With a battle cry loaded with ancient fury, Balor hurled himself personally against Marshmallow, leading the advance of his infernal troops like a demonic general. His sword of flames hurled scorching whirlwinds with each slash.

Marshmallow soon retreats under the relentless barrage of physical and magical blows. He had long since erected a barrier of light, but it dangerously thinned every time Balor's sword hammered it with a flurry of brutal impacts. His energy reserves were rapidly depleting as he fought to maintain his defense against the unleashed assault.

A single moment of hesitation as Balor charged a stun projectile of pure thermal energy... and the barrier shattered into myriad fragments, leaving Marshmallow exposed to the eternal flames.

"Da-Damn it!"

A vortex of fire engulfed him from all directions. Marshmallow was sucked into that glowing whirlwind. Roaring more in anger than from physical torture, he found himself dragged deeper into that maelstrom of fiery torment. Every inch of his skin was a burning torch, his very blood boiling under that wave of primordial fire.

From a distance, the Goat Horse could only stare in horror as the crimson glow that was Marshmallow vanished, swallowed by that blazing hell. Had he finally met an opponent that truly pushed him to the limits of his capabilities?

"Look, worm!" Balor's triumphant voice boomed all around as his immense body emerged from the vortex of flames. "This is the true power of the eternal flames under my command! Not even your arrogance can withstand the fire that annihilates everything!"

The blaze flared up in a final wave of blinding heat with Balor at the center, his arm extended as if to force Marshmallow to surrender to that scorching furnace. The tongues of flame seemed to come alive in a dance of death around their lord, voracious and relentless in their goal to incinerate everything.

"Choose surrender or total incineration!" Balor growled with a hot breath that melted the rock at his feet. "Not even you can escape the fire that dissolves everything! The eternal flames have finally revealed your humiliating insignificance!"

A long moment of silence echoed in the depths of that volcanic palace, the only sound the ceaseless crackling of the all-consuming fire in its deadly embrace...

Until a detonation of dazzling energy ripped through the fire vortex from the inside, releasing a shockwave so powerful that it even dispersed the eternal flames in their infernal dance!

From the heart of that fiery vortex, a dazzling crimson light erupted in a whirlwind of devastating energy. Balor was hit by a shockwave so powerful that it sent him crashing against the obsidian walls of his palace, the ancient walls trembling from the foundation under the impact.

When the blinding glow cleared, Marshmallow was standing again at the center of the arena. His body was a landscape of burns and smoking wounds, his flesh melted and stitched back together in a horribly twisted form. Yet, his eyes burned with relentless ferocity, his crimson aura furiously flickering around him in a vortex of incandescent light particles.

"Did you really think... your amateur flames... were enough to stop me?" Marshmallow's voice was hoarse and twisted with the excruciating pain he must have been enduring, but it was thick with unwavering determination.

Balor's blinding eyes widened, his immense form struggling to rise again from the rubble. "I-Impossible... what are you, really?"

A grotesque smile spread across Marshmallow's disfigured face. "Your... worst... nightmare..."

With an effort that tore a groan of agony from him, Marshmallow spread his arms and let all his energy reserves flow into the crimson aura surrounding him. Particles of light gathered to form a solid shell around his body, ready to contain the tremendous power he was about to unleash.

"Prepare to burn, King of Flames..." he growled, his voice filled with an almost inhuman intensity. "This will be your oblivion!"

The crimson light particles swirled around Marshmallow, gathering into an incandescent sphere between his hands. The very air seemed to vibrate with energy, making the molten rock ground tremble.

Balor stepped back alarmed at the shocking spectacle. "What madness are you plotting, worm?"

A warped grin curled Marshmallow's disfigured lips as he poured every last reserve of his life force into that whirlwind of pure energy. "I'm about to show you... true oblivion!"

The crimson sphere pulsed dangerously like a mad heartbeat, expanding with each swirling cycle of particles until it reached terrifying dimensions. The heat it emitted was so intense that even Balor began to sweat magma from the pores of his armor.

With a roar that seemed to tear the very atmosphere, Marshmallow stretched his arms out towards his target, channeling all his willpower into that supreme effort. The explosion of energy that followed would have scorched the soul of anyone foolish enough to try to withstand it.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"BEHOLD IN TERROR THE OVERDRIVE!" he bellowed, his voice hollowed by agony but etched with absolute determination. "OBLIVION!"

In a blinding flash, the crimson sphere of light exploded in a cataclysmic beam that shot across the palace like a miniature supernova. The devastating shockwave shook the obsidian foundations, making them tremble as if made of papier-mâché.

Balor didn't even have time to scream before the blazing beam engulfed him, vaporizing his armor in the blink of an eye. The flames of his body began to blacken and crumble under the intensity of the extreme heat.

With a deafening rumble, the beam swept everything in its path in a total explosion of devastation. The ancient walls of the palace were disintegrated into burning dust, dissolving like ashes in the fury of that unstoppable blow.

Marshmallow maintained the discharge with a groan of inhuman effort, his body reduced to little more than a blazing furnace as the Overdrive Oblivion sucked away the last remnants of his strength. Yet his iron will burn more intensely than the explosion, a fire that is impossible to extinguish.

The echo of the final blast resonated through the entire mountain, the volcanic corridors crumbling one after another under the weight of such immense destructive force. Wherever the Overdrive passed, solid magma flared up and re-solidified into a layer of black rock, stitched together by the high temperatures.

When the last echo of the explosion finally dissolved, only a vast blackened crater remained of Balor's realm, a portal opened onto the darkness of oblivion itself. A dense silence fell over that apocalyptic scene, broken only by a faint crimson glow in the distance...

Marshmallow had survived the impact of his ultimate weapon, barely able to stand. His body was now little more than a mass of burnt flesh, the skin fused directly with the bones in many places. Yet his eyes glowed with one last spark of triumph, fixed on the smoking crater where Balor once reigned.

With a guttural groan, Marshmallow fell to his knees, life ebbing from him like the last echo of that titanic explosion. But a fierce grin continued to ripple across his disfigured lips, marred by burns and wounds.

"I told you..." he managed to mutter before darkness swallowed him. "You were just... an insect..."

Then he collapsed to the ground, exhausted yet victorious, the smoking crater symbolizing his overwhelming supremacy even in the abyss of oblivion. King Balor the Immortal was no more... incinerated by the very fury of the Overdrive.

***

A cavernous creak echoed from the depths of the crater as a glimmer of light began to reflect off the blackened walls. From the ashes, the form of Balor slowly began to take shape, reassembling atom by atom from the primordial flames that animated his immortal existence.

"Hey you..." a scratchy yet calm voice resonated as Balor appeared anew, his body of magma reshaped into new formidable armor. "Well done, mortal. I have faced such a tsunami of fury and power only once before..."

Marshmallow struggled to lift his gaze, his half-closed eyes barely focusing on the reborn figure of the Immortal King. "How... how is it possible? I destroyed every fiber of your being..."

A faint smile played across Balor's indomitable face. "I too once thought I was invincible thanks to the immortality of the flames. But true wisdom is gained by overcoming extreme trials... and you have shown a strength so rare as to deserve this."

With a fluid motion of his immense arms, Balor conjured a flaming amulet, a talisman of primordial power channeled into the fire itself.

"This is the Amulet of Flames I guard," his thundering voice echoed in the devastated palace. "Giving you this relic will be my final act for you."

Marshmallow's exhausted eyes widened, shaken by those unexpected words. "But... why?"

Balor's face suddenly darkened. "What you have just experienced here, mortal is but the blandest of antechambers to the abyss that lies beyond... Towards the infinite flames of true Hell."

A shiver ran down Marshmallow's spine at those cryptic words. "You mean... there's something worse than this?"

"Oh yes..." Balor's growl turned ominous. "The flames you faced here, with all their horror and fury, are nothing compared to the Dark Furnace that burns in the deepest recesses of Vesuvietna. An oblivion so total as to dissolve even the soul's essence itself."

The Flame King held Marshmallow's gaze with an almost reverential intensity. "Another like you has already challenged us in the past, you know? Raven... a warrior of antimatter, an element as hot and disruptive. He too managed to defeat me despite my immortality, then went beyond the Ultima Gate..."

"And what happened?" Marshmallow asked weakly.

Balor slowly shook his head, his gaze filled with ancient memories. "He had to return empty-handed. You therefore have a choice, mortal: you can return to the veiled woman to deliver the Amulet as proof of your endeavor... or you can cross the ultimate portal, and challenge the flames that dissolve everything."

For long moments, silence fell in the devastated palace. Then Marshmallow nodded weakly. "I know what I must do. Raven has already been here, and even he could not face what comes next... but I am different. I will go beyond and succeed where even a warrior of his caliber has failed!"

A solemn smile painted Balor's lips. "Then win, Mortal, and may your heart be hotter than the flames themselves..."

The Amulet of Flames lit up with an intense crimson glow. It shined like a blazing ruby clenched in the fist of an implacable deity. It levitated in a hypnotic orbit around Marshmallow, enveloping him in a fiery aura.

"Aaarrrghhh!" A groan of rebirth erupted from Marshmallow's lips. Flickering flames stitched every tear. Fiery tongues welded shattered bones. Millions of sparks seemed to reforge every fiber of his destroyed being, regenerating him from the foundations in an apotheosis of divine heat.

"I am reborn..." he gasped hoarsely between puffs of smoke. Muscles recomposed one by one under his renewed skin, tone and vigor flowing back into a now perfect body.

Burns? Erased. Wounds? Healed. In just moments, his body was reconstructed by the same flames that had once threatened to incinerate him.