Red Rex roared. its body grew thicker, its arms swelling with molten muscle. magma veins pulsed beneath scales that glowed orange like iron pulled from a forge. it stepped forward, shaking the street to dust.
"Go, Red rex!" braxill shouted.
The beast opened its jaws and released a blinding magma beam. the air screamed as the wave tore through stone and steel, a line of destruction stretching toward sephiss.
Sephiss moved calmly. he knelt, touched the ground with two fingers. "How can the earth not defend itself?"
Iron walls erupted from the ground, one, then two, then four. magma smashed through the first three, vaporizing stone, turning the world to liquid flame.
The fourth wall stopped it.
The wall shuddered, split open. a giant mouth formed in its center. it laughed, a strange, human laugh, then grew two massive arms from its sides.
Lanni gasped. "is that... laughing?"
Braxill "That's creepy"
The wall creature slammed its hands into the magma blast, pushing back with all its strength. the heat melted its arms away. both forces clashed until the world exploded in white. when the smoke cleared, the creature was gone, so was most of the street.
Sephiss emerged through the haze, his cloak singed but his eyes calm.
Red rex roared and lunged, claws digging deep into the molten earth. sephiss dashed forward, moving faster than light. the dinosaur's tail whipped toward him, splitting the air. sephiss ducked beneath it and touched the beast's leg with the tip of his finger.
"Dinosaurs are extinct."
The words carried power. they cut through sound, through time, straight into braxill's soul. he heard them echo inside him like a curse.
Red rex froze mid-roar. his body cracked with light. his magma veins flickered and burst. a shockwave of abi burst outward before the creature dissolved into ash.
Braxill's chest seized. the same light that unmade red rex pierced him. Sephiss had already moved, excalibur appeared in his hand, and in one motion, the sword stabbed into braxill's chest.
It didn't pierce flesh. it pierced energy.
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A silent flash rippled through his core. braxill screamed and flew backward, crashing through broken stone. the shockwave leveled what little remained of the street.
Gravixor's voice broke. "Braxill!" she stumbled forward, but Lanni grabbed her arm.
"Wait! look at his aura!" Lanni's eyes widened. "That wasn't a physical hit. sephiss attacked his abi directly. he's trying to destroy his ability to imagine, cut him off completely."
"What?" gravixor shook her head in panic. "you can do that?"
"Yes but it's an elite technique veyr few can master and judging by the force of the hit he may have knocked nearly have of braxills Abi from his body."
Dust settled. sephiss stood above the crater. "you shouldn't be able to imagine anything else," he said softly. "your abi level isn't even close to mine."
Braxill forced himself to his knees. his breathing came ragged, eyes wild with pain.
"You... you're evil," he choked out. "you think just because you're old, you're right. you hurt people, killed them, and call it wisdom. but you're wrong. we're all the same, zoners, royals, artists, artimancers... we all have joy. everything else is made up!"
Sephiss smiled faintly. "The poor will always hate the strong. it's understandable. and amusing. but you just described my philosophy, braxill. everything is made up. that's exactly the point. the strong decide what those made-up truths are. and since i'm both strong and wise" he raised excalibur, its blade humming, "I've decided your kind must be extinct."
The air tightened. Braxill's heartbeat pounded in his ears. he felt the emptiness where his abi used to be, and then, somewhere deep in that void, something glowed. it wasn't power. it was anger.
He stood. "I don't care how strong you are. I am braxill... son of joy, the visionary."
His eyes blazed green again. sephiss's brow lifted. "so you still have some left."
Braxill spread his hands. "Imagine, Splinter man and Skin daddy."
Abi 3000%
The ground shook. two massive shadows crawled out of the ruins, grotesque, humanoid giants stitched from fear itself. splinter man's body was covered in jagged blades of wood and glass. skin daddy's was pale and shifting, his eyes hollow. both towered over sephiss like gods of nightmare art.
SKin Dandi = 300 Abi Splinter Man = 200 Abi
Sephiss smiled darkly. "zillion's echoes. yes, you are his heir. those creatures are original Abi beast created by Fiction Bear himself known as grimms. You imagine them as if they're toys. skin daddy especially. summoning such filth proves you're still a child."
"Go!" braxill shouted.
The two monsters roared and charged. Skin Daddy gathered energy, his chest glowing like a reactor. A massive hydrogen blast formed, distorting the air.
"How can an old man fly?" sephiss whispered.
He launched into the sky, his robes snapping behind him transforming completely white. The blast ripped past him, exploding high above the clouds.
Splinter man tilted its head and fired spikes the size of towers. several ripped through sephiss's shoulder and thigh, blood scattering like sparks.
He fell from the sky and slammed into the ground.
The air turned cold.
Sephiss stood, trembling slightly, blood running down his leg. "I need to do away with these two before their power matures."
He pressed his palm to the ground. "How can the earth be a cage?"
A prison of rock and metal erupted upward, trapping skin daddy mid-attack. the creature howled, pounding at the walls as the cage sealed shut.
Splinter man lunged, spikes growing from its arms. sephiss looked up. his right eye flared with the mark of damon.
"Damon," he whispered. "Penalty, black hole."
His eye burst in a spray of blood. gravixor covered her mouth, horrified.
A black hole bloomed behind sephiss, its pull deafening. it swallowed the cage, skin daddy, and then splinter man. the monsters twisted and screamed before being dragged into the darkness.
Braxill shielded his face from the wind. "woah... that's gross."
The black hole shrank, then vanished. sephiss lowered his hand, blood dripping from his chin.
"Your imagination can't outlast my philosophy, Braxill," he said quietly. "You never had a chance."