The air grew heavy, thick with the metallic scent of impending violence. The man stood opposite Indra, his presence expanding until it seemed to swallow the horizon. He looked up at the sky, his eyes reflecting a void that should not exist.
"Narma," he whispered.
The word was a trigger—a command that the universe had no choice but to obey.
Above them, the midday sun, once a brilliant orb of gold, began to bleed at the edges. A shadow, darker than any natural eclipse, swept across its surface. Within seconds, the world was plunged into an unnatural midnight. The birds stopped singing, and the winds turned freezing, carrying the howl of a thousand forgotten souls. The sun was now a Black Hole in the sky, a ring of ghostly white fire surrounding a core of absolute nothingness.
The man turned to Indra, his silhouette outlined by the cold, dark radiance. "Come," he sneered, his voice dripping with a predatory elegance. "Let us begin the dance."
The Clash of Divinities
Indra did not hesitate. He drew his blade, a weapon forged from the concentrated essence of celestial lightning. The two figures collided with a force that sent a shockwave rippling through the earth, shattering the ground beneath their feet.
Clang!
The sound of their swords meeting was like a thunderclap. Sparks of white and violet light flew into the darkness, illuminating their faces for brief, flickering moments. Indra was a blur of motion, his strikes precise and lethal, but the man parried each one with an effortless, mocking grace.
Nearby, Destiny watched the carnage, her long robes fluttering in the icy gale. She looked up at the blackened sky and sighed, her voice laced with a mixture of annoyance and awe. "It was a perfectly lovely morning," she murmured to herself. "And yet, he insists on bringing back the dark. Men and their dramatics."
The Memory of the Blade
As the swords clashed for the hundredth time, the man's eyes locked onto the steel of Indra's weapon. He parried a heavy blow, sliding his blade along Indra's with a screeching hiss of metal. He paused for a heartbeat, his nostrils flaring as he caught the scent of the sword's ancient aura.
"I remember now," the man laughed, the sound echoing unnervingly through the darkness. "I know where I have seen this steel before. This craftsmanship... it is unmistakable."
Indra narrowed his eyes, putting more weight into his stance. "You talk too much."
The man leaned in closer, their faces inches apart as their blades remained locked. "This is the sword of the Exiled One. The blade of the one who was cast down from the highest heavens, stripped of his wings and his name. To think that you are now wielding the weapon of the Great Traitor... how delicious!"
He threw his head back and laughed, a sound of pure, unadulterated joy that chilled the blood.
The Trap of the Void
"You've laughed quite enough," Indra growled.
Before the man could react, Indra vanished. He didn't just move fast; he dissolved into a bolt of pure electricity.
"Too fast?" the man mused, spinning around to catch the strike he knew was coming from behind. "You are indeed swift, little god, but speed is nothing to one who can see the flow of—"
He stopped mid-sentence. He had turned to face Indra, but he found someone else waiting for him.
Destiny stood only a few feet away, her hands raised, her fingers weaving a complex pattern in the air. The space around the man began to shimmer, turning translucent like oil on water.
"Space Chamber!" she commanded.
The man's eyes widened. He tried to lunge forward, but he hit an invisible wall. He turned to the side, then back again, but everywhere his hand touched, he felt the cold, unyielding surface of a dimension folded in on itself.
He was trapped. A god-tier warrior, caged in a shimmering, invisible cube that existed outside the flow of time and space.
"He's all yours, Indra," Destiny said, brushing a stray hair from her face as if she had just finished a mundane chore. "Try not to break the chamber. It took me a fair bit of effort to fold the fabric of reality just right."
Indra stepped forward out of the shadows, his glowing sword pointed directly at the man's throat through the invisible barrier. The Black Sun pulsed above them, the final act of the battle about to unfold in the heart of the artificial night.
Inside the shimmering walls of the Space Chamber, the man leaned his forehead against the invisible barrier, a mocking pout on his lips. "Oh dear," he chuckled, his voice muffled by the dimensional distortion. "You've caught me. Locked away in a glass box like a prized specimen. Whatever shall I do?"
Indra did not share his amusement. He stepped closer to the cube, the tip of his glowing blade vibrating with celestial fury. "Wipe that smirk off your face and answer me," Indra commanded. "This sword... you said it belonged to the one who was cast down. Tell me why. Why was he exiled from the Heavens? What sin did he commit that his name was erased from the stars?"
The man tilted his head, his dark eyes sparkling with a wicked secret. "I know the answer, little god. I was there when the gates slammed shut. I heard the sound of his wings being torn from his back." He paused, his grin widening. "But I think I'll keep that story for myself. It's far too precious to waste on someone who is about to die."
Destiny, standing a few paces back, suddenly gasped. A wave of dizziness washed over her, and she felt a sickening hollowness in her chest. It wasn't just exhaustion; it was as if her very life force was being pulled through her pores by an invisible vacuum.
"Indra..." she whispered, her voice cracking. "Something is wrong. My... my magic. It's bleeding away."
Before Indra could turn to her, his own knees buckled. The brilliant glow of his lightning sword flickered and died, leaving only a piece of cold, dull iron in his hand. The strength vanished from his muscles, and both he and Destiny collapsed onto the cracked earth, gasping for air.
With a sound like shattering crystal, the Space Chamber dissolved. Without Destiny's mana to sustain it, the spell simply evaporated. The man stepped out of the ruins of his cage, moving with a newfound vitality. He looked taller, more radiant, as if he had just drunk a gallon of liquid starlight.
### Like Master, Like Disciple
The man reached down and, with one hand, seized Indra by the throat, hoisting him into the air as if he weighed nothing. Indra clawed at the man's wrist, but his grip was like iron.
"You look pathetic," the man hissed, looking into Indra's fading eyes. "They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. As was the Master, so is the Disciple. Both of you, full of grand speeches, and both of you ending up broken in the dirt."
Pure, unadulterated rage flared in Indra's chest. The insult to his lineage burned hotter than any spell. He tried to summon a spark, a single bolt of lightning, but his body refused to obey.
"Does it make you angry?" the man taunted, feeling the tremor of rage in Indra's neck. "Does it burn? Good. Let that fire be the last thing you feel."
With a casual, brutal motion, the man snatched the sword and plunged it deep into Indra's chest.
### The Secret of Narma
Destiny let out a harrowing scream, struggling to crawl toward them, but her limbs felt like lead. Her eyes were wide with horror and fury, but she was trapped in a body that no longer possessed a single drop of magic.
The man let go of Indra's throat, letting him fall in a heap. He looked up at the black sun hanging in the sky—the source of the **Narma** magic.
"You see, Destiny," the man explained, spreading his arms wide as if to embrace the dark sky. "You made a fatal tactical error. You thought Narma was just a spell to hide the light. You were wrong. Narma is a celestial siphon anchored to the sun itself."
He pointed a finger at the black orb. "Every living being within the reach of that black light is a battery. As long as those dark rays touch your skin, your magical energy is being stripped from you and funneled directly into me. You should have dealt with the sun before you tried to deal with me."
He looked down at Indra's bleeding form and then back at the trembling Destiny. "You are both still children playing at war. You have the spirit of warriors, but you lack the wisdom of the ancients."