The battle between the D Rankers was growing more violent as they started to lose control over the fight. Granthar was hurling out reaching fingers of pure Darkness that could have pierced through a small moon with ease, uncaring of where they landed.

  One missed its target, and struck the ground below, sending cracks racing across the ruined cityscape. Geysers of pure night erupted from the ground, and great plates of rock the size of large islands were blasted upwards with the sound of thunder. Granthar reached forwards, a spectral hand the size of a skyscraper reaching down to grab one of them out of the air. It was miles long, and must have weighed more than a mountain.

  The king sent it flying towards his pugilist foe, the chunk of rock flying at supersonic speeds. A gale preceded the mountainous projectile, buffeting Granthar’s foe.

  The robed man set his stance upon the air itself, keeping himself upright, cocking back his fist. A charge of potency expanded around it, a sheath of white light lengthening into a spear a hundred feet long. He punched, and split the incoming meteor down the middle, both halves hurtling up into the sky behind him.

  Granthar teleported behind him, and slammed his palm into the man’s back, a shard of dimensional energy tearing into his back. The pugilist roared in pain, before reaching behind, and grabbing the king’s hand. Granthar’s eyes widened, and he tried to teleport away.

  A wave of Dao energy erupted from the pugilist, and enveloped Granthar, disrupting his attempt to escape. The robed martial artist sagged noticeably, but his job was done, and before Granthar could recover, he was met by a railgun projectile from the ship hovering up above. Moving fast enough, and with enough force to level a small country, a massive mithril rod slammed straight into Granthar’s head.

  He was torn from his foe’s grasp, and was sent hurtling down, faster than a comet. The king floundered, dazed from the strike. The back of his head was in ruins, with the metal rod bent around it, not having been able to penetrate fully into the D Ranker’s flesh.

  “Before you die, let me tell you my name,” the rebel powerhouse spat, as he propelled himself downwards, his elbow poised above Granthar’s head. “I am Arnus Darkan, and everything you ever did to my family, will be repaid in kind!”

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  “In kind?” Granthar replied. “I did your bastard lineage a service. If anything, that repayment will be your death.” The king slapped the metal rod away from his head, letting it fall to the ground far below. HIs flesh healed over at a visible rate, and with a roar, he stopped his descent, and hammered his fist into Arnus’ unsuspecting gut. There was a cracking noise as the king unbound space within his foe’s body, and suddenly, the cultivator seemed to come apart, his body spread across a hundred cubic feet of space, eyes in one place, ears in another and all of the body parts in a similar situation. He was still alive, though, and as a D Ranker, he would not succumb to such a trick. Threads of the Dao connected the disparate parts of his body, and with a squelch, they snapped back together, reconstituting the warrior whole. Granthar merely cocked his fist back again, this time summoning a blade of astral darkness to it.

  “This ends here. I will show you why I have ruled this empire for so long, your body, the textbook upon which my lessons are written! Are you ready, Arnus Darkan? Do you think yourself man enough to claim your revenge?”

  ***

  The fight between the two rebel spellcasters and the draconic titan was more evenly matched, with entire sections of the monster’s body in ruins. The damage to the women was more in terms of resources, with the diviner unable to peer into the recesses of the future as aptly as before. That ability was what had allowed the duo to tax the monster to such a high degree, weaving in and out the creature’s strikes. Now, though, it was beginning to take a toll, blood running down the fateweaver’s face as she tried to look into the future.

  The mage’s spells had diminished in potency, with novas of elemental energy previously having devastated building sized chunks of the beast’s flesh, now simply serving to widen the wounds.

  The creature laughed, and spoke for the first time. “This is what Granthar called me for? Two ants, pretending to be demigods? Why do you think I haven’t been able to hit you? My weakness? No, I was simply testing you.”

  The monster’s wounds glowed with a bloody crimson light, and a wave of power shuddered through its form, condensing around its right fist. It snapped its fingers, and the world pulsed. The air itself was tinged red, and shifted into another form, a dark void filled with spikes of bloody red. In the center of it all, the monster levitated, at the apex of its domain. An evil smile split its face in two, running up and down its snout.

  The two mages expanded their auras, pushing the field of darkness back around them, but the stars in the void that their bodies became were tiny in comparison to the field of black. With cries of defiance, they flew deeper into the void, and condensed their Daos in preparation for the battle. It would be over within the next few techniques, regardless.