There was no sky in Riguta's world.
Only depth.
Floating ruins drifted through endless dark.
Chains crossed impossible distances.
Stairways climbed into nothing.
Entire halls folded in and out of existence with each breath the dimension took.
At its center—
Johan stood with one stolen fragment of spatial chain in his hand.
And Riguta stood smiling across from him.
The broken chain glowed.
Johan twisted his wrist.
The nearby anchors of the domain shuddered.
Three floating platforms changed position half a second too early.
A corridor folded into itself.
One path vanished.
Riguta's sleeve shifted as the altered geometry pulled at him.
The smallest inconvenience.
Yet real.
"…Impressive."
Johan moved immediately.
No wasted answer.
No speech.
He sprinted across a drifting stone slab and hurled the chain fragment like a blade.
Riguta tilted his head.
The fragment missed his throat by an inch—
then curved back.
Pulled by its connection to the domain.
Johan had expected that.
He was already behind Riguta.
His elbow drove toward the base of the skull.
Riguta turned just enough.
The strike clipped his jaw.
Blood scattered into the dark.
Silence followed.
The dimension itself seemed to pause.
Riguta touched the blood at his chin.
Looked at it.
Then laughed softly.
"…You learn faster than most nations."
The floating ground beneath Johan vanished.
He dropped—
but not far.
A wall appeared beneath his feet.
He pushed off it instantly.
Riguta met him in midair.
No portals.
No distortions.
Only hands.
Only speed.
Their first clash cracked the nearest ruin in half.
Johan blocked a palm strike and felt his entire arm go numb.
Riguta's knee followed.
Johan twisted.
The blow tore through his coat instead of his ribs.
He answered with two strikes to the throat—
a feint and a real blow.
Riguta caught the real one.
But not the first.
Johan's fingers jabbed into the wounded jaw.
Riguta's smile thinned.
He drove Johan downward.
Johan crashed through three floating staircases before landing hard on broken marble.
His lungs emptied.
His vision blurred.
Yet before Riguta could descend—
Johan rolled.
A spear of compressed space erased where his head had been.
He rose breathing hard.
"…So even without tricks…"
A breath.
"…you're a monster."
Riguta landed lightly across from him.
"And even without power…"
He stepped forward.
"…you remain troublesome."
Riguta raised two fingers.
This time the attack did not come at Johan's body.
It came at his mind.
The world vanished.
Johan stood in a sea of faces.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Men.
Women.
Warriors.
Kings.
Children.
All with empty eyes.
All wearing different expressions of fear.
Bodies Riguta had used.
Lives discarded.
Memories left like bones.
Voices overlapped.
Screams.
Prayers.
Begging.
Silence.
Johan's knees nearly buckled.
Then he noticed something strange.
Every memory ended the same way.
Not triumph.
Not joy.
Not satisfaction.
Emptiness.
The visions broke.
Johan looked up.
Riguta stood before him again.
Still calm.
Still elegant.
Still smiling.
But now Johan saw something underneath it.
Not madness.
Not cruelty.
Absence.
"…You don't want bodies."
Riguta's smile paused.
Just once.
Johan's eyes sharpened.
"You're afraid of disappearing."
The chains around the dimension rattled violently.
Riguta's expression did not change.
But the world did.
Floating ruins began to spin.
Distances stretched.
The dark itself deepened.
"…Careful."
His voice was softer now.
More dangerous.
"Insight can become arrogance."
Johan closed his fist around the stolen fragment.
He had learned enough.
The anchors did not obey commands alone.
They obeyed correction.
Constant recalculation.
So he made them choose wrong.
He threw the fragment upward.
At the same time he stepped left—
while forcing his gaze right.
His breathing slowed.
Then quickened.
False data.
False intent.
False targeting.
The domain reacted.
Three chains snapped toward where he was not.
Two platforms collided.
A corridor folded over Riguta's blind side.
For the first time—
Riguta had to move unexpectedly.
That was the opening.
Johan crossed the distance in one burst.
He drove his fist into Riguta's chest.
Then the second into the same point.
Then the third with his whole body behind it.
CRACK.
Riguta was sent backward through a stone archway.
The floating ruin split apart.
Johan staggered.
His knuckles were torn open.
His body shaking.
But he remained standing.
Blood fell from the darkness.
Not his.
Riguta emerged from the debris slowly.
Dust across his shoulders.
Blood at the corner of his mouth.
One hand over the dent in his chest.
No smile remained.
Everything became quiet.
Too quiet.
The chains stopped moving.
The floating ruins froze.
No shifting paths.
No visible anchors.
No warning sounds.
Even Johan's breath seemed swallowed by the dark.
Riguta stepped forward once.
The distance between them vanished.
He was already there.
Johan's eyes widened.
He moved to guard—
too slow.
A hand seized his throat.
Another pierced into his shoulder with crushing force.
He was lifted from the ground.
No portal.
No sequence.
No pattern.
Riguta stared directly into his eyes.
Cold now.
Empty now.
"…You were worthy of preserving."
A pause.
"…Now you are only material."
Johan clawed at the wrist holding him.
Air fading.
Thought narrowing.
Yet even then—
his eyes moved.
Studying.
Searching.
Refusing.
Riguta noticed.
And for the first time—
something like irritation touched his face.
"…Still thinking?"
Johan forced a faint smile through the choking grip.
"…Still… winning time."
Riguta's gaze sharpened.
Far beyond the dark—
somewhere outside the dimension—
the world trembled.
And the hand around Johan's throat tightened.