Inside the city of Tartarus, outside of the Athenaeum, a single figure can be seen running toward the Athenaeum, with her red hair flowing backwards with her butterfly hairpin holding her hair together.
This is, of course, none other than Vora Lamesar.
Now, she is not wearing her standard SOM uniform but her combat uniform.
She wears a black full-dress uniform with a metal plate over the collar. The jacket of this uniform has golden rimming across the cuffs, collar, and lapels. She also wears tight black pants with golden adornments on the calves and simple black shoes that have small platforms. She also wears white gloves and a black hat adorned with the emblem of SOM.
Her blue eyes, full of concern, locked on the Athenaeum's building. Both her legs are moving at a breakneck pace, and she is trying to make her way to the building as fast as possible, with every step echoing throughout the entire city.
'Kai, why? Why are you doing all of this?' Vora thought to herself while still running toward the Athenaeum.
However, she comes to an immediate halt and quickly stands still on the spots, eyes widening, clearly in shock.
Vora can feel the temperature of the whole city starts to increase, and she can even feel the Zether in the air move and gather toward the Athenaeum. The wind begins to pick up and blow Vora's crimson hair, with her hand grabbing hold of her hat, stopping it from getting blown away.
'This feeling...' Vora's eyes immediately widen, knowing full well what is happening at the Athenaeum.
"No... If he uses that, nothing might be left of the city!" Vora shouts before continuing to make her way toward the Athenaeum, with her speed much faster than before.
'Kai, please! You are going too far!' Vora thought.
Up in the sky of Tartarus, a single figure can be seen looking at Vora or, more specifically, glaring down at Vora.
Samael stays high in the sky while looking down toward the city of Tartarus itself. His feature is expressionless, with his yellow eyes showing only a single emotion.
Boredom
"Look like the General finally activates his install." Samael said while floating aimlessly in the air, "That's the fastest so far. I guess it is coming to an end faster than I thought."
Back inside the Athenaeum, where Raven and Kai are fighting, the pillar of the burning inferno that had enveloped Kai is still there, while Raven is standing straight with both of his hands up, trying to block all of the blinding light coming from the pillar of flame.
While the wind current is still blowing strong, before it suddenly stops, the pillar of flame also disappears, revealing Kai standing there. His appearance is now visibly changed, with him still wearing his SOM uniform; he is now wearing a pair of crimson steel gauntlets and boots.
His spear also changes in appearance, with both ends now having a crimson colour blade coming out of it, the pole of the spear now turning charcoal black, and subtle red markings running along the bar.
The air itself seemed to burn from the heat coming from Kai, with Raven feeling his skin becoming as dry as sand; the very moisture of the air itself had been dry up from the heat coming from Kai alone. With Raven's throat becoming parched, Raven can feel as if his blood starts to heat up from this independently.
"It seems that you still have more tricks in your sleeves," Raven says, glaring straight at Kai, who also stares back at Raven before rolling his eyes.
"This will be quick," Kai says before swinging his spear upward in a similar motion that Raven was very similar.
"Blazing Moon" With a voice as calm as still water itself, Kai sends forward a single crescent shape flame toward Kai.
However, this time, the speed of the attack has increased massively, and the size of the attack can be said to be quite massive, with its height reaching the very ceiling of the gigantic hallway itself.
Burning everything it touches, Raven barely has enough time to step away from the attack, narrowly missing him by a skin that had become very dry.
The attack continues to move along the hallway, burning up everything in its path. The sound of it soaring through the air can be heard clearly throughout the entire hall before Raven can listen to the very wall of the building itself being destroyed, indicating that the attack has travelled outside the building and continue to move into the empty sky.
'Shit! There is no way I will survive if I get hit by one of those! Blocking it also seems impossible because of the heat coming out of it!' Raven thought before looking back at Kai, 'I need to finish him off fast!'
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"Blazing Moonsong!!"
Kai follows his attack by sending waves of attacks toward Raven; the numerous crescents flame soar through the air like missiles, with their speed and intensity eclipsing any bullets. The same hallway of the Athenaeum itself starts to burst into flame; even rock and stone melt like butter due to the amount of flame and intensity coming off it.
Melting all things, burning the creation itself, the flame and heat of the Longanimis destroy everything in its path.
Raven's heterochromatic eyes stare at the coming waves of flames threatening to burn him and his very existence out of the world. As if facing the inferno of hell, Raven did not panic and cleared his mind before taking a deep breath, letting the hot air into his lungs.
Time seemed to slow down, the very world seemingly came to a halt, and everything seemed to move in slow-motion in Raven's eyes. In that split second, Raven's right arm starts to have strange markings appear on his arms before those marking start to move to form a circle on his hand.
The very same circle that Raven is very similar with.
Putting up his right hand in front of him, Raven did not try to move nor dodge the attack and was ready to take the inferno head-on. Standing tall, readying to face his death, Raven's desire to survive is as high as ever.
Before the flame could reach him, Raven says something, seemingly to himself, in a quiet voice.
"Go, eat them all."
At that very moment, the circle on Raven's right hand glowed brightly in a green light, but the light from the flames was still brighter than the light from Raven's arms. However, for Raven, that was not important to him.
When that bright green light starts to shine, Kai's eyes are still being to spot it despite the light from the flame. As if knowing what happened next, Kai rushes forward, with speed so fast that it seems to break the very sound barrier itself.
However, despite his insane speed, he is still too slow.
Because at that very moment, the air itself stops.
No, to say the air itself was stopped would be wrong. The thing that stopped was not the air but the world.
Everything seemed to freeze at that moment, as if time had stopped. It was like the divine had intervened at this very moment.
And suddenly, like thunder striking in the dark, the torrent of crescent flame, the Zether in the air, everything in that same area, moves.
Move toward the right arm of Raven, the right arm that starts to consume everything right into it, causing the flame to move like a water wave into the right arm of Raven.
Kai immediately halts his track by stabbing his spear right into the floor, stopping his motion. With eyes wide, he holds the spear tightly, preventing himself from being pulled into the wave of flame by the air itself.
'His right arm is pulling everything into it. It is pulling in my flame and Zether itself!' Kai thought, 'The intensity of it...! It is like a black hole!'
Kai stands strong while gripping tightly onto his spear, stopping himself from also being pulled in.
'But there is a limit on the distance of this power.' Kai thought before looking around, 'And it seems that he can only pull in something made from Zether, and he cannot pull in physical objects.'
Finally, after a few seconds, the flame itself had entirely disappeared, leaving the destruction caused by the flame behind.
Standing there, Raven is holding his right wrist tightly, as if he were in immense pain, with his breath ragged and sweat running along his forehead; his heterochromatic eyes stare straight at Kai, who is also looking back at him.
"So that the infamous Crown of Desire. It seems that its reputation is well earned." Kai says before twirling his spear and taking his stance, "However, you still do not have perfect control over it, and that move of your have taken a lot of you. It seems that this is your end!"
Kai rushes forward with his spears bursting in flame, readying to strike down Raven right then and there.
However, before that can happen, Kai stops right in the middle of his track, stopping his attack, and Raven can only look at Kai's sudden halt in confusion.
Visibly gritting his teeth, one of Kai's hands moves and clutches tightly onto his chest before blood starts to come out of his eyes and mouth, while his leg started to shake, and the only reason that he was still standing was that he was using his spear as a crutch right now.
"W-why now!?" Before coughing out massive blood, Kai says, "Just a bit more!!"
Kai shouts, trying to move forward; however, he immediately loses consciousness when he takes a single step. His gauntlets and boots instantly disappear in particles of bright light, and his spear seemingly transforms into what it looked like before.
Kai's body hits the ground, and his Arch Magia disappear in particles of light like his gauntlets and boots, leaving Raven to look down at the unconscious Kai, that is lying in his blood in confusion.
"What the fuck...?" Raven says to himself before shaking his head and calming his breathing before trying to stand straight.
He then starts to walk deeper into the hallway, but before he does, he glances back at the unconscious Kai's body, seeing how he is still alive; Raven only looks at him for a second before shaking his head and moving forward, leaving the unconscious body of Kai alone in the hallway.
Standing on top of one of the destroyed pillars of the building, out of view of Raven and Kai, stood the creature that was talking to Raven from before.
"Such a tragedy for you, Mr Avenger. So much power in your hand, yet destiny decides to be a cruel mistress for you. You will never get what you truly desire no matter what cycle." The creature spoke calmly while looking at unconscious Kai before looking at where Raven had gone, "But no matter what happened, the wheel of destiny will keep moving, and until the Eyes have been bestowed, your desire, no, everyone's desire, will never come true."