The tension in the Void was palpable, thick and humming like a drawn bowstring moments before release. Time did not flow here—it trembled, unsure of its purpose in the presence of two Eternals whose mere existence bent reality around them.
The Eternal of Light, the Flameborn, stood like a tempest held in flesh. His body shimmered with cascading light, his long crimson hair flickering like a banner of fire behind him. Flames danced along his skin, not consuming but crowning him, as though the stars themselves had chosen him as their avatar. His golden eyes blazed with fury and betrayal—emotions unbecoming of an Eternal, but present nonetheless.
Before him stood the Eternal of the Void, the Keeper of the Void. He was a figure carved from absence, a silhouette of nothingness made real. His presence alone did not demand attention—it stole it. Around him, all light died, sound was muffled, and movement slowed. He was not merely a being within the Void. He was the Void given form.
And they were no longer brothers—not in this moment.
Without warning, the Eternal of Light surged forward. A blinding eruption of flame burst outward from him, lighting the empty expanse with such intensity that even the distant stars recoiled. His war cry tore through the silence:
"You do nothing—still you do nothing! You sit in darkness while I burn for something more. I will shape life, build worlds, create meaning—and you would see it all swallowed in silence? I will not rest while nothingness reigns!"
Wreathed in fire, he became a comet of divine wrath, barreling toward his brother with the force of ten suns. There was no weapon in his hand—he was the weapon. His fists, wrapped in sunfire and primal intent, blazed brighter than any forge. Every movement tore through the Void like a meteor cleaving the sky. His knuckles, encased in searing plasma, pulsed with the condensed force of collapsing stars.
He did not need steel. His fists alone bore the wrath of creation.
And yet—the Eternal of the Void did not move.
He remained still, statuesque, as if the Eternal of Light's charge were no more threatening than a gust of wind. The fist struck.
The explosion that followed was cataclysmic. The very Void recoiled, shuddering beneath the weight of their clash. Space twisted. Light fractured. A silence so profound followed, it seemed to consume thought itself.
As the echoes faded, the Eternal of Light stood panting, surrounded by swirling embers and scorched fragments of nothing. His eyes widened in disbelief.
The Eternal of the Void was unharmed.
His form, once vague and wraithlike, had taken on sharper edges, more defined, as if the impact had hardened him instead of breaking him. He lifted his gaze slowly, and when he spoke, his voice was a deep, ancient resonance that seemed to reverberate from within the bones of the universe itself.
"Do you not understand, the Eternal of Light?" he said, voice cold yet calm, a timeless echo in a place without time. "The Void does not resist. It does not fight. It endures. It contains. All things begin in me… and all things return to me."
He stepped forward, and with each movement, the void beneath his feet rippled like liquid shadow, stabilizing with each step as if forming reality itself in his wake.
"You rage, brother, because you fear. You cling to light and fury as if they grant meaning. But light fades. Flame dies. You call me still, yet it is I who have watched. I who have waited. I who have understood. There is no creation without emptiness. No flame without fuel. No life without death. You strike at me, hoping to destroy what you cannot comprehend. But you cannot burn the ocean. You cannot strike the wind. You cannot unmake the nothing from which you came."
the Eternal of Light stepped back, for the first time unsure. The fire around him sputtered, uncertain of its place.
Then the Eternal of the Void raised his hand.
The motion was simple—an upward flex of shadow and form. But the energy it summoned was terrifying. Darkness condensed around his fist, not as absence but as presence—heavy, ancient, vast. The void itself groaned in anticipation.
With a wordless cry, he brought it down.
The impact shook the formless plane. A shockwave of force tore through the emptiness, and the Eternal of Light dove aside just in time, flames flaring wide as he escaped by the breadth of a breath. But the Eternal of the Void's strike struck something.
There was a sound—deep, resounding, and unfamiliar.
It was not the sound of void meeting void, nor flame striking shadow.
It was the sound of matter.
A tremor ran through the nothingness, followed by a shudder, then a pulse.
Beneath their feet, the Void began to shape itself. From the place where the Eternal of the Void's fist had fallen, ground began to form—first brittle and dark, then firm and rich, glowing faintly with a golden light from within.
Earth.
Stone.
Foundation.
The Eternals froze. The combat forgotten.
the Eternal of Light's voice came soft, awed, as he looked down. "What… is this?"
the Eternal of the Void, who still knelt with his fist against the newborn ground, looked up slowly. His gaze met the Eternal of Light's, and for the first time since their conflict began, there was no pride in his voice. Only reverence.
"You sought to build, the Eternal of Light. To shape flame into life, and fury into meaning. Yet while you raged, I laid the first foundation. It was my strike that formed the earth beneath your feet. I created land—solid and real—within this endless sea of silence."
A deep hum rose from the Void behind him, like the pulse of an ancient being inhaling its first breath… or its last.
"But let me show you what you still fail to understand," he continued, stepping forward. His voice lowered, but grew heavier with each word—like a falling mountain.
"All things that begin… must end. Even your fire will fade. Even your dreams will crack and crumble. All creation—all—must return to me."
the Eternal of the Void's arms spread, and the space around them darkened, as if stars themselves were being drawn into his shadow. The earth beneath them trembled, and for a moment, the Eternal of Light felt small—not because he lacked power, but because he stood in the presence of inevitability.
"I am the cradle and the coffin," the Eternal of the Void said. "The first silence… and the final breath. You build, brother—but I will show you why all things end, and why all things… return to the Void. for as long as the void remains all will end."
" Form. Substance. Creation born not of harmony, but of contrast. Flame and shadow. Fury and stillness. This… this is the Realmic Earth."
And as they stood upon this fragile, newborn world, they felt it.
A pulse. Faint, slow, but unmistakable.
Something ancient. Something alive.
A seed beneath the surface had awakened. From this ground, this foundation born of their fury and sorrow, something would grow.
The Tree of Life.
Not forged by will, nor summoned by power—but birthed in the crucible of conflict.
The two brothers, once locked in a battle to destroy, now stood as unwilling architects of creation.
And in the silence that followed, for the first time in eternity—
They understood.
the Eternal of Light staggered back as the Eternal of the Void's words settled into the air like iron. The fire that had consumed his body flickered and waned—not from weakness, but from a sudden, overwhelming realization that surged through him, shaking the very core of his being. His breath, once ragged and desperate, steadied, but his fists still blazed with the molten heat of a sun, as if his body itself could not bear the weight of his thoughts. His eyes locked onto the Eternal of the Void, the brother who had been the void to his flame, the stillness to his chaos.
He could feel it now, the truth that the Eternal of the Void had spoken—the undeniable weight of the balance between them. For the first time, the Eternal of Light understood the significance of their clash. Their struggle had birthed something greater than either of them: the Relmic Tree, rooted in the newly-formed earth, a towering symbol of creation itself.
But that understanding did nothing to weaken his resolve.
the Eternal of Light's golden eyes, once full of blinding rage, now shimmered with a cold, unyielding fire. His heart pounded, not in fear, but in a desperate urgency that threatened to break him. His voice, low and steady, cut through the tension like a blade.
"Without you…" the Eternal of Light murmured, the words sharp, deliberate, and filled with venom. "There would be no boundary. No silence to define the song. No stillness to end the storm. The world would burn without form, without reason. And I would be free to create without you… without this…"
He gestured toward the earth beneath their feet—the land that had emerged from their destruction, the birthplace of the Relmic Tree. The tree stood proud, its roots stretching deep into the earth, its trunk pulsing with a strange energy. It reached toward the heavens, as if attempting to claim the very sky itself. Its branches, delicate and yet undeniably strong, spread across the landscape, carrying within them the potential for endless creation.
But the Eternal of Light saw only a prison.
"I thought destroying you would liberate creation," he said, his voice dripping with contempt. "That by ending your existence, I would free the world from the endless cycle of destruction and rebirth. That without you, the land would grow unbound, without limits, without the oppressive weight of the Void."
His fists clenched tighter, the molten fire flaring as if in response to his words. His power surged, but there was no satisfaction in it, no joy. Just the need to obliterate, to end what had been set in motion.
"But if the Void dies…" the Eternal of Light's voice dropped, becoming darker, more uncertain, "If you die, then creation can truly be free, but it will be free without control."
He took a step forward, his eyes burning with a fierce intensity, his gaze fixed on the Eternal of the Void. He could feel the tension between them thickening like a storm cloud, ready to break.
"There would be no end, no cycle. No return. Only chaos. The Relmic Tree, born from our collision, would grow unchecked, its roots wrapping around the very fabric of creation. There would be no death to prune its growth, no balance to contain it. It would consume the land, the heavens, the very heart of existence, until nothing but endless creation remained. A never-ending flood of life, unchecked by the stillness you represent."
His voice trembled, but not with fear—no, it was something darker, something raw and primal, the sound of a soul teetering on the edge of destruction.
"I cannot allow that," the Eternal of Light hissed, his voice rising in fury once again. "Creation needs boundaries. It needs death. It needs an end."
His eyes narrowed, burning with the heat of a thousand stars. "If I kill you, the Eternal of the Void, I will erase the Void. I will burn it from existence. The cycle will break. No more destruction. No more rebirth. No more prison for creation."
the Eternal of Light's hand shot out, fingers curled into a fist of molten flame, his whole body a crackling force of destruction. "Creation will be free of you, free of your constraints, free of your endless need to preserve the balance that imprisons it!"
His gaze shifted back to the Relmic Tree. The towering life-form that had sprung from their clash, a reminder of what had been birthed from their conflict. A product of their combined powers, yes, but the Eternal of Light saw it now for what it truly was: an abomination. A symbol of the unbreakable cycle that chained existence, one that could never be undone as long as the Eternal of the Void remained.
"That tree…" the Eternal of Light spat, the words dripping with venom, "It only exists because of you. You birthed it from our clash, from our very essence. It grew from our destruction. It is not a gift. It is a curse."
His voice trembled with the weight of his conviction, but his hands remained steady, his fire unwavering.
"Do you see it, the Eternal of the Void?" the Eternal of Light whispered, his voice growing soft, dangerous. "Do you see what you've done? You have trapped us in a never-ending loop. You have created a world that cannot escape. You have doomed creation to an eternal struggle, to a cycle that will never end."
He stepped closer to his brother, his molten fist still raised. "I will burn the foundation you've built. I will erase this tree, and all the life it represents. It will not grow, not here, not in this world. There will be no more of your endless cycles. There will be no more of your imprisonment."
the Eternal of Light's golden eyes locked with the Eternal of the Void's, full of wrath, but also something else. Something deeper. "If I kill you, the Void will die with you, and so will this endless cycle. Creation will have no limits. No boundaries. And I will shape it. I will create without you, without your rules, without your chains."
He raised his hand high, the flame around his body roaring in defiance, in anticipation.
"This will be the end, the Eternal of the Void. The end of the balance. The end of the Void. The end of everything you have ever known."
the Eternal of Light's breath caught in his chest, and for a brief moment, there was silence—a stillness unlike anything they had ever known. The fire around him crackled, the earth beneath their feet trembling. His hand hovered in the air, ready to strike, ready to destroy.
"And from this end, a new beginning will rise."
"And this…" he added, his voice a low reverence, "this tree, the first of all things, will be our legacy. It is born of the void, and it shall give birth to all life that comes after us. We are not its creators. We are its founders."