[Last Episode: And the Primus World was loud with the sound of something enormous happening in the sky above it]
Chapter 118, Episode 118
[The Seam and Then Beyond — Leo vs Voriath: The Real War]
[Leo had hit Voriath with everything the Hyper Archangel Mode had in the first twenty minutes of the fight]
[The Shatter Nebula glowing gold-white with Galadrielo and eight angelic presences and Ereshkigal's training and two hundred years of the ambient output of a cosmic war absorbed into its edge]
[Voriath had been surprised]
[That was the part Leo held onto. He had been surprised]
[The first blow Leo landed: the Chaos Nihilikinesis Sword swung at the Hyper Archangel Mode's divine structure]
[Leo declared, through Galadrielo, that the divine structure was not a valid target for void-based erasure within his domain]
[The Chaos Nihilikinesis Sword hit the declaration and found it true]
[The sword touched the form's surface and didn't erase it]
Voriath: You made yourself immune to the sword.
Leo: Within my domain. I have great immunity
Voriath: Nice advantage with Galadrielo
Leo: What...
Voriath: You can declare laws that apply to yourself.
Leo: Within a domain I define.
Voriath: And you defined the domain.
Leo: The moment I wrote the law into your world.
[Voriath looked at the Chaos Nihilikinesis Sword. At its edge not erasing what it had touched.]
Voriath: Interesting.
[He put the sword away and charged with his fist]
Voriath — Vector Overpower.
[His physical strikes ignored resistance. They hit the space an object occupied and moved it]
[The hit didn't contact Leo's body. It contacted the space Leo was in]
Leo: What.... he was able to hit in my space with just his physical strength
[Leo's body moved]
[The space moved. Leo came with it but the damage that was supposed to come with the hit found something it hadn't expected]
Leo — Immunity to Physical Force.
[The angelic contract's terms included the specific provisions of each of the eight presences]
[Raphael's peace, Uriel's unity, Zadkiel's mercy. But Dina's justice in particular had a specific application in this fight: the immunity to physical force being used against those who were fighting for a just cause]
[The Vector Overpower moved Leo's space]
[Leo moved with the space but the force that was supposed to translate into damage passed through him the way light passes through glass]
[Voriath watched]
Voriath: The physical force.
Leo: Passes through. I negated the force
Voriath: I can see the angelic contract includes physical immunity.
Leo: For the duration.
Voriath: Interesting.
[He tried the Titan's Tantrum. The mass of a trillion dying stars in one punch.]
[The punch arrived]
[Leo stood in it]
[The mass hit the Hyper Archangel Mode's form and discovered that the form existed at a layer where concepts like mass required permission to apply]
[The punch didn't hurt him]
[Voriath pulled back]
[He looked at Leo with an expression]
Voriath: You've made yourself immune to physical force of any magnitude. Your intelligent I can tell
Leo: it's good your not underestimating me
Voriath: The contract's terms.
Leo: What about it...
Voriath: How long.
Leo: Why are you concern about the time limit on my power
Voriath: It's easier to stall time for you to watch you die in agony
Leo: So in essence your not taking this fight seriously and to stall me time
[A pause. Voriath actually smiled at that. The clean, genuine smile of someone who got the answer they were hoping for.]
Voriath: Then let's not talk about time. Let's fight.
Chaos Nihilikinesis Sword — Back in his hand.
[It wouldn't erase Leo within Leo's declared domain. But domains could be pressured]
[The Galadrielo declaration was a law Leo had written. Voriath could write a law that superseded it, if his authority was higher than Leo's in this space]
Voriath: It's impossible to rewrite a law in his domain as his power far exceeds my authority, it would be a risk if I write a law in his domain, that wouldn't be beneficial as it would be me at disadvantage to lose... it's best if I use attacks from the outside now
[Voriath spoke in his mind]
Voriath — Abyssal Nihilist — Partial.
[He didn't go fully into the second form]
[The philosophical weight of the form, the belief that existence was contingent, applied to the space where Leo had declared his domain]
Voriath: hmm, If existence was contingent, the domain's foundation was contingent, and the laws Leo had written in it were contingent.
Leo — Galadrielo — Reinforcement.
[He declared the contingency itself false. The domain's laws were not contingent. They were permanent within the domain. That was what Galadrielo did]
[The Abyssal Nihilist's philosophical weight hit the reinforced declaration and stalled]
[They were in a contest of declarations]
[Voriath's authority over the nature of existence against Leo's declared laws about the domain]
[The space between them cracked because two absolute declarations occupying the same space did that]
Leo: You're trying to undermine the domain.
Voriath: I taught of writing it itself
Leo: Make the laws contingent.
Voriath: Your law is only as permanent as your declaration. My authority is as permanent as what I am.
Leo: And what am I.
Voriath: A human with a Satanael core and an angelic contract.
Leo: And Satanael??
[A pause.]
Voriath: Yes. And Satanael.
Leo: You don't know what Satanael is.
Voriath: I know what the Satanael source is.
Leo: You know what it was when the file was written.
[Something in Voriath's expression shifted]
Voriath: What is it now.
Leo: Satanael is not just only a source, it's my savior and my guidance. It helped me in so many battles
[A pause.]
Voriath: It's grown.
Leo: I guess you can say that
Voriath: The source has grown.
Leo: Sources can't necessarily grown but alright
Voriath: Because of you.
Leo: Because of everything.
[Another pause. Longer this time.]
Voriath: Then I need to treat this differently.
True Hyper God Awakening — Full Expression.
[The form completed]
[The obsidian armor's Conceptual Anchor running at maximum. Every atom in the space acknowledging his authority before vibrating]
[And then—]
Hyper Gods Absorbed 50%.
[He went deeper]
[The miniature universe in his chest. The Pulse of the End. Every heartbeat deleting a fundamental law of nature]
[His energy output changed]
[Leo felt it]
[The Hyper Archangel Mode's eight presences all registered the shift simultaneously]
Leo: What an immeasurable power
Voriath: Show me what you got Sebastián
Leo: You're using the absorbed power.
Voriath: I don't use it lightly.
Leo: But you're using it now.
Voriath: Because you warrant it.
[Leo looked at him across the space between infinite universes.]
[At Voriath in the fifty-percent-absorbed form. At the miniature universe in his chest being destroyed and reborn. At the power that had taken the ten Hyper Gods and compressed half of it into one being.]
[He felt Satanael in the sword.]
[Felt the eight angels still active in the form. Raphael's peace helping him think clearly. Cielo's wisdom reading the combat structure. Galgaliel's revelation showing him angles he wouldn't have found alone.]
Leo: Then let's go.
[They moved]
[The Chaos Nihilikinesis Sword swung from the east]
[The Shatter Nebula met it from the west]
[The collision happened in a space that was simultaneously every solar system in the seam's vicinity]
[The folded universes pressing in from both sides exploded outward]
[The force of two swords carrying the weight of cosmic authority meeting at the exact same point sent a shockwave through every dimensional layer in the area]
[Solar systems flared, Suns that had been stable for billions of years briefly reconsidered their structural commitments]
[The two of them were already moving for the next exchange before the light from the first one finished traveling]
[Leo moved with the Velocity of the End-Time active — every step doubling the speed of the last, his momentum building through each exchange until the gap between where he'd been and where he was couldn't be tracked by anything that operated in normal time]
[By the seventh exchange he was moving at a rate that left no afterimage because the light that would have made an image couldn't keep up long enough to form one]
[Voriath moved with Wrathful Blitz — at the speed that existed before causality had decided what speed was]
The speed of the will deciding to be somewhere, which was different from the speed of traveling there]
[Both of them were in places before the concept of being there was fully formed]
[They met in those pre-formed places and their swords met there and the meeting happened before the meeting had happened and the damage was done before the strike was done]
[The seam couldn't hold this]
[They went through it. through the dimensional layers of the Invictus World. Through the space between the Invictus World and the cosmology around it. Through the outer atmosphere of the Primus World and Into the space above it]
[Into the actual sky. Into the actual dark between actual stars and kept going]
[The fight moved to outer space]
[Real outer space. The space between galaxies that the Primus World's cosmology was embedded in]
[The scale expanded and the scale of the fight expanded with it]
[Every sword clash now sent light across star clusters]
[Every exchange produced shockwaves that bent nebulae]
[When the Chaos Nihilikinesis Sword and the Shatter Nebula locked and neither gave for a full second, the gravity of the collision bent the path of a small galaxy eight light years from the point of impact]
[Leo noticed the galaxy bending and felt something in the Hyper Archangel Mode register it as a use of physics affecting the environment]
[Galgaliel's revelation: every exchange was teaching him something]
Satanael's Final Eye.
[An eye appeared on his forehead. He could see Voriath's structural information of what Voriath was and what was accessible]
[He saw the cracks from The Manipulator and Siriusniyo's fight. Sealed. But sealed, not repaired]
[There was a difference between sealing and repairing that the eye could read]
Leo — Constellation Chain: Bindings of the Zodiac.
[Twelve chains from the constellations visible in the outer space around them, carrying the weight of galaxies, launched at those sealed cracks]
Voriath — Counter Infinite.
[The Absolute Authority generated the Conceptual Counter-Force. The chains hit the Counter Infinite and their properties were negated]
[The chains were real. The Counter Infinite said their effectiveness wasn't]
[Leo pulled the chains back]
Leo — Galaxy Divide
[He swung the sword at not Voriath but the space Voriath was standing in. Declaring, through Galadrielo simultaneously, that the space Voriath was in was part of his domain]
[The Galaxy Divide hit Voriath's space as part of Leo's domain]
[The Counter Infinite generated a counter for an attack that was part of Leo's domain]
[But Leo's domain was under Galadrielo's protection which meant the Counter Infinite had to counter a counter]
[The Counter Infinite fighting itself]
[For two seconds, the Counter Infinite was occupied managing its own response to Leo's domain structure rather than applying to Leo's attacks]
[Two seconds was a long time]
Leo — Shatter Nebula — Engulfed — Galadrielo Active.
[The sword absorbing and negating void energy while Galadrielo declared every vulnerability in Voriath's sealed cracks to be valid targets]
[Three hits]
[Clean. Fast. At the sealed cracks]
[Voriath felt all three]
[He moved back. Through a galaxy. Through the space between two galaxies. Through the outer edge of another galaxy]
[He stopped]
[He looked at Leo across the galactic distance between them]
Voriath: You hit the sealed cracks.
Leo: This is in the outer shell of it
Voriath: You used Galadrielo to make yourself a domain and then used the Counter Infinite against itself to buy two seconds.
Leo: Shit.... he figured out my plan
Voriath: In two seconds you landed three hits on specific target points.
Leo: If your faster than a linear time and thought even space and time itself, you should be faster than me then I have a window I use all of it.
[A pause. Voriath across the galaxies between them. The miniature universe in his chest still cycling through destruction and rebirth.]
Voriath: You're better than the file said.
Leo: The file is old.
Voriath: Your lying
Leo: And I've been studying you since I left the Afterlife.
Voriath: How much do you know.
Leo: The sealed cracks exist at these coordinates. The Counter Infinite is reactive but has a two-second self-conflict when turned on a domain structure. The Chaos Nihilikinesis Sword's void edge has a rhythm — it swings in patterns that come from your fighting style and after seven exchanges I could predict the eighth.
[Another pause. The space between them very quiet.]
Voriath: You predicted my eighth swing.
Leo: On the seventh I adjusted my position to be where the eighth would miss and where I'd be for the counter-attack.
Voriath:"That's not in any training methodology in the cosmology.
Leo: I fought Xuantian for an hour. I learned a lot about reading rhythms.
[Voriath looked at Leo across the galaxies.]
[And then he did something that was not common for him.]
[He laughed]
Voriath: You really are what Satanael was.
Leo: No... why are you talking about my source
Voriath: No?
Leo: I'm what Satanael became. When it had someone to carry it who was willing to grow.
[The space between them held that for a moment.]
Voriath: Then let's find out how far that goes.
Voriath — Hyper Gods Absorbed 50% — Pride of Wrath — Combined Application.
[He reached into the fundamental structure of the space they were fighting in and began nullifying the concepts that made the fight's rules what they were. Not the concept of the fight]
[The concepts that gave Leo advantages in it. The concept of Galadrielo operating in this space]
[The concept of the angelic contract's terms being valid in a space outside all structured cosmology]
[The contract's terms applied within the cosmological structure]
[They were now outside it. In the empty space between galaxies where the Primus World's cosmology was a bright thing in the distance]
[The immunity to physical force had a condition: it applied within the terms of the contract]
[The contract was sealed by angels who operated within the cosmological structure. Outside the structure, in the bare vacuum between galaxies—]
[Leo felt it begin to loosen]
Satanael Genesis Flash Step.
[He deleted the distance between himself and Voriath. Back into the cosmological space. Back into the structure and back where the contract held]
[Voriath followed]
Voriath: You felt it.
Leo: The contract terms weakening outside the cosmological structure. Yes.
Voriath: You came back.
Leo: Yes.
Voriath: Smart.
Leo: I know my contract's limits.
[A pause. They were back in the cosmological space now]
[The Primus World visible below them as a bright immense presence. The Invictus World somewhere behind them in the dimensional seam. The stars of the Primus World's cosmology all around them.]
[Below them, if you could see through the cosmological layers, the Primus World itself was watching.]
[Everyone in the Primus World was watching.]
[The Primus World — What Everyone Saw]
[The guild members. The rulers. The people who had been fighting on every front and had found those fronts quieted — not resolved, but quieted, as Voriath's forces recognized the battle above and went still]
[They all looked up at the sky where two figures moved with the quality of things that were not operating in the same physics as everything else]
[The sword clashes were visible from the Primus World's surface as light events]
[Kai, in the Cosmos Universe, looked up and said nothing]
[Martha, in the Eastern World capital, looked up and let out a breath she'd been holding]
[Jeannette looked up and tightened her grip on her sword out of habit]
[Every person who had been fighting for hours across every front looked up and watched Leo Sebastián fight Voriath Luminael]
[The fight had a quality that was hard to name]
[Neither of them was holding back]
[They flew. Through galactic space. Through the layers of the Primus World's cosmological shell. Through the space between dimensions in the outer atmospheric layer of the cosmology itself]
[The fight had left normal space behind and entered something that described what was beyond normal space]
[A region where the dimensional layers didn't stack in orderly progressions but existed as a simultaneous compressed presence]
[All dimensions at once. All laws running simultaneously. All definitions of space and time overlapping into something that was none of them and all of them]
[The region that being beyond even the cosmological framework meant occupying]
[The region where the laws that governed the cosmology were present but were present as objects rather than as governing conditions]
[Leo and Voriath were past the concept of laws applying to them and were now operating in the space where laws were things you could pick up and put down]
Leo — Abyss Wrath.
[He reached for the threads of reality's structure to understand them and to see where the fundamental architecture of the space they were in had a specific point where his authority and Voriath's crossed]
[He found it]
[The point where the Satanael source and the Ragnarok source touched the same foundational layer of existence]
[Voriath's was deeper. But touching and where they touched, a law he could write would be one Voriath couldn't simply override, because it was written at the level where both their authorities met]
Leo — Galadrielo
[He wrote a law at the specific point where the two sources met]
[The law: within this encounter, Voriath Luminael is not the author. He is a participant]
Voriath: His Galadrielo is annoying. He keep saying writing authorities itself
[It was a small law. Very specific. But at the touch-point where their authorities met, it landed and held]
[Voriath felt it and he stopped moving for one full second]
Voriath: You wrote a law at the point where Satanael and Ragnarok share a foundation.
Leo: It makes it easier for me to shatter them from making enemies
Voriath: You found the touch-point.
Leo: Satanael's Final Eye. I can see where things meet.
Voriath: That law says I'm not the author of this space.
Leo: In this encounter. Correct.
Voriath: Which means my ability to write laws that override yours is limited by the law you wrote at the point where we share authority.
Leo: That make it easier for me to fight
[A very long pause.]
Voriath: You're very good.
Leo: I've been studying you.
Voriath: Not just studying. Understanding. There's a difference.
Leo: I understand what you are.
Voriath: Then you understand why this isn't over.
Leo: Your too proud of yourself huh..
Voriath: The law at the touch-point limits my authority to override yours. But it doesn't remove my authority. It removes my authorship. I'm still Voriath Luminael.
Leo: not for long, I write the authorship itself
Voriath: With everything that means.
Leo: Yes.
[Leo felt the Hyper Archangel Mode's timer.]
[Seven minutes]
[He kept his expression the same]
Voriath: Seven minutes.
Leo: You counted.
Voriath: I've been counting since we started. Thirty-one minutes. We've been fighting for twenty-four.
Leo: You knew the exact minute we started.
Voriath: I know when every significant event in my world happens. The contract's energy signature was clear when it activated. You have seven minutes of physical immunity and divine power. After that—
Leo: After that we find out what I am without it.
Voriath: Yes.
Leo: You think you already know.
Voriath: I think seven minutes isn't long enough.
Leo: Then let's use them.
Leo — Heart of the Star.
[His heartbeat synchronized with the rotation of the cosmos. A pulse released that reset every ability's cooldown and drained the momentum from everything in the space around him]
Voriath: What the—, is he draining the entire space to cooldown the power
[Voriath felt his own movement become slightly less precise for half a second as the momentum drain hit]
[Half a second. At their speed, half a second was the difference between a hit and a miss]
Shatter Nebula — Galaxy Divide — Hyper Archangel Mode Enhanced.
[The slash went through the space where Voriath was a fraction of a second after the momentum drain hit]
[It connected]
[The first real, clean, unmitigated hit in the entire fight]
[The Chaos Nihilikinesis Sword's edge hit the back of the Shatter Nebula's Galaxy Divide as Voriath turned to counter, and the two blades spent one full second locked]
[During that second:]
Leo — Infinite Blade Works of Satanael.
[A trillion Shatter Nebula clones materialized in the dimensional space around them. Every one of them fully functional. Every one aimed at Voriath]
[The second the blade lock broke, they all fired]
Voriath — Transcendent Shield of Gaia.
[The absolute barrier drawing on the gravitational stability of the universe as it was neutralizing everything that hit it]
[A trillion sword clones against the gravitational stability of the universe]
[The barrier held, but holding a trillion simultaneous strikes required focus]
Leo — Satanael Shadow of the First Law.
[His shadow became a separate entity. One hundred percent of his power running in a second body. Two Hyper Emperors, the real one and the shadow. Both with the Hyper Archangel Mode]
[Both with Galadrielo. Both with the law at the touch-point]
[The shield was holding a trillion sword clones with the focus of a being who was now fighting two of what it was built to fight against]
Voriath: A triton sword with amplification is very tough to hold
Voriath — Counter Infinite — Applied.
[He generated the counter for both of them simultaneously.]
[The counter existed but it was doing twice the work and Leo was using the time]
[Sword exchanges. Real sword exchanges]
[The Shatter Nebula hitting the Chaos Nihilikinesis Sword, both blades carrying the full weight of everything behind them, the clashing sending shockwaves through every dimensional layer in range]
[The shadow's sword doing the same from a different angle, the two attacks forcing Voriath to meet two directions simultaneously]
[As the solar systems shook]
[The dimensional layers of the Primus World's outer cosmological shell cracked in seven places]
[Voriath bled]
[Four times. Four clean hits from the shadow and the real form working together]
[The Absolute Reset cleaned them each second. But for the second before each reset:]
[He looked at each instance before it cleaned]
[He didn't stop neither did Leo]
[They were trading hits now. Both of them taking and giving]
[The Hyper Archangel Mode's physical immunity catching everything Voriath threw at Leo's body while Leo's sword work found the moments]
[It was the fight Leo had wanted to have. A real fight. A proper one]
Voriath — The Law of Veto.
[He cancelled the law Leo had written at the touch-point]
[The Veto was one of his oldest abilities as it was cancelling any action established by any other being. Even a law written at the level where their sources shared authority]
[Leo felt the touch-point law dissolve]
[Leo smirked]
Leo: Interesting now he is the in countering
Leo — Galadrielo — Rewrite.
[He declared a new law. Faster this time knowing Voriath could Veto it]
Voriath — Veto
[The new law dissolved before it completed]
Leo — Galadrielo — New Declaration.
[Another]
Voriath — Veto.
[They were in a contest of Leo writing and Voriath cancelling. Every law Leo wrote existed for a fraction of a second before Voriath's Veto cleaned it]
[But in that fraction of a second, the law was real. And Leo was writing laws that did something useful in their fraction of a second]
[Twelve laws in twelve seconds]
[Each one lasting less than a second]
[Each one doing one specific thing in that fraction[
[A cascade. Each law setting up the condition for the next. Each Veto arriving after the law had served its purpose and setting up the condition for the next one.
Voriath felt the cascade]
Voriath: You're using the Vetos
Leo: you finally figured huh
Voriath: You're writing laws to be Vetoed. The Veto is the mechanism you're using.
Leo: Every Veto has a moment. I'm making the Veto do work.
Voriath: Galadrielo and the Veto working together.
Leo: My law and your response to my law. Together.
[Two minutes.]
[Leo felt the form's timer as a physical sensation now. The angelic presences starting to draw back toward their origin. The contract completing.]
Voriath — Zero-Possibility Zone.
[The field that made any action that could lead to his defeat mathematically impossible]
[Leo felt it land]
[The Hyper Archangel Mode's eight presences registered it. Raphael's peace and Dina's justice and Cielo's wisdom all read the same thing: the field says nothing can defeat him]
Leo — Absolute Probability.
[He made the desired outcome one hundred percent certain.Just: the outcome he wanted was certain]
[The Zero-Possibility Zone said defeat was impossible]
[Absolute Probability said his desired outcome was certain]
[Two absolute declarations about probability in the same space]
[They conflicted]
[The conflict dissolved both of them]
[The space had no predetermined outcome]
[Voriath looked at the conflict-dissolved probability]
Voriath: You nullified my probability field.
Leo: By putting an equal and opposite field against it. Both cancel.
Voriath: Leaving neither.
Leo: Leaving neither. Now nothing is predetermined.
[One minute.]
[Leo felt it coming. The presence of Raphael pulling back. Then Uriel. The eight angels' contributions to the form starting the process of return]
[He had sixty seconds. He used them]
Shatter Nebula — Galaxy Divide
[The slash moved through every dimension simultaneously. Through every law they'd been contested over. Through the touch-point where their sources met. Through the space where the probability conflict had left the outcome open]
Voriath — Chaos Nihilikinesis Sword — Full Output.
[He met it.The two swords.The two authorities]
[The two most significant forces on the current cosmological stage meeting in a space between galaxies where nothing was predetermined and everything was possible]
[The meeting lasted five seconds]
[Five seconds of two swords locked at a point where neither broke]
[Neither gave.And then:]
[The angelic form dissolved]
[The fifty minutes ran out and the eight angels' presences withdrew in the specific way a completed contract withdraws — finished, not broken]
[The white light pulled back. The physical immunity ended. The divine energy returned to its source]
[Leo was left. Just Leo]
[The Shatter Nebula still in his hand still glowing gold from Galadrielo]
[Standing in the space between galaxies with blood starting to run from the places the form had been covering for him that it was no longer covering]
[The five-second sword lock had left him with the sword extended, blade pressed against the Chaos Nihilikinesis Sword, holding the line]
[And the line held for two seconds after the form ended]
[Then Voriath pushed. And Leo—
—went back]
[The first time he'd moved backward in this fight]
[He stabilized. Looked at Voriath]
[His breathing was harder than before]
[Voriath looked at him at the places where the form had been covering damage that was now visible]
Voriath: looks like the time ran out
Leo: Yes.
Voriath: You lasted all fifty minutesput...
Leo: phft...
Voriath: And you made every second count.
Leo: That was the plan.
[A pause. Voriath looking at Leo. At the blood. At the sword still raised despite the blood.]
Voriath: You're not going to lower the sword.
Leo: No... this fight isn't over yet!
Voriath: You can't win right now.
Leo: Probably not... but I will keep pushing
Voriath: Probably.
Leo: I've been wrong before.
[Voriath was quiet for a moment.]
Voriath: You have five additional abilities that Satanael hasn't given you yet.
Leo:"How do you know that.
Voriath: Because Satanael was watching this fight and Satanael is protective of its vessel. If it had the ability to help you and hadn't used it yet, there's a reason. It's waiting for the right moment.
[Satanael]
「He's right.」
Leo: I know.
[Satanael]
「But the moment isn't here yet. Not yet, Leo. Hold.」
Leo: I'm holding.
Voriath: What did it say.
Leo: Hold.
[Voriath raised the Chaos Nihilikinesis Sword.]
Voriath: Then let's find out how long you can.
[He moved]
[The attack was not full power]
[Voriath at full power after everything they'd done would have simply erased Leo from the current moment]
[Leo's body took the hit]
[He went through three layers of the cosmological shell]
[He stopped himself in the fourth.came back]
Venikulanino.
[He reflected the power of the hit back. Not at full magnitude. But enough that Voriath felt something return]
[Voriath received it and then hit Leo again]
[Leo went through two more layers. Came back]
Shield of Satanael.
[The barrier deployed. Not in time to catch the third hit. Caught the fourth]
[Voriath hit the shield]
[The shield held for forty-seven seconds.
Then broke and Leo took that hit without a shield]
[He went down toward the Primus World]
[His sword still out. Eyes still open but bleeding harder now]
[He came through the outer atmospheric layer of the Primus World and the people below saw him]
[Everyone watching]
[Martha's hands on her sword. Jeannette's hands the same. Laxcarseel very still. The guild members who had been watching from the second line. The rulers who had survived]
[Everyone]
[They saw Leo coming down with blood running and Voriath following with the specific paced certainty of a being who was not in a hurry because it didn't need to be]
[Leo hit the outer ground of the Primus World's main settlement]
[The open space outside them. The field that served as the buffer between the settlement and the cosmological access points]
[He landed]
[He got up]
[Still]
[He got up]
[Voriath descended]
Voriath: You're still standing.
Leo: am not done yet
Voriath: You should have stayed down.
Leo: That's not how I work.
[Voriath landed. On the ground. In front of Leo. Up close for the first time since they'd been in the seam between universes and talked.]
[Voriath looked at him]
Voriath: You're extraordinary, Leo, but it's time to say goodbye
Leo: Dammitttttt
[Despite everything. Despite the blood and the breathing that wasn't right. He said it without irony. Just accurate.]
Leo: And I'm not done.
Voriath: Your form is gone.
Leo: My form is gone.
Voriath: The angels are gone.
Leo:"The angels gave what they came to give.
Voriath: You're standing with a sword and blood running down your face.
Leo: Yes.
Voriath: Against me.
Leo: Yes.
[A pause. Very quiet on the ground of the Primus World. The watching silence of hundreds of people who had been fighting for hours all holding their breath.]
Voriath: What's your plan.
Leo: Fight you until I'm not standing. Then fight you from the ground.
[A beat.]
Voriath: And when you're not on the ground anymore.
Leo: Then someone else goes. And when they're not standing, someone else goes. And we keep going until you get what you came for or you don't.
[Voriath looked at Leo for a very long moment.]
[At the stubbornness of it]
Voriath: You know the answer to what happens when I get what I came for.
Leo: Yes.
Voriath: You still won't step aside.
Leo: Never.
[He raised the shaking sword.]
[Voriath looked at it. Then sighed]
[Voriath — Reaches forward and grabbed Leo's coat]
[Leo held]
[The sword between them]
[The Primus World watching and from somewhere in the crowd — from the edge of the settlement where civilians who had been evacuated were watching from behind barriers — a small voice]
[A girl]
[A Seven years old. Eight. Small. Standing at the front of the barrier because children always end up at the front of barriers when they want to see something]
Girl: Let him go.
[Her voice was not loud. But the Primus World was very quiet and it carried]
Voriath turned his head and looked at the girl]
[She looked back at him with the specific expression of a child who is frightened and doing something brave anyway, because brave things and frightened things can coexist and sometimes coexisting them is the only option you have]
Girl: Let him go. Please.
[Voriath looked at her for a long moment.]
[Something moved in his expression that was complicated and specific and not unkind.]
Voriath: "Children say please.
[He said it quietly. Not to her. To the space between them]
[He turned back to Leo.]
[His free hand raised slightly. Not toward Leo. The hand that was going to do the next thing.]
Leo: Don't.
[His voice was breaking. The specific breaking of someone who has hit the edge of their physical capacity and is pushing past it through will alone.]
Leo: Don't. She has nothing to do with this. She's a child.
Voriath: The cosmology I'm building will be better for her.
Leo: Then build it without hurting her. You don't need to hurt her to build it.
[A pause.]
Voriath: The new order has costs.
Leo: She's not a cost. She's a person.
[The hand raised further. Not aimed at Leo anymore. Aimed at the girl at the barrier. The free hand that was going to demonstrate something about what the new order's construction looked like.]
Voriath — Pride of Wrath — Minimal Focused Application.
[A thread of it. Aimed at the girl's location]
[The thread moved and got absorbed]
[By a hand reaching out from the settlement's edge and taking the erasure before it reached its destination]
[Darkness[
[The specific kind of darkness that ate things before they arrived]
[Kai of the Cosmos Universe stepped out of that darkness]
[He was not in any form. Not in his universe-ruler's full power. Just standing. In a suit that was the exact quality of pure black that absorbed everything around it. His Infinite Aura running quietly]
[In his outstretched hand: the thread of Pride of Wrath that had been aimed at the girl but was absorbed by the darkness before it got there]
[He held it for a moment then closed his hand and let the darkness eat it]
[Voriath looked at him]
[Kai looked at Voriath]
Kai: Not her.
[He said it the way people say things that are very simple and very final.]
Kai: She asked please. She's been standing there watching one of ours bleed for five minutes and she asked please. She is not part of the fight
[He looked at Voriath without the specific fear that most people had in this situation. The fear of the cosmology's most powerful being and the fear of what he could do. He looked at him the way someone looks at something very large that they've decided to deal with]
Voriath: Kai Storm.
Kai: It's been 200 years
Voriath: The Cosmos Universe's ruler.
Kai: sure sure
Voriath: You absorbed my application of Pride of Wrath.
Kai: I did.
Voriath: That required your Void Erasure and Devouring to work together.
Kai: Most things I do require more than one ability to work together.
[Leo, on the ground between them, breathing hard, sword still in his hand though it was pointed down now, watched Kai step between him and Voriath. Watched the ruler who had felt Voriath's presence enough to bow earlier, stand here now, straight, between a seven-year-old who had said please and the most powerful being in the cosmology.]
Leo: Kai—
Kai: Rest.
Leo: Kai, he'll—
Kai: I know what he'll do. Rest anyway.
[He looked at Voriath.]
Kai: You wanted a world worth having. You told Leo that.
Voriath: Yes.
Kai: A girl at a barrier saying please. That's what's worth having.
[A pause. Very long.]
Kai: Fight me instead.
Voriath: I'll win.
Kai: I know.
Voriath: Decisively.
Kai: Probably.
Voriath: You understand that.
Kai: Yes.
Voriath: And you're standing there anyway.
Kai: She said please.
[The Primus World held the quiet of everything watching everything.]
[Voriath looked at Kai for a very long moment. At the darkness that had absorbed his Pride of Wrath before it reached a child. At the ruler who had stood up knowing the odds and said them out loud without flinching.]
Eternal Darkness — Active.
[The field of absolute impenetrable darkness expanded from Kai's position. The darkness that negated sight and erased things that stood in its way]
[The darkness so dense it started removing the distinction between existing and not existing for anything it touched]
[Voriath stood in it]
[He didn't move]
[The darkness touched him and found the Concept-Proof Soul and the Void's Immunity and every resistance that made Voriath Luminael something you could fill a room with darkness around without filling Voriath Luminael with darkness]
[Kai watched the darkness do nothing to Voriath]
Kai: As expected.
Voriath: Yes.
Kai: I have other things.
Voriath: I know.
Kai: None of them are enough.
Voriath: No.
Kai: But I have them.
[He raised his hand.]
Void Born
[The power to control and manipulate all possible universes and dimensions. Every possible outcome accessible and manipulable]
Voriath — Counter Infinite.
[The Absolute Authority. The Conceptual Counter-Force operating on a higher functional layer]
[The Void Born hit the Counter Infinite and found a force that was already occupying the layer the Void Born needed to reach to work]
[Kai felt the block[
Kai: The Counter Infinite. Is he trying to rule the world
Voriath: I guess you can say that
Kai: It operates above my authority.
Voriath: Indeed it is
Kai: Is there anything that operates above it.
Voriath: Not in the current cosmology.
[A pause.]
Kai: Then we fight with what there is.
Causality's End.
[The power to rewrite the fundamental laws of causality. The control over the fabric of reality through cause and effect]
[It hit the Counter Infinite]
[The Counter Infinite generated a counter for it]
[Kai was building something while the Counter Infinite was occupied generating counters for each of his abilities]
[Each new ability requiring the Counter Infinite to produce a new response. The Counter Infinite was absolute but it was reactive. It responded to what was applied to it]
[Kai was applying things to it while building in the space the Counter Infinite wasn't covering]
The Devouring.
[The ability to consume and nullify any power, ability, or concept. Aimed not at Voriath but at the Counter Infinite's reaction to Causality's End. Consuming the Counter Infinite's output before it could complete]
[Voriath felt the Devouring eat the Counter Infinite's reaction]
[The Counter Infinite generated a new reaction]
[Kai devoured it]
[The Counter Infinite generated again]
[Kai devoured it again]
[They were in a loop. Counter Infinite generating, Devouring eating the generation before it completed]
[Voriath looked at Kai]
Voriath: You found a way to loop the Counter Infinite.
Kai: It generates, I devour. It generates again, I devour again. As long as I can devour faster than it generates—
Voriath: You can keep it busy.
Kai: Not forever.
Voriath: No.
Kai: But for long enough.
Voriath: Long enough for what.
[Kai looked at him.]
[And looked, briefly, over Voriath's shoulder.]
[At Leo. Who had used the time to stand up. Who had used the time to breathe. Who had used the time to let Satanael do something in the space between the form ending and now.]
[The sword in Leo's hand was glowing again.]
[Not the Hyper Archangel Mode white. Not the gold of Galadrielo only.]
[Something else. Something that had been building since the angels gave what they came to give and returned, leaving their agreement with Leo in the blade. Something that Satanael had been waiting for since the fight started.]
[The sword glowed with the specific quality of a source that had grown.]
Kai: Long enough for that.
[Voriath turned and looked at Leo, at the glowing sword at the Satanael source, which he had just called extraordinary and which he had just said had grown]
Voriath: What is that.
[Satanael]
「Leo.」
Leo: Yes.
[Satanael]
「The angels gave their power. Their contract is done. But the agreement remains. They gave power through the form. They left the agreement in the blade. The blade now carries the covenant.」
Leo: What does that mean.
[Satanael]
「It means the sword is no longer just the Shatter Nebula. It is the Shatter Nebula with the covenant of eight angels sealed into its edge. Not a form. Not a time-limited contract. A permanent change.」
[Leo looked at the sword.]
Leo: Permanent.
[Satanael]
「Permanent. The power is less than the full form. But it doesn't run out. The sword is different now than it was when the angels left.」
[Leo looked at Voriath.]
[At Voriath looking at the sword.]
[At Kai still in the Counter Infinite loop, buying time, maintaining the fight that made no logical sense and was being fought anyway because a girl had said please.]
Leo: Kai.
Kai: Yes.
Leo: Thank you.
Kai: Don't thank me. Just go.
[He maintained the Devouring loop for the next ten seconds.]
[Ten seconds was not a long time.]
[But it was long enough for Leo Sebastián to raise the changed sword, the one that carried the covenant of eight angels permanently in its edge, and look at Voriath Luminael with the specific expression of someone who has hit their limit and found something on the other side of it.]
Leo: We're not done.
[And he meant it.]
[And Voriath, who had been looking for something worth finding since the seal broke, looked at the changed sword and felt, genuinely, exactly the thing he had been looking for.]
[The fight that might not have a predetermined ending after all.]
To be continued....