Vallum weaved under Richard’s blade, slamming his fist into his armour, the impact of his fist alongside the Spectral Energy infused into it piercing his armour as Vallum felt the crunch of his ribs fracturing as blood dripped out of his nose. Richard punched into Vallum’s aura as the latter attempted to strengthen it, but to his dismay, Richard broke through, slamming Vallum in the face with his fist, as he cut off his hand.

Vallum used a Void Blast upon Richard, throwing him away and creating a small space in-between them as he regenerated his hand. Vallum launched himself toward Richard, who discarded his sword, punching Vallum in the face and shattering his veil, revealing a face shrouded by flames behind the mask as he grabbed onto Richard, stabbing into his abdomen and inflicting him with his poison.

Richard fell into space as Vallum chased after him, throwing him toward a star. Richard gasped awake, launching the star at Vallum, who stopped it, cutting it in half and watching as it exploded into a mesmerising supernova. Vallum flew toward another planet, casting a veil over it like a shield, as Richard recovered his sword, landing on the planet with Vallum.

Vallum brought forth the environment, shaping it to his liking, as an open-ended arena, like the one he created when first encountering Momo formed around the two. Vallum rushed toward Richard immediately, kicking him in the leg as he parried a strike from the former, leaping into the air and covering the arena in darkness as he sunk into the shadows. Vallum stabbed Richard from behind, piercing his midsection as he lifted him into the air, throwing him toward a pillar he created as he ricocheted him off it, feeling the rush of the fight before him as Richard’s face pummel toward his fist.

“Ardour’s Spark!” Vallum yelled, as Richard fell to the ground unconscious.

“You have been most disappointing, Richard.” Vallum imparted, raising his sword to kill him.

Before he could react, Richard swept Vallum from his legs, grabbing onto Vallum’s face and lifting himself up. Richard slammed punches into Vallum’s aura, piercing it as he shattered Vallum’s chest armour with four punches, picking him up and dragging him through the ground, slamming him down with two fists.

“Spectral Dominion: Abyss of the Soulforge.” Vallum recited, as the area of the Dominion formed around the two, striking Richard immediately to no effect, as Vallum looked on in horror. Richard slammed his fist into the ground, removing the Dominion from reality itself as he picked Vallum up, beating him relentlessly before throwing him away.

“How can this be? I am the servant of the most powerful being in the universe, the greatest champion of Chaos, how can I lose to such a… Such an insignificant opponent?!” Vallum uttered, rage building within him.

“RICHARD!” Vallum cried into the emptiness of space.

“You… You human filth! I am the Primordial incarnation of destruction! Every corner of the universe trembles at the mere inclination of my power, the echoes of despair fill its infinite expanse just as all the Primordial fears do! I am Lord Vallum, I have fought thousands of opponents stronger than you, killed my own brethren and slain those who would oppose my master before the concept of time existed! You are nothing but a human, and all humans fall before me. Your pride means nothing, some small trophy of human emotion is no match for that which can unmake creation itself! This insolence ends now! I will keep you alive long enough to spread your blood across the stars! I will not be beaten by the mere extension of a human emotion!” Vallum yelled, his words echoing for distances untold by any measurement as he burst into purple and blue flames, his power increasing to a level unseen within the universe in eons.

Vallum’s screams of anguish and anger reached the infinite distances of the universe, as he immediately blitzed Richard, grabbing his face and slamming him into the planet, shattering his bones as he cut his leg off by the knee. He disarmed Richard immediately as he punched him in the face, reeling in his left arm toward his midsection.

“Ardour’s Spark!” Vallum yelled, launching Richard into space as they flew toward the centre of the galaxy.

The supermassive black hole in its centre stared back at them. Vallum slammed Richard into the black hole, watching with glee as he fell into its event horizon.

"I won't let you be the victor, there will come no day where I die the loser!" Richard roared.

Richard’s screams filled the void of the black hole as it shrunk into the palm of his hand to the utter shock of Vallum, Richard crushed it in-between his hands, detonating an implosion that encapsulated the entire andromeda galaxy, destroying everything within its bounds.

Vallum floated in the void left by the detonation, looking over to Richard, who smiled at him.

"Not bad Richard. Let's just hope I don't wake up first." Vallum imparted as a small amount of blood spewed out of his mouth as he felt his consciousness slip, drifting idly in space.

“Do you see it, Momo?” Rancour asked, seeing the beautifully tragic explosion of the neighbouring galaxy.

Momo said nothing, turning his attention back to Rancour, determined to kill him before he could regain anymore of his strength. Momo charged at Rancour, slamming his fist into his face as Rancour placed his palm on Momo’s stomach, coating his midsection in cuts, lacerating him deeply as he spit blood onto Rancour’s face, regenerating his wounds.

Rancour grabbed Momo, launching them into the air and casting a seal over Earth before throwing Momo down onto the surface below, shattering his back before stomping on his midsection, knocking him unconscious.

“You have a long way to come, my young vessel.” Rancour remarked, as he saw a glimmer in the corner of his eye, as Amirah descended to the side of her master.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Good timing, you would do well to restore me, I can feel his power drawing closer to escape every coming second.” Rancour ordered.

Amirah brought out the highest extent of Rancour’s power, as his eyes lit up with invigoration, an explosion of darkness blotting out all light from every corner of the universe for a few seconds, before showing the figure of the reborn Rancour. Rancour’s red eyes looked out below himself, his beautiful face and figure making him the perfect monster, a monster of pure beauty.

Rancour cackled, his maniacal laughs echoing out throughout the universe as it trembled at his power, the very fabric of reality being torn apart as the timeline began to fracture and lose its natural state. Time itself began to become blurred, as past present and future began to become muddled, the universe continued becoming more and more unstable, expanding infinite distances and receding them simultaneously in a state of total chaos.

As quickly as it had started, the chaos stopped. All the damage done by Rancour was entirely mended, and the Andromeda galaxy returned to its original form. King Raúl appeared, in a regal dress that accentuated his newfound muscularity, his beautiful green eyes glowing under the moonlight with the feeling of calmness emanating from them in contrast to Rancour’s red ones, which seemed to choke the air from every pocket of existence around him, despite his newfound beauty.

“I’m surprised you made it back this fast, my King.” Rancour remarked sarcastically.

“It wasn’t as fast as you’d think.” Raúl replied briskly.

“Yes. Although I don’t know much of the void realm itself, I know time works differently there. It has been maybe a month here, but I assume it was far longer for you.” Rancour commented.

“Ten years.” Raúl responded.

“That does explain why you look far more imposing than before; you had some free time to take care of your body I assume?” Rancour asked.

“The Void Master taught me what I needed to know, his training and instruction was most useful.” Raúl mentioned, to Rancour’s surprise.

“I’m surprised he decided to meet you, did he tell you anything important.” Rancour inquired.

“He told me what you and I are. Order and Chaos. He also said you were a liar, to anyone but me, I am only different to you because we are brothers. Not in these bodies of course, because we are merely physical manifestations of our true selves, which reside beyond the bounds of creation.” Raúl explained.

Rancour began clapping, gently laughing as a large smile washed over him.

“I’m glad you finally realised who you truly are, my brother. I assume he also told you that we were once one. The primordial essence of every single timeline that began to branch off as thoughts, actions, words and all that our creations wished for branched off into new worlds. Every possibility to ever be thought of continued to branch off into multiverses beyond the measure of infinity. But you… You wanted things to be set in stone. Rules and regulations for ever branching timeline that came from the first creation. Of course, I thought that wasn’t fair to the beings that inhabited our worlds, so what did you do my brother, hm? What did you do?” Rancour asked, a fiery passion burning behind his eyes.

“I did it anyway, behind your back.” Raúl conceded.

“Exactly! You, with your pride for the rules and regulations, made them law, slowing down the dreams of those who wanted to be free.” Rancour yelled.

“You act as if that were a good thing, their freedom would mean allowing equals to ourselves. By the time of our separation, they had already fulfilled your vision of chaos and had made an infinite-dimensional space from the sheer complexity there was, we would be challenged for our very existence if I had not set limits for them.” Raúl countered.

“We were created to oversee them. We have and always will oversee them. Their limits were always upon the state of being that surpassed all possible extensions of space and time. They cannot even perceive what we are, they are nothingness next to us, like what dimension was to their highest civilisations. All logical and illogical possibilities for them ended with us, your order was unnecessary and defied the original design we gave them.” Rancour explicated.

“You’re wrong. They need to have limits, an order to their constantly expanding intellect. Look at what we are, brother, even in these material bodies, we threaten the existence of this timeline by simply existing, we don’t belong here, and what of those who have malice in their hearts? What if they decided to go on destroying everything below them, rooting out infinite lives and everything of beauty within them?” Raúl replied.

“They are prone to these mistakes. That is the consequence of giving them intelligence and free will, they will do what they will do, but what good is their intelligence if they are unable to use it, all we are doing in your case is making them slaves to our whims.” Rancour argued.

“We had this discussion at the beginning of existence they need guidance and strict laws to prohibit them from falling into disarray.” Raúl retorted.

“You will never concede. And neither will I, you know how this ends, brother.” Rancour declared.

“You aren’t at your full strength, I’d hate to put you down so easily, I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you a time to find the ring, and then we will fight, just like you wanted.” Raúl proposed.

“I’ll look forward to displaying your corpse to the vessel for intruding upon my plan.” Rancour replied, as he agreed to Raúl’s terms.

The search for the greatest relic of the past begins, a ticking time bomb, until the fate of all things was to lay in the hands of the two most powerful beings to ever exist within creation.