Chapter 2: Phoenix Of The End

They chased the battle across a dying planet.

Ryo and the squad hurled themselves through ruined terrain, dodging falling stars and tectonic upheavals, desperately trying to keep the thunderous colossus-fight in view. Every few seconds, an explosion of black-white light would erupt across the landscape—followed by a deafening roar and a crash that split entire continents.

"They're teleporting through mountains!" Caldrin cried, breathless.

"No—brawling through them!" Kaela shouted, shielding her face from another plume of alien dust.

Naru Quen, wide-eyed and flushed with infatuation, sprinted ahead. "Look at him! He's so angry—so gravitational!"

"Stop sucking him off! It's annoying!" Ryo barked, flipping over a burning alien carcass. 

"Awww you're just jealous!"

"Tch. No. He's just another anomaly with some power he can barely contain. I bet Yurei would hate him!"

Caldrin added, "I don't know, Ryo..you do seem a little—."

Ryo slashed his scythe at Caldrin's head, and Caldrin ducked under it at the last minute, saying, "You murderer! You almost cut my head off!"

During the battle in the sky, Gunjo came in low, spinning like a storm-sickle as his body blazed with black and white comet light. Atralyth hurled a roar, his four arms flaring open as a corona of decay exploded from his back—his spiral wings erupting in a halo of molten ash and screaming embers. They clashed mid-air: Gunjo's foot cleaved into Atralyth's chest, kicking the god backward. Atralyth countered mid-spin, one hand twisting into a blooming sigil of divine rot, then smashing it down like a plague sun—a blast of decaying light crashing toward Gunjo.

But Gunjo vaulted over it.

In an instant, he appeared behind Atralyth with a snap-lunge—his heel whipping around in a comet-lit roundhouse that cracked the sky with its arc. Atralyth folded around the hit—spinning with the momentum, his wings curling in to detonate a concussive burst of entropy—gray-white shockwaves rippling outward, disintegrating the terrain beneath them.

They flipped through the air mid-fall, trading parries with fists and forearms, spiraling in a seamless celestial kata.

Gunjo ignited Halo Burial as he roared with anger and rage.

The black-and-white astral halo screamed into existence behind him—orbiting like a guillotine of light. He shoved forward—the halo slamming into Atralyth's chest, driving him down with searing gravitational pressure. The air ruptured as Atralyth's body was crushed downward, slammed into a cliffside that imploded on impact. The halo spun with grinding force, dragging him like a broken meteor, carving a mile-long trench through the landscape.

But Atralyth retaliated.

"I…will not fail the constellations! The gods will ascend me higher to their level!"

His spiral wings split and unfurled into radial glyphs, releasing an array of blistering decay beams—spiraling in on Gunjo with explosive precision. Gunjo vaulted, flipping backward in a somersault—the beams missing by inches, leaving cratered ruin in their wake.

The squad struggled through the aftermath.

"Was that a volcano or a punch?!" Caldrin yelled.

Naru said to him, "Imagine getting hit by one of those! Haha! Looks fun!"

"You're deranged, Naru.."

Suddenly, Comet Cyst was activated by Gunjo

Gunjo slammed his chest—a star-core comet erupting outward, not thrown, but growing, expanding around him. It became a glowing orb—a false moon—swallowing both him and Atralyth into its suffocating radius. Inside, time slowed. Atralyth reeled, his motions thick and dragging like drowning limbs. Gunjo moved freely, erupting into a flurry of strikes—jabs, knees, and high kicks that carved streaks of comet flame through the molasses air. He twisted midair, spinning beneath Atralyth's arm, elbowing him in the ribs, then vaulting upward with a blazing uppercut that shattered the interior comet walls.

"This is his world," Atralyth rasped, struggling against the gravity. "Gunjo!"

Outside, the Phoenix screeched, twisting through smoke and collapsing mountains, trying to close the distance. Flames licked from its feathers, and when an abomination leapt to intercept it, it died in an instant, vaporized by the Phoenix's radiant fury. The divine bird pushed through, desperate to reach the boy now called Gunjo.

As the comet orb died, Gunjo burst out of it with Supernova Sunder.

His legs cracked with raw momentum, launching him high into the sky—air ripping behind him. He fell with godlike force, both fists descending. When he hit, it was apocalyptic—the earth shattered upward, like space was vomiting light. Floating comet shards hung in the air, suspended in zero-gravity, burning as if caught in orbit. Atralyth was lifted into the air, spinning wildly—his skin flaking with divine rot, wings struggling to stabilize.

Gunjo didn't stop.

"RAGHHHHH!" He roared in pure fury.

He snapped his fingers—Ecliptic Gallows forming.

A black ring formed behind his neck—snapping forward, catching Atralyth mid-air. It spun around his upper torso like a noose of gravity and light—pulling him skyward. Atralyth's body convulsed, shaking with raw tension. Gunjo launched upward—flipping mid-air, then driving through Atralyth's suspended form like a meteor-spear, leaving a streak of light in his wake.

The scream that followed wasn't pain. It was fury.

As they landed—a city-sized ravine opened, swallowing valleys.

Atralyth unfurled his wings—decay erupting in divine pulses. Dozens of sigils formed behind him, mimicking his original glyph, each one a necrotic constellation blazing with red and gray embers. He screamed in wrath, and the crests flared, launching waves of volatile decay, not fog, but pure reality erosion—each beam eating not matter, but the rules that held it.

Gunjo darted forward—Orbit Flare Requiem activating.

Three black comet fragments spun around him—each one warping him into a new position, displacing light as he passed. He stepped through them—each movement accelerating him exponentially. On the final step, he torpedoed through Atralyth's glyph wall, shoulder smashing into the god's chest with the force of a dying star. Atralyth spun out, arms flailing, crashing through a floating temple, then the base of a decaying mesa, then through a ruined altar of stone bones and alien prayers.

Gunjo landed, the air humming with his fury.

The planet cracked beneath him.

The sky rippled with a scream.

In the distance, Ryo and the others paused, looking out over the battlefield. The earth was collapsing—massive crevasses splitting open, the sky filled with orbiting debris and molten stone.

"Anyone else feel like this mission escalated?" Caldrin asked.

Kaela nodded grimly. "I think we're the anomalies now."

Naru pulled out a notebook. "I'm naming that last combo Meteor Love Pressure."

And before anyone could stop her, she ran ahead.

Above the destruction, Gunjo floated, panting, eyes burning.

Across from him, bleeding and furious, Atralyth rose, wings twitching, arms outstretched as the sigils behind him multiplied—each forming a glyph of divine rot, a storm of celestial decay spinning into being.

The planet beneath them began to die.

Sky peeled like burning bark. Mountains twisted into heavenward spirals, then imploded mid-ascent. Oceans tore free of gravity and surged skyward in shimmering, chaotic geysers. Trees combusted from their roots and screamed ash into the atmosphere. The very frame of the world cracked apart as tectonic shelves shattered and rose like teeth around the battlefield. Rivers boiled. Light had no direction. The sky bled white and red.

And at the center of this deathstorm—

Gunjo roared, comet-fire seething from every pore, his body flexing under god-breaking pressure. His eyes poured blood like twin scars down his cheeks—not pain, but force, as his celestial soul bent under the weight of compounded techniques.

Across from him, Atralyth erupted, divine wings spiraling with unreal decay.

He floated, arms outstretched—his flesh splitting into flayed halos of holy rot, raw muscle woven with glowing strings of dying light that hissed and seared the air. His wings no longer flapped—they unraveled, forming rings of dissolving glyphs that spun like celestial saws, slicing time itself. Decay poured from him in lashing arcs—but this wasn't mold, or ruin—it was conceptual unmaking; Where the rot struck, the idea of structure vanished.

Gunjo blasted forward, His body imploded then rebirthed in front of Atralyth mid-charge—Comet Cyst flaring to life again but half-formed, merging with Orbit Flare Requiem. The result was chaos incarnate—his movements sliding between three different spatial positions, each step accelerating him into a blur that physics could no longer contain.

He carved through the air like a living comet, shouldering Atralyth through a ring of spiraling decay glyphs, the very touch of which should've unmade him—but Gunjo didn't yield. His skin peeled, bones cracked, but he drove forward, roaring blood from his mouth as the final comet-step rammed his knee into Atralyth's spine, snapping it audibly.

The vessel howled—spitting divine rot that curled into serpentine arcs, whipping around like devouring lashes. One scraped across Gunjo's back—tearing flesh from spine—but Gunjo spun, eyes burning like nova-flares, and Halo Burial activated mid-motion.

The black-and-white ring flared behind him—grinding, spinning, crackling like a dying god's scream—and he slammed it against Atralyth's chest, pinning him midair. The impact folded space inward, compressing the god into a knot of collapsing gravity.

Atralyth's wings burst.

Then, Ryo and the group had finally arrived.

His ship—Seraph—hovered overhead like a proud lioness. Smooth angles of obsidian and gleaming white plating, five radiant engines blazing behind a tail fin crowned in spears of blue flame. It wasn't massive—maybe four stories high—but it hovered like it owned the sky. Wings extended with foldout stabilizers, covered in hex-shielded runes that shimmered with pulsating energy. Its underbelly carried twin cannon ports, dormant but humming like restrained wrath.

Ryo leapt aboard through a lowering bay door. "Seraph, good to see you, dear!"

"We're here, now what? We need a plan. We can't wait for that planet to become negative space." Kaela mentioned.

"A plan?" Caldrin barked, arms flailing. "He just turned a vessel of a god constellation into a comma! What do you suggest?!"

"We don't capture that," Kaela said grimly. "We survive it."

Ryo said, "The weird guy with wings called human anomaly…Gunjo? It even has a name."

Naru, still watching Gunjo with star-struck eyes, whispered: "Gunjo… That name's a weapon. I'd let him destroy me in halves."

Ryo choked. "Can we focus?"

Back in the storm—

Atralyth writhed free.

He tore one of his own spiral rot glyphs, merging it into his bleeding wing—then exploded. The blast was divine entropy, a shockwave that reversed decay for a moment—then reapplied it tenfold. Entire forests nearby sprouted, withered, then crumbled to ash in the span of two seconds.

Gunjo roared again, blood gushing from his eyes now as he slammed Supernova Sunder mid-sprint. The ground couldn't hold him—it folded upward before impact. His fists crashed down—earth burst like glass—the shockwave lifting Atralyth with such force that his ribs protruded through his skin.

Still the vessel fought—rising through the broken light, gathering one final surge.

"YOU WERE NEVER MEANT TO EXIST!" Atralyth cried, wings forming a collapsing eclipse of decay and wrath. "You..will yield! I will not fail them after they chose me as a vessel!"

Gunjo didn't answer.

He just vanished forward, his body flickering in speed, away from his enemies sight.

Ecliptic Gallows snapped around Atralyth's neck.

The ring—a warped eclipse—dragged him up like a hanging star. His body convulsed, wings fraying into burning ribbons. Gunjo rocketed upward, and spun through the god's torso, arms out, screaming like a dying universe. Atralyth split mid-air—bones grinding apart—bleeding glowing rot.

Then Gunjo landed.

And ripped his head off.

He tore it from the spine with both hands, ligaments snapping, divine ichor pouring like magma. The scream of a vessel dying choked itself silent. Gunjo didn't stop. He swung the head like a hammer, smashing it into Atralyth's flailing corpse—once, twice, eight times—each blow destroying more of the landscape.

A mountain crumbled.

A lake reversed into vapor.

A wind died screaming.

Atralyth's body became meat and ruin, flung in pulped arcs through the air until there was nothing left but bones trailing divine steam.

Gunjo stood over the remains, shoulders heaving, his fists dripping rot and blood.

Atralyth's head—still glowing faintly—muttered, "They will come for you… because I've failed them…"

Gunjo stared at it.

'Dead…'

Then smashed it against the ground, so hard the skull caved inward, splintering like porcelain. The last of the divine light bled into the soil.

Silence.

Smoke curled.

Above the battlefield, the Hunt Squad stood frozen.

Ryo had drawn his weapon—a long twin-barrel plasma revolver—hand trembling. He grinned nervously, sweat trailing down his brow. "Okay… okay. That's… that's our guy."

Kaela unsheathed her blade, voice like stone. "Be ready."

Caldrin was already massaging his temples, voice cracking. "We have to do this now, at least t-try and talk to him?! Let him know we aren't his enemies…"

Ryo tilted his head, "Buttttt technically we are—."

Kaela and Caldrin dashed up to Ryo and covered his mouth fast, "Shh!" They whispered loudly.

Naru drooled. Literally. Rubbing her gauntlets together, eyes dilated like hearts. "Gunjo…" she whispered. "I am yours."

Gunjo turned.

Blood ran down his cheeks. Light flickered behind him like a halo of broken stars. He didn't speak.

He just stared.

And the Hunt stared back.

The battlefield was silent now, save for the low thunder of a dying planet beneath their feet. Gunjo stood amidst the carnage—tattered, bleeding, and pulsing with wild black comet light—his bare feet stepping through blood-slicked ash and glowing fractures in the ground. He walked forward slowly, his silhouette dragging Atralyth's severed head by the hair. His breathing was low and guttural, like a furnace trying to cool but failing. The ground behind him cracked and peeled, each step waking seismic whimpers beneath the surface.

Ryo and the squad stood in his path. All five stared—each one reacting in their own vivid, chaotic way.

Naru tilted her head, eyes wide, smile broader than ever, hair shifting into a soft pink-gold. "Ooooohh my stars, he's sooo intense! Gunjooo~ what a pretty name for a murderstorm like you, teehee!" She spun her gauntlet once on her wrist, the veins of its star-core humming like laughter.

Kaela stepped forward, wiping a speck of blood from her cheek with an embroidered white cloth, her voice clipped but resolute. "Gunjo," she called. "You don't have to walk alone. Whatever they did to you—whatever's inside you—we can help you contain it. You don't have to be a weapon."

Caldrin, slightly behind the others, teeth softly clacking, was already scribbling notes midair, his clairvoyant scroll unrolling behind him in trembling spirals. "Subject's aura is fluctuating violently, eyes hemorrhaging… Potential instability threshold breached… Oh dear. Oh dear oh no." He mumbled footnotes under his breath, glancing at Kaela's posture for tactical cues.

And Ryo, the loudest voice of them all, was completely silent. His scythe, chained to his back, hissed with red flames as if sensing its wielder's hesitation. His yellow eyes locked on Gunjo's bruised, storm-wracked frame. He gritted his teeth.

'Why are my hands trembling?

Tch. What happened to the fire-eyed bastard who laughed in the face of sky-gods and slit celestial throats for sport? What happened to never hesitating? Never slowing down?'

He clenched his fists.

'Get your act together, Ryo. You're not allowed to freeze. Not again. You swore to stay loud. Swore you'd never be left behind. Never become irrelevant in a war this big. But this… this ain't even a war anymore, is it? This is a fucking cosmic breakdown.

He's not human anymore. He's a divine detonation with legs. And yet—here you are, shaking like a kid.

No. No slowing down. You don't understand how to slow down anyway.

Move, dammit. MOVE. Even if you die…you can't stop moving…'

Then, Gunjo stopped.

And in the blink of a dying star—he was in their faces.

A brutal fist surged forward, time dilating around it, the air curling and imploding with the pressure of his strike. The squad barely had time to react—Kaela's eyes widened, Naru squealed in delight, Caldrin instinctively turned ghost-pale and raised a warding sigil, and Ryo—

He still didn't move fast enough.

But just as the fist was about to land, Gunjo's face contorted. His mouth curled in fury—then spat blood. Thick, black comet ichor poured from his lips, and he choked on it.

"Tch, this damn power…"

And his body collapsed forward. Unconscious. Surrendering.

Ryo lunged and caught him, stumbling slightly beneath the weight of something so charged, so heavy, it felt like he'd caught a comet's corpse.

"Got you, you rage-sick bastard," he muttered, chest heaving. "Told myself I'd never hesitate again… guess I still got some work to do."

Above, the Seraph screamed through the skies. Ryo's baby. It descended with beautiful fury—sleek, sharp, and engraved with cosmic glyphs. Its blackened silver hull bristled with thruster veins and cooling plates that shimmered like angel feathers dipped in flame. The cockpit was wide but compact, designed for a squad, and its hovering engines blasted away flaming debris as the ramp lowered.

"Everyone on! Planet's not gonna hold our date any longer!" Ryo barked.

As they all climbed aboard, the black comet chaos surged behind them. The earth split apart in jagged rings. Oceans boiled away into pillars of glass. The sky folded in on itself, turning inside-out with gravitational rips like the planet was being eaten alive by the very thing Gunjo carried in his veins.

Even the Phoenix—the divine creature that had chased the anomaly from the stars—swooped in, talons cutting through beast after beast. Grotesque horrors and starspawn leapt at it in waves, ripping chunks from their own bodies just to grab hold of the divine bird.

But the Phoenix's light answered.

It opened its wings wide, a divine flare erupting from its chest—a celestial shriek so powerful it didn't sound like sound at all. It melted every creature that touched it, incinerating them in mid-air, their screams falling apart in crystallized ash. One final spin turned its body into a wheeling spiral of pure astral fire, and it blasted free of the last mob.

Below it, the planet finally gave way.

Black comet fire gushed from the cracked core like a wound in space itself. Mountains shattered into molten rain. The planet's crust caved inward with a horrible groan, collapsing like a dying lung.

The Phoenix watched. Hovering. Breathing heavy.

And when it knew it was over—when the cries stopped and the fire was all that remained—it flew.

Its wings blazed with dim light as it surged across the dying void. It passed through nebulae and debris fields, leaving glittering trails in its wake. Then—

It reached the Astral Branch.

There, at the center of all things, it floated—the great cosmic tree, the Astral Branch, an ivory colossus of shimmering limbs and woven galaxies. It stretched across the universe, its roots threading through time and its leaves humming with forgotten light. Each branch bore a different astral current—stars, planets, constellations—and they wept with the loss of one of their own.

The Phoenix circled it in solemn arcs, its cry becoming a sad, celestial lullaby, echoing across the bark like wind through memory. Its body pulsed with reverent light as it sang not with voice, but with runes—each sound a glyph of mourning glowing in the air behind it:

ᚨᛋᛏᚱᚨᛚ ᛒᚱᚨᚾᚲᚺ — ᛟᚾᛖ ᛈᛚᚨᚾᛖᛏ ᚠᚪᛚᛚᛖᚾ.

(Astral Branch — one planet has fallen.)

It circled once more, the light trailing from its wings forming a ring of remembrance around the Branch.

Then it vanished into the stars.