In fractions.
Spine Splitter glowed.
The old tongue curved on its edge did so as well.
Just as the ocean touched his body, the sword flew up.
Its hilt flipped, faced Malik, and shot towards his outstretched hand.
The mont his skin and the warm hilt made contact, its reddening white brightened even further, blinding them.
And in that mont—
BOOM.
Malik reappeared behind the shrieker, far from the ocean and tal.
And before he could even turn around, Malik cracked his skull.
He then grabbed his neck and slamd him to the ground.
’Seven.’
His right foot raised.
It fell.
Right on his neck.
Crack!
Breathing out, he kicked the body aside, then slamd both palms against his ears—hard—forcing the damn ringing to stop.
Just in ti.
The ocean the Water Jinn had conjured—gone.
lted back into the ground.
And Malik didn’t hesitate.
He stabbed his Spine Splitter forward, arm snapping.
FWOOSH!
A tight burst of fire shot straight at the Void Jinn.
But the bastard was ready.
One lazy wave of his hand—whoom—a veil of darkness ford, swallowing the fire whole like it never existed.
His attack was completely negated.
He appeared unbothered though, just jumped back and away as hundreds of tal poles ca screaming down from above.
They missed.
All of them.
He landed in a crouch. Silent. Smoke curling off him.
And as the Void Jinn blinked in confusion—
Malik spoke without looking:
"Eight."
Behind the void Jinn, the spot where Malik had been monts ago—their little trap?
It erupted.
Flas roared out of nowhere, exploding upward in a violent plu.
The source was a single hoofprint scorched into the earth.
Devil’s Footsteps.
Amid all the chaos, the Void Jinn had forgotten Malik’s technique.
Big mistake.
The fire tore up his back—all of it—igniting him from spine to skull.
He, like most of them, didn’t even scream.
Just dropped.
Dead.
Malik didn’t turn around to see.
He didn’t need to.
Only two left now.
tal and Water.
Both stood across from him, side by side.
The last of the ten who thought numbers could drown a monster.
The Water Jinn had her fists clenched, steam pulsing from her skin.
She was mad.
So incredibly mad.
She wanted to lash out, scream, but Jinn...
Jinn didn’t converse in fights.
They only did one thing.
Kill.
Stepping forward, her feet dragged moisture from the cracked floor, at least whatever moisture that remained.
Her elent responded instantly, whipping itself into ropes, whips, and spears, all dragging towards Malik.
The tal Jinn stood tall beside her, whispering to himself.
That was a bad sign.
He rolled his neck. Cracked his knuckles.
And slowly raised a hand.
Clang.
A tal rod stabbed from the earth beneath Malik.
Then another. And another. And another.
They didn’t stop.
Pillars, spikes, rotating blades—Hell, it was like a fucking forge exploded around him.
BOOM.
Malik bolted forward, diving between them, his ribs screaming with each dodge.
He twisted past a geyser of boiling water, ducked under a cleaving crescent of tal, and snapped a chain with his bare hand before it wrapped around his neck.
But the Water Jinn wasn’t done.
She clapped her palms together—fwoooosh—and a wall of water slamd toward him.
Not a wave. A gargantuan wall. A solid fucking continent of pressurized death.
Malik stabbed Spine Splitter down, twisted, and shot sideways just before it hit.
Even then, its edge scraped his side, peeling his exposed skin like bark.
He grunted, hit the ground rolling, and ca up swinging.
Deflecting three pillars into ten others, he stepped back.
Giving him no ti to breathe, even more ca for him.
BOOM.
The air cracked.
His curved sword scread.
And he was upon the water Jinn.
The Water Jinn shrieked, raising a spiral of water in panic.
It coiled up like a serpent, caught Malik’s blade mid-swing, twisted it off-course, redirecting the force, and hurled him straight into a crashing wall of ocean.
WHAM.
Malik hit it hard but didn’t stay.
He blasted off mid-impact and rolled to a jump just in ti to dodge three tal poles that stabbed the ground where he had been.
The tal Jinn didn’t wait.
Didn’t give him a second.
Just as Malik’s feet left the ground—FWAM FWAM FWAM FWAM FWAM!
Ten bolts of steel tore through the air—each one massive, thick as tree trunks, moving faster than their weight would ever imply.
Malik’s golden eyes snapped wide, moving in every direction at once.
He saw it all, not just the ten bolts of steel.
That was only one layer.
There were more.
Much more.
He read them like a map of death.
Two pillars ca from the left, aid for his knees.
One rotating blade from above, curving down for the crown of his head.
Another twisted midair, shaped like a spiral, coming for his spine.
There were shrapnel needles in the wind, nearly invisible.
Twin streams twisted together, forming a noose of high-pressure water.
A wall rose behind him, trying to catch his back mid-dodge.
A spiral directly underfoot—waiting to drag him down.
These two were going beyond all-out.
Every direction. Every angle.
The whole battlefield was a deathtrap.
And still, Malik calmly calculated.
He eventually saw it.
One window.
Tiny.
Narrow.
...Ugly.
But it was there.
Malik’s hands flared, and he blasted himself forward.
Toward the one clear gap in the chaos.
FWOOM—
Steel scread past him.
All but one.
CRACK!
The last bolt clipped his shoulder—just a graze, but enough to shatter bone.
He grunted. Pain stabbed through his chest.
It didn’t matter.
It didn’t slow him down.
He was already up.
Already closing in.
Already airborne.
Already soaring toward the Water Jinn—
BOOM.
Before she could even weave the spell on her lips.
She tried to redirect him again with what was active, tentacles bursting from the ground, twisting up to grab him.
This ti, Malik expected it.
The earlier twist of his sword created a crack in the earth that cascaded down.
And in that crack...
"RISE."
He had secretly stored his flas.
FOOOOOM!
They roared through the cracks, shooting straight into the water limbs, vaporizing them on contact.
So tendrils still slipped through the sides.
He didn’t dodge.
Didn’t bother.
Malik tanked them—let them hit.
And used the blast of steam that followed to disappear.
One second later, he was under her do.
The last defense.
A dense shell of spiraling water, spinning fast enough to carve flesh.
He didn’t stop.
Malik whipped his sword low—then up—cutting clean through it and through her chest in one smooth, rising arc.
SHHHRAKKK!
Golden fire flared from the wound—
BOOM.
Then she burst, exploding into a shrieking cloud of scalding steam.
’...Nine.’
Hurt as all hell, Malik staggered imdiately afterward, dropping his sword low and slamming it into the ground just to stay upright.
It hit hard, and he leaned on it, using it as a cane once more.
Steam continued to hiss off his burnt, cracked, and scarred skin, rising slow.
His back had it the worst, coated in burns, cuts, and wounds from top to bottom.
His front wasn’t much better off, fewer wounds but deeper ones. aner. Every breath a punishnt.
His hand shook, a surprise that it still functioned.
His grip on the hilt slipped for a second before he caught it again, barely keeping himself up.
This had taken everything out of him.
Everything.
Malik was done for a while now.
But the tal Jinn wasn’t.
Not by a long shot.
Throwing away his mace, he slamd both fists into the ground.
CRACK—CRUUUUNNNNCHHHH—!!!
The entire canyon shook.
From behind Malik, a titanic rod of solid tal began to rise.
Tall as a palace. Thick as one of its dos. Covered in runes.
It didn’t move fast.
It didn’t need to.
The pressure, the weight alone, pushed Malik down to one knee.
Then both.
His Devil’s Footsteps failed. He couldn’t even twitch his legs.
The air thickened. Ti slowed. The sound of the world muted.
Malik looked up, squinting through the pain.
The pole rose higher, and then—
Crack!
The tal began to... splinter?
What once was one beca two.
Two beca four. Four beca eight.
Eight beca sixteen. Sixteen cracked into thirty-two.
Each split rang out like thunder in the silence.
They shimred midair, trembling, alive.
Thirty-two beca sixty-four.
Sixty-four shattered to one twenty-eight.
One twenty-eight flickered—doubled. Two fifty-six.
The poles were no longer titanic. They beca frenzied.
They spun like blades around him, blurring into a halo of a Malāk.
Two fifty-six split again. Five hundred twelve.
Five hundred twelve, then one thousand twenty-four.
One thousand twenty-four beca two thousand forty-eight.
Two thousand forty-eight—then four thousand ninety-six.
A humming resounded, the tals syncing up with each other.
Four thousand ninety-six beca eight thousand one hundred ninety-two.
Eight thousand one hundred ninety-two beca sixteen thousand three hundred eighty-four.
Now, each sliver was so small it looked no bigger than the average man’s finger.
CRACK!
With that, the final break had co.
Thirty-two thousand seven hundred sixty-eight.
...Tiny.
They were so small now, but that...
That made them all the more dangerous.
Malik drew in a pained breath.
Then, using his weaponized insanity, he pulled himself up.
Still leaning on the sword, he brought his left hand behind his back.
Bracing his legs, his right hand unsheathed Spine Splitter from the ground, now almost black from his heat.
He held it before his chest and breathed out.
The edge flickered, sputtering.
It glowed.
Brighter.
Brighter.
Brighter.
The whole sword lit up like the Shams, gold veins running down the blade, then into his arms, his chest, his lungs—
Everything scread.
Torn muscles tore further.
Cracked bones cracked further.
He blinked—
BOOM!
And a world was cut.
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