ShadowBound: The Need For Power

The sky screamed.

When Galen and Sylvathar vanished, the heavens themselves recoiled from the force of their clash. Lightning cracked the sky in jagged webs, clouds burst apart like torn fabric, and thunder rumbled with the voice of war.

They reappeared midair—not as warriors, but as natural disasters.

Galen's flameblade met Sylvathar's crystalline claws with an eruption of fire and stone. Sparks the size of meteors burst from each impact, raining down like apocalyptic hail. Galen twisted his body with inhuman precision, pivoting midair with only the torque of his core and redirecting a claw swipe that would've sliced a mountain clean through. His blade arced like a comet, flames trailing like a tail, forcing Sylvathar to pull back—or lose his head.

But Sylvathar adapted.

The Green Calamity summoned a whip of stone and magma from the air itself, lashing out. It wrapped around Galen's arm, constricting like a serpent made of tectonic fury. Sylvathar yanked—

—but Galen didn't resist.

He surged forward with the momentum, twisting his body and hurling his flameblade like a spear. The weapon spun end over end, whistling through the air, before slamming into Sylvathar's shoulder. The explosion sent the demon tumbling backward, crashing into a floating island and blasting it apart.

In the same instant, Galen summoned his blade back with a snap of his fingers, flame condensing in reverse like time itself obeyed him.

He landed on the rubble.

Sylvathar emerged from the dust, growling, molten ichor spilling from his shoulder—but his wounds were already knitting shut. His wings beat once, and the land cratered beneath him. He came at Galen again—this time faster and deadlier.

A dozen strikes followed. Claws and fangs alike. Elemental bursts of sharpened stone, pillars of hardened bedrock that shot from the earth like spears. Galen dodged each by microns, his flameblade dancing in impossibly tight arcs, deflecting only what couldn't be avoided. Every move was deliberate, efficient, and calculated.

And Sylvathar began to realize—he wasn't just fighting someone strong. He was fighting someone who was still holding back.

Galen's eyes never changed. They were focused, calm, detached, and even.

And then, with a flicker of crimson light, Galen vanished again.

He appeared behind Sylvathar mid-swing. The flameblade screamed as it cleaved through the air, carving a flaming arc that caught Sylvathar's wing at the base.

The demon roared.

Half his wing fell, still twitching, scorched black and smoldering.

"You…!"

Galen said nothing.

Instead, he placed his free hand to his chest. A sigil burned through his shirt—ancient, spiraling, and glowing with pure myst. The flames along his arm erupted outward, engulfing his entire body. His hair flickered like a torch. His feet no longer touched the ground. Even gravity bent away.

Sylvathar charged, rage replacing strategy. His claws dug into the bedrock for traction, tearing gouges as he surged forward. But Galen didn't move.

He raised his hand.

And closed his fingers.

Then the space between them folded.

Sylvathar's momentum turned against him—he hit a wall of bent reality, crashing into it like a beast into a cage. His body distorted, rippling against the barrier of myst before being launched backward.

Galen appeared above him again, this time conjuring multiple flameblades—three, five, ten—dozens of them orbiting him like a burning halo. With a breath, he rained them down.

Each blade screamed through the air, bending space around them as they honed in on Sylvathar. The demon's wings snapped open. His body erupted with spikes of earth and crystal, intercepting some of the incoming barrage—but not all.

Each blade that struck him exploded with the power of a dying sun. Craters spread across the floating terrain like plague blisters. One blade pinned his arm, another shattered his shin and a third embedded in his chest, still burning.

But he didn't fall.

With a guttural cry, Sylvathar slammed both fists together.

The ground trembled.

A seismic wave burst from him, an earthquake so violent it shattered the nearby islands, sent shockwaves through the floating ranges, and knocked Galen midair.

He took the chance.

Sylvathar lunged, claws extended, catching Galen mid-spin and slamming him through two cliffs before grappling him by the throat. The Green Calamity roared, igniting his molten core as his claws flared with energy, ready to vaporize.

"Die with the mountains, human!"

But then he paused.

Galen was smiling.

His entire body shimmered.

This wasn't Galen.

It was an afterimage.

Before Sylvathar could react, the real Galen was already behind him, left hand in his pocket and the right stretched forth at him.

The flameblade was gone. In its place… was a sphere of condensed myst. No, not myst—something more.

A pure, blinding core of flame and pressure, warping space around it like a miniature star. Your support on M|V|L8EMPYR keeps this series going.

"Let's test however strong your dense is."

He hurled it.

The sphere struck Sylvathar dead center.

Time blinked.

Then the world detonated.

A wave of annihilation surged in all directions, turning air to plasma and stone to dust. A dome of light expanded rapidly, devouring everything in its radius. Mountains evaporated, rivers boiled midair, and even the clouds parted—fleeing from the disaster.

When the light died, a void remained. A mile-wide scar on the land, still burning. In its center, a blackened husk twitched.

Sylvathar coughed blood. His armor was gone and his body was broken.

But his eyes burned with madness.

He stood, shakily. Chunks of his flesh fell away, revealing raw myst beneath. He threw his arms to the sky—and the sky answered.

Towers of earth rose. The land itself lifted, forming titanic constructs of stone and rage. Golems, each the size of castles, formed from the soil. They glowed with green myst, howling as Sylvathar poured his will into them.

"You think you've seen my limit? You've seen NOTHING!"

Galen sighed.

Then… smiled wider.

He raised both hands.

Flames erupted from every pore of his body—not red, not orange—but white. Pure, divine fire. Fire that consumed concepts. Fire that didn't just burn flesh—but essence.

The sky darkened again, not from Sylvathar this time—but from Galen.

A dragon of flame formed above him, coiling in the air. A creature of myst and wrath and divinity.

He pointed upward.

"Let's hope so."

Then the dragon dove with a scream.

It wasn't a sound made for mortal ears. It was a roar forged from divine fury, a sound that rattled the bones of gods and cracked the heavens like shattered glass. The beast of flame tore through the sky with wings that eclipsed constellations, its body formed from celestial wrath and myst forged at the edge of reality.

Sylvathar didn't retreat.

The Green Calamity raised both hands, and the castle-sized golems responded. Ten titans of earth and magma surged forth like juggernauts, their bodies pulsing with molten cores and bark-like armor of petrified wood. Their hands were the size of siege towers, and with each step, the land cried out, shattering beneath their titanic feet.

But Galen didn't hesitate. Riding the dragon's snout like a war-god atop a comet, he leapt from its head just before impact. The dragon slammed into the army of stone with a detonation that split mountains—flames boiling the sky, wings cleaving through rock like parchment, its roar flattening forests miles away. Four of the golems crumbled instantly, ripped apart by divine talons and breath hotter than the sun.

Galen landed in the center of the carnage, knees bent, fist slamming into the ground causing a shockwave to erupt outward. The wind and pressure folding the air like glass under a hammer. The remaining golems staggered. Before they could recover, Galen moved.

He blurred across space, vanishing from one spot and reappearing mid-swing in another. His fist punched straight through one golem's chest, molten fragments bursting from its back like a volcanic geyser. He spun, kicking the next in the jaw with a roundhouse that shattered its head into obsidian dust. The last titan tried to swing—

—but Galen caught the arm.

He caught it.

The entire limb stopped mid-motion, muscles and veins flexing against stone the size of a mountain gate. Then he tore it off and used it as a club, slamming it into the golem's chest so hard that it cratered inward and collapsed in on itself.

Sylvathar watched from above, eyes wide, wings hovering in a defensive arc.

"Impossible," he whispered.

Galen looked up at him and smirk.

Then he vanished—again—and this time, he reappeared above Sylvathar, both fists already cocked back and glowing like twin dying stars. The blows landed with blinding speed.

The first punch crashed into Sylvathar's chest, forcing the air from his lungs with a soundless gasp. The second slammed into his jaw, snapping his neck sideways with a pop like splintering granite. He tumbled backward, wings flailing for control.

But Galen was already on him.

He blurred forward and kneed Sylvathar in the stomach so hard that his back arched like a bow. Then a spinning elbow dropped down on the demon's shoulder, dislocating it with a crunch. Sylvathar tried to scream, but Galen grabbed his face and dragged him midair, slamming him through a floating mountain and into the clouds beyond. The impact caused the entire mountain to crack and collapse, tumbling into the valley below.

And still—Galen didn't stop.

He surged through the cloud like a predator with scent on his tongue, flame and myst swirling around his body like the breath of titans. He caught up to Sylvathar mid-fall and drove his knee into his spine, sending him hurtling toward the ground at terminal velocity.

Sylvathar crashed, carving a trench over a mile long, the ground erupting behind him like a torn battlefield.

The demon lord coughed, his ribs shattered, wings twitching with misfired nerves. He tried to push himself up—

And Galen landed on his back, both feet slamming down like meteors. Sylvathar screamed as his back caved in beneath the force.

Galen reached down, grabbed him by the throat, and hurled him skyward in a blur of motion and a flaming streak.

Galen shot into the sky faster than sound, caught up to Sylvathar mid-launch, and punched him in the gut so hard that the surrounding clouds dispersed in a perfect ring for miles. Then came another strike to the back, sending Sylvathar ricocheting like a broken doll.

The demon tried to flee.

Wings snapped open, Myst surging. Sylvathar let out a guttural roar of desperation and dove into a rift, trying to teleport—

—but Galen's hand caught his ankle just as he vanished.

"Who said you could leave?"

That's when Sylvathar realized... there was no escape.

Galen yanked Sylvathar back through the portal and flung him like garbage. Sylvathar spiraled helplessly before smashing into a monolithic spire. Galen followed, mid-air sprinting along fragments of floating debris. The moment Sylvathar tried to stand—

Galen was already in front of him landing a series of attacks. A fist to the sternum, a knee to the chin, a palm strike to the ribs, and a sweep kick that knocked him off-balance.

Then—

The final blow.

Galen summoned the same flame-forged sword that had torn open the heavens before. But this time, it wasn't to finish him. It was to brand him.

The blade hissed against Sylvathar's skin, searing a symbol—Galen's crest—into his chest. A mark of defeat. A warning to all who would oppose the Sun-blooded knight.

Sylvathar screamed, clawing at his flesh, but it would not heal. His regeneration faltered as his flesh refused to knit. His body was scorched and ruined—ribs visible, wings shredded, face battered and barely intact. One eye hung loose in its socket, the other swollen shut. His paw was dislocated and his horns were snapped.

He tried to speak—but only blood came out.

He tried to stand—but his knees gave out.

And above him, Galen stood.

Breathing calmly like nothing had happened.

The divine fire still burning in his veins, his tattered shit hanged loosely off his frame, moving slightly due to the wind that. Around them, the battlefield was silent.

Sylvathar raised a shaking hand, fingers twitching in what could only be a plea—one of surrender.

Galen didn't hesitate.

He slapped the hand aside with a disgusted flick, as if brushing off something beneath even contempt. His gaze locked with Sylvathar's remaining eye—expressionless, and void of even hatred. Just that cold, unfeeling judgment of a god addressing a failed creation.

"Sheila's divine light might've juiced you up," Galen said, voice low and pitiless, "but it didn't change the truth—you're still weak."

He tilted his head, almost disappointed.

"I thought you'd make this more interesting… but I guess I gave you too much credit."

Those words—simple, cold, and final—pierced deeper than any wound Sylvathar had suffered.

And then… it hit him.

That emotion. That ancient, suffocating thing he hadn't felt since the days he stood before his siblings. Before his father, the Demon King himself.

Fear.

It slithered into his core, coiling like a serpent, as he watched Galen raise his left hand calmly toward his battered, flickering form. The space around Galen's palm warped, then bloomed into a light so bright, so unfathomably pure it erased all shadows around them.

An eternal orange-white blaze surged in his grip, thrumming with judgment and the kind of finality that even death envied.

"Go," Galen said, voice like thunder whispered through fire, "and tell your legion what failure looks like... on the other side."

Before Sylvathar could scream or even twitch—

The light expanded.

And the world vanished in white.