CHAPTER 1196: UNGRATEFUL EYES.

The storm resumed before the smoke could even clear.

Cain fired first—three shots in rapid succession, each bullet folding the air around it as it screamed toward Nebula. The blasts turned the scorched plain into molten rivers, shockwaves shredding through the air like sonic blades. Nebula responded with his own barrage, thousands of blades converging into a single massive vortex that consumed the bullets and hurled them back as liquid gold shrapnel.

The two forces met again in the center of the field. The collision birthed a new sun—pure, blinding light that tore through the sky, carving a spiral of clouds into the heavens. Cain staggered back, shielding his face from the inferno that followed, feeling the bite of his own magic sear his skin.

Nebula didn’t retreat. He walked through the blaze, his outline flickering as if the flames themselves were struggling to contain him. His armor had begun to crack entirely, revealing veins of shimmering metal pulsing like molten veins beneath his skin.

Cain lifted {Golden Tyrant}, his fingers trembling. He couldn’t tell if it was exhaustion or the sheer vibration of the weapon’s power. He hadn’t built it to last this long. The runes etched into its surface were melting away, burning themselves out from the relentless strain.

Still—he fired.

The weapon roared again, unleashing a burst so powerful the ground split beneath him. The bullet didn’t travel straight; it warped the terrain as it moved, dragging molten metal and debris into its trajectory until it became a radiant spear.

Nebula grinned and raised his hand, forming a thousand tiny blades that orbited his body like stars in a constellation. When the bullet came, he didn’t dodge—it struck the field of orbiting blades and split into fragments that exploded all around him.

The shockwave flung both combatants apart. Cain crashed into a broken wall of slagged stone, coughing blood, while Nebula hit the far side of the crater hard enough to embed himself in the molten ground.

For a few moments, there was silence. Only the distant rumble of collapsing rock filled the void between them.

Then Nebula’s laughter broke the quiet. Hoarse, ragged, but triumphant.

"You’re fun," he said, rising again. His body was a wreck—half-melted, half-reformed, yet somehow still holding together. "It’s been too long since I felt something like this."

Cain forced himself up, gritting his teeth as his vision blurred. "You call this fun?"

"Don’t you?" Nebula tilted his head. "You’re like me. You fight like someone who doesn’t care if he dies, only that the other one does first."

Cain spat blood onto the ground. "You talk too much."

He dashed forward, covering the distance between them in an instant, his weapon already reforming in his grip. Nebula matched his speed, their collision sending up another pillar of dust and molten light. Fist met blade, gun met steel. The air screamed.

They fought across the crater, through the storms of their own creation. Every movement was faster, every strike more desperate. The ground beneath their feet could no longer handle the power coursing through it—it buckled and sank, creating waves of molten metal that rose like tides.

At some point, Cain realized he couldn’t tell where his attacks ended and Nebula’s began. Each clash blurred the lines—blades of light slicing through waves of molten iron, explosions of golden fire washing out every sound.

The world around them had become unrecognizable, reduced to color, light, and ruin.

Nebula appeared behind him again, blade raised. Cain twisted, barely catching it on his weapon. The blade carved through the steel, splitting it in two. Nebula lunged forward, but Cain slammed his palm into the ground, causing a column of liquid metal to erupt beneath them, flinging both skyward.

Up in the air, they met again.

The battle became a dance among the clouds—bullets of gold and blades of silver, colliding in bursts that lit up the heavens. Each explosion painted streaks across the firmament like shooting stars, raining fragments of burning metal back down to the world below.

And neither one relented.

Cain’s aura was flickering, faint, unstable. Nebula’s body was falling apart, held together by sheer will and fury. But both pressed on, driven by something beyond reason or pride.

When the final clash came, it wasn’t with words—it was with silence. The kind that comes before a storm tears the sky open.

Their blades met.

Their energies collided.

And the world screamed.

The shockwave from the impact stretched across the horizon, a wall of raw destruction that erased everything in its path. Forests, mountains, and rivers—all turned to molten gold and ash.

When the light faded, there was nothing left but silence... and two shadows standing amidst the smoke.

Cain dropped to one knee, his breath ragged, smoke trailing from his armor. The ground beneath him glowed faintly red, heat seeping through every crack and crevice. He glanced down at his trembling hands—his regeneration was slowing. His blood sizzled against the scorched rock.

Nebula stood several meters away, arms hanging loosely at his sides. His left shoulder was gone, a clean hole burned through it where Cain’s last shot had landed. The wound pulsed with a dim, silver light as the metal beneath his skin tried—and failed—to close itself. Despite that, he still smiled.

"You’re cracking," he said, his voice strained but laced with amusement. "I can hear it. That heartbeat—it’s losing rhythm."

Cain said nothing. He aimed {Golden Tyrant} again. The weapon groaned like a dying beast, the runes on its surface flickering weakly. Each bullet it produced now came slower, heavier, as though the air itself resisted it.

Nebula didn’t move to defend this time. He just tilted his head, eyes half-lidded. "Go on. Keep pretending you’re not running on fumes."

Cain fired.

The bullet screamed across the field, ripping through the air with a shriek that split the silence apart. Nebula caught it—not with a blade, but with his hand. The impact drove him backward, burning through his flesh, but he held it there until it dissolved in his palm, steam pouring from the wound.

"See?" he rasped. "You’re slowing down."

Cain’s glare hardened. "Maybe. But you’re not much better."

Their surroundings began to tremble again—heat distortion blurring the air, molten rivers shifting like living veins around them. Both knew they couldn’t keep this up, yet neither dared to stop.

And in that fragile moment between exhaustion and death, both smiled. The next strike would decide nothing—but they would throw everything they had left anyway.