Rin created several tornadoes across the place, which limited Richie's vision as Valhalla opened a rift behind him, and he walked through it. His palm opened and from his hand, a black-hole singularity bloomed into life.
It wasn't just pulling at the air or tossing dust around, this thing was hungry, dragging debris, color, even the sound from the battlefield into itself.
Richie didn't flinch. The instant that pull touched his skin, his body sparked, lightning wrapping him in a second skin of pure voltage. 'Volt Blitz' cracked down the battlefield, and Richie vanished in a blast of raw energy, leaving only a smoking afterimage behind.
Before anyone could even track him, Richie reappeared above Dev, electricity dancing from his fingertips to his boots. With a roar, he dropped, axe-kicking downward, it was burning like an 'Inferno Blade'. Dev reacted a split second before impact, rolling aside as the ground exploded under Richie's kick, a firestorm punching a hole through the battlefield like a meteor strike.
The earth shuddered, cracks spiderwebbing out in every direction. But before Richie could even breathe, the smoke around him screamed, slicing winds tearing through it like invisible razors.
Rin moved like a shadow inside the chaos. She didn't just control the wind; she was the wind. Her blades came from every angle, so fast and so sharp they looked like streaks of silver lightning.
Richie twisted in mid-air, his hands slicing the air in wide arcs. His own 'Gale Cyclone' roared to life around him, a spinning wall of compressed wind that caught Rin's attack and flung it harmlessly into the ruins. Richie landed hard, one knee digging into the cracked ground, his body already heating up for the next hit.
Dev wasn't wasting the opening. His shadow stretched, alive and boiling, and from it burst a nightmare. It was a massive, clawed horror, too many limbs, too many teeth, too much rage poured into one broken body. It lunged for Richie mid-recovery, claws wide open to rip him apart. Richie's eyes hardened. He met the beast head-on, catching it by its grotesque jaws. And with a roar, Richie torque-slammed the creature into the ground with so much force that the shockwave shattered the nearby ruins into gravel.
Without hesitation, he cocked his fist back and drove it through the monster's chest, 'Terra Quake' exploding from his knuckles. The blast didn't just kill the beast, it split the battlefield wide open, a massive rift tearing the ground in half, swallowing pieces of broken streets and crushed buildings into the abyss.
But the world didn't stay normal for long.
Valhalla snapped his fingers, and the laws of gravity broke like cheap glass. Richie found himself falling upward into a broken sky filled with floating skyscrapers and shattered concrete. Richie just grinned like he lived for this kind of chaos. Mid-fall, he slapped both palms together. 'Aqua Surge' howled to life, and from somewhere deep below, or was it above now? A tsunami rose, a roaring wall of water climbing the gravity-broken sky.
The wave crashed forward like a living beast, catching Rin as she was soaring between floating debris. She spun wildly, trying to redirect herself, but the water caught her clean. The wave smashed her through a half-floating skyscraper, glass and steel exploding around her as she crashed into the distance. Even from here, the impact rattled the air like a drumbeat.
From the ruins, from every piece of collapsed shadow, monsters began to crawl into the light. They weren't mindless beasts this time. No, Dev had summoned something crueler. Six figures emerged, stitched together from Richie's old battles, faces half-remembered. Some of them still had human eyes, wide and begging. Others just screamed without mouths.
For a half-second, Richie hesitated. Then he gritted his teeth. His body lit up. 'Omni Fusion' roared to life, all six elements awakening inside him. Fire burst from his right hand, lightning cracked from his left, wind screamed from his shoulders, ice and rock tangled around his legs, water coiling around his torso. Richie spun once, slow, letting every element surge outward in a spiral of power, and then he unleashed it.
Flames roared in every direction, lightning lancing across the sky, tornadoes spinning whole buildings off their foundations, tidal waves crashing into mountains of stone. The six summoned horrors disintegrated in less than a second, their ashes carried away by the storm. The shockwave rolled outward, flattening miles of land into a smoking, broken wasteland.
When the smoke finally thinned, Richie stood at the heart of the devastation. His arms hung heavy at his sides, his chest heaving, his skin steaming where his Gear struggled to stay lit. His body was battered, torn at the edges, but he was still alive. Still standing.
Across from him, through the haze of fire and shattered concrete, Rin was already moving, wind dancing around her fingertips, and Valhalla was floating a few inches above the cracked ground, gravity bending around him like he was the center of a broken solar system.
Richie wiped the blood from his mouth and smiled before he moved. 'Volt Blitz' crackled from his feet, arcs of raw lightning trailing behind him as he teleported to Valhalla's side in an instant. Without hesitation, his fist collides with Valhalla's spine, an 'Inferno Blade' elbow crashing down with a violent explosion of fire. But just before the blow lands, Valhalla's eyes flicker, and the air around him shifts. In an instant, the very space itself bends, redirecting Richie's attack.
The elbow slams into Rin, who stands there in a blur of wind. The gust around her fist intensifying as she swings back with the power of a cyclone. The wind screeches as her punch launches Richie.
He smashes through three skyscrapers, each one crumbling under the force of his impact. Before he even hits the ground, a shadow wyrm explodes from the rubble, its fangs glowing in the smoke-filled air. It devours Richie whole, swallowing him in a single snap of its jaws. For a moment, there's nothing but silence.
Then, like a volcano about to erupt, 'Omni Fusion' detonates. Richie's body bursts with power. He rips his way out from within the wyrm, sending shards of blackened blood splattering everywhere. His body, covered in the creature's dark ichor, surges forward with incredible speed. He slashes through Dev's shadowy form, 'Aqua Surge' cutting clean through the void itself. Water blades cleave the air, leaving deep gashes in Dev's body, but Dev barely flinches.
Rin compresses the very air around her, her hands clapping together. The tornado she summons is a thing of madness, condensed into a single point, sharp as a spear. She launches the wind drill at Richie, and it screeches like a missile aimed straight for his chest. Richie twists mid-air, his body moving too fast for the eye to follow. But the drill doesn't miss. It pierces through his shoulder, shredding his armor in a spray of sparks and blood. The force behind it is so brutal that the mountain in the distance vaporizes, disintegrating into nothing but dust.
Richie grits his teeth. His shoulder throbs, but he refuses to give up. He twists his body mid-air, using his legs to kick off a nearby building, flipping himself into a free fall. His body glows with power as he channels 'Terra Quake' into his fists. He punches downward, and the earth below cracks and splinters like it's made of glass. Spikes of rock burst upward, piercing the air and ripping through the ground.
Valhalla isn't done. He rewrites the laws of gravity with a twist of his hand. Suddenly, Richie's body feels heavy, like he's carrying the weight of a thousand tons. His blood turns to lead, dragging him down with an unnatural force. Every breath becomes a struggle. His bones creak under the pressure, the crushing weight of gravity pulling him into the earth.
His body slams into the ground, sending shockwaves across the battlefield. The impact leaves a massive crater, the very landscape cracking under his weight.
But he doesn't stop. Richie roars, summoning 'Terra Quake's' full force. The earth beneath him shatters, sending spikes of rock bursting upward from the ground like massive weapons. He punches the earth again and again, sending shockwaves out with every strike. The gravity field shatters, and with a roar of fury, Richie pushes himself up, his legs pumping with newfound strength.
Then, Dev makes his move.
From the shadows of the collapsed buildings, he summons his ultimate beast, a mass of black energy, a living black hole with jagged teeth, its form so massive that the ground trembles beneath it. It sucks in everything in its path, even Richie's flames and lightning vanish into its void.
Richie feels the pull, his flames guttering out, his lightning snapping out of existence. For the first time, he feels like he's losing control. His body feels drained, the very energy being pulled from him as if the beast is feasting on his power.
The black hole's mouth widens, devouring Richie's strength, tearing at his very essence. Richie feels himself slipping, his strength fading.
With one last surge of will, Richie burns his own life force, fueled by desperation, he pushes past his Gear's limits, his body crackling with power. His heart races, blood pumping with fire and fury, as his body begins to burn. Every drop of energy is used, every ounce of strength poured into his fight.