A white burst of nothingness consumed the crater. The landscape quaked violently, sending crude vibrations through the wind to where Northern floated.
The battle between Nebulous Lord and the Abysmal Belial had grown intense, devastatingly intense in just minutes.
Even Abyss Tyrant, finished with his own fight, stood beside Paragon Raizel on a distant building, silently watching the catastrophic clash unfold.
Paragon Raizel's face revealed a tangled web of emotions.
Confusion ravaged the poor man to his core. He had never witnessed a battle like this.
Northern felt the same. He had fought many terrifying battles himself, but watching one of this magnitude was unprecedented.
He understood Burning Storm's struggle to comprehend this chaos.
As the dust settled, both monsters stood.
Breathing. Trembling. But alive.
A demented red light burned in the Abysmal Belial's eyes, while a white spark of mad determination glowed in the depths of Nebulous Lord's.
Then the Abysmal Belial moved. Fast.
Its silhouette blurred, then vanished, materializing behind Nebulous Lord with a shriek of tearing wind. Before impact, space around its claws folded inward like crumpled paper.
The strike connected.
Nebulous Lord's head snapped sideways. The sound—like a mountain crushing under an avalanche—echoed across the ruins. His body hurled backward, a thunderclap marking his path. Walls crumbled in a ten-meter arc. A crater formed where he landed, ground sinking beneath his weight.
Before he could rise, the Abysmal Belial pounced.
One leg dropped like heaven's judgment, knee-first into his chest.
The shockwave vaporized surrounding debris. Dust columns shot skyward. Cracks spread for hundreds of meters like veins across earth. Below them, buried sewer lines ruptured. A tremor raced through the ruined cityscape, knocking Northern back in midair.
Nebulous Lord's ribcage shattered.
He twitched, but the damned abomination pressed on.
Its claws seized him by the wings and dragged him. Across concrete, over scorched steel and broken remnants of market stalls. Nebulous Lord's body split open on debris, dark fluid marking a trail of destruction. Each pull wrenched joints apart. Each second ground bone to powder.
Then it hurled him.
Nebulous Lord crashed through a six-story building. Concrete exploded on impact. Steel bars bent around him like ribbon. He burst from the opposite side in a cloud of dust, barely steadying himself before the Abysmal Belial flashed before him again.
It moved too fast, landing another blow, this time to the chest.
An uppercut charged with spatial compression. It didn't merely launch Nebulous Lord skyward—it twisted his trajectory. He spun midair, cutting across the battlefield like a fallen meteor, smashing through a hillside on the crater's edge.
Boom.
The hillside crumbled.
And the world shuddered with it.
A pause. Just a heartbeat.
Then—boom boom boom—the Abysmal Belial marched forward. Each step compressed air so violently it created visible ripples. The battlefield darkened further under its presence.
Its arms peeled back as it exhaled, breathing annihilation again. The air in its path turned to static, buzzing and folding inward.
It meant to erase Nebulous Lord completely.
From the rubble of the collapsed hillside, Nebulous Lord emerged—but barely. One knee buckled. One wing hung shredded and useless. His head lifted slowly, painfully. A hole gaped in his chest. He didn't roar. He didn't growl.
He endured through agony.
But the Abysmal Belial was already there.
It seized his head.
And drove it into the earth.
Once.
Twice.
Thrice.
Each impact sent a shockwave outward. Trees in the distance bent backward at impossible angles, their trunks snapping from the force. The ground around them sank, caving beneath the overwhelming pressure. Nebulous Lord's skull cracked loudly on the third blow, ash pouring from his mouth.
The Abysmal Belial hoisted him up.
Hurled him into the sky.
And then—
It touched the ground again.
Its Essence Manifestation expanded once more.
A second wave of spatial denial swept across the terrain, widening the lifeless ring. Everything within its reach simply vanished from reality. The air grew thick. No sound. No movement. Just terrible stillness.
Northern narrowed his eyes.
'What in the… hell…'
Even the sky was fading to ash.
But as the Abysmal Belial took flight again, wings spread, about to deliver the final strike—
The ground beneath it... hissed.
A dull, low heat flickered from cracks in the earth. A slow, steady breath. Not a flame.
A burning.
The opposite of the Abysmal Belial's domain.
Where it erased the memory of burning—this was the process, stretched infinitely.
The earth began to cook.
The soil glowed. Black steam rose from below. And from above—
Nebulous Lord fell back.
His broken body landed on its feet.
Smoke poured from his mouth like a dragon exhaling destruction.
And something had changed.
The ground around him wavered—not with light, but with heat, thick and suffocating, like a furnace awakening inside the world. The sky above took on a bloody hue, clouds streaked with threads of ember and glowing coal.
This was no longer the Abysmal Belial's world.
It was his.
A domain born not of death—but of endless, relentless suffering. Where nothing vanished. Only burned slowly, constantly, denied release.
Northern exhaled.
"He's awakening his own Manifestation..."
It made sense. Nebulous was now a Catastrophic Behemoth; they could connect with their environment and imprint their will upon it.
Evoking Essence Manifestation. If Nebulous Lord possessed anything in abundance, it was an insurmountable and dangerous will.
A thin smile formed on Northern's face.
'Good. Good. This is so good!'
He watched like a spectator at the ultimate battle. It was exhilarating.
The Abysmal Belial's Essence flickered.
Its claws twitched.
Then it dropped.
Fast.
Straight down.
But this time—when it reached the boundary of Nebulous Lord's domain—it slowed.
As if time thickened.
Its wings dragged like syrup. Its form distorted in the heat haze. The very act of movement became torture.
Nebulous Lord stood motionless.
He raised a hand.
The air ignited.
Not with fire.
But with weight.
The burning space wrapped around the Abysmal Belial like molten chains, pulling at its wings, its joints, its essence.
The monster screamed.
It twisted midair, forcing its way down with raw power—and struck.
Another clash.
But this time—
It faltered.
Nebulous Lord caught the blow.
And the ground remained whole beneath him.
The Abysmal Belial did not.
Its wrist shattered from the impact. A spiral fracture climbing to the elbow. The burning had taken hold.
The tide was turning.
And the war between obliteration and torment was only beginning.