The air between Luna and the King of the Black Mist did not just hum. It screamed.

For the past ten minutes, the Eastern Front had watched the terrifying stalemate. The King’s massive, midnight black broadsword was pressed against Luna’s invisible palm. The dark magic of the ancient commander clashed against the gravity of the Night Emperor. But a mortal body was never meant to hold the weight of the universe.

CRACK!

A loud, sickening sound suddenly echoed across the dead plains. It didn’t come from the broadsword. It came from the empty air.

Luna gasped vehemently. The invisible dome of gravity above his hand visually shattered like a pane of glass. The moment the gravity shield broke, the tall warlord forced the massive broadsword downward.

Luna didn’t have Kairos’ monstrous base Agility. He couldn’t blur into a sprint. But he had total control over his own mass. In a fraction of a second, Luna reversed his own gravity, making his physical body weightless. He simply hovered away as the air pressure pushed his weightless form out of danger.

BOOM!

The massive black broadsword missed Luna, crashing into the gray ash where he had just been standing. The sheer physical force of the King’s strike was devastating. It rigidly split the dead earth, carving a massive, jagged canyon fifty yards long and kicking up a cloud of dark dirt.

Luna landed softly thirty feet away, instantly restoring his normal gravity so his boots anchored him to the ground. He bent forward, clutching his left eye. He let out a ragged, agonizing cough.

Thick, shimmering silver blood poured freely from his cosmic eye, running down his pale cheek and dripping onto the collar of his uniform jacket. The inside of his skull felt like it was boiling. Every single time he projected the infinite mana outward, it caused tears in his mortal brain tissue.

"You are bleeding starlight, little Emperor," the King of the Black Mist mocked. The warlord’s hollow, echoing voice carried through the dust cloud.

The skewering commander walked slowly out of the crater, dragging his massive double-edged sword effortlessly with one hand.

"You possess a fraction of the Primordial Law," the King continued, his jagged iron crown unbothered by the howling wind. "But you do not have the divine blood of the gods to anchor it. Your friend in the south bathed in holy light to survive his power. You did not. You are just a fragile human actively destroying your own mind."

Luna wiped the silver blood from his face with the back of his sleeve. His right eye was blurry, but his shining left eye stared at the dark warlord.

"My mind is fine," Luna smirked, though his pale skin betrayed his exhaustion. "I just have a slight headache. Nothing a good nap won’t fix."

The King of the Black Mist simply raised his massive sword.

"Then I will put you to sleep," the commander whispered.

The King moved with terrifying speed for a monster of his size. He crossed the thirty feet of empty space in a single, massive bound. He used raw physical domination. He swung the black broadsword in a brutal, horizontal sweep aimed to cut Luna in half.

Luna didn’t try to block it with a gravity shield. He knew the King’s physical strength was equal to Dyrroth’s; it would just shatter the shield and crush him anyway.

Luna manipulated the gravity beneath the King’s boots, increasing the earth’s pull to throw the Warlord’s swing off-balance.

The King’s massive blade dipped just a few inches, missing Luna’s waist and slicing a jagged tear through the bottom of his dark jacket. But the King was a veteran of the Void Era. He didn’t stumble. He used the downward momentum of the missed swing to spin his massive body around, delivering a brutal, armored backhand toward Luna’s chest. Luna threw his hands up, creating a layer of dense gravity just inches from his skin to act as physical armor.

The dark iron gauntlet crashed into the gravity armor. The impact sounded like a cannon firing. The gravity layer held, but the sheer shockwave transferred into Luna’s body. He was launched through the air, flying backward like a broken doll.

He crashed into the dead ash, tumbling wildly before skidding to a halt.

"Luna!" Velanor yelled from the distant granite wall, trying to push himself up, but Soltheia grabbed the earth mage’s shoulder, holding him down.

"You cannot interfere, Velanor," Soltheia warned, her voice shaking as she watched Luna bleed. "The King’s despair aura is too strong. If you step into that clearing, you will collapse, only Luna can stand near him."

Out on the plains, Luna slowly forced himself to his knees. His entire body screamed in agony. He spat a mouthful of normal red blood onto the dirt. His ribs felt like they were cracked. The left side of his face was soaked in shimmering silver blood. He looked up. The King of the Black Mist was already towering over him.

"Look at yourself," the King whispered, looking down at the battered, bloody mortal. "You broke the First Cosmic Lock to save your world. But the universe does not care about your bravery. It only crushes what does not belong, and you do not belong in the realm of gods."

The King raised the massive black broadsword high into the red sky with both hands. The dark metal hummed with pure, concentrated death, ready to execute the Night Emperor.

Luna Zephyros knelt in the dirt. He was cornered. He couldn’t use his defensive shields anymore. The King was too strong, his mortal stamina was rapidly draining. If he continued to fight a battle of endurance, the King was going to chop his head off, and the massive army of thousands of Black Mist Knights was going to slaughter Catherine, Soltheia, Velanor, and the ten thousand Solaris soldiers.

Luna closed his normal right eye. He took a slow, ragged breath. He remembered the terrifying void he had hovered in, while trapped in his coma. He remembered the massive golden chain wrapping tightly around his soul. He had shut the First Cosmic Lock to save himself from melting into the infinite dark, but if he wanted to kill the King of the Black Mist, he couldn’t stay safely behind the locked door.

Jovian is going to kill me for this, Luna thought, a fierce, reckless, and arrogant grin breaking across his bloody face. Luna didn’t raise his hands to defend himself.

He focused his mind on the massive, golden chain wrapped tightly around his own soul. The King of the Black Mist brought the massive broadsword crashing down.

"I am not a god," Luna whispered into the dead air, "but I completely own the sky."

Luna mentally grabbed the golden chain in his mind. He just violently pulled the lock exactly one millimeter wider. A fresh drop of raw, unfiltered infinite, primordial silver mana poured into his mortal brain. The silver light burning in Luna’s left eye didn’t just flare. It erupted into a terrifying supernova. The massive black broadsword stopped dead in mid-air, just one single inch above Luna’s stark white hair.

The King of the Black Mist gasped loudly. The tall warlord tried to force the blade down, but it was physically impossible. The gravity surrounding Luna hadn’t just increased. It had collapsed reality itself.

Luna slowly stood up from the dirt. The silver blood pouring from his eye vaporized into shining mist from the sheer heat of the cosmic energy burning inside his skull. He looked up at the terrified warlord.

"Your physical strength is impressive," Luna said, his voice no longer just echoing. It sounded like the vibration of the cosmos, "but physical strength means nothing when trapped in a dying star."

Luna raised his left hand, pointing a single, pale finger at the center of the King’s dark iron breastplate. He was done playing defensively. The Night Emperor was ready to crush the crown.

****

Far beyond in darkness of the mist, misty black eyes are watching the battle with a dreadful grin on his face. A single, mournful tear with blood crawled across the cheek of the skewering man. He was the Fallen Monarch, the emperor of Black Mist Knights and the strongest mind magic user from Void Era.

"Don’t waste your time for that little bastard, King", Fallen Monarch wheezed, his hands clenching tightly until the knuckles turned white. "Destroy the defense and lore into the Solaris territory, King, so we can kill the princess Seyana once again."

Back to King, the Fallen Monarch’s voice roared in his mind. The King was confused and scared at the same time.

Okay, my lord, King thought in his mind, a bead of sweat crawling from his forehead to left eye brow before obscuring the vision of left eye.

The brutal end of the battle between night emperor and warlord of black mist will be soon, and the fear on the faces of Velanor, Soltheia and Catherine was growing as the battle got intense.