White fog rolled across the battlefield, swallowing the world in silence. For a heartbeat, everything was still.
Then the sky shattered.
It broke apart like glass struck by an invisible hammer, cracks racing across the heavens in every direction. Shards of light fractured and fell away as though the firmament itself had been an illusion. As the fog thinned, the distant peal of bells echoed through the air, slow and solemn, vibrating through Aerwyna's bones.
The broken sky slowly knitted itself back together. As it did, colossal shapes began to form overhead. Massive stones, each as large as a mountain, drifted into existence, hanging in the air like the fragments of a broken world.
"Chaos will not stop me," Aerwyna said calmly.
Her voice carried across the void, steady and absolute.
Leo landed on one of the floating stones, his boots striking the surface with a heavy impact. He bent his knees, the stone beneath him groaning under the pressure. As he prepared to launch himself forward, he turned his head toward her.
"If you can see everything," he said, eyes sharp, "then I only need to be fast enough that you can't dodge what you see." He pushed off.
The force from his legs blasted a crater into the massive stone, rock exploding outward in a violent ring. In less than a second, space itself seemed to collapse between them.
One instant he was far away. The next, he was in front of her.
It was not movement so much as disappearance, as if he had torn through the distance rather than crossed it.
His hand shot forward. But before it could reach her, his wrist twisted unnaturally.
Crack.
Bone rotated inside flesh and snapped apart. At the same instant, Thorn shattered into fragments of light. Leo's eyes widened in shock, but there was no time to react.
A blade of invisible force passed through his neck. His head separated cleanly from his body.
"As expected," Aerwyna said coldly, "it was just a clone."
Five more Leos emerged from different directions, attacking at once. Each moved with the same terrifying speed. Each died just as easily.
The true Leo drifted down from behind one of the floating boulders, descending slowly, unharmed.
"They're called phantoms," he said with a faint smile.
Just like his creation spell, if Aerwyna wanted to alter his future, she first had to overpower his mana and envelop him with her own. Even with her strength, she would only have one clear chance.
This time he did not summon phantoms. He rushed her head-on, boots hammering across the shattered ground, white and red mist trailing behind him like smoke. Aerwyna, Celestia of the Fates, did not stand still. She slid backward through the air, skirts and silver hair drifting as if gravity hesitated to touch her, her feet barely brushing the surface as she avoided the first strike.
Leo swung again. Reality twisted around her, and his blade curved away at the last instant, dragged off course by her power. He did not rely on blood alone. The world itself turned into a weapon in his hands.
Lightning tore down from the clouds and shattered the earth beside her, flinging dirt and stone outward in a violent wave. Tornadoes ripped boulders from the ground and hurled them forward like cannon fire. Spikes of broken rock surged upward in jagged rows, aiming to skewer her from below. Leo shaped every assault through his creation ability, forcing nature itself to fight at his side. Wind, stone, and storm obeyed him. None of it touched her.
In the middle of his charge, Leo came to a sudden stop.
The battlefield transformed.
A hundred tanks erupted from the earth in a perfect ring around them. Steel treads crushed stone, grinding the terrain into dust as massive cannons lifted in perfect unison, all pointing toward the sky. The air filled with the metallic clatter of moving parts and the deep hum of charged weapons.
Aerwyna's calm finally cracked. Her eyes narrowed, and surprise flickered across her face.
"How did you make something like that?"
Leo did not answer.
Every cannon fired at once.
The sky should have burned. Instead, the shells vanished midair and blossomed into spirals of red and white petals before they could explode. Flowers poured down like a gentle snowfall, drifting harmlessly through the smoke. Leo had expected this. He was already moving.
He surged forward again, faster than before, tearing through the falling petals, his sword aimed straight for her throat. Aerwyna retreated, but the distance collapsed too quickly. For the first time, her control slipped.
A sharp crack echoed across the field.
Leo's finger snapped sideways. White pain shot through his hand, and his grip weakened for a fraction of a second. The blade wavered just enough to change its path, slicing past her guard and opening a thin red line across her shoulder.
Blood stained her white sleeve.
Aerwyna landed lightly a few steps back, her brows drawing together as she stared at the wound.
"You used that attack to surprise me, only to land this one," Aerwyna said, her voice calm but sharp. "Too bad it didn't work."
"But it cost you a lot of mana," Leo replied, flexing his hand to reveal his already healed finger, the crack no longer visible.
He charged again, faster than before, sword aimed like a spear. But Aerwyna did not move this time. She raised her hand, palm open, as if she were holding the air itself.
Leo closed the distance in a heartbeat, less than a meter away, when suddenly a hole tore open in his chest. His eyes went wide as he stared at the emptiness where his heart should have been. Blood poured from the wound as his body crumpled backward.
"I have much more mana than you think," Aerwyna said, her gaze cold and unwavering as she watched him fall.
Suddenly, a sword drove into her heart from behind. Aerwyna's eyes snapped wide, shock and disbelief flashing across her face. Pain erupted, hot and raw, as her fingers clenched at the Thorn protruding from her chest. Blood dripped between her fingers, warm and sticky, yet somehow her focus didn't shatter completely. She glanced backward. The sky had shattered like glass, fragments of light and darkness suspended midair. Through the gap, Leo's hand emerged, moving deliberately. He stepped forward from the fracture as though the gap itself had granted him passage.
"And I can do much more than you think," he said. His voice was calm, almost casual, yet every word carried weight.
He rotated the sword in his hand before pulling it free from her side, widening the wound. Blood and mana erupted from the gash in a thick, viscous torrent, swirling together in a crimson stream. Even an S-rank healer would struggle; the wound was too deep, too infused with raw energy to mend quickly. It was fatal.
Aerwyna's eyes narrowed. She drew upon the last reserves of her power and leapt forward with all the force she could muster. Leo reacted instantly, swinging another attack, but it froze in midair, hovering dangerously close to her. Time itself seemed to halt.
Her body hung suspended, trembling violently, and she let out a guttural scream as an immense torrent of mana burst from her. The air shimmered and distorted around her, the energy so massive it reminded Leo of the void in the Shadowland during his battle with Lucius. The vibration ran through her bones, her muscles quivering uncontrollably as the raw force of her domain strained the very fabric of the world. Then, just as suddenly as it began, everything stopped. Silence pressed down, oppressive and absolute.
She turned slowly. The wound in her chest had vanished, perfectly healed. The blood-streaked slash he had made moments ago was gone. She exhaled, but her eyes burned with focus.
"What did you do?" Leo asked, his voice edged with surprise and disbelief.
"This is my domain," she said, her tone calm and controlled. "It allows me to shift a point in time to another moment in the past." She paused, measuring him. "Now it is your turn. How did you appear behind me without me seeing it?"
"I created another reality," Leo replied evenly, his eyes cold and calculating. "I hid the real one inside my domain."
Aerwyna's lips parted slightly, and she whispered, almost to herself, "Another reality?" Her mind raced to comprehend it.
Before she could react, Leo surged into the clouds above. His form blurred as he spun midair, streams of glowing mana spilling from his body in visible torrents. Bells rang out, clear and haunting, resonating across the battlefield. From the clouds above, a reversed throne emerged, carved from white stones, and he seated himself upon it, radiating power.
"Let's end this fight," he said.
As his mana poured into the world, the ground trembled. Dark spheres wrapped in swirling red and white fog appeared around them, each varying in size, each pulsing with ominous energy. Aerwyna's gaze darted from one to another, uncertainty flickering in her eyes.
Then one of the spheres burst open, and another version of Leo charged at her. She dove backward with all her strength, but the blade slashed across her wrist before the figure shattered into mist.
One after another, more versions poured out of the spheres, relentless and precise. The spheres were hidden inside Leo's domain power making it impossible for her to see through them. Aerwyna fought with every ounce of energy she had, dodging and countering, but even her immense skill could not save her from the barrage. Minutes passed like seconds. She was slashed, burned, and battered, her body covered in wounds, bleeding and bruised.
Finally, she let out a scream that tore through the battlefield. The spheres shattered violently, sending fragments of dark energy scattering in all directions.
Leo's advantage over her was simple and undeniable, physical power. Aerwyna possessed an overwhelming ability, but that same power came at a cost. Her body could not match his. If he could counter her sight, even for a moment, he could defeat her.
Aerwyna's eyes remained locked on him when a sword suddenly pierced through her chest once more. Blood spilled from her mouth as her body trembled violently, mana surging outward. Then reality snapped back into place.
This time, she looked older.
Fine wrinkles had appeared around her eyes, and the glow in her gaze had dulled slightly.
"I can create anything I want, anywhere I want," Leo said, his voice firm and controlled.
She did not answer. Without wasting a single movement, she raised her hand toward him.
Leo felt it immediately. Whatever she was about to do would target him directly, bypassing distance, deception, and misdirection. The only defense he had left was reality itself.
He retreated and created a new reality in front of him, hiding his true body within another layer entirely. The false version of him clutched its chest as blood poured from its mouth before collapsing lifelessly to the ground.
From behind that scene, Leo emerged from a forming sphere, but pain exploded through his arm. His hand was broken, twisted at an unnatural angle, bones rotated grotesquely beneath torn flesh.
She had seen him move.
She had attacked again before her first action had even completed.
Leo vanished into another reality just before the damage could worsen.
Sweat streamed down his face as he reappeared, his breathing heavy and uneven. Healing magic crawled sluggishly across his arm, struggling to keep up with the damage.
"It looks like you're almost out of mana," Aerwyna said, a faint smile touching her lips.
She was right.
Leo had already burned through enormous reserves, annihilating the camp in the jungle, battling a corrupted S-rank, and repeatedly creating new realities. Each layer he formed tore deeper into his remaining mana.
His fingers curled slowly into a fist.
"Then let's end this."
He moved his left hand up, gathering what little he had left.
Before he could release the attack, Aerwyna's eyes widened. For the first time, her composure cracked. Something was wrong.
Then a black orb formed in front of Leo's hand, dense and silent, swallowing light as it stabilized in the air.