The Blood Plains
Kael Veydran landed in a crater that hadn't existed three seconds ago.
His boots sank into ground that wasn't earth anymore ,just packed ash and powdered bone, the remains of whatever had stood here before his father's battle with the God of Sacrifice had reshaped the landscape. Above him, the sky bled. Lightning the color of dying stars split the clouds in erratic bursts, each flash illuminating the lone figure standing fifty paces away.
The martyr didn't breathe.
He didn't blink.
He knew that they would come , the minute the Patriarch of the Veydrans engaged his God in a fight , it was a matter of time before the others came.
Clad in robes of flayed skin stitched with golden thread, the High Executioner of the Sacrificial Cult stood waiting, his ceremonial axe resting against his shoulder. The weapon wasn't steel—it was carved from the femur of a slain demigod, its edge honed on a whetstone made from compressed prayers. Where he was there was also a huge guillotine. Used to kill and collect heads.
"You're late," the Executioner said. His voice wasn't human—it was the sound of a hundred dying gasps played in unison , his voice displaying the lack of mortality or morals.
Kael cracked his neck.
"Had to put down three of your zealots. You are just a larger bug compared to the rest of your kind." He flexed his fingers. "They begged at the end. You people always do. Strong to the weak always grovelling to the feat of the strong."
The Executioner smiled, his lips splitting to reveal teeth filed to points.
"Oh Veydran...we don't beg."
He moved.
---
BOOM
First contact was established, they began to clash.
The axe came down faster than physics allowed. Cleaving anything in between itself and it's prey , the very air itself would have screamed if it had any voice or the will to do so.
Kael looked like he barely sidestepped but it was a precise calculation, the weapon's wake split the earth in a straight line for half a mile, the shockwave kicking up a wall of bone dust. Before the debris settled, the Executioner was already spinning, the axe becoming a blur of pale bone and trailing blood. The executioner knew that Kael was no easy prey , no Veydran was an easy prey and the one to battle his is the son of the strongest.
Kael ducked under a horizontal slash that would have decapitated a mountain...
...And punched the Executioner in the ribs. Kael was meticulous calculating every single action he or his opponent would make.
"Gravity's End: Fist of Collapsing Stars."
The impact didn't make sound.
It unmade it. A fist of pure carnage came in silence.
A sphere of perfect silence expanded outward as the Executioner's torso imploded , his ribs folding inward like paper in a fist. The force hurled him backward through six floating chunks of battlefield debris ,each impact spraying blood that wasn't quite human. The executioner had long shed his humanity a thousand years ago , the day he began to worship the God of Sacrifice.
He landed in a crouch, his robes in tatters, his exposed chest already knitting itself back together.
"That," he wheezed, "tickled."
Kael frowned but did not say anything , a man of action not words.
Most things died after one punch.
This would take two if not two then three and continue until it died.
---
"Dance of the Damned"
The Executioner attacked in earnest now not with brute force, but with artistry.
His life depended on killing the opponent in front of him.
His axe became an extension of his will, each swing carving intricate patterns in the air that lingered , glowing lines of cursed energy that tightened like nooses around Kael's limbs. Where they touched, his armor blackened and cracked.
Kael responded by changing the rules.
A snap of his fingers...
...And gravity inverted in a fifty-foot radius.
Kael was gravity itself.
The Executioner's next swing sent him skyward , his axe suddenly weighing ten tons. Kael leapt after him, driving a knee into the man's spine as they ascended. The impact would have shattered a castle wall—but the Executioner twisted midair, his free hand lashing out to carve a bloody line across Kael's cheek. Kael's face showed no change or emotion , only the cut on his face.
They separated, landing on opposite sides of a floating island of rubble.
Blood dripped from Kael's face ,the first wound he'd taken in years.
The Executioner licked his fingers clean.
"Your blood tastes like lightning," he mused. "I'll savor the rest."
Kael wiped his cheek. Smiled. He was excited. He would shed blood , fighting was a joy that came from him bloodline. Fighting was a passion for the Veydrans.
"Come take it."
---
The next moments could become killing stroke , the deciding factor of this clash.
The Executioner exploded forward, his axe trailing a comet's tail of sacrificial fire. Cleaving anything that stood in its way.
Kael stood his ground. His brain doing most of the work calculating...
...and waited.
At the last possible instant...
...He clapped his hands together.
"Gravity's End: Eventide Collapse."
The space between his palms became a singularity. The beginning and the end in a single moment.
The Executioner had no time to scream as his weapon, his arm, and half his torso were compressed into a point smaller than an atom. The remaining chunks of his body spun away, spraying arterial crimson across the broken landscape.
Kael released the hold.
The singularity winked out.
Silence.
Then
A wet chuckle. Kael thought he'd enjoy much of this fight but turned out to be the same with others , just a dull weak opponent who thinks highly of themselves.
The Executioner's head, still intact, rolled to a stop at Kael's feet. His lips moved.
"Good...fight..."
Kael raised his boot .
"It wasn't a fight," he corrected.
"It was an execution."
His heel came down then dropped it crushing the head ofthe Executioner of the God of Sacrifice's church and pantheon.