CLEAVER OF SIN-Chapter 106: Equilibrium

In an apocalyptic clash, katana met scythe with cataclysmic force. The reverberation of steel striking steel echoed like thunder across the greenery battlefield. A burst of sparks flared at the moment of contact, only to be swallowed instantly by the rippling shockwave that followed.

A resonant metallic clang tore through the very fabric of sound, as though reality itself struggled to register their speed. Their duel carved through the air, leaving behind arcs of sharpened intent, visible trails of killing will.

Each blow unleashed concussive shockwaves that fractured stone and uprooted trees, a storm of destruction born from their fury. They moved like incarnations of wrath, savage and lethal.

The oppressive weight of their battle suffocated the air, thick with the scent of looming death. Between them stretched a void, silent, absolute, filled only with flickering steel and overwhelming force. One misstep, a single breath drawn out of rhythm, and the confrontation would end in a blood burst.

Still, they moved, relentlessly, each slash and cleave rending through existence itself, as though rewriting the very fabric of reality with every strike.

Cleave met slash.

Slash clashed with slash.

Slash collided with cleave.

Technique collided with technique.

Two blurs of motion.

Two harbingers of destruction.

Two incarnations of madness.

Two beings forged at the pinnacle of existence.

In the span of mere seconds, millions of blows were exchanged, each strike aimed with lethal precision toward vital points: the heart, the eyes, the brain, the liver, the ankles.

Nothing was off-limits. Yet every assault was met with perfect deflection, each parry flowing with uncanny synchronicity, as if they were reflections of one another, twins in spirit, birthed by different mothers.

Silhouettes tore through the air, moving far beyond the grasp of reality, too swift for time itself to measure. Even Mach was a feeble metric, inadequate to capture the speed at which they crossed vast kilometers in less than a blink.

In mere seconds, an entire forest, spanning over a thousand kilometers, was reduced to desolation. The land lay in ruins, with smoke and ash rising like mourning spirits, veiling the skies and obscuring any attempt at perception.

Yet within the swirling chaos, they clashed without hesitation. Blades met in a dance so fierce, it felt almost intimate, like estranged lovers reunited through violence. Streaks of black and blue carved through the void, erasing all other colors, as though the world itself had yielded to their dominion.

With a thunderous boom, both figures vanished in a single blip, reality itself unable to trace their movement, as their battle shifted to a new arena: the boundless ocean.

In a single, fluid motion, the scythe cleaved through the air. The wind collapsed under its overwhelming pressure, folding in submission before a devastating crescent blade of compressed air roared into existence. It surged forward with murderous intent, raw, unfiltered, unstoppable.

No technique.

No Astra.

No ability.

Just sheer physical might, power so immense it threatened to rewrite the laws of Crymora itself.

The atmosphere shrieked as the wind blade surged across the ocean, carving the entire ocean in two with surgical precision. Water parted violently, forming a ravine of liquid fury beneath the heavens.

But the katana refused to be eclipsed.

Mid-swing, it vanished into a blur, and in its wake, the wind folded again, this time in reverence. A second force erupted forward, equally relentless, promising destruction that rivaled the gods.

With a maddening collision, the twin wind slashes met, crossing each other in midair, forming a luminous cross shape that split the space.

And then — impact.

The world was consumed in blinding white. A thunderous detonation followed as a colossal tsunami rose, towering with divine fury, as if the entire ocean sought to engulf the Empire in vengeance. The parted ocean was slammed shut by the sheer force, folding violently upon itself.

The aftermath was cataclysmic.

The ocean’s hue darkened, stained by chaos and death. Countless creatures, monsters, beasts, and fish alike, were shredded into oblivion, their forms unable to withstand the raw, ungodly force unleashed in that fleeting instant.

Even the rising tsunami could not halt their collision. They plunged headlong into the surging tide, their forms vanishing into the churning abyss.

Beneath the mountainous waves, they clashed once more, gliding effortlessly across the ocean’s surface, as if the laws of buoyancy and balance had been stripped from existence. In that moment, even Archimedes’ principle held no meaning.

With two precise slashes, the ocean was sundered, not just vertically, but horizontally as well, cleaved in two directions like parchment beneath a blade.

And then it happened.

The seabed, long strained beneath the crushing weight of the waters above, could no longer endure. It collapsed, an ancient foundation giving way. With its fall, the ocean roared in primal force, no longer contained by the boundaries of its basin.

It surged outward in a furious tide, seeking to drown the world that had once stood safely beyond its reach.

But Malrik and Orvak didn’t care.

The world held no meaning.

Not the sky, not the ocean, not the crumbling realm around them.

Only their opponent mattered. Only the clash.

Only the katana. Only the scythe.

Only this moment, this sacred exchange, nothing else.

With an ear-splitting boom, both warriors plunged beneath the waves. Yet even submerged, they moved as if born of the ocean, cutting through the crushing depths as if water offered no resistance at all.

Their weapons clashed in a frenzy of motion, relentless and precise, unaffected by the weight of the deep. Steel sang in defiance of pressure, sound, and logic.

They streaked across the ocean with impossible speed, faster than any creature that had ever known the ocean. Even the leviathans would have seemed still in comparison.

Their feet crashed onto the seabed with seismic force. The already fractured ocean floor gave way completely, transforming into a massive sinkhole, a yawning void that pulled at the surrounding waters like the mouth of the abyss.

The pressure of the deep intensified, bearing down upon Malrik and Orvak like the weight of a dying world. Yet their movements never faltered. Their blades never slowed. Not for a heartbeat. Not for a breath.

With another thunderous clash, a tempest forged from steel, the water within a twenty kilometer radius violently displaced, as if forcefully vaporized by the sheer magnitude of their collision. For a fleeting moment, the ocean was gone, peeled back by the overwhelming energy that surged between them.

The ocean floor revealed itself once more beneath the chaos, but before it could reclaim its silence, a katana crashed down with terrifying precision. It cleaved through the seabed, not the already ruined terrain, but the very foundation beneath it, splitting the ocean’s bones in two.

Orvak and Malrik vanished once more, leaving behind what was once a beautiful ocean, now reduced to ruin, stripped of life and form, without a second thought.

Their figures reappeared high above, suspended midair, a blur of motion as a flurry of attacks erupted between them. Their feet found perfect balance atop a drifting cloud, treating vapor as if it were solid ground.

Neither paused to breathe.

Neither spared a thought.

They moved with supernatural ease, blades dancing faster than the eye could follow, while the trembling cloud beneath them strained to carry the weight of gods.

Above them, the moon bathed the sky in a cascade of silver light, as though it smiled upon the clash, blessing it with a sacred stillness.

They fought like the incarnations of forgotten wars, echoes of ancient battles reborn in flesh and fury. Their weapons tore through the air, each strike a verse in a violent hymn, each motion defying the laws of war.

They were not men.

They were storms.

Tempests given form, locked in a dance of annihilation.

Their duel bore the weight of history itself, each blow a collision of past and present, each clash an echo of empires lost and legends buried.

Their blades sliced the wind, severed clouds, and split even the fabric of space that dared to exist between them. They did not fight for glory, nor for conquest.

They fought for absolute certainty, for the undeniable truth written in the clash of steel.

And then, the cloud, burdened by a weight even oceans could not hold, finally surrendered. It collapsed, dissolving into rainfall.

But Orvak and Malrik were already gone. Their bodies had surged forward, streaking toward the next cloud in their endless warpath across the heavens.

They seemed equal, two forces locked in perfect symmetry, as if the battle itself hovered in a delicate equilibrium.

But such balance cannot last.

There can be no peace in this storm.

One must fall. One must rise. One must live.