Albion was not holding back. It was a full-speed sprint—a mad dash through the stillness of his mind. The black water beneath his feet shattered with every violent step, spraying quiet silver droplets into the dark expanse.
His lungs burned, but he forced his legs to move faster, he couldn't afford to slow down. In a space like this, with no room for error, hesitation meant death. Or at least, that was the truth he kept repeating to himself. Without breaking his stride, his eyes cut back over his shoulder.
Drifting through the air behind him were two dense, glowing blades forged from concentrated purple magical energy. The manifestation of Amon's Ethernal Manipulation. They glided without a sound, carving clean paths through the dark realm.
'They're fast', Albion thought, his breath coming in sharp, steady rhythms. 'If I keep running in a straight line, they'll catch me in seconds.'
Still sprinting, he turned his head further back, his gaze locking onto the distant silhouette of Amon. The white-haired figure stood motionless in the distance, holding an identical purple sword in his grip.
'He isn't moving. Why? It's like my magic. When I use Codex Magic, I have to fully comprehend and process the information of an object before I can manipulate it, moving it, suspending it, driving it through the air like telekinesis. If Amon's Ethernal Manipulation works on a similar principle, he needs total concentration to guide those blades.'
Which meant Amon was locked in place.
'In that case…'
Albion stopped running away. Driveng his heels into the solid water, he reversed his momentum in a single, fluid motion and charged directly toward the incoming swords.
The first purple blade shot straight for his chest. Albion ducked low, utilizing the residual momentum of his dash to slide across the smooth, liquid-black floor. The dark surface gave way just enough to let him glide underneath the sharp energy, the blade whistling inches above his face.
Before he could even rise, the second sword cut downward. With virtually no delay between movements, Albion planted his hand and launched himself upward. He flipped through the air, his body twisting gracefully over the second blade, clearing it by over two meters.
It was a level of physical exertion he could never have managed before. Leaving the Inner World after becoming King had permanently altered his physical body. His raw strength, speed, and toughness had all expanded significantly.
But more than that, his five natural senses had sharpened to a significant degree. His sight, hearing, and awareness reacted before his conscious thoughts could even catch up.
He landed on both feet, water rippling outward from his heels.
He spun around to face Amon, but the moment his feet settled, the two purple swords ground to a mid-air halt, turned on a dime, and locked back onto his position.
'They can track me', he realized instantly.
Albion took a deep, deliberate breath and closed his eyes.'Mahō Perception.'
Normally, activating magic perception meant wading through the ambient Ethernano drifting in the atmosphere, sensing the raw, unrefined magic particles filling the world. But inside his own mind, there was no ambient Ethernano. There was only pure, dense magical power.
Because of this, he bypassed the outer layer completely.
First, he felt the pool of magic dwelling deep within his own chest. A second later, his sense expanded outward, picking up the distant, concentrated well of power that belonged to Amon. And finally, his range saw the two tracking blades just feet away.
They weren't just constructs; they were literal extensions of Amon's magical energy. For a novice wizard, attempting to perceive, process, and react to dense, magical constructs in real time would be impossible.
But Albion's mind was already conditioned to process massive amounts of information under intense strain. He opened his eyes just as the blades closed in from opposite sides, aiming straight for his neck.
He reached out with both hands and caught the edge of each blade mid-flight. The force staggered him. He didn't stop their momentum outright, he was barely hanging on. His small arms bulged with effort, his teeth grinding as the weight of the constructs pushed back against him.
The sharp, hum of purple energy pricked the skin of his neck, cutting just deep enough to draw a single, tiny bead of blood.
'If I stay like this, I'm going to get skewered.'
He didn't have the leverage to throw them. So he stopped fighting their forward drive. Albion snapped his head as far back as his neck would allow and released his grip. Deprived of resistance, the two swords slammed directly into each other with a violent, deafening crash. The magical energy shattered like thick glass, scattering purple shards into the air before dissolving into nothingness.
Albion stumbled back, chest heaving. "That was close..." he muttered. "If I hadn't moved..."
A shadow dropped directly behind him. Albion jerked his body to the side, but a cold line of pain scorched across the upper half of his face. A shallow line opened across his eyebrow, blood immediately welling up.
Albion launched himself backward, landing several meters away on the black water. He touched his hand to his brow, feeling the small cut, his mind racing to understand what had just happened.
'How?'
Then, the mistake hit him like a physical blow. Amon wasn't immobilized while controlling the swords. He just assumed he was.
Amon stood where Albion had been a moment prior, holding his blade at his side.
"You let your guard down, Albion," he said coldly.
Albion's jaw tightened. He had been so focused on the magic of the two blades that he had completely ignored Amon's presence. He had relied on a novice's understanding of magic perception, mistaking a temporary lapse in focus for safety.
'I'm an idiot', Albion criticized himself internally. 'I just learned about magic perception. I'm not Sheila. I don't get to act like an expert.'
The two stood facing each other across the dark expanse, the silence stretching between them.
'Amon doesn't know how my body repairs itself. He doesn't know that my body heals its own wounds automatically, or that every time it does, it burns through a portion of my magic power. I can use that to my advantage... but I don't know how much I have left.'
That was the core issue. He had no real benchmark for his own reserves. He had met Gajeel, Juvia, and Sheila, but he lacked the experience to measure his container against theirs. He had overused his magic earlier in the day, slept briefly, and recovered some of his strength, but every time his body regenerated, it was a blind gamble.
'If I run out of magic power in here, the passive healing stops. And if I get injured after that…'
A faint, dull sting radiated from his neck as the small prick began to close, the cut on his eyebrow already clotting. The involuntary process was draining his finite supply, bit by bit. Deep down, anxiety flared, but Albion kept his face composed.
He looked directly at the white-haired copy of himself.
"I didn't come here to fight you," Albion said, his voice quiet, calm, and stripped of dramatic pretense. "I came here to help you."
Amon's gaze remained cold. "Save me? Why save someone who doesn't want to be saved? Why save someone who doesn't need it? It's pointless."
Amon took a step forward, the purple sword humming at his side.
"You only have three choices, Albion. Option one: you yield and submit to me. You prove that my existence was stronger, that my ideology was the right one. I take everything you are, and I become the only King. No inner war. Just me."
"Option two: I kill you," he continued smoothly. "The result is the same. I prove I am stronger, I take what's left, and I rule. Nobody cares about you out there anyway."
Amon raised his sword, pointing the tip directly at Albion's chest.
"Option three: you kill me. But in doing so, you prove that your compassion—your pathetic need for bonds—meant nothing when faced with my hatred. You prove I was right all along. You become a true King over a graveyard of your own making."
Amon's eyes narrowed. "Those are your choices. The only ones you have."
Before the final word fully faded, Amon launched forward. He drove the blade downward in a ruthless, unrefined arc. He had no formal sword training—no master had ever taught him how to wield a blade—but his strikes carried pure, lethal intent.
Albion twisted, ducked, and leaned away from the wild, heavy swings. The wind from the blade whistled past his skin. It wasn't clean, and it wasn't elegant, he was dodging just barely, his enhanced reflexes fighting for every inch of survival.
Amon shifted his weight mid-strike and swept his leg low across the black surface. The sudden maneuver caught Albion off balance. His feet gave way, and he crashed onto his back against the solid water.
Amon didn't waste a moment. Raising his blade with both hands, he brought the tip plunging straight down toward Albion's face.
Albion clamped both hands around the flat of the purple blade, halting its descent inches from his eyes.
Their muscles strained against each other. In pure hand-to-hand skill and raw aggression, Amon held the advantage, a reality Albion had learned during their very first clash. They were evenly matched in physical strength, but Amon fought without hesitation.
"I told you," Albion gritted out, his hands trembling as he held the blade back. "I'm not going to kill you!"
While holding the sword pinned with his right hand, Albion drew back his left fist. From an awkward, lying position, he drove an uppercut straight into Amon's chin.
The blow lacked full leverage, but the raw strength behind it snapped Amon's head back and lifted his feet off the ground for a split second.
Albion released the sword, scrambled up using his palm to plant against the floor, and timed his movement perfectly. The instant Amon's heels touched the surface, Albion swept his leg out, catching Amon's ankles and taking his balance away—the exact move Amon had used on him seconds prior.
As Amon faltered, Albion pushed off his resting hand, launching his body into the air alongside his falling double. In that fraction of a second, a memory flashed through Albion's mind. Gajeel in the guild hall, twisting his body mid-air to generate overwhelming force.
'I am not good at hand-to-hand combat,' Albion thought cleanly, without a shred of ego. 'Gajeel taught me that. But Gajeel is better at fighting than I am. And he's definitely better than you.'
Twisting his torso mid-air, Albion snapped his leg outward, driving his heel straight into Amon's ribs. The impact echoed like a thunderclap. Amon was hurled through the air, skipping violently across the liquid-black floor before tumbling to a hard stop multiple meters away.
Albion landed lightly on both feet, his breathing steady, his eyes fixed on the distant figure.
"I won't kill you," Albion declared. "I don't know if I can ever bring myself to kill anyone. But I refuse to be your punching bag, Amon."
He looked at his own hands. 'I have to fight. Because if I don't... no one else in this world is ever going to understand what you're feeling.'
Albion reached his hand out toward the dark water before him, as if calling to something deep beneath the surface. The black liquid began to ripple and churn.
"I can't forge weapons out of magic energy like you," Albion said calmly. "But you're an idiot if you think I can't copy what you do. I told you before... I'm going to devour everyone in that guild. I'll take Gajeel's hand-to-hand combat to sharpen my own skills. And I'll take that Ethernal Manipulation of yours, too."
Amon slowly pushed himself up from the ground, dazed from the impact of the kick. He wiped a streak of dark blood from his jaw and lifted his head.
When Amon's eyes finally locked onto what was rising from the water in front of Albion, his expression broke.
His eyes widened in genuine shock.