Varek vanished.
The atmosphere detonated behind him.
And for the first time since the Grand Regent entered the battle, Sereon did not wait for him to arrive.
Suigōraku turned in his hand.
Sereon: (quietly) Shinkai Art...
The white surrounding him deepened.
Not brighter.
Deeper.
The remains of the ocean below ceased reflecting the sky. The clouds stopped carrying shadows. Mountains that Varek had already broken appeared whole again along the horizon, yet the debris from those same mountains still hung in the upper atmosphere.
Two contradictory states occupied the same view without attempting to reconcile themselves.
Sereon's eyes followed Varek's approach.
Sereon: Mugen Gisō Sekai.
The Infinite Forged World.
Varek reached him.
His fist struck Sereon directly across the face.
There was no hesitation in the contact.
Varek felt the cheekbone cave inward against his knuckles. Teeth broke against one another. Sereon's jaw twisted almost completely off alignment before the force travelled through his skull and snapped his head sideways. Blood burst from his mouth, crossed Varek's wrist and scattered behind them.
Varek's shoulder continued through.
His hips completed the rotation.
His fist drove Sereon away.
The impact split the atmosphere.
A pressure wall expanded from the collision and tore downward through the cloud layer, flattening what remained of it into a widening circle hundreds of kilometres across.
Sereon disappeared into the distance.
Varek stopped.
Blood covered his fist.
He looked at it.
One drop slid between his knuckles.
Then upward.
Varek's eyes narrowed.
The blood climbed against gravity.
Another drop separated from his thumb.
It became rain.
The sky above him darkened.
Varek looked up.
There was no longer a ruined planet beneath him.
There was a city.
An enormous one.
Black towers rose through silver rain beneath a violet sky. Vehicles moved between them on elevated roads. Thousands of people crowded the streets far below. Steam climbed from vents. Advertisements flickered across buildings in a language Varek did not recognize.
He remained suspended above it.
His fist was still extended.
There was no blood on it.
Varek looked toward the place where Sereon had been sent.
Nothing.
Dark: VAREK!
Varek turned.
Dark was not there.
Suigōraku entered his back.
The point pushed between two ribs and continued through the front of his abdomen.
Varek's pale-gold eyes lowered.
The silver blade protruded from his body.
Sereon stood behind him.
One hand on the hilt.
His face was unbroken.
Sereon: The punch happened.
Varek looked over his shoulder.
Sereon: Just not to me.
Sereon pulled the sword free.
Blood followed it in a heavy burst.
Varek turned immediately.
Sereon was gone before his hand arrived.
The city disappeared with him.
For less than an instant there was only the real dead planet again.
Then Varek stood inside an ocean.
Water surrounded him in every direction.
No surface above.
No seabed beneath.
Darkness extended endlessly.
Varek stopped moving.
A school of enormous translucent creatures passed beneath his feet.
One turned an eyeless head toward him.
Varek stared at it.
The creature opened its mouth.
Sereon's voice came from inside it.
Sereon: You keep looking for the false object.
Varek's fist closed.
Sereon: You should be asking whether the World containing it exists.
The creature lunged.
Varek punched.
Its head ruptured.
Transparent flesh, fluid and fragments of bone exploded through the water.
The impact travelled outward and crushed kilometres of ocean into a single expanding pressure front.
Then everything vanished.
The real atmosphere returned.
Varek's fist had struck nothing.
Sereon was already several kilometres away.
And Dark was above him.
Dark came down with Kyuketsu in both hands.
His ruined right wrist had been wrapped completely in black material, the substance crossing his palm and fingers in thick strips that forced his grip closed around the hilt. More of it reinforced his damaged shoulder, passed beneath his ribs and disappeared into the open wound across his side.
He was still bleeding.
He had simply stopped allowing the bleeding to decide which parts of him remained functional.
Dark: Flame Magic...
Black fire crawled across Kyuketsu.
It did not spread outward yet.
It compressed.
The flames pulled themselves tighter around the blade until the black edge disappeared beneath heat so dense that the surrounding air recoiled from it.
Dark's eyes sharpened.
Dark: Infernal Blackout.
He swung.
The black fire left Kyuketsu with the cut.
Not as a wave.
As a complete absence of ordinary flame behaviour.
It crossed the atmosphere in a single dark arc, devouring oxygen along its passing edge and leaving a momentary vacuum behind it. The pressure around the attack collapsed inward after it passed, dragging clouds, water vapour and debris toward the cut.
Sereon saw it.
His left hand rose.
Sereon: Influence Art...
Suigōraku rotated until its flat faced the incoming darkness.
Sereon: Suikō.
A thin silver ripple left the blade.
Sereon: Second Move...
Dark's eyes narrowed.
Sereon: Mizu Ketsuron.
The ripple touched the edge of Infernal Blackout.
Nothing exploded.
The attack continued.
But the decision built into its trajectory changed.
The black arc shifted less than a degree.
At that distance, less than a degree became thousands of kilometres.
Infernal Blackout passed Sereon, entered the dead planet below and cut across what remained of an entire hemisphere.
Dark: Fuck.
The crust opened.
Black fire entered the wound and continued downward. Rock did not simply melt. It darkened, collapsed and vanished beneath the consuming flame while the surrounding mantle surged toward the gap.
The planet began tearing itself open.
Sereon was already moving.
Dark followed.
Sereon's posture changed.
Suigōraku lowered beside his right hip.
His left foot shifted forward in open air even though there was nothing beneath it.
Mizukagami-no-Kamae.
The Water Mirror Stance.
Varek saw the difference immediately.
Sereon was no longer preparing to escape him.
He was inviting him.
Varek accelerated.
No sound followed once he cleared the upper atmosphere.
His body entered vacuum and the violence became visually cleaner. No pressure cone. No boom. No burning air. Only Varek crossing distance under his own physical power, coat trailing behind him as his shoulders and hips adjusted around microscopic changes in direction.
Sereon watched his chest.
Not his fist.
Varek moved right.
Sereon turned.
Varek stopped.
Not gradually.
His entire body corrected at once.
He went left.
Sereon's eyes followed.
Varek went down.
Sereon followed again.
Varek appeared above him.
Suigōraku was already there.
Varek's fist struck its flat.
The sword bent.
Sereon's arms folded toward his chest.
The force carried through Soul Ryūgu and cracked the white armor across both shoulders.
Varek's other hand came forward.
Sereon released the sword.
Varek's fingers closed on empty space.
Suigōraku dissolved into silver fluid before his grip could seize it.
Sereon drove two fingers into Varek's throat.
Not hard enough to damage him.
That was not the purpose.
Sereon: Hido Type...
Varek's eyes moved downward.
Sereon's right elbow entered beneath Varek's forearm.
His left palm settled against the outside of Varek's wrist.
Sereon: Kotsu Kuzushi.
The technique did not attempt to overpower Varek.
Sereon rotated his entire body around the line of Varek's arm at the same instant Varek tried to retract it.
The motion attacked the structure carrying Varek's own strength.
Wrist.
Elbow.
Shoulder.
All three were forced into slightly different rotational axes.
Against an ordinary body, the arm would have torn itself apart.
Varek's did not.
His shoulder shifted.
The joint made a deep crack.
That was all.
Sereon saw it.
Varek saw him see it.
Varek: Is that supposed to break me?
Sereon: It would have broken almost anyone else.
Varek: I am not almost anyone else.
His forehead smashed into Sereon's face.
The central plate of Soul Ryūgu broke inward.
Sereon's nose collapsed beneath it.
Blood sprayed across Varek's cheek.
Varek caught Sereon by the throat.
This time the grip closed completely.
Sereon's eyes tightened.
Varek: You keep using my strength as though possessing more of it than you expected makes it yours.
Sereon's fingers wrapped around Varek's wrist.
Varek: It does not.
His body rotated.
Perfectly.
Sereon left his hand.
The throw sent him out of the dead World and into the darkness beyond it.
Dark saw the direction.
So did Varek.
Far ahead, beyond the torn edge of the ruined World, one of the empty Universes inside Raiku's creation stretched open.
Stars filled it.
Dark: Again.
Varek did not answer.
He was already moving.
Dark followed.
Poorly.
His first acceleration pulled his damaged hip out of alignment. Black material burst from his lower back and wrapped around his waist, tightening violently enough to force the joint into place.
Dark's face tightened.
Dark: Fucking...
He corrected.
Too much.
His body rolled.
Dark: (thinking) Hunter Magic...
His eyes widened as a distant star spun through his vision.
Dark: Ruler's Authority!
Invisible force caught his torso.
His rotation stopped so abruptly that several broken ribs shifted inside his chest.
Dark coughed blood into the vacuum.
It left his mouth in floating crimson spheres.
Dark looked ahead.
Varek was already gone.
Dark: Show-off.
Then Sereon appeared in front of him.
Dark's eyes widened.
Suigōraku cut across his stomach.
The first pass opened muscle.
The second arrived from the opposite direction before Dark finished reacting to the first.
Dark blocked.
Kyuketsu met silver.
Sereon stepped closer.
Dark: (thinking) Real.
Sereon's knee struck his ruined ribs.
Dark's body folded.
Sereon: Wrong.
The Universe disappeared.
Dark was standing inside the Dark Empire.
He froze.
The capital spread beneath him.
The floating islands.
The towers.
The rebuilt districts.
People.
Thousands of them.
Millions.
Then screaming.
Dark's head turned.
One of the islands fell from the sky.
It struck the city below.
Buildings disappeared beneath the impact.
Fire climbed into the air.
Dark: No.
Another island began falling.
Dark moved instinctively.
Sereon's voice reached him from somewhere behind.
Sereon: There.
Dark stopped himself.
Barely.
His jaw clenched.
Dark: You motherfucker.
The city continued burning.
Dark knew it was false.
A child screamed anyway.
That was the problem.
His body still heard it.
His eyes still tracked the falling stone.
His hands still wanted to move.
Sereon stepped beside him.
No attack.
Not yet.
Sereon: Knowing a World is false does not make its information useless.
Dark stared at the burning capital.
Sereon: You still possess habits.
Dark looked toward him.
Sereon: Priorities.
The second island fell.
Sereon: Attachments.
Dark's face became still.
Sereon: I do not need you to believe this is your Empire.
Dark lowered Kyuketsu.
Sereon's eyes sharpened slightly.
Sereon: I only need you to behave like Dark while standing inside it.
Dark looked toward the screaming people below.
Then he closed his eyes.
Sereon moved.
Suigōraku came for his throat.
Dark: (thinking) Shadow Magic...
His shadow did not appear beneath him.
It erupted from his own body.
Dark: Black Burial.
The black substance surrounding his wounds exploded outward into dozens of thick arms, blades and hooked limbs without relying on anything his eyes could see. They struck every direction around him simultaneously.
One caught Suigōraku.
A second wrapped Sereon's forearm.
A third punched through Soul Ryūgu beneath his ribs.
Dark opened his eyes.
The Dark Empire vanished.
The real Universe returned.
Sereon was directly in front of him.
Blood ran from the black spike buried through his side.
Dark smiled.
Dark: I don't gotta believe my eyes to be an asshole.
Sereon looked down at the spike.
Dark pulled.
Black Burial tore sideways through his abdomen.
Flesh opened.
Several ribs cracked free from their attachments.
Blood and fragments of white armor spread between them.
Sereon's expression did not change.
Suigōraku reformed inside his free hand.
Dark saw it too late.
The blade entered beneath his chin.
It came out behind his neck.
Dark's smile vanished.
Sereon pushed it farther.
Dark's body jerked.
Black material immediately tightened around his throat, trying to preserve the structures the blade had interrupted.
Sereon: Neither do I.
Varek arrived.
His fist struck Sereon in the side of the head.
Soul Ryūgu did not save him.
The armor across the skull burst apart.
Sereon's face deformed around the impact.
His body tore free from the black spike in Dark's side and vanished across the Universe.
He passed a moon.
Then crossed the orbit of a gas giant.
Then the star behind it.
Varek followed him.
Dark remained where he was for one second with Suigōraku still through his throat.
The sword dissolved.
Blood poured down the front of his chest.
Dark grabbed his own neck.
Dark: GHHK...
Black material entered the wound.
Not gently.
It shoved severed tissue into functional alignment, braced the damaged vertebrae and forced the opening closed from the outside.
Dark swallowed.
Pain flashed across his face.
Dark: Dickhead.
He flew after them.
Ahead, Varek reached Sereon again before Sereon stopped moving.
Varek struck him in the abdomen.
The punch folded Sereon over his fist.
Blood erupted from Sereon's mouth.
His body changed direction instantly.
A blue planet filled the distance ahead.
Lifeless.
Two moons.
Thin white cloud cover.
One enormous continent visible across its day side.
Varek saw it.
His hand caught Sereon's ankle.
Sereon twisted.
Suigōraku flashed.
Varek's forearm opened from wrist to elbow.
Muscle separated deeply enough to expose bone.
Varek did not release him.
Sereon cut again.
Varek turned his forearm and allowed the second strike to enter the first wound.
The blade sank deeper.
Sereon's eyes narrowed.
Varek: You need the sword to enter me.
His fingers tightened around Sereon's ankle.
Varek: So enter.
He pulled.
Sereon came toward him.
Varek's knee entered Sereon's chest.
Soul Ryūgu collapsed around the impact.
Sereon's sternum broke beneath it.
Blood exploded from his mouth and nose.
Varek seized him by the back of the neck.
The planet grew larger beneath them.
Sereon stabbed Suigōraku backward.
It entered Varek's thigh.
Varek's grip tightened further.
Varek: Again.
He drove Sereon downward.
They entered the upper atmosphere.
Sound returned all at once.
BOOM.
The first pressure cone expanded across the sky.
Sereon twisted free for half a second.
Varek caught his wrist.
A second sonic boom struck the clouds and flattened them outward into a circular opening.
Dark entered the atmosphere behind them.
His descent immediately became unstable.
Dark: Oh, fuck me.
He rolled sideways.
Black material extended from both shoulders into broad fins, but they formed unevenly around his damaged body.
Dark: (thinking) Too much left.
He tore one fin smaller.
Dark: (thinking) Less drag.
His body corrected.
Below him, Varek and Sereon had become a descending streak.
Sereon looked toward the approaching continent.
Then toward Varek.
His bloody mouth moved.
Sereon: Gyuro...
Varek's eyes lowered.
A sphere appeared between Sereon's first two fingers.
Tiny.
No larger than a grain of sand.
Dense enough that the air immediately around it pinched inward.
Sereon: Nine.
Varek changed his grip.
Sereon pressed the sphere against Varek's chest.
Sereon: Kōryū Senkei.
The sphere fired.
A single compressed line punched through Varek's torso.
Not wide.
Not explosive.
Surgical.
The beam entered beneath the sternum, drilled through the immense density of his body and exited from his back in a straight crimson eruption of blood, tissue and pulverized fragments of bone.
The line continued through the atmosphere behind him and vanished into space.
Varek's body stopped for less than a second.
Sereon used it.
His foot planted against Varek's abdomen.
He kicked free.
Varek looked down at the hole through his chest.
Blood poured from both sides.
His pale-gold eyes lifted.
Sereon was already below him.
Varek: Good.
Dark passed him.
Dark: Stop rating the fucking injuries!
Varek accelerated again.
Dark: Of course.
Sereon reached the lower atmosphere.
The continent rushed upward beneath him.
He turned.
Dark was above.
Varek was farther behind.
For the first time since Shinkai began, Sereon had enough separation to choose the next exchange instead of merely surviving the previous one.
His breathing slowed.
Soul Ryūgu shifted across his body.
The crushed chest plate pulled itself back into rough alignment. Several broken eyes closed. Others opened across his shoulders and ribs.
Suigōraku appeared in his hand.
Sereon lowered the point toward the planet.
Sereon: Influence Art...
The wind around him bent.
Sereon: Suikō.
Dark saw the ripple.
Dark: Oh, no.
Sereon: Fifth Move...
The silver current spread through the atmosphere beneath him.
Sereon: Kōrin Ketsu.
The sky fractured into choices.
Dark saw Sereon land in a mountain range.
Varek saw him turn toward an ocean.
Another Sereon continued falling.
Another stopped.
Another accelerated upward.
Every accepted location acquired enough supporting information to become useful.
Clouds bent around each body.
Heat accumulated around each descent.
Shadows formed beneath all of them.
Dark's eyes moved rapidly.
Dark: (thinking) Don't pick.
He stopped looking at Sereon.
Instead, he looked at the continent.
Dark: (thinking) Atom Magic...
His left hand opened.
The black reinforcement around his fingers tightened.
Dark: Molecular Reversal.
He struck his palm downward.
A circular mark appeared in the atmosphere beneath him.
Then the technique reached the continent.
The first effect was silent.
Every exposed mineral bond across an enormous section of uninhabited mountain country inverted simultaneously.
Granite separated from granite.
Metal veins rejected the stone containing them.
Crystal structures came apart along microscopic boundaries.
For one instant the mountains retained their shapes.
Then gravity touched them.
The entire range collapsed.
Not exploded.
Collapsed.
Hundreds of kilometres of mountain became an avalanche of its own molecular components, ridgelines dissolving into catastrophic sheets of stone, dust, exposed ore and pulverized crystal.
Every false Sereon reacted differently.
One jumped.
One remained still.
One vanished.
One flew.
Dark ignored them.
The real one had to interact with the real matter somehow.
A silver flash appeared inside the collapsing range.
Dark's eyes widened.
Dark: THERE!
Varek did not ask how.
He changed direction.
The atmosphere cracked.
Sereon looked up.
Varek reached him.
Sereon raised Suigōraku.
Varek struck through the guard.
The sword slammed against Sereon's own chest.
Soul Ryūgu broke around it.
Varek's fist continued.
Sereon left the ground.
Dark came from above.
Kyuketsu reversed in his grip.
Dark: Gyuro...
A sphere formed against the base of the blade.
Crimson-white.
Compressed.
Dark: Twenty-One.
Sereon's eyes widened slightly.
Dark drove Kyuketsu down.
Dark: SHUKUMEI SEN!
The sphere discharged through the sword.
The beam struck Sereon at point-blank range.
It did not spread.
It bored through him.
Soul Ryūgu opened first.
Then flesh.
Then ribs.
The compressed line punched straight through Sereon's torso and continued into the planet beneath him, drilling a glowing tunnel through kilometres of collapsing rock.
Blood erupted upward across Dark's face.
Sereon fell into the hole his own body had been struck above.
Varek reached Dark.
Dark looked at him.
Varek looked down.
Neither spoke.
Then both descended.
The tunnel widened beneath them as molten stone collapsed inward from its walls.
Sereon struck the bottom first.
The impact drove him through another kilometre of crust and opened a cavern larger than a city.
Dark landed on one side.
Varek landed on the other.
This time there was a surface.
Real stone.
Real gravity.
Real atmosphere pressing through the enormous wound they had opened in the planet above.
Sereon stood between them.
Slowly.
Blood ran from his mouth in a continuous line.
A clean hole remained through his torso where Shukumei Sen had passed. Soul Ryūgu crawled around the wound, trying to close the armor before the flesh beneath it had even stopped bleeding.
One of his arms hung lower.
His nose remained broken.
His sternum had already been fractured twice.
Suigōraku rested in his right hand.
Dark dragged Kyuketsu's point across the stone.
Varek's hands remained empty.
Sereon looked at one.
Then the other.
The enormous cavern became quiet.
Dark spat blood onto the ground.
Dark: Alright.
Sereon's eyes settled on him.
Dark rolled his damaged shoulder.
Something inside it clicked badly.
Dark: Now we got somewhere to stand.
Varek looked at the cratered stone beneath his feet.
Then at Dark.
Varek: You require the ground?
Dark: Don't start.
Sereon's fingers tightened around Suigōraku.
The silver blade gave one low metallic note.
Dark stopped talking.
The sound continued.
One note became two.
Two became hundreds.
The completed Soul Ryūgu answered from inside Sereon's body.
The cavern walls began reflecting places that were not there.
A Kōseikan training court appeared inside one section of stone.
An ocean moved across another.
A dead city occupied the ceiling.
A black sky opened inside the floor beneath Dark without replacing the rock he could still physically feel under his boots.
Varek looked around once.
Sereon lifted Suigōraku.
Blood ran down his wrist and along the guard.
Sereon: You wanted something real beneath your feet.
Dark's eyes narrowed.
Sereon: Keep it.
The reflections began moving.
Sereon: It will not help you decide which World you are standing in.
And then Sereon attacked.
He drove Suigōraku point-first into the stone.
Sereon: (quietly) Shinkai Art...
The blade entered less than an inch.
That was enough.
A silver line left the point and raced through the cavern floor, dividing around Dark and Varek before climbing opposite walls. It reached the ceiling, crossed itself, and completed a vast irregular boundary around all three of them.
Sereon raised his eyes.
Sereon: Mugen Gisō Sekai...
His fingers loosened around the hilt.
Sereon: Kasane Kyōkai.
The cavern did not disappear.
Another World arrived on top of it.
Then another.
Varek saw a black desert beneath a white sun. Dark saw the ruins of Kōseikan stretching farther than the cavern walls should have allowed. Sereon stood in the same apparent position to both of them, yet the distance separating him from either man was no longer the same. Beneath every false environment remained the real stone they had landed upon, but Suigōraku buried it beneath complete alternatives, each one carrying its own depth, atmosphere, horizon, temperature and spatial relationship.
Varek moved first.
His right foot crushed the desert beneath him.
There should not have been sand.
It still sprayed around his ankle.
He reached Sereon with his fist already travelling.
Sereon stepped inside it.
Not away.
Inside.
His shoulder passed beneath Varek's forearm while Suigōraku left the floor and turned upward in the same motion. The blade cut from Varek's lower abdomen to the centre of his chest, opening him deeply enough that the edges of the wound separated before blood could fill them.
Varek's fist continued past Sereon's head.
Sereon: Hido Type...
His free hand touched Varek's elbow.
Sereon: Kotsu Kuzushi.
Two fingers pressed against the inside of the joint while Sereon's palm settled behind the triceps. His hips rotated with Varek's missed punch, converting the Grand Regent's own forward force into three separate stresses through the wrist, elbow and shoulder.
Varek's arm twisted.
The elbow cracked.
The shoulder shifted several centimetres inside its socket.
Varek looked down at Sereon's hand.
Then at Sereon.
His expression remained composed, but one eyebrow had lowered.
Sereon saw it.
Varek seized him by the throat.
The grip closed hard enough to crush the plating of Soul Ryūgu around Sereon's neck.
Sereon did not resist.
Varek lifted him.
Varek: Do not touch my joints again.
Sereon: Why?
Varek's fingers tightened.
Sereon's throat compressed beneath them.
Varek: Because I told you not to.
Varek punched him.
Sereon's head came apart.
Bone, blood and fragments of white armor burst through the back of his skull and crossed the black desert in a widening spray.
Varek held the headless body for half a second.
Then the body became Dark.
Varek's eyes widened.
Dark was actually in his hand.
His throat was already compressed beneath Varek's fingers.
Dark's expression changed immediately.
Dark: Varek.
Varek released him.
Dark dropped less than a metre before catching himself in the air.
Both men looked toward Sereon.
He stood farther across the cavern.
Alive.
His head intact.
Sereon: You were certain.
Varek stared at him.
Sereon: That is becoming expensive.
Varek's jaw moved once.
Dark rubbed the front of his throat.
Dark: Next time, check before you crush my neck.
Varek did not look at him.
Varek: I did.
Dark stopped rubbing his throat.
Varek's eyes remained fixed on Sereon.
Varek: That is the problem.
Sereon raised Suigōraku.
The false desert shifted around Varek while Dark's Kōseikan ruins remained unchanged. Sereon existed within both environments at once, but not at the same distance. To Varek, he was sixty metres away. To Dark, barely fifteen.
Dark understood first.
Dark: (thinking) He separated us without moving either of us.
Sereon disappeared from Dark's view.
Dark immediately turned.
Nothing.
Dark: (thinking) Shinkai...
A sound reached him from his right.
Footsteps.
Measured.
Unhurried.
Dark turned again.
Sereon was walking through the ruined Kōseikan courtyard.
Dark: You could attack instead of making an entrance.
Sereon: I already did.
Dark looked down.
Suigōraku was inside his abdomen.
There had been no sensation of entry.
No impact.
No movement.
The blade was simply there.
Dark's eyes widened.
Then the pain arrived.
His knees almost folded.
Dark: GH...!
Blood poured over the guard and down Sereon's hand.
Sereon stood close enough that Dark could see his own blood reflected in several of Soul Ryūgu's smaller eyes.
Sereon: Shinkai Art...
Dark grabbed the blade.
Sereon: Chikan Kankaku.
Dark's fingers closed around nothing.
The sword remained through him.
His hand had simply seized a version of Suigōraku presented several centimetres away from the real one.
Sereon: Displaced Sensation.
Dark's face tightened.
Sereon: Touch is only useful when you know what you touched.
Dark's eyes narrowed.
Dark: Hunter Magic...
The black material around his abdomen tightened violently.
Dark: (through clenched teeth) Ruler's Authority.
Invisible force struck inward from every direction around his own body.
Not at Sereon.
At everything within arm's reach.
The pressure hit stone, broken armor, airborne blood, Suigōraku and Sereon simultaneously. Dark did not need to identify which object was real if he compressed the entire volume containing all of them.
Sereon's eyes sharpened.
Dark closed his fist.
Dark: Collapse.
The air imploded.
The ruined courtyard folded inward around Dark in an instant. Stone shattered into fragments and fragments became dust as opposing walls of invisible force crushed everything occupying the space between them.
Sereon was caught.
Soul Ryūgu compressed around his ribs.
Suigōraku ripped free from Dark's abdomen as Sereon's body was slammed sideways through three false buildings.
Dark followed.
The Kōseikan ruins vanished before he reached them.
The real cavern returned.
For the first time in several exchanges, Dark saw exactly where everyone physically stood.
Varek had not moved.
He was staring at Sereon.
Dark noticed the blood on Varek's chest.
The open line from abdomen to sternum remained deep. The hole from Kōryū Senkei still passed through his torso. Blood continued running from both wounds.
Varek appeared less interested in either injury than in Sereon's face.
Sereon straightened.
A section of Soul Ryūgu across his ribs had been crushed inward by Ruler's Authority. It slowly forced itself back into alignment.
Varek stepped forward.
No acceleration.
No attack.
One step.
Then another.
Sereon watched him approach.
Varek: You place false information between yourself and violence.
Sereon: Sometimes.
Varek: You redirect force you cannot produce.
Sereon: Sometimes.
Varek continued walking.
Varek: You create entire Worlds because standing directly in front of me would shorten this considerably.
Sereon's eyes narrowed slightly.
Sereon: Is that what you believe?
Varek stopped.
Sereon looked at the damaged joint in Varek's right arm.
Then the cut across his torso.
Then the hole through his chest.
Sereon: You possess enough strength to survive errors that would kill almost anyone else.
Something changed in Varek's face.
Small.
Immediate.
His eyebrows lowered.
The muscles around his mouth tightened beneath the moustache.
Sereon continued.
Sereon: Perhaps that is why you stopped noticing they were errors.
Dark looked toward Varek.
No response.
Sereon: Your body forgives you.
Varek's hands closed.
Not hard.
Slowly.
Sereon: Your strength excuses poor decisions before they become consequences.
Varek stared at him.
The cavern became unusually quiet.
Dark could hear loose stone falling somewhere kilometres above them.
Varek: Say that again.
Sereon tilted his head slightly.
Sereon: Your strength excuses you.
Varek's nostrils widened once.
His chin lowered.
The look in his pale-gold eyes became considerably less patient.
Dark: (thinking) There it is.
Sereon saw it too.
That appeared to interest him more than it should have.
Sereon: You dislike that.
Varek: I dislike incompetence speaking with confidence.
Sereon: Then we agree on something.
Varek disappeared.
Stone exploded from where his feet had been.
Sereon moved immediately.
Sereon: Influence Art...
Suigōraku turned horizontal.
Sereon: Suikō.
A silver current poured from its edge and spread across the cavern in a thin transparent sheet.
Sereon: Fourth Move...
Varek entered it.
Sereon: Gyakuten Shōmei.
The moment Varek crossed the silver plane, every visible consequence of his movement reversed.
Dust moved toward his feet instead of away.
The crater behind him appeared to close.
His coat pulled toward Sereon although his body accelerated forward.
His own shadow raced ahead of him.
His senses received a complete physical argument that he had changed direction.
Varek did not.
His body continued forward.
His eyes narrowed further.
Sereon had expected that.
Suigōraku came from below.
Varek caught the blade.
This time his hand closed around real metal.
Sereon changed his grip.
Varek's fingers tightened until the sword groaned.
Varek: Enough.
Sereon: No.
Soul Ryūgu opened across Sereon's back.
Four tendrils struck the real cavern floor.
Not to attack Varek.
To move Sereon.
All four contracted at once, ripping tonnes of stone from beneath them as they pulled his body downward faster than Varek's grip expected.
Suigōraku tore through Varek's palm.
The blade split his hand almost to the wrist.
Blood burst between his fingers.
Sereon dropped beneath him.
His heel struck Varek behind the knee.
Varek did not fall.
Sereon: Hido Type...
His hand caught the wounded palm.
Sereon: Hanten.
He turned with Varek's attempt to seize him again.
Varek's own arm crossed his body.
Sereon slipped beneath the shoulder.
Suigōraku came around.
The blade crossed Varek's face.
A clean line opened from above his left eyebrow, across the bridge of his nose and into his right cheek.
Blood appeared instantly.
Sereon landed three metres away.
Varek remained where he was.
Dark stopped.
Blood travelled slowly down Varek's face.
One line crossed his upper lip.
Another reached his jaw.
Varek lifted two fingers.
Touched the cut.
Looked at the blood.
His eyes returned to Sereon.
His brows had drawn so low now that the skin between them creased deeply. His jaw was fixed. There was no disbelief on his face, no concern over the wound and no recognition that Sereon had become physically comparable to him.
Only a severe, increasingly personal irritation.
Sereon wiped blood from his own mouth.
Sereon: Better?
Varek stared at him for several seconds.
Varek: You have mistaken restraint for limitation.
Sereon: Have I?
Varek: Yes.
Sereon: Then stop restraining yourself.
Dark immediately looked at Varek.
Varek did not.
Sereon had his attention completely.
Varek: You would not survive that.
Sereon: Then your complaint is meaningless.
Varek's upper lip moved slightly.
Dark had never seen him make that expression before.
It was not a smile.
It was the face of a man being forced to listen to somebody continue speaking after he had already decided the conversation should have ended.
Sereon raised Suigōraku again.
Sereon: You call yourself disciplined.
Varek's eyes sharpened.
Dark: Sereon.
Sereon ignored him.
Sereon: Yet every time certainty is taken from you, you answer by applying more force.
Varek took one step forward.
Sereon: Every time I deny your hand what it expects to touch, you become less patient.
Another step.
Sereon: Every time I move your strength away from its intended result, you become—
Varek's fist struck the planet.
He did not hit Sereon.
He hit the ground.
The stone beneath his knuckles compressed before it fractured. For a fraction of a second the planet resisted him as a single coherent mass.
Then the resistance lost.
The cavern floor dropped.
A circular depression several hundred kilometres across formed beneath all three of them as Varek's physical force entered the crust. Rock folded downward instead of simply exploding upward. Entire geological layers compacted against one another, mantle pressure surged through the fractured boundary beneath them, and the shock travelled around the planet faster than the collapsing cavern could finish falling.
Sereon's eyes widened.
Varek drove his fist deeper.
The continent above them split.
Ocean basins thousands of kilometres away lifted.
Mountain chains broke along their foundations.
The planet's rotation stuttered.
Dark's footing disappeared.
Dark: VAREK!
Varek finally looked at Sereon.
His fist remained buried in the collapsing World.
Varek: I became tired of listening.
The planet broke open.
For less than a second, the three of them remained suspended inside the violence.
Then the compressed crust beneath Varek's fist rebounded.
Stone erupted upward in slabs larger than cities. Mantle material burst through the fractures in incandescent columns, and the atmosphere that had been forced deep into the opening escaped all at once, turning the collapsing interior into a storm of fire, pulverized rock and pressure.
Dark was thrown first.
Black material snapped from his back and buried itself into a spinning plate of crust, but the slab itself tore apart before the substance could arrest him.
Sereon disappeared behind an expanding wall of molten debris.
Varek stood.
His fist remained lowered.
Blood continued to run from the split across his face.
Then his head turned.
Sereon emerged through the fire.
Suigōraku was already moving.
Varek punched.
There was no wind-up.
His arm simply ceased occupying the position beside his body.
The fist crossed the distance so quickly that the atmosphere did not form a single pressure cone around it. Several appeared along the path at once, nested inside one another, each marking a point where his hand had accelerated beyond the previous shock front before the air could finish reacting.
Sereon's eyes widened.
Suigōraku changed angle.
Too slow.
Varek's fist hit his stomach.
Soul Ryūgu collapsed inward around the knuckles.
Sereon's abdomen followed.
The punch buried itself nearly to the wrist before the force travelled through him, rupturing muscle, splitting several ribs from the sternum and bursting blood from his mouth in a thick red sheet.
The shockwave arrived afterward.
It expanded through Sereon's body first.
His clothing snapped against his back. Blood flattened away from the wound. The metallic plates of Soul Ryūgu rippled outward from the impact point before several cracked completely and blew off his spine.
Then the pressure reached the planet.
A circular wall of air hammered through the broken interior and cleared thousands of kilometres of suspended debris.
Sereon vanished backward.
Varek's arm was already returning.
Then it moved again.
Another punch.
Sereon had not finished travelling from the first.
The second fist struck his jaw.
His head twisted.
The sound came late.
A violent boom tore through the atmosphere as Varek's forearm completed its path, followed immediately by another as his left hand moved.
Third punch.
Chest.
Fourth.
Liver.
Fifth.
Sternum.
Each movement was shorter than the last.
No exaggerated recoil.
No wasted extension.
His fists moved only as far as necessary to create another impact.
The air around Sereon became a continuous distortion of compressed pressure, every strike producing a fresh ring before the previous one had travelled more than a few metres.
Dark caught himself against a descending mass of rock.
He looked up.
He could barely see Varek's arms.
Dark: (thinking) Fucking hell.
Sereon's body remained in front of Varek only because Varek kept striking him from alternating directions.
Every punch cancelled part of the previous displacement.
Left.
Right.
Upper abdomen.
Jaw.
Chest.
Ribs.
The Grand Regent was not chasing him anymore.
He was physically keeping Sereon in one place by beating him back toward the centre of his own assault.
Soul Ryūgu began breaking apart.
One eye burst beneath a knuckle.
Another disappeared entirely when a fist passed through the plate surrounding it and crushed the structure underneath.
Sereon's cheek split.
His lower lip tore open.
Blood filled his mouth.
Varek's right hand moved again.
Sereon: Shinkai Art...
The fist struck.
Sereon's head exploded.
Varek stopped.
Blood and fragments covered his hand.
His eyes narrowed.
The remains became black water.
They splashed across his chest.
Varek looked down.
An ocean struck him from above.
The entire broken planet vanished.
For an instant, Varek was standing at the bottom of a black sea beneath impossible pressure.
Sereon's voice reached him through the water.
Sereon: Mugen Gisō Sekai.
Varek looked upward.
Thousands of Sereons floated above him.
Every one bleeding.
Every one carrying the damage Varek had just inflicted.
Sereon: You finally touched me.
Varek's face hardened.
Sereon: So naturally, you assumed the next one would also be me.
Varek bent his knees.
Sereon: That is the difficulty with success.
Varek launched upward.
The ocean detonated around him.
Not metaphorically.
His acceleration displaced so much water that the column directly above him became a temporary cavity. The surrounding ocean collapsed toward the vacuum behind his body, generating a crushing inward wall that tore apart hundreds of false Sereons without Varek touching any of them.
He reached the nearest remaining one.
His hand opened.
Sereon raised Suigōraku.
Varek did not punch.
His arm moved vertically.
The edge of his hand struck Sereon's forearm.
A knife-hand chop.
The result was immediate.
Soul Ryūgu split from wrist to elbow.
The flesh beneath it opened along the same line.
Then the bone broke.
Not bent.
Broke cleanly beneath the concentrated edge of Varek's palm.
Sereon's hand, still wrapped around Suigōraku, separated almost entirely from the arm and remained attached by a strip of flesh.
Varek caught the hanging wrist.
Varek: Enough sword.
He chopped again.
This time horizontally.
The edge of his hand struck Sereon across the throat.
The pressure front alone split the water around them into two opposing walls.
Sereon's neck folded.
His body disappeared through the ocean.
Varek held the severed hand.
It became a fish.
His expression changed.
Slowly.
The fish wriggled between his fingers.
Varek stared at it.
His eyebrows lowered another fraction.
The fish opened its mouth.
Sereon: Still inaccurate.
Varek crushed it.
The entire ocean vanished.
They were back inside the real planetary rupture.
Sereon was thirty metres away.
His right arm was intact.
Mostly.
Varek's previous punches had been real.
The swelling across Sereon's jaw was real.
The blood running from his mouth was real.
The broken armor across his torso was real.
But the severed arm had never happened.
Varek looked at him.
Sereon looked back.
Varek's face was now openly hostile.
Not wild.
Not uncontrolled.
The lines around his eyes had tightened. His jaw had set hard enough to change the shape of his cheeks. His brows pressed down over pale-gold eyes that no longer carried even the small amount of patience they had shown before.
Sereon noticed.
Of course he noticed.
Sereon: You prefer certainty.
Varek stepped forward.
Sereon: Most physically dominant fighters do.
Another step.
Sereon: Their bodies teach them that resistance is something external.
Varek's hands opened.
Sereon: Something to overcome.
Varek vanished.
Sereon moved his head.
The punch missed.
Barely.
The shockwave did not.
The compressed air trailing Varek's fist struck Sereon's face like a second blow.
Skin tore along his cheek.
Blood sprayed from his nose.
Before Sereon could recover, Varek's elbow folded.
The fist returned.
Sereon shifted again.
Varek changed the punch halfway through.
His hand opened.
The movement became a chop.
The edge of his palm struck Soul Ryūgu across Sereon's collarbone.
The armor split.
The collarbone underneath broke with a wet snap.
Sereon's shoulder dropped.
Varek's other hand immediately came upward.
Palm heel.
Jaw.
Sereon's teeth slammed together hard enough to break two of them.
His body lifted.
Varek caught the front of Soul Ryūgu.
Pulled him back down.
Then punched him in the face.
The atmosphere cracked.
Sereon's nose flattened completely.
His head snapped backward.
Varek pulled him forward again.
Another punch.
The opposite cheek.
Another shockwave.
Another.
Another.
Varek's arms became difficult to distinguish individually.
Not because they disappeared into some supernatural blur.
Because each punch began before the air displaced by the previous one had finished expanding.
The pressure around the two men became layered.
Circular shock fronts collided with newer shock fronts, folding into one another and blasting molten debris away in every direction.
Dark watched from above the ruined mantle.
His eyes moved rapidly.
Dark: (thinking) He shortened the punches.
Varek was not throwing full-bodied strikes anymore.
He did not need to.
A few centimetres of acceleration were enough.
Dark: (thinking) No recovery.
Varek's fist moved.
Sereon blocked with Suigōraku.
The blade bent.
Varek hit it again.
The metal screamed.
Third punch.
The sword slammed against Sereon's own forehead.
Fourth.
Sereon's grip opened.
Varek caught Suigōraku before it could leave his hand.
Sereon's eyes widened.
Varek's fingers closed around the blade.
Blood immediately opened across his palm.
He did not care.
Varek: There.
Sereon: There what?
Varek's expression tightened.
Varek: Something that cannot become a fish.
He pulled.
Sereon came forward.
Varek's forehead smashed into his face.
The impact drove broken cartilage deeper into Sereon's nasal cavity.
Blood flooded down over his mouth.
Varek let go of the sword.
His hand moved.
A chop came down toward Sereon's neck.
Sereon: Hido Type...
His body shifted.
Sereon: Shikkei.
One foot crossed behind the other.
His shoulders turned sideways.
His centre of mass dropped through the smallest opening between Varek's chest and descending arm.
The chop missed Sereon's neck.
It hit the planet.
Varek's hand entered the exposed mantle edge-first.
The effect resembled a blade thousands of kilometres long.
The planet split along the line of the strike.
A vertical rupture tore downward through molten layers, continued into the outer core and opened the World from its broken hemisphere toward the opposite side.
Dark stared.
Dark: ...
Varek pulled his hand free.
Sereon stood behind him.
Sereon: That would have been inconvenient.
Varek turned slowly.
Sereon was smiling.
Barely.
That was worse.
Varek's left eye narrowed.
Varek: Do you enjoy this?
Sereon wiped blood from beneath his nose.
Sereon: Parts of it.
Varek: Which parts?
Sereon looked at the enormous planetary wound created by the missed chop.
Then back at him.
Sereon: Watching you become less precise while insisting precision does not matter.
Varek did not answer.
The muscles in his forearm tightened.
Dark saw it.
Dark: (thinking) He should probably stop talking.
Sereon: Your strength is extraordinary.
Varek's fist closed.
Sereon: Your patience is not.
Varek moved.
This time Sereon did not see the arm begin.
His eyes registered Varek's shoulder.
Then Varek's fist was already inside his abdomen.
The blow drove through Soul Ryūgu.
Through muscle.
Through the abdominal wall.
Varek's knuckles entered Sereon's body.
Sereon's eyes widened.
Blood erupted from his mouth.
Varek held the punch there.
The shockwave expanded behind Sereon in a perfect cone and blasted an enormous tunnel through the remaining planetary interior.
Varek leaned closer.
His face was calm again.
That calm had become much worse than anger.
Varek: You misunderstand me.
Sereon's mouth opened.
Blood came first.
Varek: I am not losing patience.
His arm drew back only several centimetres.
Sereon's eyes sharpened.
Varek punched again.
Same wound.
The impact drove farther inside.
Something ruptured.
Blood poured down Varek's wrist.
Varek: I am deciding how much effort you deserve.
Sereon's expression changed.
For the first time since he had begun provoking him, the amusement disappeared.
Varek saw it.
His eyes narrowed.
Varek: Better.
Then his hand opened.
The edge of his palm rose beside Sereon's throat.
Sereon saw it.
Suigōraku came up.
Varek's hand descended.
The chop struck the blade first.
Silver screamed against flesh.
Sereon's arms folded beneath the impact.
The flat of Suigōraku smashed into his own shoulder, Soul Ryūgu split around the collar, and the edge of Varek's palm continued through the failing guard until it buried itself into the side of Sereon's neck.
Blood erupted across Varek's forearm.
The cut did not remove Sereon's head.
It nearly did.
Muscle opened to the vertebrae. Soul Ryūgu contracted around the wound before the remaining flesh could separate, white metallic structures locking the damaged neck together while blood poured between them.
Sereon's human eye narrowed.
Varek's fingers closed around the opened side of his throat.
Varek: Enough.
Sereon drove Suigōraku upward.
Varek released him before the point reached his jaw.
Sereon moved back.
Varek moved with him.
His right arm disappeared.
The punch landed before Sereon finished bringing the sword across his body.
The fist entered his ribs.
Soul Ryūgu collapsed inward.
Several ribs broke beneath it.
The shockwave followed a fraction later, a circular pressure front exploding around Sereon and clearing molten debris from thousands of kilometres of the ruined planet.
Sereon vanished through the opening.
Varek followed.
Sereon: Shinkai Art...
White spread across the distance ahead of him.
Varek did not slow.
Sereon: Mugen Gisō Sekai.
A World appeared between them.
Varek entered it.
Blue sky.
An endless field.
A city beyond the horizon.
Millions of people.
Varek's expression did not change.
He punched forward.
His fist never reached Sereon.
The atmosphere did.
A layered shock front erupted from the strike, crossed the false landscape and struck every presented surface simultaneously. Buildings bent. The field flattened. Clouds tore apart.
The World folded.
Another replaced it.
Then another.
A red ocean.
A forest beneath six moons.
An empty Kōseikan court.
A city burning beneath a black sun.
Sereon occupied a different distance inside each one.
Varek kept moving.
His arm snapped forward again.
Punch.
The red ocean divided.
Again.
The forest vanished beneath an expanding pressure ring.
Again.
The Kōseikan court split from one horizon to the other.
Sereon's eyes sharpened.
Varek was not solving the Worlds anymore.
He was hitting everything large enough to contain him.
Sereon: Wasteful.
Varek's brow lowered.
Varek: Effective.
Sereon changed the World.
Dark appeared directly in front of Varek.
Bloodied.
Broken.
Kyuketsu lowered.
Dark: Wait.
Varek punched through him.
The body burst apart into black liquid.
Sereon appeared behind it.
Too late.
Varek's fist was already returning.
It struck Sereon in the chest.
The impact folded him around Varek's knuckles.
Blood left Sereon's mouth.
His body accelerated backward.
One false World tore apart.
Then the next.
Then the next.
The final illusion vanished.
Reality returned around them.
Nothing remained beneath their feet.
No atmosphere.
No planet.
Only the enormous cosmological dark beyond the destroyed World.
Sereon was still moving.
Varek accelerated after him.
Dark emerged from the collapsing false Worlds behind them, black material tightening around his ruined body as Kyuketsu returned to his hand.
Dark looked ahead.
Sereon had already crossed into another World.
Varek followed.
Dark: Fuck.
He went after them.
Sereon entered the next World backwards.
A Universe opened around him.
Stars stretched across every direction.
His body crossed one system before he corrected.
Varek appeared in front of him.
Sereon's eyes widened.
Varek punched.
The fist struck beneath the sternum.
Soul Ryūgu buckled.
Sereon folded.
The impact threw him through the star system.
A gas giant crossed behind him.
Sereon struck it.
The planet collapsed around his body.
Its atmosphere compressed inward, then erupted from the opposite side as Sereon tore through the core and exited surrounded by burning hydrogen.
Varek was waiting.
Sereon raised Suigōraku.
Varek struck it with the edge of his hand.
The sword slammed against Sereon's mouth.
Teeth broke.
Blood sprayed across the guard.
Varek punched him again.
Sereon crossed the Universe.
Not metaphorically.
Stars became streaks and then vanished behind him as the force carried his body beyond the structure that contained them.
The next Verse opened.
Varek entered after him.
Dark followed farther behind.
His eyes narrowed.
Something looked familiar.
Not the planet.
Not the stars.
The structure beyond them.
Dark slowed for half a second.
Dark: ...
Sereon was still travelling.
Varek caught him.
One hand closed around the back of Soul Ryūgu.
Sereon twisted and drove Suigōraku through Varek's abdomen.
The blade emerged from his back.
Varek looked down.
Then at Sereon.
Varek: Again?
Sereon's eyes narrowed.
Varek pulled himself farther onto the sword.
The blade disappeared deeper into him.
Varek's free hand closed.
Sereon released Suigōraku immediately.
Varek's fist struck his face.
The shockwave spread through open space without sound, visible only through the violence it imposed on everything it reached. Light bent around the compressed front. A nearby moon fragmented before Sereon's body reached it.
He passed through the debris.
Another planet came into view.
Then another.
Dark stopped.
His eyes widened.
He knew the star.
He knew the arrangement of the moons.
He knew the World beyond them.
Dark: ...No.
Sereon crossed the boundary first.
The Dark Empire appeared around him.
The capital World.
Its enormous planetary body rotated beneath networks of cities, oceans, suspended districts and the floating island that housed the heart of the Empire. Artificial structures circled the planet beside natural moons. Lights belonging to civilizations Dark had built, protected and conquered for stretched across the night side.
Sereon saw it.
So did Varek.
Neither had enough time to stop.
Dark accelerated.
Dark: VAREK!
Varek turned his head slightly.
Dark was not warning Sereon.
He was staring at the planet.
Varek understood.
His expression changed.
Too late.
Sereon struck the upper atmosphere.
The sky ignited around him.
A violent cone of plasma wrapped Soul Ryūgu as he crossed the atmosphere at catastrophic speed. The pressure front formed behind him and expanded outward, flattening cloud systems across half a hemisphere.
Varek entered after him.
A second detonation hit the sky.
Then Dark.
The capital planet rushed upward.
Sereon corrected enough to turn his back toward the impact.
Suigōraku appeared in his hand.
Sereon: Influence Art...
Silver gathered along the blade.
He did not finish.
Varek reached him.
His fist struck Sereon squarely between the shoulder blades.
The sound arrived as the planet did.
Sereon hit.
The continent beneath him vanished downward.
Not exploded.
Collapsed.
The crust caved beneath Soul Ryūgu in a circular depression that expanded faster than mountain chains could break apart. Cities shook thousands of kilometres away. Oceans climbed from their basins. Continental shelves split. The entire planetary body lurched beneath the transferred force.
Varek hit the ground behind him.
The second impact finished what the first had begun.
A fracture crossed the planet.
Then another.
The capital World began coming apart.
Dark entered the atmosphere and saw it.
Every city.
Every village.
Every military district.
The floating capital.
The settlements buried beneath the crust.
The oceans full of life.
The underground sectors.
Billions upon billions of people who had nothing to do with the fight.
Dark's face changed.
Dark: BIRU!
He did not need to finish.
Biru was already looking upward.
He stood on the edge of one of the Empire's highest towers.
His wings remained folded behind him.
No sword.
No weapon at all.
His claws rested loosely at his sides.
The sky above him was splitting.
The planet beneath him had already begun to die.
Biru watched the first continental fracture move toward the capital.
He whispered.
Biru: Time Magic...
Nothing dramatic happened.
No enormous aura.
No violent burst of power.
Biru lifted one claw.
Biru: Eternal Cradle.
A transparent sphere appeared around a child in the street below.
Then another around the mother beside him.
Another around the building behind them.
Another around the street.
Another around the district.
Then there were thousands.
Millions.
Billions.
They appeared everywhere at once.
On the surface.
Beneath it.
Under oceans.
Inside military compounds.
Around hospitals.
Around farms.
Around entire cities.
Around every living thing Biru recognized as belonging to the planet.
Around animals.
Forests.
Civilian transports.
Factories filled with workers.
Underground settlements.
The floating islands.
Every structure containing life was enclosed without being cut apart from what it needed to survive.
The spheres were not shields.
Time stopped inside them.
Not consciousness.
Not thought.
Only consequence.
Falling buildings remained falling without completing the fall.
Fire existed without advancing another millimetre.
Shattered glass hung motionless around civilians.
Explosions stopped at their own surfaces.
A hospital split from its foundation and never completed the separation.
An ocean rose above a coastal city and remained suspended there.
Then the spheres lifted.
Casually.
The entire population of the capital planet rose away from the destruction.
Cities came with them.
Towers.
Homes.
Hospitals.
Temples.
Barracks.
Factories.
Schools.
Anything Biru had decided belonged with the people inside it.
The bubbles ascended through the atmosphere in complete silence while the planet broke beneath them.
Biru lowered his claw.
His wings had not even opened.
One: Everyone?
Biru looked toward him.
Biru: Obviously.
Another fracture consumed the continent where he had been standing.
Biru was already inside one of the spheres above it.
The planet split.
Dark stopped in the sky.
His eyes moved across the impossible field surrounding the dying World.
Billions of transparent bubbles floated beyond the atmosphere, each carrying life untouched by the destruction below.
Whole cities drifted among them.
The capital island rested inside one enormous sphere.
Tier stood near its edge, staring through the transparent boundary at the planet coming apart beneath them.
Leona slowly looked toward Biru.
Biru did not acknowledge either of them.
He was watching Dark.
Then the light changed.
No portal opened.
No announcement came.
Raiku was simply there.
The same plain wooden chair beneath him.
The same seated posture.
The same quiet expression.
Exactly where he had chosen to sit before, only now the Dark Empire stretched behind him instead of Raiku's empty creation.
The True Emperors appeared with him.
Not closer.
Not farther.
The same positions.
The same distances between them.
The same arrangement they had maintained while watching Dark and Sereon before.
Enra stood where Enra had stood.
Lybel where Lybel had stood.
Larthax where Larthax had stood.
Luther where Luther had stood.
Archanos returned to his place as though the violence with Sukojo had only been an interruption between observations.
None drew a weapon.
None prepared to intervene.
Raiku remained seated.
They looked down.
The capital planet was dying.
Biru had already removed every life from it.
Sereon rose from the centre of the planetary wound.
Slowly.
Soul Ryūgu dragged itself back across his broken body.
Blood ran from his mouth.
Suigōraku remained in his hand.
Varek stood several kilometres away, torso opened slightly, pale-gold eyes fixed upon him.
Dark descended between them.
Kyuketsu hung beside him.
Above all three, the people of the Dark Empire floated safely beyond the broken atmosphere.
Behind them stood the Champions.
Beyond them watched the True Emperors.
And Raiku sat in his wooden chair.
The fight had finally reached home.
This time, there was an audience.
To Be Continued.
End Of Arc 4 Chapter 16.