The white wolf dragged itself to its feet with the silent stubbornness of a mountain weathering a storm. Frost crackled across its massive frame with every breath, steam rising from the gashes where the black wolf’s molten rage had torn into him, but none of it dimmed the fierce light burning behind his pale, translucent eyes. With a low, reverberating growl that sent a shiver running up the fractured bones of the arena floor, the white wolf fixed its gaze on the black wolf, every muscle in its vast body tensing, coiling with silent fury.

  Then, for a brief, breathtaking moment, something strange happened.

  The gem on the white wolf’s head pulsed once, and its eyes, usually so clear and cold, ignited with a blinding white brilliance. The black wolf, mid-snarl, staggered as if struck by an invisible blow, and for a few haunting seconds, its own crimson eyes flickered, drained of their infernal rage and replaced by a piercing, unnatural white. It froze, just for a heartbeat, the two colossal predators locked in some unspoken, unseen war of wills.

  But the black wolf shook its massive head violently, molten blood spraying from its wounds, and with a furious roar that made the sky seem to tremble, it tore itself free of the white wolf’s influence, its crimson eyes reigniting with an even deeper, almost desperate rage.

  Chaos’s molten grin widened, his molten lips parting to reveal rows of blackened, jagged teeth as he watched the two wolves turn upon one another, the tension snapping between them like a drawn bowstring finally loosed. The black wolf, its burning crimson eyes seething with the raw, molten anger of a living volcano, moved first, snarling with a sound so low and deep it made the very floor beneath them vibrate. Its hackles, formed of liquid flame and obsidian shadow, bristled high as it lunged at the white wolf, magma bleeding from its spinning, gnashing maw like a living storm of fire.

  The white wolf, answered with a roar that sounded like the collapse of glaciers, its breath curling in the air with a deadly frostbite that froze the molten stone wherever it touched. It moved with a grace and cold fury that belied its massive frame, the brilliant gem atop its head flashing with internal light as it ducked low beneath the black wolf's furious strike, its massive fangs, pure and sharp as icicles, slashing upward in a devastating counterattack.

  The black wolf twisted mid-lunge, narrowly avoiding having its throat torn out, yet not without cost—the white wolf’s fangs raked across its shoulder, carving deep, steaming wounds that hissed and sizzled as boiling blood spilled forth. The scent of burnt fur and scorched ice filled the air, a maddening concoction that thickened the tension until it was nearly suffocating.

  Chaos stepped back instinctively, watching the two forces collide, the arena becoming a maelstrom of frost and flame. The black wolf, enraged, retaliated by slamming its front paws down onto the earth, summoning a geyser of magma that split the arena floor, fissures radiating outward like the veins of a dying heart. From these cracks, flames erupted, licking hungrily at the white wolf’s legs, trying to trap it in a prison of fire.

  But the white wolf was too swift, leaping high into the air, spinning with a grace that seemed almost unnatural for a beast of its size. Mid-air, it gathered the moisture in the arena—the very mist from the breath it exhaled—and formed a jagged spear of ice larger than Chaos himself. With a furious growl, it hurled the spear downward, aiming for the black wolf's chest.

  The magma-forged beast reacted instantly, its molten jaws parting to unleash a concentrated blast of searing heat, a beam of liquified flame that struck the ice spear mid-flight, shattering it into thousands of glimmering shards that rained down like a crystalline blizzard, each shard burning, each shard freezing, as they collided against the scorched ground.

  They crashed together again, bodies slamming into one another with enough force to shatter mountains. Teeth clashed against teeth, fangs pierced fur, molten blood sizzled against frozen flesh, and the ground beneath them cracked and cratered under the sheer violence of their combat. Chaos marveled, a rare and wicked admiration flashing in his fiery eyes as he watched two god-tier monsters savage each other with all the fury of ancient forces unshackled.

  The black wolf, wounded and furious, unleashed its spinning teeth, the interior of its maw whirling faster than the eye could follow, shredding chunks of ice that the white wolf conjured to defend itself. In retaliation, the white wolf opened its jaws wide, and instead of biting, it breathed a tidal wave of absolute zero, freezing entire sections of the arena into gleaming crystal cathedrals that shattered under the black wolf’s boiling fury.

  For a brief moment, Chaos could see it: a perfect balance of destruction. Fire and Ice, Chaos and Order, all collapsing and reforming again with every collision. The black wolf caught the white wolf in the ribs with a brutal swipe of its magma-clad claws, sending it skidding backward, blood—silver and gleaming—splattering against the ground. But the white wolf retaliated in the same breath, slamming its shoulder into the black wolf’s chest, an eruption of frost blasting outward, coating the magma beast’s wounds in armor-cracking ice.

  They backed away from each other, snarling, circling, their massive forms leaving steaming footprints where molten stone met frozen earth. Without a sound, without a signal, they charged again, two meteors bound for collision, and this time there was no restraint, no mercy, only raw, merciless instinct.

  The clash was titanic.

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  The black wolf's magma-bleeding fangs crashed into the white wolf’s glacier-forged claws. The impact ripped the air apart, a deafening explosion of force and fury that shook the entire arena to its foundations. Cracks raced up the distant walls, torches were snuffed out by the sheer power of their blows, and the ground beneath them shattered entirely, sending both beasts flying backwards from the force of their own shared annihilation.

  The black wolf was hurled across the broken arena like a meteor, slamming into the far wall with such force that molten cracks spiderwebbed out from the point of impact, fragments of stone raining down in an avalanche. The white wolf, no less battered, crashed into the opposite side, its body folding in upon itself for a moment before it clawed its way back upright, ice already sealing its bleeding wounds in jagged, crystalline armor.

  And Chaos, standing amidst the ruined battlefield, breathing heavily now despite himself, could not help but grin even wider, the mad, unrelenting hunger in his eyes burning brighter than ever.

  But then, for a frozen heartbeat, Chaoses feet froze in their place, sensing that something was about to happen before even his own mind. His molten grin faltered, just slightly, as his sharp mind raced, calculating, searching desperately for an escape route that no longer existed. The doors, the way he came in, were gone, dissolved as if they had never been. He was trapped. Trapped inside Kaiser's soul, inside this arena, with two beasts whose very existence now threatened to eclipse him.

  The black wolf, its crimson eyes blazing with an ancient, volcanic fury, growled low, the sound so deep it cracked the stones at its feet. Across from him, the white wolf, its breath spilling out in clouds of glittering frost, raised its head high, the transparent gem atop its skull shining brighter with each passing second. Then, without a word, without a roar, without even the faintest warning, their powers surged outward. The black wolf’s Seed of Godhood expanded, bleeding molten darkness into the air like a second sun about to collapse. The white wolf’s Seed did the same, but its energy was a pure and brutal cold, a swirling, endless gale that devoured sound and light alike. Both circles carved into the backs of the wolves now pulsed like dying stars, drawing in the very fabric of this place, warping the edges of reality with their unspeakable gravity.

  Chaos gritted his jagged teeth, his hands trembling not from fear but from sheer, overwhelming tension. His body screamed at him to move, to act, to flee—but there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to escape the oncoming cataclysm. His heart, black and burning, pounded so loudly he thought for a moment the wolves might hear it, might see his hesitation, his vulnerability.

  "This cannot be," he muttered under his breath, a sound like gravel grinding against steel. "This cannot be real."

  But it was.

  The black wolf crouched low, molten drool falling from its spinning, gnashing maw, the white circle on its back spinning faster, generating a shriek of raw energy that tore into the very stones of the arena. The white wolf mirrored it, crystalline frost forming intricate, deadly patterns across the ground, the black circle on its back pulling the heat from the air itself, turning breath into shards of ice with every heartbeat.

  The two spheres of power swelled, grew, until they consumed half the arena, their edges grinding and shrieking against one another in a storm of black and white. Chaos felt it in his bones, deep in the very marrow of what he was, something primal and old screaming warnings into the hollow places of his mind. These were not just random outbursts of strength. No, the realization dawned sharp and cold: these were their Origins.

  Chaos understood with dreadful clarity that if the two Origins collided fully, it would not merely be the arena that perished. He corrected himself grimly, his sharp mind calculating faster than instinct—this explosion could kill him, yes, but not just him. It could hurt even a Hope. Even the strongest Liberators who stood at the very summit of humanity's power would not be unharmed standing here. That was the scale of devastation he faced.

  "No," Chaos growled, digging his monstrous claws into the shattered ground beneath him, his shadowy form twitching, writhing, almost shivering with the desperate urge to flee. "I will not be devoured by them. I am a Titan. I am Chaos!"

  Yet even as he roared his defiance into the storm, he knew with a deep, brutal certainty that staying meant death. It was not bravado or strength that would decide survival now. It was movement. Even Titans must yield when caught between two divine storms.

  He snapped his burning gaze upward, searching for cracks, for weaknesses, for anything, any escape from the inevitable doom rushing toward him. There was none. The doors were gone. The arena was sealed. Only the howling storm of Sol surrounded him, swelling larger, drawing in everything, bleeding into the sky above like two black holes about to devour the world.

  The wolves no longer looked at him as they only had eyes for each other. Their massive bodies braced and their mouths closed shut in perfect unison.

  The swirling spheres of white and black, flame and frost, began to condense, shrinking inward, but paradoxically growing denser, heavier, their energy folding into themselves until they became cataclysmic points of unbearable force. Chaos could feel the pull of it even from across the arena, could feel the way the very fabric of this false world buckled under their weight. His monstrous heart pounded, not with excitement, but with cold, ancient terror. He would not survive it. No creature born of flesh or shadow could.

  And as the final heartbeat of silence fell—the moment just before two gods unmade each other—a harsh and commanding, cut through the chaos like a blade through silk.

  "Enough, you dogs."

  It was a woman’s voice, smooth, yet brimming with such effortless authority that both wolves, despite the unspeakable power they had summoned, froze mid-attack, their massive forms locked in the final moments before destruction. The spheres of energy shimmered uncertainly, still pulsing, still trembling with barely restrained annihilation, but no longer advancing.

  Chaos froze as well, his molten eyes wide, his body half-coiled in the act of fleeing, his mind stumbling over itself to process what he had heard. That voice did not shout. It did not plead. It commanded. And impossibly, the impossible beasts obeyed.

  The whole arena fell still, save for the faint crackle of burning stone and the slow drip of melting ice.

  Chaos, still panting from the exertion of preparing to run for his life, slowly turned his gaze toward the source of the voice, feeling the first tendrils of a deeper dread creep along his spine.

  Something—or someone—far worse than the two beasts had arrived.

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