Musashi did not move.
He stood in the burning yard with his blade in hand and his face gone flat, eyes open but seeing something far, far worse than the ruined base in front of him.
Seizen did not even look at him again.
And then the world itself seemed to lean in.
Because in the Seeker world, power was never simple.
Each spoke—Celestial, Abyssal, Spatial, Psychic, Spirit, Martial, and Elemental—could by itself push a mortal far beyond common understanding. A technique was never just a technique. It was structure given to Muti. A personal law. A shaped instinct. A thousand years of trial, blood, genius, theft, and inheritance compressed into one move, one school, one kill, one miracle.
And even now, those arts were still evolving.
Still branching.
Still mutating.
A kaleidoscope of violence and beauty that no age had fully mapped.
But when a user had more—
a relic,
a bloodline,
or the willingness to sacrifice everything—
then Muti stopped looking like craft and started looking like blasphemy.
That was when it bent law.
That was when it distorted reality.
That was when mortals began to perform things that should have belonged only to gods.
And Seizen was not merely talented.
He wielded the legendary Viatra of the Black Clan.
That alone meant his body and Muti stood above the average mortal frame. It made him faster, sharper, more durable, more adaptable. It was one of the reasons the Black Clan had been feared across generations. Not because they were merely strong—
but because they escalated.
The Viatra was the progenitor of all eyes in the Seeker world.
The root.
The original terror.
An ocular bloodline so ancient and complete that it could evolve alongside every spoke, feeding techniques, refining perception, elevating whatever art its wielder layered through it. Each activation sharpened the user's ability to read, adapt, and weaponize. The Black Clan took that gift and made it monstrous.
Over centuries, they turned it into city-breaking, mind-breaking, elemental-amplifying arts passed from one killer generation to the next.
One of those arts was Genmugan.
A top-tier ocular horror.
A perfect illusion, not built from random fantasy, but from the victim's own interior ruin.
Trauma.
Hate.
Regret.
Fear.
Lies.
Failure.
Desire.
The roads not taken.
The roads taken and wished dead.
Genmugan did not merely show suffering.
It organized it.
Weaponized it.
Looped it.
Forced the victim to live inside the shape of their own deepest wound until the mind began to fray under the repetition.
To wield it properly required advanced control of Psychic Muti first.
Then the Viatra amplified that Psychic Muti to monstrous levels, multiplying control, detail, pressure, and fidelity until the illusion ceased to feel like deception and became an overriding reality.
That was why the Black Clan's greatest eyes had long been whispered to possess not just the best ocular arts—
but some of the most dangerous Psychic abilities on the planet.
And once Genmugan locked in, escape became almost impossible.
A victim could break free only by collapsing completely and becoming mentally unable to continue fighting, by bursting out with overwhelming aura or Muti strong enough to crush the ocular pressure, the opponent is blind, by possessing exceptional mental resistance, by using Ryōiki, or by being an advanced Psychic user capable of contesting the imposed reality directly.
Otherwise—
there was no way out.
Years could pass inside the illusion.
Entire lives.
Yet in the real world, only seconds or minutes moved.
That was why Genmugan was one of Seizen's deadliest trump cards.
Because it did not merely remove an enemy from battle.
It replaced battle with private hell.
Seizen's voice cut through the firelight.
"Distraction gone."
He turned back toward Darius.
"Back to you, old geezer."
Darius's smile thinned.
Inside, one word hit first.
Shit.
He looked once at Musashi.
Blank face.
Still body.
Gone eyes.
Still standing.
Already lost.
Shit.
Flowers curled at Darius's feet. Steam left his mouth in slower bursts now. His shoulders stayed loose, but sweat was beginning to bead and run down the side of his face.
I can't hold True Flow much longer.
His breath stayed even.
His mind didn't.
Damn old age.
Seizen kept walking.
Slow.
Confident.
Like he knew exactly what was happening to the man in front of him.
Kid's smart, Darius thought. He's trying to exhaust me.
Another drop of sweat ran down Darius's cheek.
Make me attack and defend at the same time. Drain me till I've got nothing left but mistakes.
Seizen's black-red aura rolled over the cracked yard in pulses.
Darius adjusted one foot.
Flowers sprouted.
Then trembled.
Count it.
His eyes narrowed.
Two moves left.
The thought landed heavy.
That's good and bad.
He flexed his fingers once.
Buddhist Palm only gives me three clean uses.
A beat.
Now two.
Because one of them had already gone into Seizen's chest and still hadn't ended this.
The realization sat ugly in his gut.
Think, King.
Seizen kept coming.
One step.
Then another.
No rush.
No wasted motion.
Just pressure.
Just confidence.
Just death walking straight at him.
How do you stop a monster like him with no backup?
Musashi stood dead-still behind him.
Gone.
Athena, Yu and the others were too far.
No help was coming.
And Darius could feel the edges now.
That dangerous point every veteran knew.
The point where power was still there—
but the body had started sending the bill.
Steam left his mouth.
Sweat rolled from his temple.
The flowered kimono stirred in the heat.
I'm about to run on fumes.
Seizen smiled faintly as he approached, crimson eyes gleaming through the smoke.
Darius lowered his center of gravity.
Hands rose.
Flightless Feather Style still alive.
Still deadly.
But now every breath mattered.
Every twitch mattered.
Every choice from here on out would either save him—
or kill him.