Chapter 85 :The Dance of the Titans

An impulse.

Salomé lunges at Sakolomé like lightning, knee forward, arm stretched back.

Sakolomé blocks.

The impact explodes in the air like a wave. He slides three meters despite his perfect guard.

"Again that blow… It's as if her body is a compressed storm…"

Salomé disappears. Reappears above him, a foot wrapped in energy and mana. Sakolomé jumps to the side, but a second blow already comes, horizontal.

"She feints in the air, as if flying allows her to dance around the laws of combat…"

He parries. This time, a sharp crack rises from his wrist.

"Tch... My bone?! She cracked a bone just by parrying…"

Salomé lands, rolls on the ground with grace, and strikes again — an elbow blow toward the temple, followed by a lightning sweep.

Sakolomé jumps back, out of breath.

But already she is on him, too fast, too precise. A rain of blows falls — fists, elbows, knees. He blocks, deflects, dodges… but the ground cracks under their feet. Each impact is a detonation.

"Her strikes… They crush me. Even blocked, her blows pierce my defenses… It's absurd!"

A hit gets through.

Sakolomé is thrown against a column. The stone shatters.

Salomé gives him no time to breathe. She rushes, spins on herself, charges her fist with a vortex of incandescent mana.

"She's going to shatter my rib cage!"

He counters with both hands. The breath is ripped from his throat. His body flies backward again. He lands in a roll, wiping his mouth: blood.

"Damn... She surpasses me. Every second, I'm pushed back. I barely recognize her… is this my sister?"

She reappears in front of him without warning. A spinning back kick, fast as a whip.

He ducks just in time. The cutting wind of the blow slices his cheek.

"She leaves me no opening. She doesn't even think anymore, she feels the fight… She fights me by instinct."

Sakolomé finally strikes.

A right hand, fast and pure.

Salomé dodges, but her eyes widen slightly. She sensed the intention.

"If I want to hold on, I must counterattack. Not flee."

He raises his leg, attacks in a burst. Knee strike, followed by an elbow, then a vertical backhand.

Salomé blocks everything — but this time, she steps back.

"I see… I have to hit before she can channel her mana into her limbs. That's it, her weak point: synchronization."

He accelerates. Every move is sharp, measured. He anticipates her feints, predicts her steps. He enters the flow.

A strike lands. Full chest.

Salomé blocks, but this time she steps back two meters.

She smiles.

Salomé: "Good. Now you're really hitting."

Sakolomé pants, chest burning, arm numb.

"If I don't keep this pace… I'll lose."

She goes again.

This time, the blows are more violent, less controlled. She pushes, she seeks the flaw. And Sakolomé… resists.

He no longer blocks, he deflects. He no longer retreats, he circles around her. The fight becomes a dance, a rain of fire, a rain of blows.

A punch grazes his jaw.

"I'm at my limit… I feel my nerves burning. But I endure. Because she… she forces me to become better."

Salomé slows for a moment. Their eyes meet.

Salomé: "You still standing, big brother?"

Sakolomé, spitting blood: "Is that… all you've got?"

A silence. Then they go again.

A deluge of strikes.

The fight still raged. The ground cracked under their feet, the air vibrated with their power. And yet…

Salomé stopped abruptly.

She sighed, long and almost… disappointed.

Salomé: "I don't feel you enough, big brother… I'm going to push you more. Look!"

She steps back slightly, then… rises.

Sakolomé stares at her, intrigued. His breath is heavy. His muscles burn.

Salomé's feet leave the ground. She floats. Peaceful. Serene. The air currents stir around her.

Her eyes open — two golden beacons piercing the battlefield.

A yellowish, dense, nervous glow bursts from her body.

Her aura crackles, condenses, coils around her like a controlled storm. Her gaze… changes.

"What is that look…?" thinks Sakolomé. "It's like she sees everything. Every mistake. Every intention. Every potential future…"

Salomé stretches her hand forward, as if aiming at her brother's heart.

Salomé: "Look at this, big brother. Try not to die, okay."

Sakolomé, eyes wide open: "Die?!"

She bends her arm.

A vortex of violet mana forms in her fist. Lightning courses through it. The world rumbles around her. The sky streaks with unstable shadows.

Salomé: "Cosmic Killer Punch!!!"

She strikes.

But it's not just a fist.

A giant dragon, made of pure mana and violet flashes, bursts from her arm like an enraged celestial spirit. It roars, cleaves the air, then charges at Sakolomé, jaws wide open.

Sakolomé: "Is this really… Salomé who did that?!"

He jumps, just in time.

The dragon passes beneath him, grazes the planet… and exits the atmosphere, tearing space like a blade of chaos. Then, in stellar void… it explodes.

The light convulses. Space ripples. Reality itself twists its laws. And then…

Silence.

An abyssal silence.

But in this void… Sakolomé leaps.

He concentrates his energy, charges his right arm, a white and pure gleam bursting from his fist.

Sakolomé: "KILLER PUNCH!!!"

Salomé has not yet touched the ground. She descends, a smile on her lips, when she sees him — Sakolomé is already rushing at her, fast, merciless.

She crosses her arms in an X, instinctively.

BOOOOM!!!

The impact.

The sky splits. The ground bursts in a spray of rock. Salomé is thrown at a mad speed, dragged for several kilometers across the lands. Her body leaves behind an immense trail, a crater as far as the eye can see.

Salomé: "S-Shit…!!"

She is still carried by the energy of the blow… until everything explodes.

A column of white light tears the horizon.

Sakolomé, panting, bare chest shredded with burns, watches what he just did.

The earth smokes. The sky remains cracked where the dragon passed.

But he still feels his sister's presence.

He follows the crater, step by step… until he finally finds her.

Salomé is there. Standing. Out of breath. Arms still crossed over her face, trembling. She held on.

Sakolomé lands gently.

Sakolomé: "Are you okay, Salomé?"

She slowly lowers her arms. Her gaze is sharp but exhausted. Her voice trembles slightly.

Salomé: "Big brother… you… you didn't go easy with that blow, huh… haha…"

Her legs give way.

But before she falls, Sakolomé is already there. He catches her in his arms.

Sakolomé: "You used all your mana again, huh…"

Salomé, a smirk on her lips, barely audible: "Haha… I wanted to win at all costs…"

Sakolomé supports her gently. And then, an old memory imposes itself.

Another Salomé. Much weaker. A children's fight. An already uncontrollable will.

"She had already given everything… That day, I won… but that Salomé…

The one today… she is at least a million times stronger than me back then."

Salomé murmurs, almost in a whisper:

Salomé: "Big brother… I… I'm tired now…"

Sakolomé smiles, a little sad, a little proud.

Sakolomé: "We're going home."

He carries her on his back. His steps rise into the air. And both, brother and sister, leave the battlefield.

In silence.