MIGHT AS WELL BE OP

Chapter 693: Fallen Sky

In a streak of blinding radiance, Klaus appeared before Voryss, his massive broadsword cleaving downward toward her neck with a force so immense it seemed capable of splitting galaxies in half.

Voryss’s molten-orange eyes brightened as she read the trajectory of the attack as though it were nothing more than an open book. Her body twisted with a fluid grace as she dodged, the massive broadsword tearing through the very fabric of space where her head had just been. But Voryss did not merely evade, she retaliated.

Her claws lashed forward like a barrage of javelins, streaking toward Klaus with murderous intent, as if she sought to rend him into fragments. But Klaus’s reaction was instantaneous. His wrist twisted with practiced precision as he drew his broadsword back in a flash. He intercepted her strike with the flat of his blade, halting her assault with seamless mastery.

A thunderclap exploded outward, the sound ripping through existence like a shrieking lament as claw met sword in an apocalyptic clash. The force of their collision birthed waves of destruction so overwhelming that the Pinnacle Realm itself quivered beneath their exchange.

They vanished instantly, their figures streaking like phantom lights through the Pinnacle Realm, tearing everything asunder in their wake.

Time itself seemed to fracture, splintering into shards of distortion as their motion approached the realm of the incomprehensible. To Klaus and Voryss, the speed of light was no different than the sluggish crawl of a snail.

They moved on a speed that boardered on insanity.

Faster than thought. Faster than sound.

Faster than light. Faster than any mortal unit of measurement could comprehend.

One moment, their battle erupted within the boundless void of space. The next, they clashed in the emptiness between dimensions. In yet another instant, they were back within the folds of the Pinnacle Realm. It was as though the very concept of speed had become meaningless, struggling to define the ferocity of these two primordial titans.

With a resounding blast, they collided once more, detonating into each other like sworn enemies destined to battle for all eternity. The air itself screamed with their madness, every exchange echoing with the hatred of gods locked in perpetual strife.

But even as their weapons and wills clashed, both remained eerily conscious of time. Their minds ticked away, counting down the seconds of the single minute they had allowed themselves for this confrontation.

Klaus’s abyssal black eyes widened with exhilaration as his massive broadsword rose high, reaching toward the heavens themselves.

With a sundering swing, a wave of pure sword Intent erupted outward, its force so immense it seemed to split the skies apart. The air quaked, the earth trembled, and sword marks exploded in all directions, cleaving through mountains, hills, and oceans as though they were fragile glass before the rage of a dying galaxy.

With explosive power, Klaus’s broadsword descended, its strike tearing mercilessly toward Voryss.

The entire Pinnacle Realm became drenched in a blinding white brilliance as his Intent rampaged without restraint, unshackled and merciless. Space and void alike were dyed in streaks of solidified sword will, each mark a promise of absolute destruction.

But Voryss did not flinch. She did not step aside, nor did she deign to dodge.

She refused to be outdone by the mere human who dared to stand before her.

Energy rippled across her claws, a surging tide of Intent so lethal that it glowed in shades of pitch black, as though prepared to devour both light and abyss without the slightest discrimination.

Her apathetic expression did not waver. With casual cruelty, her claws sliced across the air. Instantly, the already blinding white of the Pinnacle Realm was overwhelmed as a new color of annihilation roared into existence.

In an instant, two calamitous forces, each capable of severing worlds, sundering realms, collapsing planes, and extinguishing stars, collided with unimaginable violence. A maelstrom of black and white erupted, their opposing Intents blessing reality with the madness of chaos incarnate. One heartbeat, the Pinnacle Realm was drowned in light. The next, it was swallowed by endless darkness.

Sword and claw carved chasms into the earth below, sinkholes vast enough to consume entire planets yawning open. Trees older than galaxies themselves were shredded and slain, their ancient lives extinguished as though they had never existed.

But it was not only the earth that suffered. The sky above trembled beneath their fury. Clouds dissolved into nothingness, the azure hue of the sky extinguished, before the heavens themselves exploded outward like a fragile balloon stretched too far.

And then, impossibly... the sky fell.

Fragments of the shattered firmament collapsed upon them, descending like an avalanche of mountains. But Klaus and Voryss gave the cataclysm no recognition. Their mere presence alone erased the falling sky from existence, banishing it from the records of time as though it had never been.

What remained above was nothing but a vast, gaping void of emptiness, a wound in the fabric of reality itself.

As the sky perished, the Pinnacle Realm, crafted by Klaus to contain the immensity of their battle, began to crumble. It disintegrated into dust, unable to withstand the impossible forces unleashed within it.

Anthony’s blue eyes widened in horror as he gazed at the collapsing sky and the disintegrating realm. But the dome of protection that enclosed him, woven by Voryss herself, remained steadfast, untouched by the annihilation consuming everything around it.

And with the ruin of the Pinnacle Realm, Klaus and Voryss stepped unbound into the true galaxy.

Their presence thundered outward in violent storms that defied every law of existence, their power a challenge to reality itself.

From their mere existence, stars flickered and died. Comets detonated into nothingness. Planets cracked and shattered. Cosmic explosions tore through the void without mercy. The galaxy shuddered beneath the simple fact that they were present within it.

Both combatants knew they could not continue. The destruction of the Pinnacle Realm was proof enough, if they fought within the fragile bounds of this galaxy, it would take only a single exchange to reduce everything to ashes.

Even the Pinnacle Realm, a construct that stood above and beyond the galaxy itself, had endured less than a single minute before collapsing beneath their might.

What hope, then, did an ordinary lower galaxy have?

Of course, they could have chosen to shift their battlefield elsewhere, some barren void where no life nor stars existed to be undone. But such a change would strip their clash of its thrill, its meaning. Besides, of the single minute they had allotted themselves, only the final seconds remained.

There was no need to continue.

And so, in those fleeting instants, Voryss and Klaus locked eyes.

One gaze was apathetic, molten orange, a gaze that carried no concern for the devastation wrought, as though she understood that neither of them had even unleashed their true might.

The other was abyssal black, yet within it burned a glimmer of battle intent, a restrained fire, ready to erupt should the Primordial Behemoth before him grant her approval to take their struggle even further.

For now, though, their clash ended not in triumph, but in recognition. Two beings who stood beyond the comprehension of galaxies had tested each other for a fleeting instant, and in that instant, reality itself had nearly collapsed.