azuraella, her figure arrived not all at once, but in fragments:
—A flash of a blade.
—The glimmer of royal silk.
—A single step that rippled through time.
The Xuan-Yuan Sword hummed with poised destruction—not just capable of cleaving flesh, but slicing through consequence. Each of Huanglong's movements held a sense of fatal inevitability. Her style was flawless. No hesitation. No redundancy. Just pure divine intent.
Her speed?
Ludicrous.
So fast, it gave the illusion that eternity itself slowed down to watch her pass.
She struck.
And for the first time in the battle—
Azuraella had to block.
But Huanglong wasn't merely a master of form and function.
When necessary, she played with fire—taking risks that most deities would call reckless. Daring feints, blade dances on the edge of probability, calculated gambits that changed the tide of battle with the precision of a royal decree. Her dominion over earth and gravity was neither subtle nor forgiving—it was planetary. She hurled mass as if it were a weaponised concept, crushing opposition beneath the pressure of her presence.
Her Nihilpotence—specifically the measure of her divine erasure—was, on paper, the weakest of the trio. And yet...
Even Azuraella's Entropy Aura, typically fatal to anything within whispering distance, slid off harmlessly—like shadow skimming light.
Had she transcended transcendence itself? Azuraella mused idly, mid-duel. Or perhaps... escaped the limitations of dimensional causality entirely?
Then came Ao Guang.
Unexpected. Compact. Unassuming.
But terrifying.
She shouldn't have been.
She lacked the ancient titles, the divine genealogy, the glittering résumé of her dragonkin peers. And yet... Azuraella's infinite minds reached a rare consensus:
Ao Guang was the most dangerous of them all.
Despite her limited battlefield exposure, she possessed strength—both physical and metaphysical—that defied logic. She was contradiction incarnate: the precision of an assassin, the fury of a berserker, the insight of an archmage.
In terms of raw Nihilpotence, she exceeded Azuraella's prior form—before Ayame's reincarnation. Before she was elevated from Azathoth to something more.
Truth be told, Azuraella could barely recall what it was like being him anymore.
Ao Guang commanded storms and oceans like brushes across a divine canvas, her strokes gentle, deliberate. A single ripple might herald apocalypse. A blink, and entire realms drowned in silence. But it wasn't just elemental force that made her a threat.
It was the artistry.
She didn't wield chaos brutishly, like so many arrogant reality-warpers. She sculpted with it. Each strike bore elegance. Each clash—balance. Each movement—intent.
Azuraella, who had once revelled in raw, glorious disorder, now found herself... admiring the order within chaos that Ao Guang mastered.
It was beautiful.
She'd known only a few reality-warpers on such a tier: Yog-Sothoth, Idea, the fabled Singularity Transcendence.
And still... Ao Guang was different. A flare of originality. A composer of contradiction.
For the first time in epochs, Azuraella felt a ripple of genuine apprehension.
One of her infinite minds—usually dedicated to composing abstract poetry in forty-seven languages simultaneously—diverted all processing power.
Calculation replaced whimsy.
Cold, sharp logic rang like a funeral bell.
If this momentum continues... Azuraella will lose.
And Ao Guang knew it too.
With a simple motion, she raised the Nexus Piercer.
Storm clouds answered—not above, but everywhere. Space, time, thought. Past and future howled into convergence.
"Celestial Convergence!" she cried.
She threw the halberd forward—not once, but infinitely.
Reality cracked. The void wailed. What had been one weapon became thousands, then millions.
Each echo, each phantom, believed it was the real one.
And reality, like a gullible god, agreed.
They tore through omniverses like thunder through glass. And they followed one rule:
Amplify Ao Guang and her allies. Weaken everything else.
From behind, Ouroboros intoned like a bored narrator who'd read the spoilers:
"Those barbs shrink the battlefield. Force transcendents to fight on her terms. They carry omniversal mass—each strike will diminish you, Chaos. Only she and her allies grow stronger as they pass. You, however, will be drained. Shredded. Forgotten."
"IDIOT!" Ao Guang snapped mid-flight. "How many times have I told you not to explain my techniques out loud?! That's not strategy—it's a bloody podcast! Why are you so good at it?!"
"Bah," Ouroboros said with a shrug. "Don't be dreadfully mysterious. It's boring. Gotta glaze you properly. Make sure the audience understands how overpowered you actually are."
Azuraella ignored them both.
Her focus narrowed.
Her Nihilpotence should have made her immune. Her chaos was pure. Beyond concept. Beyond structure.
And yet—
A single halberd—an echo, not even the original—brushed her gauntlet.
An instant later, that part of her gauntlet no longer existed.
Not broken.
Not severed.
Unwritten.
A hiss escaped her lips—a sound the multiverse hadn't heard in aeons.
She yanked her hand back, eyes narrowing to slits.
These barbs... no. This entire realm... they've transcended themselves. Integrated with Nihilpotence beyond the nonconceptual level.
A trap had been sprung. And it was... effective.
Azuraella's posture shifted.
Interest sharpened to alertness.
Then, without delay, Ao Guang moved.
She streaked through space like a divine meteor, every movement a ballet of ruin. Her presence rippled the battlefield. Beautiful. Terrible. Final.
Huanglong followed, her blade weaving between arcs of chaos, entropy, and paradox. The Xuan-Yuan Sword carved lines of inevitability—strikes that didn't seek an opening so much as create them.
Azuraella flicked her wrist.
A tiny orb popped into existence beside her—cute, round, and brimming with doom.
"Cracky," she muttered.
The orb split instantly, fractalising into a swarm of duplicates. Each one charted a course across the sky like rogue satellites—spinning, shifting, distorting. They moved in counter-harmony with the Nexus Piercers, intercepting, clashing, corrupting.
Where halberds rained, Crackies answered.
The battlefield stuttered.
Reality blinked.
The duplication of the barbs began to wither, like flowers starved of narrative.
The infinite storm was... falling apart.
But not without cost.
Azuraella staggered.
"Fascinating," she murmured, voice fraying at the edges. "You're forcing me to strategise. How... nostalgic."
The Azure Dragon charged through the field of Chaos Orbs, body shredded, flesh flayed.
And yet he advanced.
Not with contempt—but with endurance. His wounds didn't bleed; they regenerated. Every tear in his body stitched itself closed with equal violence, as though daring the universe to try harder. His very existence mocked the concept of damage. Cause and effect? Optional.
Huanglong, naturally, didn't bother being hit. She simply moved faster than the orbs could exist, phasing past them like time had politely stepped aside.
As for Ao Guang?
She touched the orbs.
They flared orange.
Now—blue.
Corrupted chaos, turned docile. Tamed. Personalised. Azuraella's attacks had been repurposed into protective charms.
Azuraella herself, once a walking apocalypse, now found herself weaving, dodging, blocking—defending. Her body shimmered with Chaos Aura, slipping through their strikes with elegance, but not without effort.
Then came the roar.
The Azure Dragon inhaled.
And unleashed it.
"ECLIPSE BREATH OF CREATION."
A cataclysmic torrent of cyan fire thundered forth—not to burn, but to reconstruct. The flames carried with them the weight of origin—the desire to remake, rewrite, reinstall. The past surged forward to overwrite the present. Cause chasing effect.
Azuraella blinked.
Her white cape fluttered gently, like this was just another morning stroll through the End of All Things.
The flames passed straight through her, absorbed and nullified by her Warping Chaos. The Azure Dragon's attempt to overwrite her with existence hadn't just failed—it had been fundamentally mismatched.
Too structured. Too lawful.
Too... alive.
But she didn't relax.
The Azure Dragon's aura was unstable—paradoxical. At times, he was vulnerable. At others? An unstoppable force. That was the curse—and blessing—of paradox mastery. The stronger he became, the closer he danced to becoming a beginner once more.
She had no room for mistakes.
And sure enough, the breath had been a decoy.
A heartbeat later, Huanglong was there—her divine sword piercing the air like a lightning-born whisper, aimed straight for Azuraella's core.
Azuraella caught the blade—between two fingers.
A smirk tugged at her lips. Her voice a soft taunt.
"Go on. Pierce Azuraella's heart. Let's see what happens... when you try to make her sleep."
She let go.
The sword sank in.
Her eyes closed.
Her body went limp.
Then...
Nothing.
No explosion. No flash of chaos. No scream.
Just an eerie, bone-deep silence.
Huanglong's brow furrowed. Suspicion bloomed. She tried to withdraw the sword.
It didn't budge.
Her expression soured.
Without ceremony, she delivered a clean Divine Dragon Side Chop, severing Azuraella's head in a single annoyed stroke.
And that's when everything collapsed.
Eldritch wings erupted from Azuraella's neckless form. Her hair ignited at the tips—flames licking reality with cruel glee—despite her head now floating, expressionless, elsewhere.
The headless body lunged, its motion erratic and feral.
Huanglong danced, parried, deflected.
But unpredictability was a weapon all its own.
A hand caught her wrist.
And flung her.
She flipped mid-air, stabilised, and countered. Gripping the Xuan-Yuan Sword one-handed, she yanked the body toward her and unleashed a punishing Dragon's Head Strike to the sternum.
From her palm, a divine serpent burst forth—an ouroboros of pure light—binding the writhing abomination like a divine commandment.
She braced.
Positioned.
And began to chant in the lost tongue of the dragons.
From the higher planes, the ancient swords of her kin shimmered into view—ghostly silhouettes ringing her in solemn approval.
"Yellow Dragon's—Infinite Rift-Cleaving Slash!"
She vanished.
And in her place, a golden blur tore through the field—so fast it rewrote the frame rate of reality. Slash after slash rained down in a storm of divine fury. Each strike cleaved through past, present, and potential.
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The air trembled.
Time buckled.
Reality gasped.
And finally—behind the body—Huanglong reappeared. Perfect form. Blade drawn back.
Her final strike aimed squarely at Azuraella's disembodied head.
And then—
Pain.
Her ribs cracked.
Her skin tore.
Bruises bloomed across her golden form like thunderclouds.
Despite her flawless evasion, Huanglong was being struck—not by blades that hit, but by ones that had waited.
Postponed damage.
Every attack from the headless body had been queued.
And now the bill had come due.
As her breath hitched, her regal hat drifted free—tumbling through the void like a fallen crown.
The chaos body turned.
Its armour had shattered, revealing a grotesque Outer Eye pulsing in its chest. Tendrils of unspeakable flesh slithered across her form like forgotten sins taking root.
And worse still—the more Huanglong suffered, the stronger the abomination became.
"Return to your realm, Huanglong!" Ao Guang's voice snapped like a whip. "Cease your Divine Metaphysical Projection immediately!"
With a flick, she summoned a sphere of sacred water.
It burst—violently, lovingly—shattering space.
The impact split them apart, flinging both Huanglong and the chaos-beast in opposite directions.
Huanglong landed atop the Azure Dragon, wheezing. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.
She grinned.
"Alright, alright," she muttered. "I'm tapping out. That was a decent workout. Hope my real body doesn't wake up with a black eye."
Her gaze fell one last time on the thrashing chaos.
"Try not to lose too many brain cells, Qinglong."
And with that, her Divine Metaphysical Projection shimmered and vanished, returning to her origin realm in a soft golden burst.
Ouroboros stared after her, silent.
Processing.
Temporal paradox? Retrocausality? Or... something else?
A new causal framework entirely?
His thoughts never finished.
Something gripped his tail.
A hand?
No.
A claw.
Eldritch strength surged up his spine. Flesh tore. Scales cracked.
And from behind—
The nightmare smiled.
The eldritch woman, now unbound, hurled the Azure Dragon through the void like a child's toy.
His vast draconic body carved through omniversal strata, tearing through stars and parallel timelines as though they were no more than sandcastles at high tide. Galaxies collapsed in his wake. Laws of physics whimpered.
And far above it all, Ao Guang floated—bloodied, broken, and barely conscious.
Her eyelids fluttered.
"Ugh... hurts... so much..."
Her breath came in ragged gasps. Every rib complained. Every nerve screamed.
"I should be shopping for cute clothes right now... or soaking in the jade springs at the Heavenly Palace..."
She winced. Even thinking hurt.
Before she could finish that noble lament, the headless body of Azuraella shimmered into view.
Right in front of her.
No sound. No warning. Just inevitability.
For a brief moment, silence reigned.
Ao Guang lifted her gaze to the celestial sky, her lips curling into a defiant, if slightly deranged, smile.
"If hugs were stars..." she whispered, half-lucid, "I'd send you a galaxy every day... just to show how much you mean to me..."
The eldritch woman tilted her head.
No response. No empathy. Only that strange, cold curiosity—the kind found in predators and ancient things that never learned kindness.
Then, it moved.
With a horrifying elegance, Azuraella's headless body reached out and seized Ao Guang by the throat. The dragoness didn't even resist. Not that she could.
Effortlessly, she was lifted, dangled like a ragdoll.
Oh no. Ao Guang's eyes widened.
Too late.
In a flash of chaos-fuelled motion, she was slammed backwards in a textbook-perfect Eldritch Argentine Backbreaker. Her spine bent at angles not listed in polite anatomy scrolls.
"Wait—STOP!" she shrieked. "I'm not equipped for this kind of punishment!"
But the universe showed no mercy.
With surgical indifference, the eldritch body hurled her skyward.
Ao Guang soared helplessly through the air before crashing into an indestructible moon—one that hadn't existed moments ago, summoned by Azuraella's unconscious will. Its surface was jagged, seething with anti-gravity.
And yet, she went through it.
The follow-up was immediate. A flying, armoured kick. Brutal. Precise.
She exploded through the moon like a meteor, shards of celestial stone spiralling in all directions.
Her limp body tumbled through the void.
Azuraella—serene, silent—gently cradled her own severed head in one arm, like a child with a treasured doll.
Her face... calm. Dreamlike. Peaceful.
And around her, the remains of the Azure Dragon floated in slow, balletic orbit. Sundered limbs. Ruined wings. He'd been taken apart by her Endborn Cleaver, a weapon forged to slice not flesh, but nonconcept.
With the softest sigh, Azuraella opened her mouth.
From within... came a black hole.
Not a metaphor. A true void. A devourer of laws.
It didn't consume light.
It consumed the idea of light.
The dismembered fragments of the Azure Dragon were sucked toward it, howling silently through space. His legacy, his identity—devoured, compressed, erased.
Gone.
All but one fragment.
A single azure scale, no bigger than a coin, broke free. It drifted gently, lazily, through the void... and landed on Ao Guang's chest.
She didn't move.
The vivid blue shimmered against the torn black of her leather uniform.
A symbol of a dragon's will.
A brother's farewell.
As she plummeted toward the crushing atmosphere of the orange gas giant below, her thoughts drifted—to someone long gone.
Yuwu.
The Dragon of the Jade Void.
Once, Yuwu had been the calm in the storm.
The memory played out before Ao Guang's mind like a theatre, projected on the inside of her eyelids. Another battlefield. Another realm.
Yuwu stood tall. Pink hair flowing, platinum dragon wings unfurled like divine banners. Her meteor hammer, Tianwen, whirled in vast arcs, flattening gods without breaking stride.
Her green faceplate gleamed, hiding the teasing smile beneath. Elegant. Cheerful. Dangerous.
She danced.
And her partners?
Sun Wukong. Nezha.
Both struggling to keep up.
From a crystal balcony far above, Ao Guang had watched.
Back then, she hadn't been bleeding. She'd been lounging—her faithful maid massaging her shoulders, a cup of peach blossom tea in hand.
She sipped. Observed. Critiqued.
"Wukong," she called, voice as sharp as any divine weapon, "your mind is scattered. You rely too much on tricks and muscle. Without clarity, you're just a powerful fool."
The monkey had growled.
She turned to the boy with fire-wheels for feet.
"And you, Nezha. Always charging in. No discipline. All that strength wasted. Martial mastery isn't brute force—it's precision. You're throwing thunder when a whisper would suffice."
She'd sighed, long and regal.
"Children. All of you. Why must I be the only competent adult in this celestial daycare?"
As the tension rose, Ao Guang's voice sharpened, slicing through the air like a blade of divine judgement.
"Stop leaning on your supernatural abilities like they're cheat codes! Power without discipline is just noise. Mastery—true mastery—comes from understanding the art of combat. Not flashy spells. Not oversized weapons. You're so predictable I could choreograph your moves in my sleep."
A gust of wind swept across the battlefield.
Floating atop his Wind Fire Wheels, Nezha gave her a defiant grin. His Fire-tipped Spear crackled with primal energy, wild and untamed.
"Tsk. Hey Ao Guang! If you're so great, why don't you go fight the Jade Emperor? Let's see how long your discipline lasts!"
From the other side, Sun Wukong—the ever-infuriating, ever-smirking Monkey King—twirled his massive Ruyi Jingu Bang with casual menace.
"Yeah! Come on, Ao Guang! You always talk the talk... but can you actually walk it? Never seen you fight. I'm starting to think you might just be all sass and no substance."
Her eye twitched. A dangerous sign.
"Keep talking and I'll start getting really irritated. Was one rebirth not enough for you, Nezha? And as for you, monkey—I might just reclaim that staff you borrowed from my treasury."
The divine tension was thick enough to cut with a celestial blade.
Then, in a voice soft enough to be a song, yet loud enough to freeze gods mid-battle, Yuwu spoke.
"Ao Guang is my successor. I've been thinking... of travelling across the omniverses."
Ao Guang blinked.
"Wait—what? You mean you're—?"
She didn't get to finish.
Because at that exact moment, Wukong fumbled and dropped his staff. It landed with a deafening BOOM, flattening Nezha in an explosion of sparks and muttered curses.
"WUKONG!!!"
Unbothered by the carnage she'd accidentally triggered, Yuwu smiled dreamily at Ao Guang, utterly unaware that her announcement had just created a divine pratfall.
Meanwhile, Ao Guang's irritation dragged her brutally back to the present—a moment marked by pain, blood, and another celestial drama.
Her gaze dropped to the blue scale resting against her chest. She scowled.
"Qinglong... You pervert. Of all places to land, you chose my chest? This is how you repay your master? I thought you'd grown into a wise dragon. I see now you're still that annoying little hatchling who used to bite my tail until I agreed to train you."
From the scale, a familiar voice echoed—deep, teasing, and unmistakably smug.
"If you still have the energy to insult me, I'd say you're doing fine. I was simply checking for a heartbeat, Master. Don't flatter yourself—your flat chest holds no interest for me. My affections lie solely with my twin sister."
"You—!" Ao Guang let out a long-suffering sigh.
She plucked the scale from her chest and hurled it into the gas giant's upper atmosphere with all the flair of a divine pitcher.
It spun through the thick clouds, gaining speed. Orbit. Momentum. And with each revolution, its energy surged, evolving—transforming—until it finally burst outward in a flash of celestial brilliance.
A dragonoid form emerged, majestic and fearsome, scales glittering like sapphires under starlight. Qinglong had returned—resurrected by defiance and raw divine will.
Refreshed by the exchange, Ao Guang flipped through the air, a series of flawless aerial somersaults guiding her down to the planet's gaseous surface. Her boots touched down in a flourish, blood dripping from her brow as she wiped one eye.
Beside her descended Ouroboros—towering, enigmatic, and ageless. His presence darkened the atmosphere, his form blotting out the stars above like the shadow of fate itself.
He scratched his cheek.
"You know," he muttered, "you could just go back to your realm and let me handle Chaos. You're bleeding all over my battlefield, and I hate cleaning up after divine royalty."
He sighed, voice almost paternal. Almost.
"Run along now, little girl."
Ao Guang didn't flinch.
She slapped his back—a casual gesture laced with immortal force.
"Why would I do that?" she said, her voice steel wrapped in silk. "I appreciate the sentiment, really, but it's a little late for pity parties. I don't abandon things halfway."
With the air of someone brushing off a mediocre meal, she conjured a mirror and calmly straightened her hair, blood and grime be damned.
"Tell me, Qinglong. Did your precious Bootstrap Paradox tell you I'd die here?"
He shook his head. Slowly.
"No. But the odds are... complicated."
Her expression darkened.
"Chaos may be jamming my Nihilscience, but I haven't lost. If I retreat, you'd better run too. Your power's always been a bit... capricious, hasn't it?"
Before he could answer, the battlefield shifted.
Azuraella's headless form appeared once more—a vision of horror and grace. Her severed head, cradled like an offering in one arm, glowed with serene indifference.
But her body—her body was fury incarnate.
Without a word, she raised her Endborn Cleaver—a weapon that devoured truth itself—and released her ultimate technique:
'...Nuclear Chaos.'
The world exploded.
A cascade of orange novas unfurled from her blade. Each pulse shattered sound, time, and meaning. Space cracked like glass. Colour bled from reality. Every wave of the attack rewrote the laws it violated.
And through it all, Azuraella remained silent.
Headless.
Emotionless.
Unstoppable.
But Ouroboros was not the sort to cower beneath the weight of annihilation.
With a slow, deliberate motion, he summoned his blade—a relic feared even by outer gods. The Akasha: a crimson draconic Zweih?nder wreathed in ancient fire, its surface gleaming with the weight of eternity. As he raised it, the air around him hummed, trembling with the unfathomable pressure of his Pleroma State.
His dragonoid form ignited—fierce, sovereign—wreathed in interlaced flames of cyan and crimson. Aeons of battle experience flared to the surface, the ancient pulse of cosmic instincts awakening from their slumber.
"My beloved big red sword severs all threads of infinity!"
His lips curled into a wolfish smile, eyes glinting like twin supernovae.
"Rest in piss. UNMEI ZANKEN!"
The Akasha roared to life, carving through the oncoming Nuclear Chaos in a single, thunderous sweep. The shockwave wasn't sound—it was conceptual, tearing through the explosive novas and disassembling their very right to exist. Space healed in his wake, reality knitting itself together around the vacuum he carved.
Silence followed, reverent.
Then, quietly, he murmured—almost too softly to hear.
"Akashirae... guide me."
He remembered her—his sister, his mirror, his equal. A memory unbidden rose in his mind: a moment long past, when he had stumbled upon her bathing in the secluded springs of the Dragon Palace. Utterly unclothed, utterly serene. No screams, no awkward panic. Just a laugh—warm, forgiving. The memory, oddly enough, empowered him.
That bond. That irreplaceable sibling thread spun between stars and timelines—it was what made him indomitable.
That's the kind of strength Chaos can't fracture.
Above him, Ao Guang's voice rang out like a divine bell across the sundered battlefield, her tone resolute, her spirit unbreakable.
"Beware, Chaos! My scales shine bright enough to blind the stars themselves!"
In a breath, her form shifted. Platinum light burst forth, her dragonoid shape ascending into something transcendent. A thousand sacred sigils danced across her skin like falling starlight. She raised her weapon—Nexus Piercer, a lance so precise it could skewer constellations—and cried:
"Starlight Serpent Portal—Unseal!"
The sky ruptured. A spiral gate of radiant geometry tore itself open, and from its heart slithered an endless horde of Primordial Serpents, each more monstrous and intelligent than the last. Some coiled around crumbling moons. Others fused with nebulae mid-flight. They adapted faster than thoughts, evolving with every breath of battle.
The battlefield shook with awe.
But Azuraella, ever detached, slept on with a stillness that chilled the cosmos.
Her massive eleven-ring greatsword pulsed with malignant energy. The rings detached, spinning outward into an obsidian halo—an orbit of entropy and doom. Around her, an orange mist gathered, pulsing, alive. Within it—barely visible—a single speck of black drifted.
And from that speck came a voice.
A voice that didn't echo—because it had already spoken before it was heard.
"True Chaos is formless," whispered a young woman's tone—playful, cruel, agnoscient. "It devours symbols, swallows systems. It is that which renders all meaning insignificant."
Reality itself twitched.
"Can you, Azure and Platinum dragons—so radiant, so finite—comprehend what it means to exist as dreams within me? To be less than metaphor? Shadows trying to fight the night?"
Ouroboros's expression darkened. Sweat beaded his brow—not from fear, but from unknowable pressure. It pressed on his spine, on the edge of his understanding.
"Whose voice is that...?" he muttered. "Another Voidkin? No. She's worse. Something deeper."
Ao Guang's response was immediate, brimming with unshakable will.
"It doesn't matter! Stay focused, Qinglong! And remember what I—"
But her words fractured.
Because the boundaries between dream and reality buckled. Threads of memory dissolved like sand in the tide. Ouroboros blinked—and suddenly, he was clutching a blue void orb, disoriented, uncertain whether he'd been fighting Chaos... or hallucinating her.
Was this déjà vu? Temporal recursion? Or had Chaos simply rewritten his past?
"Am I dreaming?" he whispered.
Across from him, Tiamat—golden-eyed—watched with a predator's scrutiny.
"Why do you look so weak all of a sudden?" she asked, her voice bored. "Don't tell me you're backing down now."
"Princess Tiamat," he began cautiously, "I... I'm not sure what's real anymore."
She responded by spitting a stream of Entropic Saliva directly into his face.
It sizzled as it struck, acid hissing against celestial flesh. Ouroboros barely reacted. He removed the long pipe from his mouth, tapped the ash into the void, and slipped it back in. It relit itself as though nothing had happened.
"Burns less than Yuwu's soup," he muttered. "Barely a tickle."
His regenerative aura flared gently, stitching his skin back together like thread on silk.
Then his voice dropped—grave and bitter.
"From my mastery of the Bootstrap Paradox and every simulation I've run... I've seen no path to victory. Eventually, she breaks the loop. She unravels the system. Her Nihilpotence... it transcends narrative causality. If she isn't already unknowable, she's something worse: inevitably victorious."
He stared into the black mist coiling around the horizon.
"Is this what the arrogant gods felt, back when they first faced me and lost?"
He clenched his fist.
"I only hope Huanglong and Ao Guang are still out there, still fighting."
Tiamat scoffed.
"Huang-who? Whatever. Just move. You're getting sentimental."
Her grin widened, too sharp, too hungry.
"I'll deal with Chaos. By which I mean—" she licked her lips, fangs glinting—"I'll devour her whole."
Tiamat, ever brash and proud, charged forward with the casual arrogance of one who believed herself untouchable. Her Chaos-laced aura flared behind her like the tail of a comet, each step radiating certainty.
She did not notice Ouroboros's narrowed eyes.
She did not heed the warning in his voice.
And so, in a flash of turquoise starlight and rending wind, the dragon moved.
One instant, he stood idle.
The next—he was gone.
In his place, a titanic Cosmic Azure Dragon, gleaming with runes and war-born scars of galaxies past, twisted into the fabric of reality. In a heartbeat, his massive jaws clamped around Tiamat's torso, and with a guttural growl that shook the chaos-ridden sky, he flung her across the battlefield like a discarded star.
Her body became a streak of light, hurtling toward the broken edge of the Chaos Palace, shattering divine architecture as she vanished over the horizon.
Without pause, Ouroboros surged forward.
His tail cracked like a whip of thunder, sending titans careening through the sky. Weeping gods were swatted aside like insects. His claws raked through stormclouds of entropic fog as the ancient palace buckled beneath his wrath.
Each step left an echo.
Each breath—judgement.
High above, Azuraella, perched upon her throne of bone and broken dimensions, tilted her head ever so slightly. Her orange eyes flickered with the distant amusement of one watching a particularly stubborn goldfish attempt to escape its bowl.
"Why destroy Azuraella's palace and run?" she murmured, voice slow and mist-thin. "Did you grow spineless?"
Her musings were cut short as the titan Uranus, a lumbering colossus of storm and sky, plummeted toward her in his death throes. Without shifting her gaze, Azuraella's Eldritch Tongue cleaved upward.
A soundless cut.
The god split down the centre.
One half of Uranus fell to the east.
The other, to silence.
Far from the carnage, Tiamat crashed down upon familiar terrain: worn train tracks, rusted with memory and dusted with moonlight. She landed in a crouch, shaking off the impact with a flick of her tail.
Moments later, Ouroboros landed beside her, already returned to his humanoid form—bare-chested, burned, and visibly frustrated.
He held up the blue orb, watching as it pulsed faintly in his palm.
"Lumi'Nae..." he muttered, disappointment lining every word. "I thought this spot might be our ticket out. I was wrong."
Tiamat laughed—a short, cutting sound that dripped with derision.
"That was your brilliant escape plan?" she said, grinning like a cat at a boxed bird. "I could've guessed it'd flop. Just hand over the orb already—I'd make far better use of it."
Ouroboros tightened his grip, not even bothering to reply.
"You'll just use it recklessly," he said flatly. "And get me killed in the process."
Tiamat raised an eyebrow, golden eyes twinkling with mockery.
"So I live, and you die? Sounds like a perfectly acceptable trade." She stretched, smirking. "Really, this cowardly side of you... it's delightful. Go on, Paradox. Do coward more. It suits you, worm."
The sky darkened, bleeding into something unnaturally still. A wave of silence crushed the atmosphere as if time itself had paused to brace for impact.
Then she descended.
Azuraella.
No longer seated, no longer idle.
She hovered just above the train tracks, suspended in a mist of entropy and oblivion. Reality bent subtly around her. The air shimmered as if embarrassed to hold her form.
"Running already?" she asked, tilting her head. "Azuraella was quite sincere with her offer."
She raised a peace sign, her expression neither threatening nor kind—just there, as if she were reciting a truth no one could change.
"Just kill her. That's all. She won't resist."
Ouroboros arched an eyebrow, unimpressed.
"Kill you?" he scoffed. "Your immortality makes mine look like a weekend trial subscription. I thought beings like you were extinct. Primordials of formless transcendence—relics of that old rebellion against the Unknowable Void. But here you are... still babbling."
He glanced sideways at Tiamat.
She rolled her eyes. "What? I didn't join the rebellion out of principle. It was a power grab. Obviously. Without power, you're dead. Technically alive, sure—but not really."
Her gaze narrowed.
"I can't believe I have to explain basic metaphysics to you. Embarrassing, really."
Ouroboros, unbothered, reached out and ruffled her hair.
She slapped his hand away instantly, snarling.
He laughed. "Still touchy."
Turning his gaze back to Azuraella, he exhaled slowly.
"So you're not merely transcendent. You're beyond it. A Voidkin who's consumed the limits of even her own evolution. You exist where power ends."
Azuraella's smile dimmed slightly. Her amusement faded like smoke on a dying wind.
"Ah. So you've glimpsed it."
Her eyes peered through him, past his form and into the loops of his Bootstrap Paradox—watching a hundred possible deaths play out like water flowing backward.
"Azuraella has slain you more times than even she cares to count. When napping. When amused. When bored."
Her voice grew colder.
"You never stood a chance—not once. Not when you fought, not when you fled, not when you hoped."
Her hand gently waved through the air, and Ouroboros saw, for just a moment, his own corpse. Or perhaps a thousand of them.
Her voice dripped with venomous mockery, slicing through the tension like a well-honed blade.
Ouroboros's eyes narrowed. His jaw set.
"Pathetic. And you still call yourself the Dragon King?" Tiamat sneered, stepping forward with unshakable swagger. Her silver plate armour shimmered like moonlight cast upon a steel sea, its ornate edges bristling with divine runes. "After losing—repetitively—to that undead clown?"
A swirl of white aura unfurled around her like a storm's first breath, thickening the air with oppressive intent.
"Hey, bitch—why don't you—"
She didn't finish.
The space between them folded, collapsing like a punctured dimension, and in the span of less than a blink, Tiamat's Outer Dragon Claw shot forward, cutting across reality itself as it surged toward Azuraella's face—each slash imbued with enough power to tear asunder all the horrors of the omniverses from all realms stitched together.
"DIE FOR ME!" she roared, her voice a siren's wail of destruction. Her claws shimmered with eldritch fury, expanding mid-flight like twin obsidian crescents.
The impact landed.
Reality screamed.
Shockwaves erupted, distorting space and reshaping the battlefield. The ground buckled and twisted, becoming a pulsating, flesh-like mass. The railway tracks contorted into a living double helix, veins throbbing beneath them, while a spiralling tornado of disembodied eyes circled the skies—each gaze watching, each one unblinking.
Azuraella did not flinch.
She merely lifted her chin. The claw raked across her cheek, leaving faint scratches—only for them to vanish seconds later, dissolved by the void as if they had never existed.
"Oh?" Tiamat tilted her head, smiling darkly. "You can take a hit. Impressive?"
Her arm shifted—twisting, mutating.
A second Outer Dragon Claw bloomed into existence.
"Not even close."
With a cry of savage delight, she launched into a barrage, each strike faster, sharper, more vicious than the last. Her claws blurred with speed, rending the very air apart, as thunder boomed with every blow. The battlefield became a blur of claw and ruin.
Azuraella remained silent.
Until—like a serpent darting from shadow—her Eldritch Tongue whipped forward, wrapping around Tiamat's face in a grotesque embrace. It coiled tightly, suffocating, acidic with Void essence.
Then, with eerie calm, Azuraella pulled her in—and kneed her in the stomach with spine-snapping force.
Tiamat's armour shattered like glass, the impact cratering the ground beneath her. She gasped, her breath caught, her body trembling from the force of the blow.
And yet—
She roared.
Gripping Azuraella's sides, Tiamat rammed her head forward in a brutal headbutt. And again. And again. Each impact echoed like a war drum, her forehead colliding with eldritch flesh in defiance of logic, pain, and mortality itself.
From the sidelines, Ouroboros watched with deadpan amusement.
He raised his pipe, exhaled a thick plume of Botulinum Toxin Alter into the air—an invisible, slow-killing miasma designed to paralyse even gods.
But instead of Azuraella, it was Tiamat who snarled from within the smoke.
"Oi—!" she snapped, her voice muffled by the tongue still coiled over her mouth.
As the toxic haze faded, the absurdity of the scene became... unignorable.
Tiamat was suspended in midair, arms splayed, muscles taut and glistening with sweat, her armour cracked open in unfortunate places. The Eldritch Tongue wound around her like a python of nightmares, squeezing tighter with every pulse.
Drool slipped from the corner of her lips.
She growled.
Ouroboros blinked, then dropped his pipe in mild disbelief.
"You... comfortable in that position?" he asked. "I mean, damaged plate doesn't exactly scream ergonomic."
Tiamat's glare could melt neutronium.
"Shut up and get me out of this!" she bellowed, her voice shaking with fury—and perhaps a sliver of embarrassment.
Unexpectedly, Azuraella flushed.
Her cheeks tinted the barest pink.
"Still so powerful, even when humiliated..." she murmured, almost dreamily. "Azuraella thinks you look good in armour. So noble. So defiant." She tilted her head. "Yes. Azuraella shall have two pets today. One fiery lizard... one sneaky snek."
Ouroboros facepalmed. Hard.
"You know what? No. Just—no."
In a blur of movement, he lunged forward, his hands locking around Azuraella's throat in a chokehold. His fingers tightened, surging with paradox energy—but she didn't even blink.
She sighed, as if he were a child tugging her sleeve.
Then, casually, she released Tiamat. The eldritch tongue slithered back into her mouth with a wet, nauseating snap.
But the calm didn't last.
A sudden pulse of energy erupted from Azuraella's body.
The Monochrome Sphere formed around them—an oppressive dome of anti-colour, draining all hue from reality. The world turned black and white. Sound grew muffled. Air, thin.
Their strength waned.
Their will began to falter.
Gravity turned tyrant.
And in the centre of that desaturation, Azuraella moved like a goddess of endings. In one fluid, disgustingly elegant motion, she plunged her hand into Ouroboros's side—no slash, no dramatic wind-up. Just a single precise puncture.
Her fingers curled around his external oblique.
"Hnngh—!" Ouroboros hissed through clenched teeth, his body convulsing in shock.
Pain lanced through him—sharp, surgical. But it wasn't the agony that shook him.
It was the truth that followed.
Azuraella... wasn't a threat.
She was an absolute.
A sovereign of silence. A queen of the void. A predator of existence itself.
She smiled, gently this time.
"Azuraella thinks you're beginning to understand."
"...How about... a deal?" Ouroboros grunted, his voice strained as he clung desperately to Azuraella with the same determination as one holding onto their last thread of sanity. The weight of her grip was unbearable, but he wasn't about to let it show. "Release us, and we'll grant you the same courtesy." His eyes glimmered with stubborn resolve despite the growing pressure. He would not break. Not yet.
Azuraella tilted her head, her gaze steady and unnervingly focused. She pressed her chin against Ouroboros's forearm, her weight slowly crushing him into the dirt beneath them. "That doesn't make any sense." Her voice trailed off in a thoughtful hum. "Let Azuraella think. Wait, can she even think in the first place?"
Her eyes fluttered shut as though lost in profound contemplation, while Ouroboros buried his face in his other arm, stifling a scream of agony. The pressure was too much, each second bleeding into the next, each breath a painful reminder of how far gone he was.
"FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"
Tiamat, who had been struggling to rise from the chaos, barely had time to react. Azuraella's Eldritch Tongue lashed out like a dozen serpents in the blink of an eye. The strikes were impossibly fast—so fast time itself couldn't register the force behind them. One after another, the lashes landed against Tiamat's already battered abs with sickening precision.
With a pained grunt, Tiamat crumpled, gasping for air. "Why do you keep hitting the same spot, you bitch?" she spat, her voice raw from the relentless strikes.
Azuraella glanced down absently, her thoughts seemingly drifting elsewhere as she studied Tiamat's reactions. "Azuraella is simply tenderising your beautifully sculpted abs," she remarked nonchalantly, as if the very notion of torturing someone on a whim was the most casual thing in the world. "She almost wants to conjure a fork and a knife to test your honed flesh."
The air crackled with tension, a strange and terrifying stillness hanging over them as Azuraella took her time to consider her next move. But before she could act further, two colossal Outer Serpents emerged from the void with an unsettling hiss. One, smiling, its scales glistening like dark crystal, pinned Azuraella to the ground with terrifying ease, while the other, serious, teleported Tiamat and Ouroboros, pulling them both into its mouth with a grotesque, almost casual motion.
Azuraella blinked slowly, raising an eyebrow as she surveyed the spectacle. "How peculiar. Lady Finality deems this trivial conflict worthy of her attention?" She mused aloud, her tone cool and distant. "Azuraella and her two reptiles should be beneath her concern... Is this also your doing, Yog-Sothoth? Azuraella is displeased by this turn of events. She'll remember this. Hopefully."
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she recalled something familiar—a strange presence she had felt during her last encounter in the Realm of Distortion, within Lumi'Nae's domain. But for now, it was an unimportant detail, dismissed almost as quickly as it had come.
The Deicide Dragons—still disoriented and dazed—emerged from the serpent's maw in a completely different location. Their senses reeled as they landed with a soft thud in the midst of a bizarre new environment.
Before them, an amusement park stretched out in all its chaotic glory. Bright lights flickered from towering rides, and the distant sounds of laughter and carnival games filled the air. The stark contrast to the war-torn battlefield could not have been more jarring. In the background, the haunted house loomed ominously, its gaping entrance mocking the severity of their situation.
Ouroboros blinked, his mind still reeling. "What's happening?!" he shouted, his voice rising with disbelief as he surveyed the absurdity around him. The joyful noise of children on roller coasters clashed violently with the oppressive remnants of their battle, and for a moment, he thought he might be losing his mind.
In the centre of this strange scene, Lumi'Nae sat serenely at a picnic table, sipping from a glass of lemonade as though the entire situation was no more than a passing curiosity. She looked at Ouroboros, offering a small, knowing smile.
"Well, this is a turn-up for the books," Ouroboros muttered, relief creeping into his voice despite the surrealism. "I had no idea you had such a flair for dramatic exits."
He straightened up, trying to shake off the disorientation, only to be met by Lumi'Nae's intense gaze. Her smile widened mischievously.
"Actually, I nerfed you two for the sake of a better fight scene and excitement." She shrugged, her tone playful but with an unsettling undercurrent of truth. "Before you ask, yes, I was watching the entire time."
Ouroboros stared at her, his jaw slack. "You did what?" His mind reeled, trying to piece together the events as a new layer of frustration built. "You're telling me this whole fight was for your amusement?"
Lumi'Nae's eyes glinted with something far older and more dangerous than mere mischief. "Oh, not just amusement. This is just... the beginning."
Tiamat's expression darkened with palpable displeasure as she snatched Lumi'Nae's water bottle, her hand wrapping around it with unsettling ease. She took a swig, only for her face to contort in disgust. The taste was foul—water so bland it could have been the result of an ancient, unholy curse. Her eyes flicked to the label: Eve.
Her lip curled. "Where's the fucking salt?" she muttered under her breath.
In a frustrated hiss, she transformed the water into saltwater, her aura crackling with volatile irritation. The bottle shimmered for a moment before the liquid bubbled and churned in her hands, an extension of her growing annoyance.
"Wait, what did you just say?!" she snapped, her eyes narrowing as a sudden realisation dawned upon her. "I knew something was off! If only you were killable...!"
Her words trailed off, the anger fading as she locked eyes with Lumi'Nae, a flicker of genuine annoyance flashing in her gaze.
Lumi'Nae, unfazed, leaned back in her seat, her lips curling into a smug, knowing smile. The expression was almost taunting, as if she were saying, I've been messing around for no reason, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.
The strange scene had not gone unnoticed. Nearby, a child, wide-eyed with wonder, tugged urgently at their mother's sleeve. "Mama, did you see that? Two cosplayers just came out of that woman's belly!"
Lumi'Nae, ever the professional, flicked her fingers with barely a thought. A subtle wave of energy flowed from her, delicate yet precise. The crowd around them blinked in confusion, their faces blanking as if they had forgotten what had just occurred. The bizarre scene they had witnessed slipped away from their memories as quickly as it had come, and soon the atmosphere of the amusement park returned to its carefree normality.
The sounds of laughter, the squeal of rollercoasters, and the jingle of carnival games resumed, completely at odds with the tension that had just gripped the area.
Meanwhile, Sathiel appeared from behind a food stall, balancing three trays of food with impressive dexterity. Two trays were held in her hands, and the third—suspended with red, demonic energy channeled through her light brown hair—rested perfectly atop her head. The trays were loaded with wholesome fare: vibrant slices of juicy watermelon, crisp apple wedges, and colourful vegetable sticks like carrots, celery, and bell peppers, served with creamy hummus. There were also mixed greens salads topped with grilled chicken, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and a light vinaigrette. And for something hearty, there were quinoa bowls piled high with roasted vegetables and sprinkled with feta cheese.
She approached the group with an air of mild regret, her eyes flicking between Ouroboros and Tiamat. "I would have brought more if I'd known you two were coming," she remarked, her tone laced with dry humour, her gaze steady but almost apologetic.
Ouroboros, still feeling the effects of the earlier chaos, nodded approvingly as he examined the spread. "You've got excellent taste, Pestilence. Remind me to teach you how to cook one day. You'd make a master chef," he commented, his voice warm despite the chaos still clinging to the edges of his thoughts.
Before Sathiel could respond, a familiar voice reached their ears, warm and affectionate, laced with a hint of teasing. "Brother," Akashirae greeted Ouroboros, her eyes lighting up with a soft smile. She then turned her attention to Tiamat, nodding in recognition. "Abyss."
From within Lumi'Nae's Void-Cloaked Mantle, a deep, concerned voice echoed, sending ripples through the air. "Ouroboros, Tiamat—what has caused your delay?"
Ouroboros, still reeling from the bizarre twists of the day, took the water bottle from Lumi'Nae with a weary sigh, only to immediately spit it out in disgust. The saltwater hit his tongue like a briny slap to the face.
Tiamat laughed.
The liquid flowed through Lumi'Nae, who had briefly become intangible, and splashed onto Sathiel's black armour. The unexpected turn of events made the scene even more absurd.
"Whoa, that was unexpected," Sathiel remarked, unfazed, her eyes not leaving the grilled chicken salad she had been holding. "I hope everything is alright, Sir Halberd. How about I pray for you?"
Ouroboros gave a dry laugh, his voice rough with irritation. "My bad. And no prayers needed. It'll probably be a curse coming from you. Former Goddess of Light. Satan."
Sathiel's expression darkened slightly, her brow twitching in annoyance. "Speaking badly of me will only bring you more bad luck. But as the Goddess of Light, I forgive you." She began citing Holy Scripture, her voice raising in volume, Ouroboros's name mentioned several times in a fervent tone.
"You're not the Goddess of Light anymore. Stop it. SATAN!" Ouroboros coughed, blood staining his lips as the irony of the moment set in.
Sathiel looked at him, her eyes narrowing in confusion. "That's weird. I'll try the Satanism version. Maybe two negatives will make a positive?"
Ouroboros groaned.
"I believe Ouroboros only needs rest now, Sathiel. Your healing was magnificent. As expected of a fellow Destroyer." The voice of Theoktonos cut in, calm and matter-of-fact, a hint of approval in his tone.
"No way. Was that sarcasm?" Ouroboros shot back, his voice dripping with bitter humour. "I was fucking dying."
Sathiel, wearing a smile as bright as a holy halo, answered only with a single word: "Healing."
Lumi'Nae, ever composed, handed Ouroboros a protein-packed snack bar and a refreshing smoothie, her movements graceful and deliberate. The soft clink of the packaging cutting through the background hum of the bustling park seemed almost surreal.
She offered the items with a soft smile, her voice light but tinged with a quiet curiosity. "Please, tell us what happened," she urged, her tone feigning ignorance. But her eyes—those sharp, knowing eyes—betrayed her, an inquisitive gleam dancing within them.
The stage was set. The quiet, inevitable tension that followed these strange interactions seemed to hang in the air, as if the amusement park itself held its breath in anticipation.
Ouroboros raised an eyebrow as he eyed the snack bar in his hand, its innocent packaging a stark contrast to the storm brewing in his mind. Reluctantly, he accepted it, but his gaze never left Lumi'Nae. A dry chuckle escaped him as he spoke, his voice edged with both weary respect and sharpness. "You just said you watched the entire time... Even if you weren't actually present, don't you possess agnoscience? You know everything, even the Unknowable, Finality." His words sliced through the air like a blade, but there was an undeniable admiration beneath the sharpness. "Then again, with your incomprehensible grasp of reality, even Agnoscience must seem like child's play to you. You're less a revealer of false knowledge and more of an enigma unto yourself."
His eyes drifted absently toward the Ferris wheel, its slow, rhythmic rotation mirroring the whirl of his thoughts. Below, people boarded the nearby rollercoaster, their shrieks of exhilaration mingling with the carefree sounds of carnival music. "What began as a peaceful day quickly turned into a chaotic ordeal," he mused aloud, a faint, bitter smile playing at the corners of his lips. "Hell, I'm not even certain whether I'm alive or dead at this point. What a day."
Akashirae, standing nearby, her fox ears twitching slightly, regarded Ouroboros with a mix of quiet concern and quiet calculation. She stepped forward with grace, her soft voice carrying a subtle power. "It took a while, but my Divine Mind has finally pieced everything together. Rather than recount the whole thing, I'll show you all what truly transpired later." There was a weight in her words, a quiet promise of clarity in the midst of the chaos.
"Much appreciated," Ouroboros replied, his tone grateful yet tinged with fatigue. "You've always had a talent for that sort of thing."
Tiamat, who had been eyeing the nearby roller coaster with a somewhat distracted expression, muttered under her breath, already striding away with a look of determination. "Good thing too," she grumbled, her voice low but sharp. "He wouldn't have explained it properly anyway." In one swift motion, she snatched the protein-packed snack bar meant for Ouroboros, tearing into it with the same ferocity she reserved for battle. Without hesitation, she drained the smoothie too, her actions as casual as they were reckless.
Ouroboros watched her walk away, a deep sigh escaping his lips as he leaned back slightly. "And here I thought we were making progress... She might be even more unpredictable than Lü Bu. But I've got to hand it to her—her tenacity is something else." He shook his head, both in frustration and reluctant admiration. "She just keeps pushing forward without a second glance." He turned back to Lumi'Nae, a wry, resigned smile tugging at his mouth. "Tch. Regardless of how much you nerfed Tiamat and me back there, I've still got a long way to go, haven't I?" His tone was self-deprecating, and he leaned back slightly as he took a long gulp from another smoothie Lumi'Nae had handed him. "If only I had full control of the Ouroboros Force, I wouldn't have been played like a fiddle by you. I made a fool of myself out there."
Lumi'Nae didn't miss a beat. "You sure did. You got wrecked," she replied bluntly, her tone without malice, merely factual. Her eyes gleamed with a strange mix of amusement and mild exasperation as she studied him. "Just do some bench press or something. Eat Greek yogurt. Beat her next time, yeah?"
Ouroboros stared at her for a long moment, his expression caught between disbelief and resignation. "Is that your idea of advice?" he muttered. Then, he scoffed lightly. "I suppose it's as good as any other."
Sathiel, who had been silently observing the exchange, couldn't hold back. "Lady Lumi'Nae, isn't that kind of training for mortals, specifically meatheads? Have you been reading more shonen manga?" Her voice was laced with teasing, and she narrowed her eyes with a playful challenge. "You know, I've been wanting to introduce you to this Holy Scripture that mortals and deities alike use to worship me."
With a dramatic flourish, Sathiel conjured a massive, ancient-looking book. Lumi'Nae opened it at random, her eyes skimming the text before she immediately slammed it shut.
"I'm saving the best for last, my cute Sathiel," she said with a serene saint-like expression.
Sathiel leaned in closer. "Wait a sec... You're not pulling my leg, are you?"
Lumi'Nae smiled beatifically, her tone dripping with sweetness. "Is that the face of someone who would lie? If anyone lies to you, Sathiel, I'll beat them up!"
Ouroboros shot them both a sidelong glance. He conjured a protein drink with an absent flick of his wrist. "If it works, it works," he said seriously, taking a long sip. "Besides, nothing builds character like lifting weights and eating tons of protein." His muscles already seemed to swell at the idea.
Lumi'Nae nodded sagely, her tone exaggerating the seriousness of her words. "Truuuuue. Brahhhh. Dinosaur go big. RAWR."
Ouroboros gave her an incredulous look. "I'm a dragon," he deadpanned, though there was a faint grin pulling at his lips.
The chaotic, joyful atmosphere of the amusement park hummed around them, its vibrant energy clashing with the tumultuous events they had just endured. Yet, amid the swirling chaos, there was something almost comforting about it. The carefree laughter, the flashing lights, the cotton candy and carnival games—it all felt strangely out of place, yet at the same time, it anchored him. For just a fleeting moment, Ouroboros found himself pausing, allowing the bizarre, mundane normalcy of it all to wash over him.
Perhaps, after all, there was more to life than the endless conflict.
Does perfect writing exist?
