Chapter 84 : Deadly dance under a sulfur sky

The sky was a dirty yellow, darkened by a thick, toxic haze. Lightning streaked relentlessly across the clouds, in constant chaos, as if the planet itself rejected all forms of life.

Venus.

The planet everyone avoided.

Temperatures over 460°C, an atmosphere of crushing carbon dioxide gas, pressure capable of crushing iron.

The rain did not cool, no. It dissolved.

Pure sulfuric acid.

Not a breath of breathable air. No mercy. Nothing.

And yet, standing in this real nightmare, Sakolomé and Salomé Sony.

Salomé was suffocating.

She had covered her body with a thin layer of mana, but the heat pierced everything, the pressure sank into her skin like invisible jaws clamping her bones.

"Hold your mana inside, not just around!"

shouted Sakolomé, his voice vibrating with energy, creating a vacuum bubble around him.

Salomé tried to react. She focused her mana toward her heart, letting it expand within her.

But her vision blurred.

The Venusian ground, a crust of burning rock, wavered.

She collapsed.

"You last two minutes longer than yesterday. Keep going."

She opened her eyes, her face covered in sweat.

"It's… not possible…"

"The void of space may spare you. Here, no. On Venus, your body learns OR it dies."

And so, every day, Salomé strengthened her flow.

Creating an internal skin of mana.

Breathing without air.

Cooling her own blood.

Canceling gravity with spiritual pulses.

Progress was slow… but real.

Salomé could now stand for fifteen minutes without faltering, create a double-layer mana shell, and neutralize acid rains with a simple absorption field.

"Your mana is beginning to bend to your will. You no longer endure it. You use it."

They jumped from crater to crater, barefoot on scorching stones.

Salomé screamed at each impact, but her feet no longer melted.

She began to move in the burning air, to leap over acid clouds, to fly by her own strength in the thick atmosphere.

One day, Salomé stood for more than an hour, meditating, motionless, in an acid tornado, surrounded by electric discharges, without visible protection.

Sakolomé watched her from a rock.

"You survived Venus. You are ready for what comes next."

They left Venus like two meteors, slicing through the toxic atmosphere.

Destination: space.

The true void.

And further still, near a stellar black hole.

The laws there became mad.

Light bent.

Time slowed, then stretched.

Gravity sang a strange music, capable of crushing all will.

Salomé no longer spoke.

Her gaze was fixed.

Her mana danced around her in harmonious spirals, hugging every atom, anticipating every pressure, every gravitational pulse.

She no longer flew.

She floated with authority, as if born in this void.

But it was on the 94th day that everything changed.

Sakolomé floated calmly not far from a gravitational vortex, when a joyful cry burst behind him:

"YAAAAAHOOOOOUU!!"

Salomé had just propelled herself like a rocket, a trail of golden mana at her feet.

She twirled, turned 90°, spiraled around the black hole without even slowing.

"DO YOU SEE, BIG BROTHER?! LOOK AT ME!!"

Sakolomé, surprised, smiling:

"Well done…"

She bounced on gravitational waves, danced between gamma rays, laughed, spun.

"I'M FLYING, BIG BROTHER!!"

The void was no longer an obstacle.

Space no longer scared her.

She had just been born.

A deafening roar tore the air—or rather what was left of the air—as two silhouettes spun, struck, dodged, fell, and leapt through a field of molten rock. The light of the dense atmosphere tinted everything a dull orange, blurring shapes but not the tension.

Venus, this infernal world, with temperatures brushing 470°C, atmospheric pressures 90 times greater than Earth's, and sulfuric acid rains, was no longer a prison for them. It had become a dojo of fire and suffering, where every moment of training was a challenge to death.

Salomé and Sakolomé fought.

Their bodies moved with grace despite the crushing gravity. Every strike landed, every parry made, resembled a martial ballet, a deadly dance among ashes, lightning, and lava.

The two were synchronized: arms raised, legs extended, millimeter pivots, strikes stopped a few millimeters from faces. Salomé mimicked Sakolomé's gestures like a slightly offset reflection—a near-perfect symmetry in an apocalyptic setting.

A short breath broke the rhythm.

Sakolomé stepped back, kneeed down, and observed his sister. Sweat did not bead: on Venus, sweat evaporated instantly, but the dark circles under their eyes testified to continuous tension.

Sakolomé (with a sly smile):

"It's been six months now that we've been training here. Look at you, Salomé… Venus doesn't even affect you anymore. You don't even need your mana to protect yourself."

Salomé raised her head, hair glued by the heat, eyes shining:

Salomé (proud):

"Yep… It's extreme, huh?"

Sakolomé (nodding):

"You still have energy?"

She nodded without hesitation:

Salomé:

"We may not have eaten, drunk, or slept for six months... But it's nothing. Thanks to my mana, I now control the biological functions of my body. Even if it's extreme, I could survive like this for… at least two more years."

A heavy, respectful silence.

Salomé lowered her eyes, a little worried:

Salomé:

"But… it's you I'm worried about. You don't have mana. You only use raw energy. It's strong, but not as much. How have you held up all this time?"

Sakolomé laughed softly, as if pain no longer made sense:

Sakolomé:

"I prepared for it long ago. I learned to temporarily cut off my body's needs with my energy. Hunger, thirst, fatigue… no longer exist. But be careful: when my energy runs out, I'll feel it all at once... as if six months of absence hit me at once. I could eat alone the meal of seven weeks… for twelve big eaters."

Salomé burst out laughing, tears in her eyes despite the heat:

Salomé (amused):

"Seriously? Your tiny body can swallow all that at once?"

Sakolomé (mischievous grin):

"My body burns calories like a divine boiler. Can you imagine?"

She nodded, between admiration and worry.

A heavy silence enveloped them then. Ashes fell softly from the burning sky, like fire snow. Then Sakolomé stood and fixed Salomé with gravity.

Sakolomé:

"Salomé… It's time. We have reached the limits of endurance. But there remains one step. The last one. Before our return to Earth."

Salomé (intrigued):

"The last step?"

Sakolomé:

"Yes. We have learned to survive. To fight. To resist hell. Now, it's time to test it all."

He positioned himself, legs slightly bent, arms raised, and his body lit up. A dense, vibrant red vapor escaped from his skin like an aura of pure energy. Every movement of his hand sliced the heavy air like a blade of fire.

Salomé smiled, her violet hair floating under the pressure of her own power. Her violet mana burst in a spiral, forming around her a shimmering storm of spiritual flames.

Salomé (determined, fierce):

"I'm ready, big brother!!"

They dashed at full speed in a seismic crash, leaving behind two smoking craters on the Venusian surface. The true brotherly fight was beginning.

Salomé reappeared just in front of Sakolomé in a blur of movement. A single blink, and her foot plunged into the air, projected toward him with surgical precision. Sakolomé barely pulled back his head, but the shockwave of the blow grazed his shoulder like an invisible blade. He felt his skin contract under the pressure, a vibrant burn climbing along his nerves.

He pivoted to dodge, but Salomé immediately pursued him, each step marking the Venusian ground with a miniature crater. She was no longer a fighter: she was a bipedal storm.

She struck again—a lightning-fast combo: fist, elbow, knee, foot, each chaining with almost inhuman fluidity. Sakolomé parried, pivoted, absorbed. Even when blocking, his arms trembled. His energy burned with every contact, as if his defenses were eaten by a voracious force.

Clack! A hit on his forearm. He grimaced. His skin cracked under the impact, coagulated blood mingling with the red energy enveloping him. Every hit from Salomé... no, every contact... made him feel as if his soul were crushed in a vise.

He leapt back in a big jump, landing on a rocky outcrop deformed by Venusian conditions. He gasped. His palms were scarlet, covered with black cuts where blood and coagulated energy formed small dark veins.

Then… she smiled. And disappeared.

Sakolomé arched abruptly into a defensive stance. A fraction of a second later, he blocked a descending blow from the sky. A violent spin. A purple heel like a spiritual flame. His arm sank slightly under the pressure, the rock cracked beneath his feet. A sinister pain climbed to his shoulder.

— Since when... do you hit like that? he murmured, while the air vibrated on impact.

He dodged, sliding at high speed over the burning ground, but it was not enough. Salomé reappeared where he was going to be, and struck.

BOOM.

Space... ripples.

Sakolomé, eyes wide, literally saw the atmosphere bend under the blow. A concentric wave spread around the point of impact, as if the strike had pressed reality itself. Colors twisted. Sounds echoed with a strange delay. She was hitting beyond the physical world.

— If she hit a normal human being… he thought, astonished. No. She wouldn't just have killed them. She would have shattered them on a fundamental level.

Salomé retreated calmly, arms dangling, her gaze still mischievous. Then she said, between two rhythmic breaths:

— Big brother... did you notice my power?

Sakolomé blinked, surprised. She knew?

— What?... You knew how hard you were hitting?

Salomé straightened slowly, stretched out a right arm before her, palm open.

— While you sometimes watched me sitting, while I floated in acid storms, I tried something. I combined my mana... with my raw energy. A fusion. Not an alternation. A real fusion.

She clenched her fist. A mixed aura rose. A purple flame spiraled in a denser, almost liquid golden light.

— On one limb, I concentrate both... Physical energy is amplified by mana... and this same mana acts as a full amplifier. So every hit becomes triple: base hit, + raw energy, + mana. But... together, not one after the other.

Sakolomé's eyes widened. A shiver ran through him.

— She superimposed layers of forces… physical and spiritual?

He clenched his teeth, arms still aching.

— I see... energy is raw fuel. Mana is will... She sends me a punch that hits the body with brute power... and at the same time, the spirit is struck as if a foreign entity attacked me from inside. Two hits... from two realities... at the same instant.

He sighed deeply.

— Salomé… you are a close combat genius. You love fighting too much, that's clear. But by doing this… you are no longer simply talented. You have become a physical anomaly. If you keep training at this pace... you could literally… break space and time.

Salomé winked and smiled.

— That's what I'm aiming for, Sakolomé. That's what I'm aiming for.

Sakolomé slowly resumed his guard. His red energy began to pulse again.

— Very well. Then I'll get serious too. What I'm going to show you now... is not a technique. It's a response.

Salomé raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

The atmosphere grew heavy. Sakolomé's red energy thickened, forming translucent fangs in the air around him, as if reality wanted to flee his presence. He leaned slightly forward.

— Salomé... come.

She dashed forward.

And the air exploded.