Creation of all things

Fayden found it difficult to contain the sheer power within the swords frame. One slip could end up in devastating consequences.

[Come to think of it, you weren't this strong when we left the last world.]

'Maybe it's the godrune Arthur left me.'

[No, you've barely used it in this battle, it has to be something else.]

'Well I don't know, I'm a bit busy here.'

[Hmm, perhaps…]

Fayden ignored Phanes, holding up his sword at Alexander. Dark stormclouds amassed overhead, supercharged with mana and stasis. Fayden had a bad feeling about it. The rumbling of thunder shook the ground.

'Since when was lightning red?'

[Oh shit.]

Faydens eyes widened, and it began raining. But it was no simple rain, no, spells of varying intensities came pouring down, all homing in on Fayden. Water sharp enough to rend through anything, red lightning sundering the very space around it, iridescent icicles which commanded even time to stop around it.

Void stepping only helped him so much, his body still suffered critical injuries. Thankfully, his core resisted any spell that threatened it. His hold on the sword wavered. Instantly the spells stopped assaulting him, having been redirected to his sword where the incomprehensible heat vaporized them back to mana.

Without giving him a moment to rest, Alexander conjured up a literal blizzard, strong enough to freeze stars. But there were more more than a couple stars in Fayden's blade. And though the power in it dimmed, it was still very much capable of vaporizing everything in the galaxy.

Focusing on Alexander, Fayden slashed his sword through the air, the arc of compressed all consuming fire crossing the distance in an instant. Alexander moved, his stasis casting a field of stopped time around him.

But the arc burned through the cold, cutting into Alexander's side, imploding it into a mesh of flesh, bone and scales.

An inhuman scream filled the air, but he had already begun healing himself, albeit it was a lot slower this time. Fayden cursed under his breath, Alexander would keep healing everything he threw at him.

Fayden inhaled deeply, 'Phanes-'

[I know, leave it to me.]

'Thanks.'

Fayden switched with Phanes, the artificial soul taking over his body, his entire concentration on condensing the energy in his sword.

"Well, well, well, your mother slept around a bit, didn't she?"

Alexander stopped short, "I do not have a mother."

"Huh, it's usually the father who's missing, were you so ugly your own mom left you to die?"

"Motherfucker, I literally spawned in." Alexander deadpanned.

"Sure, whatever you say…" Phanes trailed off, his tone insinuating something else.

"You are different from the one I was fighting." Alexander noted, pointing tempestarii at him.

"Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!" He mocked, nacht moulding itself to form a gift box in his hand. "Here's your gift."

Alexander caught the box on reflex, immediately sealing it in a bubble of stasis.

Phanes slumped down, "I suppose it was too much to ask."

"Who are you?" He demanded, hurling the sphere away where it exploded bright enough to dwarf the sun. If one could see the planet from space, they'd see a chunk of it missing.

Phanes tilted his head, "Hmm, you could say I'm his guardian angel."

'More like a pet mutt.'

[Don't you have something else to focus on?]

'...'

Alexander's expression darkened, "I see."

It seemed that was the end of negotiations as Alexander resumed his assault, spells from every direction accompanying his every strike.

Phanes paid them no mind, his body flickering in and out of tangibility, shocking both Alexander and Fayden.

'I never knew Void Step could be used like that. You're proficient in using the key's powers.'

[I'm literally the secret lovechild of the key and your memories.]

'...Fair enough.'

Phanes turned back to the battle, countering everything Alexander threw at him as Fayden imparted his full concentration on the blade, bringing its shards together. Its sheer power concentrated in its core with more finesse than before.

As Phanes' strikes began hitting harder with that, Alexander was forced to use stasis to its limit in this form.

The heat from his blade no longer countered the sheer coldness of stasis, the blade froze before it could reach Alexander.

He laughed, "All that power, but in the end you fall victim to time."

"Technically speaking," Fayden took back control, "time affects every being. It doesn't matter how strong you are."

"And that makes it just the more terrifying." Alexander grinned, stasis exploding from his self as it froze the entire planet.

Dragging tempestarii through Faydens torso, Alexander yawned, "I wonder what would happen if I kept you suspended like this. Without your healing, would you still survive?"

The aether around him replied for Fayden, black flames licking at his wound as he regained mobility.

"Did you forget, I can control aether too."

"True, but what would happen if the aether itself was frozen?" Stasis pulsed through the area, Fayden froze in his tracks. "Once frozen, everything ceases its function. Tell me, how would you control aether if it no longer retains its function?"

"Oh yeah, you can't move." Alexander mocked, a manic laughter making its way out of his throat. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You put up a good fight, the best I've had in a while. But alas."

Reality itself cracked as the temperature around his hand reached below absolute zero, "I AM SUPERIOR!"

His hand passed through Fayden, but he felt as if something was wrong, he felt no organs inside, nor did he feel any blood flowing. He quickly connected the dots, it was a husk, a decoy.

"I must thank you." Fayden's voice echoed from around him, "You've managed to push me beyond my limits."

Alexander looked up, why could he no longer sense him?

Fayden looked exactly the same as he did before, but he was vastly superior to himself of a minute ago.

[Heh, who knew we could evolve past the limits of 3rd dimensional beings.]

'I feel so much more in tune with the world.'

Indeed, he had ascended to a dimensional tiering above a third dimensional being. For this sole reason, time no longer shackled him, yet…

"Hahaha, cute trick. However, what are you about to do about the frozen mana and aether?"

Fayden remained silent, his lips pressed to a thin line. He had no answer to that.

[Partner, I have an idea that could work.]

'Partner?' Fayden raised an eyebrow at the way Phanes referred to him. Noticing the red glow from under him, he moved to grab the lightning that was thrown, moulding it into a lance of his own as he admired its crimson shade.

[I simply consider you worthy of being called my partner now.]

'What did I even expect?" Fayden withheld sighing in favor of Void Stepping behind Alexander and stabbing him with his own spell as lightning racked his body.

[Anyways, my idea revolves around our new godrune.]

Fayden narrowed his eyes, void stepping far away.

'Explain.'

[You remember how it works on both matter and energy?]

'Of course I do.'

[What is nacht, if not a form of energy?]

A chill ran down Faydens spine, the revelation struck deep in his core. 'It could potentially give me an infinite supply of nacht.'

[And considering how little nacht it uses, it's very practical.]

Fayden grinned like a madman, the godrune manifesting on his body. He allowed a small stream of nacht to trickle out his core, powering the godrune ever so slightly.

"Whoa!" Fayden was startled when a massive orb of concentrated nacht enshrouded him. He laughed, absorbing all the nacht.

[This, this is the sort of power we need. Perhaps, there is hope to win this fight after all.]

Lightning flashed, and a figure watched Fayden from afar, his face was completely wreathed in shadows like a blank canvas. No, it was more like the beings of this world couldn't comprehend his existence.

The lightning flashed once more, and then he was gone.

Right as the mysterious man disappeared, Alexander appeared, having heard Fayden's voice.

Fayden leaned sideways, dodging a blast of stasis by a hair's breadth, countering with his own nacht spell. Alexander held Tempestarii up, slicing the beam as it reached him. Seeing how long range wasn't working, Alexander chose to try close combat. With his arms overloading with stasis, he shot forward

Fayden didn't move as the unhinged boy reached him, grabbing his neck, "Let's see how well you fare against the core of the world without that pesky healing of yours."

Fayden smiled smugly, allowing the boy to pull him along to the center of the world.

"Don't you see? You've already lost!" Alexander yelled, why did he keep fighting even under these circumstances? "Without the ambient aether, you only have so much you can use!"

Fayden's smile grew into a grin, "Think again dipshit!"

Alexander's eyes widened like saucers, suddenly able to sense the massive amount of nacht from Fayden, "How- You didn't have this much aether left before! How did you get so much of it in so less time?!"

"Guess?" Fayden grinned coyly, something that infuriated Alexander to using one of his strongest spells.

Alexander glowered at him, slamming him into an invisible wall which shattered on contact, pulling Fayden in. He wasted no time in making preparations for his inevitable return.

.

.

.

"What the-?!" Fayden looked around wildly for his opponent, just then noticing the strangeness of his surroundings. It was like he was in a gemstone like world with hundreds of thousands of edges. It was near impossible to figure out how far the borders were.

"Sending me to a different dimension huh." Fayden chuckled darkly. "Nice try, but something like this won't work on me."

Yet, just as he was about to perform a Void Step, something slammed into him and he found himself unable to move. He glanced around, noticing the glass like edges folding in on each other.

"Ah, a collapsing one. Not a bad idea, most would be incapacitated or outright killed by such a spell." Fayden noted calmly, as if an entire dimension wasn't collapsing on him. "But unfortunately for you, however, I'm not most people."

The dimension finally imploded into a tiny dot, a singularity, and a black flash disappeared.

.

.

.

Alexander was prepared for Fayden's return, so when the tiniest bit of black sparked ahead of him, he activated his spells. And as Fayden's body came into view, all he could see were hundreds of different spells, each easily capable of taking down an Asura.

"Well, fuck."

The explosion that occurred shook the entire world, the seas boiled and the holes in both of the continents spewed lava like a supernova. And Alexander grinned when he saw the state of his adversary, "Give up already."

"Now, why would I do that?" Fayden's voice was warped as he was still healing his face. Three of his limbs had been disintegrated to nothingness, his abdomen was mostly bone with a minuscule amount of flesh still attached. Both of his lungs were badly burnt, and his heart hung freely, still beating.

Yet it only took Fayden a maximum of ten seconds to heal all of that damage, albeit…

"Ah crap, I forgot my clothes don't regenerate with me." Fayden sighed, looking down at his naked form.

Fayden's godrune flashed as a set of clothes, nigh identical to the one he wore before, manifested upon him. "Hmm, now that I think about it," Black smoke seeped out of his clothes, coagulating and solidifying into something akin to an armorsuit from his old world, "Who needs clothes, when you can have armour?"

Alexander grit his teeth as storm mana began condensing inside him, the sheer density of it would be comparable to one of a blackhole. Yet, instead of pulling everything in, it exploded in a glorious mix of ice and thunder as Alexander's very blood itself became a storm.

Fayden stared in slight awe as an impossible event unfolded in front of him. The core of the world, an area said to reach around 6,000 degrees celsius, dropped to absolute zero in an instant as the very planet they were in froze to it's very core.

"Stormheart."

And then, it shattered.

A/N : I'm at a writers block on this story rn, partly why it took so long for this chapter to come out. So uh don't really expect frequent updates. Ciao