Varion walked towards him, step by step. "You think pain is power? You think death makes you strong? Let me teach you about absolute power."

  Kus raised a hand.

  The wind around him sharpened, folding into bdes so fine they hummed.

  "I'm not here for a lesson," he said coldly. "I'm here to erase your bloodline."

  ---

  They cshed.

  And the world broke.

  Kus's fist shattered through Varion's guard, caving in the side of his face. Blood spttered, sizzling in the fire. Varion retaliated with a sweep of fme, carving Kus's flesh open from shoulder to thigh.

  Kus didn't scream.

  He grinned.

  He drove his knee into Varion's gut—ribs cracked audibly—then spun, wind-wrapped heel slicing across Varion's throat. Blood sprayed. A shallow cut, but humiliating.

  Varion roared, erupting into a dome of fire. Kus was consumed, engulfed.

  And still he emerged, skin burned, eyes alight with madness.

  "Come on, Monarch," he spat. "Let me taste your real power."

  Varion snarled and summoned a spear of solid fme, thrusting it forward—

  Kus caught it with bare hands.

  Skin sizzled. Flesh peeled.

  But he held it.

  And then he pulled.

  Varion was yanked forward into a savage headbutt that split his brow. Blood gushed. Before he could stagger back, Kus rammed his fist into Varion's jaw—then again—and again—breaking teeth with every strike.

  Fire coiled around Varion's body in desperation.

  Too te.

  Kus roared, wind wrapping around his arm like a serpent, and punched clean through Varion's armor, ribs crunching inward like paper.

  Varion gasped.

  Kus leaned in, blood dripping from his chin. "I want you to feel every second of your end."

  The Ignar Estate—once a monument to fire-forged royalty—was no longer recognizable. Marble towers melted under cascading fme. Iron walls shattered from sonic bursts. Trees that had stood for centuries were reduced to ash in seconds. The ground itself quaked like it feared what fought above it.

  ---

  BOOM!

  Kus's elbow drove into Varion's spine—bones cracked like dry branches.

  CLANG!

  Varion spun mid-air and unleashed "Solfre Judgment", a column of white-hot fire erupting from his palm that carved a kilometer-long trench in the ground.

  Kus was caught dead-center.

  He didn't scream.

  He vanished—reappearing behind Varion mid-burn.

  "You missed," Kus whispered.

  Then he drove his heel into Varion's temple.

  CRACK!

  Blood misted. Varion spiraled through three stone pilrs before exploding against a statue of his grandfather.

  The statue of Highlord Ignar—a relic of divine heritage—was obliterated by Varion's body. The ancestral symbol of the house y in crumbled ruin, much like the bloodline it bore.

  ---

  Varion rose, half his face charred, armor glowing red-hot.

  He snarled, fmes gathering in both hands.

  "Sor Apex: Thronebreaker Cannon."

  He fired.

  A beam of pure infernal essence, wide as a cathedral gate, vaporized everything in its path.

  Kus took it head-on.

  The ground was gouged open like the jaw of a titan. The beam burned down to bedrock, carving molten veins across the countryside.

  Vilges ten miles away felt the shockwave. Birds fell from the sky. Livestock burst into fmes. People dropped to their knees, praying for the gods to intervene—never knowing they were watching from the clouds in fear.

  ---

  Kus stepped from the crater, skin fking off, body torn—

  —but grinning.

  "Too slow," he said.

  And with a gust, he vanished again.

  Then—BLADES OF WIND exploded outward.

  Varion bled from dozens of cerations before Kus tackled him through the Ignar Hall, leveling the ancestral throne room.

  The seat of House Ignar—carved from obsidian and dragonbone—shattered into shards under their collision. The ancestral fire that burned in the hearth for 900 years was extinguished in a single breath.

  ---

  Kus ducked a wild punch and countered with a devastating strike to the liver.

  THUD!

  Varion coughed blood.

  "Still not done?" Kus murmured, grabbing his face and smming it down into molten stone.

  Varion roared, his body erupting in sor fme. He hurled Kus off him.

  He rose to his full height, chest heaving. Then—he raised his arms to the sky.

  "Eternal Pyre: Monarch's Realm."

  The world changed.

  Fmes rained from above. The air ignited. The ground melted into rivers of va. The sky turned a murderous orange—as if the sun itself had dropped to kiss the earth.

  And then… the estate was gone. Nothing remained. Only fire. A realm of absolute combustion. No air. No mercy. Only fme. The power of a Monarch unshackled. The power of a god.

  ---

  Kus dropped to one knee.

  Eyes bloodshot.

  Breathing ragged.

  But his voice never wavered.

  Varion bellowed from above.

  "You're a peasant! You've earned death, not defiance!"

  He dove like a meteor.

  BOOM!CRACK!THOOM!

  Each strike was a cataclysm. Mountains crumbled. Rivers boiled dry.

  Each blow shook the continent. Forests hundreds of miles away ignited. The ocean near the Ignar coast receded as if terrified. The tectonic ptes beneath their feet began to shift. The world itself protested.

  ---

  And then—from the inferno—Kus stood.

  Charred. Split open. Barely alive.

  But his eyes were alive with violet.

  With wrath.

  With purpose.

  He raised his hand—and lightning pulsed.

  "Let's burn your reality to the ground."