Thar'Zul-Vekar watched Erend hurtling toward them, They can see that he was looking different. He looks faster, hotter, and more focused than before.
Something had changed. They could feel it in the air itself and in the heat that bent the air and peeled back the clouds. The Fire Dragon was no longer hesitating.
The god's jaw clenched, their expression twisting in rage. Their glowing green eyes flared again but now, there was something darker swimming beneath the light, a tinge of shadow black that made the glow feel sickly, corrupted and more sinister.
"HYAAAA!!!" Thar'Zul-Vekar roared, their voice ripping through the sky like a lightning strike.
The sound sent shockwaves outward, rattling the as on the grounds, cracking distant hills, and making the sky tremble.
Erend felt the pressure as well. It hit him like a wall, as if the air itself was trying to shove him backward, fighting his momentum with wave after wave of crushing weight.
His flames bent behind him, streaming like a tail in the storm.
But he didn't stop and his flying speed wasn't reduced at all.
He narrowed his burning eyes and pushed harder with his claws outstretched. The inferno of his body now looks like a blazing streak of heat that aimed straight at the god.
And Thar'Zul-Vekar met him.
The god also burst forward with matching speed, vines lashing and energy crackling around their body like a wrathful aura.
They collided with Erend in midair again. This time with enough force to send out a shockwave that was not only air but Magic that shattered clouds and flattened ash far below.
The sky cracked with sound and Magic. Ash flew like snow caught in a hurricane. Fire and green-black energy swirled into a storm so massive it could be seen for miles.
At its center, the battle raged.
Erend threw his claws that looks like a fire blades. His wings folding and unfurling to redirect his flight as he spun through attacks, slashing and biting with primal force.
Fire burst from his throat in a concentrated blast but the god was also moving nimbly through his attacks.
Thar'Zul-Vekar then struck back with their vines that twisting, stabbing, and bludgeoning him in tandem with the flow of their body.
Their Magic spiraled around them in streams of dark green and shadow like corrupted roots grown from the void.
The air was filled with roars and crashes. Each of those impact was looking like a brutal symphony of fire and the forest power that filled with vengeance from the old god.
The fight had become something beyond strategy. Its just pure elemental chaos. It was an ancient war reborn in the sky of this world again.
In the heart of the storm Erend suddenly blinked then the world around him twisted.
The sky flickered. His next breath was came out as a gasped. He wasn't in the present anymore.
The air around him no longer filled with black ash and the sky wasn't crimson. But this world feels older and heavier for him.
His claws looks similar, but somehow it feels… larger. His flames burned hotter than what he remembered as if it wasn't his own flames.
But across from him was still Thar'Zul-Vekar. But they looks… younger, less decayed and corrupted like right now.
They stood among a forest that now start burning. Trees crumbled into flame but not all. It still looks like a forest, not black ashen world.
The sky was orange not crimson, and he—this other version of him—was flying, roaring, bathing the land in fire.
Erend looked down and saw himself unleashing destruction from his own mouth. Vines tried to shield the land. Magic fought to hold the flame back. But it was no use. The forest god screamed in rage and sorrow, their vines wilting under his past-self's fire.
"What is this?" Erend muttered. It felt real.
A vine whipped at his face. He can feel that now he had came to the present-day. The battlefield snapped back to reality around him.
Getting back the contorl of his body, Erend roared and twisted midair, blocking it with his forearm, fire erupting in defiance.
He charged and slashed the god's next strike away, wings flaring wide to regain space.
Thar'Zul-Vekar came again relentlessly. Vines speared toward his neck.
Erend opened his jaws and blasted them with fire—but just as they burned away, the vision returned again. The world changed around him, and he was roaring in triumph over Thar'Zul-Vekar that was laying on the ground.
The forest was nothing but embers now. The god lay broken beneath charred roots and cracked earth.
"You were a guardian once!" the god had screamed at him in the memory. "You swore to protect life with me!"
But he—whoever he had been—had only laughed. "I am the flame that cleanses. You were always the rot."
Erend staggered in the sky. The words echoed in his mind like poison. His body reeled and Thar'Zul-Vekar's real form surged toward him againa then attacking with a vine-blade wreathed in green lightning.
This time, Erend was barely fast enough to deflect it.
The god roared again, louder, filled with rage that now made sense in Erend's mind.
Erend's mind churning. That vision… That memory… wasn't his.
Was that the Dragon Thar'Zul-Vekar believed him to be?
"Damn it," Erend hissed in his head, fury and confusion spiraling in his chest.
He beat his wings, soared higher, and turn to face the next attack. But his mind burned with images again that weren't his and yet felt like they could be.
And somewhere deep down… a voice whispered.
"You've done this before."
The battle roared on. Flame and vengeance colliding in the sky while within, Erend fought a war of memory and identity that might be just as deadly.
Right now Erend was start to being pushed back again. His flames not as hot as before and the vines slapping at him scratching his scales relentlessly.