A dark and terrible scream filled the sky and shook the world.

There was smoke, and blackness, and then silence.

'Blethine… your voice grows weak.'

'Yours also, Jlin. You are no longer powerful like you once were. Our voices may be tired for now, but I grow mightier every day, while you crumble into old age. How long until you are expended? How long until I may consume you?'

'You know the answer to that. The world will die a thousand times over befor- AGH!' 

Jlin yelped and hesitated. Flakes of the skin around his wrist, crackled and grey, crumbled off and was gone. Both the immortals paused and stared in confusion.

This was not their doing.

For many ages, the two immortals had clashed in close combat. Slowly they had stalked one another, circling, approaching and finally, wrestling. Their voices belching forth their power, black-white fumes blasting out with every cry of war, the skies darkening in return. The trees had burned and the animals fled. The forces of nature unleashed.

But now they went silent. The empty eyesockets of their craggy faces stared, seemingly blinking, at the injury, not understanding. Neither had ever landed a blow. Never suffered this kind of injury. This was beyond their understanding. The hole was small and dark. A tiny speck of flesh.

'Blethine… what have you done?' asked Jlin slowly, his wizened face contorted. Flashes of red fire tinged his lips, a bubbling anger within.

'I have done nothing, I know nothing! What tricks have you devised?!' Blethine yelled back, his soot-black visage broken only by a thin cap of white hair. 

'This is no trick…' Jlin leaned his head down towards his hand, craning to see. The immortals were powerful, but ponderous. Their arms rested loosely at their sides, their heads atop fat, broken necks. They both struggled to move at any pace. But they had time.

'it is a hole…' said Jlin, slowly. A craggy, open hole had opened in his wrist, the white and grey flesh beneath exposed. It was not deep, but wide. There was no blood. 

'You lie. That is no hole I have ever seen.' spat Blethine. 'Holes are deep and winding, forged over an eon, a testament to time. That is-... It's…'

'-a hole' said Jlin, firmly. He stood upright again and glared at Blethine. 'I see only what it is, not that which you would prefe- AGH!' 

He screamed again, clutching to the side of his torso, where another hole had appeared, larger than the first.

'WHAT IS HAPPENING' he yelled, black smoke pouring forth, mixed with the red flame of fury.

Blethine stared, still confused. Then he saw it; a tiny trail of white leading away from Jlin's Pierced side. A tiny, winding sliver, almost too thin to see amongst the distant green and undulating hillocks.

It was a trail of Jlin's flesh. Thin, long and white.

'You are beset, Jlin'. Said Blethine with confidence. 'you are weakening, your form crumbles each day, and now your flesh is being taken. You will not long survive.'

'don't mock me…! If this thing comes for me, it will  surely come for you too!' snarled Jlin, fire and fury cascading from his mouth. The black and red smothered the trail and hillocks, coating all with darkness again.

The darkness cleared again quickly, the black soot turned to green.

Jlin yelped once again. Another chunk was taken.

He swatted with his grey, oversized arms, flailing and casting grey pieces of skin askew, rubbing until the white flesh beneath was exposed. 

Blethine laughed, then paused.

It was more than a trail now. It was… something. Piles? Circles? Something was putting Jlin's flesh into mounds. Something smaller and faster than Blethine could make out. They were stripping Jlin of his flesh and making it into… nests?

'Jlin, look, your mysterious tormentors…' he said pointing with a smile. 'they come for you now, but why?'

Jlin looked up at Blethine, with a red glare of rage. Fire dripped from his mouth.

'Isn't it clear, Blethine? They come for what lies within; our power, our grace, the fire of the undying. They see it within us and they come to claim it as their own '

Blethine balked, hesitated. He looked at the flakes of Jlin's body being carried away in a blur, to become part of the growing piles of flesh.

He then laughed.

'they come for yours perhaps Jlin. Mine remains untouched.' he gloated.

'for now. Perhaps they save the worst until last.' Jlin spat.

'perhaps I'm made of different stuff', said Blethine, pointing to his rougher, tougher skin. The two were not identical, it was true.

Jlin winced and slumped. Great flakes were now coming away, charged by some tiny, blurry beasts below. The piles grew closer and taller. The green hillocks around them changed shape.

The things, whatever they were, were using the green on the hills to made other little piles. They were swarming around Jlin, barely paying attention to Blethine.

'your flesh is tasty to them, Jlin, you have become a delicacy. It's a pity that I could not be the one to devour you.'

Jlin closed his eyes and curled himself up tight; the smoke and fire trapped inside.

'No. They want the fire of the undying, of this I am quite sure. If they want it, and I am destined to die, then I will give them what they seek.'

The smoke and fire vanished, bubbling inside Jlin's mighty chest.

Blethine laughed and belched black fumes. The smoke and darkness made the tiny things wary, but they were quickly back, scraping the skin from Jlin.

Jlin could feel himself being broken away, tony flake by flake. He was mighty, yes, but Blethine was quite right; he was losing this fight. The two had been locked in combat, to drown and consume the other in the fire of the undying, and now Blethine had somehow beaten him with this trick.

No. He will not die on Blethine's terms.

He silenced himself, felt his belly churn red. The smoke and fire rose higher, and stronger. The mounds of his flesh grew closer and larger, until he was covered in them, coated in the nests of these… things.

Blethine watched, bemused, smoking and puffing and laughing.

Jlin felt the holes grow deeper inside him, his surface being flattened and stripped away. The tunnels bored faster and faster, until they reached his fire within. It barely tapped the pressure growing inside.

This was it. All the time he had left.

Jlin stood up and screamed his deepest scream. The fire and smoke erupted, too much to evem glow red. This scream was too much for Jlin, it's power too intense. He had built this chance. the fire of the undying could never be contained for long.

His face broke apart and was pulverised, his grey-white flesh turned to dust. His sides slipped away and broke wide open, and flowed away like water.

The sky darkened once again and the earth shook with pain. The tiny blurry animals and all their carefully arranged piles of flesh were flattened, buried, burned away. The dust of Jlin's once mighty form buried them.

And when it cleared, Blethine still stood proud and tall, overlooking the shattered remains of Jlin. He would rise again. And then, their fight would resume.

Jlin the volcano had not yet spoken for the last time.