The Tournament of Gods continued its relentless, glorious march. The battles among DemiGods was a spectacle of power that outshined everything that had come before it.

A new match appeared on the grand, cosmic screens, and a murmur of confusion and excitement rippled through the stands.

It was an internal match, a duel between two of God Cosmos's own creations.

Ember vs. Ignis, the Demigod of Fire.

In the arena, which had transformed into a vast, grassy plain, the two beings materialized.

Ember was a sight of pure, celestial beauty, a phoenix of medium size, her feathers a cascading waterfall of liquid fire, her every movement leaving a trail of warm, golden light.

Opposite her, Ignis was a being of raw, chaotic power. He had no fixed form, appearing as a vaguely humanoid pillar of sentient, hot fire, his "face" a constantly shifting mask of fire, his "eyes" two burning, blue-hot stars.

The live chat immediately exploded with speculation.

Lifeform72839: "Wait, two fire demigods from the same God? But Isn't this match a clear disadvantage for demigod Ember?"

Lifeform63849: "How so? I think they are equal. Both are masters of fire. This will be a beautiful, evenly matched duel!"

Lifeform73949: "You don't understand elemental law, you fool! Ignis is the Demigod of Fire. He is the concept, the master of all fire. Lady Ember is a phoenix; she is a master of her own phoenix fire. It's like putting an ocean in a fight against a single, powerful river. The ocean will always win."

Lifeform6777: "Even if that's true, the demigod of fire can't truly hurt Lady Ember either. We saw her in the last round; she's an unkillable furnace! This will be a war of attrition!"

In the arena, Ignis, the Demigod of Fire, did not wait. He raised his arms, and the very air around him superheated.

He unleashed his first attack. A dozen, colossal pillars of swirling, white-hot fire erupted from the ground, racing towards Ember, a cage of elemental fury designed to incinerate her where she hovered.

But Ember, who until now had fought with a lazy, almost playful grace, showed no signs of worry.

She had toyed with her previous opponents, wearing them down with her infinite mana reserves, a battle of attrition she could never lose.

But this was different. This was a true challenge. This was a sibling. She would show her respect.

She let out a piercing cry, a sound that was not just a shriek, but a focused, concussive blast of superheated wind.

The fire pillars, caught in this sudden, violent gale, were torn apart, their flames scattered harmlessly across the plains.

The wind itself, hotter than any forge, incinerated the ground it touched, leaving behind trails of blackened, glassy sand.

Ignis, the formless demigod, recoiled, his own fiery form flickering in surprise. He, the master of heat, could not produce a wind of this caliber.

Ember did not wait. She cried out again, but this time, the sound was different. It was the Phoenix Cry.

It was not a physical sound. It was a psychic assault, a wave of divine authority that bypassed all physical defenses and struck directly at the soul.

Ignis, a being of energy, had no ears to cover. The cry slammed into his very essence, his consciousness and soul.

He felt his fiery form waver, a sensation of pain so profound he was almost extinguished. With his sheer will he held himself together, his body dimming to a dull, angry red.

Before he could counter, Ember's eyes locked onto him. Emperor's Gaze.

A new, crushing weight of regal pressure descended. It was the innate authority of a divine beast, the gaze of a king demanding fealty from a lesser creature.

Ignis, a proud, felt an instinct he had never known: the urge to kneel. His fiery knees, formless and shifting, buckled, and he was forced to the ground.

But Ignis was not just a beast; he was a law. He was the master of the very thing that stood before him.

In his kneeling state, he found his opening. 'You are made of fire,' his thoughts hissed, 'and I. Am. Fire.'

He claimed the very fire that created Ember. He reached out with his will, his Fire Affinity talent locking onto Ember.

He tried to control her flames, to manipulate her very body, to extinguish her as one would snuff out a candle.

Ember shrieked, this time in genuine pain. She felt a cold, alien will invading her form. Her brilliant, golden flames sputtered, turning a sickly, weak orange.

Her very size began to diminish, her wings faltering as Ignis's superior, conceptual control over the law of fire began to tear her apart from the inside out.

But Ignis had made a fatal miscalculation. He was fighting a demigod. Who was a furnace.

She felt his control, his attempt to siphon her power, and she responded. Her Heart of the Sun talent ignited.

A boundless, infinite torrent of pure mana exploded from her core, fueling her flames.

Ignis, who had been trying to drain a pond, suddenly found himself connected to an unstoppable, raging ocean.

His control was shattered as Ember's fire, now burning with a white-hot intensity, flared back to life, larger and more powerful than before.

He could not control her; she had too much fuel, too much life.

"Tch," a sound like a thousand crackling embers escaped the fire demigod. He knew he was lost.

He could not outlast her, and her soul-based attacks were a perfect counter to his elemental form. But he would not go quietly. He would leave his mark.

He raised his arms one last time, to attack. He began to pour every last drop of his own mana, his very essence, into a single, final, magnificent act of defiance.

His body condensed, pulling in all the scattered fire from the arena, growing brighter and brighter. He was forging a masterpiece, a final, glorious performance.

A colossal fire dragon, so large that the phoenix looked like a baby chick in its shadow, roared to life.

It was a beautiful, terrifying creature of pure, sentient fire. It roared, a sound of pure, unbridled fury, and lunged, its massive jaws opening wide and swallowing Ember whole.

And then, Ignis, his power spent, his form exhausted, collapsed, his fiery light extinguishing, leaving behind only a small, cooling ember on the arena floor.

The fire dragon, its creator now dormant, continued its rampage, a final, mindless order. It soared through the air in its fiery majesty, a monument to its creator's power.

Ember, trapped within, let it have its fun for a moment. Then, she acted.

The dragon suddenly swelled. Cracks of pure, white-hot light, brighter than the dragon's own, appeared along its scales.

With a final, triumphant cry, Ember burst forth, tearing the fire dragon apart from the inside, a blur of golden light in a rain of dying flames.

Adam's voice boomed across the cosmos. "Ember has won this match!"

Sunny watched from his high throne, a faint, calculating smile on his face. He watched Ember, the demigod of rebirth, soar victoriously.

He had been musing, his mind replaying the description of his new God's Domain talent. 'Reviving from death… Creating demigods that cannot become Gods in their entire life…'

The two thoughts collided, and a new, brilliant, and utterly terrifying idea sparked in his mind. 'What if "their entire life" is a loophole?'

His mind raced. The note was specific. It didn't say their potential was capped forever. It said they couldn't become a God in their entire life.

But what if that life… ended? He had Divine Immortality. His lifeforms had Nine Lives.

What if he used God's Domain to instantly create a demigod whose potential is capped and then send it into a battle he knew it would lose, and then, after its inevitable death.

It will be reborn through his Divine Immortality? Would it be reborn as a demigod? Or as a mortal, its potential reset? Or… would it be reborn as a demigod, but with the potential cap removed, now free to ascend to true Godhood?

The other downside of the talent; that they didn't gain new abilities on breakthrough; was already a moot point.

His Divine Growth talent, which blessed his entire universe, already solved that, allowing any being to learn new talents through hard work.

"Now this talent is looking very pleasing to the eye," Sunny whispered to the void. His intuition had not been entirety wrong.

It hadn't led him to a simple talent of "authority." It had led him to a divine, cosmic loophole. It had given him the key to a factory.

A factory for mass-producing disposable and ultimately ascendable divine beings.

He could uplift the weakest, most talentless lifeforms, give them a purpose as demigods, let them fight and die for his cause, and then, in their second, third, or ninth life, they would be reborn as true, loyal Gods, forever bound to his empire.

The sheer, terrifying scale of the idea was intoxicating.

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