Greyhorn club
Bel-Yor city, Exterior ward
Spring Court, Hidden World
Terra, Tellus solar system
Milky Way Galaxy
Neutral Free Zone
March 8th 2019
A violent surge of fury tore through Leon as his golden aura erupted outward—brilliant, feral, and absolute. It wrapped around Sam like a living shield, defying the crushing weight that pressed down upon the world. The very ground below fractured and groaned beneath the spiritual pressure, yet Leon had already realized something unsettling—
The attack had spared her.
Deliberately.
That realization did nothing to calm him.
Without hesitation, he seized Sam and vanished in a burst of motion, reappearing an instant later atop the club's roof. The wind howled around them, distorted by lingering force, and above—suspended in the night like an omen—hovered a towering figure draped in white.
"Samantha Sinclair… the Asha'Yee. It is a pleasure to meet you."
The figure's voice carried with quiet authority as the suffocating pressure receded, peeling away like a tide withdrawing from the shore.
"I have come to escort you home."
"Who the hell are you?" Sam demanded, her voice trembling despite her effort to steady it.
Though her body remained unharmed, her mind still reeled from the weight of what had descended upon them. It clung to her thoughts like a shadow, suffocating and invasive. Yet even so—she stood her ground. There was steel in her now, something newly awakened beneath the fear.
"I am but a servant," the figure replied calmly. "Charged with bringing you home. Your mother awaits your return."
"My… mother?"
The words left her lips in a fragile breath, disbelief cracking through her composure.
All her life, she had known only one truth—that her mother had died the moment she was born. That was the story her father told. The only story. Raised in Cedar Lake under the quiet care of the McCoy family and Aunt Stella, Sam had learned not to ask questions that would never be answered.
Yet now—
That truth wavered.
Fractured.
"Then maybe you should start by showing your face," Leon cut in, his voice edged with cold defiance.
His hand rested on Solus, the crystalline blade nestled within its golden-white scabbard, humming faintly as if responding to his rising intent. His senses stretched outward, dissecting the presence before him—and what he felt made his instincts scream.
This wasn't just power.
This was the pinnacle of the Master Realm.
The figure reached up and slowly pulled back his hood.
The moment his face was revealed, Leon's heart skipped—just once, but enough.
"Titus… the Warbringer," he murmured.
A name carved into legend. A man who had once subjugated an entire colony world by himself. Even if that world had been weaker than Terra, the weight of such a feat was undeniable.
"Leonard Haravok," Titus greeted, his tone even, almost courteous. "A pleasure. Son of the Hero, Jonathan Haravok."
His gaze shifted slightly, measured and unyielding.
"If you wish to accompany the Asha'Yee, you may. If not… I suggest you refrain from interfering in family affairs."
Leon's eyes sharpened, a dangerous glint cutting through the gold.
"Yeah… I don't do well with being told where to stand."
"It is not a threat," Titus said simply.
He moved his hand.
And the world answered.
From the rooftop beneath them, black rods erupted like spears of judgment—violent, sudden, absolute. Leon reacted instantly, springing away as the jagged constructs tore through the space he had occupied. In that same motion, the rods curved inward, sealing Sam within a shifting cage of obsidian iron.
Leon vanished.
[Rapid Step]
He reappeared behind Titus, palm already surging with compressed mana, aiming to end it in a single decisive strike.
But Titus moved.
Not fast—
Inevitable.
He turned with unnatural precision, catching Leon's strike with his bare fist. The collision sent a violent shock through Leon's arm, bone-deep and jarring. Before he could recover, the force rebounded—hurling him backward like a broken projectile.
He crashed through the walls of a nearby office building, glass and concrete erupting around him as desks splintered and steel warped under the impact. His body skidded across the floor before slamming into the far wall, the structure groaning in protest.
Silence—
Then pressure.
Titus was already there.
His fist descended.
Leon barely brought Solus up in time, the scabbard screaming as it intercepted the blow. The impact was monstrous—like bracing against a falling mountain. Each strike that followed carried the same crushing inevitability, battering against Leon's defense with relentless force.
Adamantium Fist Style.
The name surfaced in Leon's mind like a warning carved into his instincts. Sam had only begun to grasp its fundamentals—but this…
This was its true form.
Titus fought like a force of nature given flesh.
A sharp, brutal kick shattered Leon's guard, slipping past his defense and slamming into his side. The world twisted as he was launched skyward once more, hurtling across the night before crashing back onto the roof of Greyhorn's building—right where it had all begun.
The rooftop trembled beneath him.
And above—
Titus descended.
Unmoved. Unshaken.
Inevitable.
"...He's mastered the Third Form," Leon realized, the thought settling heavy in his chest.
A cold clarity followed.
The moment Titus moved, Leon understood—this wasn't a battle of exchanges. It was a battle against something immovable.
Adamantius Validus.
The Art of Unyielding.
Titus's body no longer moved like flesh and bone—it moved like something forged. Refined. Absolute. The air around him seemed to hum faintly, as if reality itself resisted the density of his existence.
Black rods erupted once more, slicing through the air toward Leon like predatory spears. Leon answered with violence—his aura flaring as a wave of searing heat exploded outward, incinerating the projectiles mid-flight. The air warped and shimmered, bending under the intensity.
With a low growl, Leon drew Solus.
Light fractured along the blade as he swung—once, twice, then in a relentless cascade. Blades of heat screamed through the night, carving glowing paths through the air as they converged on Titus from every angle.
And yet—
Titus walked through them.
Not with brute force, but with precision so refined it bordered on inevitability. His steps shifted with subtle grace, each movement guided by something deeper than instinct. The First Form—footwork at its peak—allowed him to read the battlefield itself, weaving through Leon's attacks as though they had already been decided.
The few strikes that slipped too close—
He touched them.
Redirected them.
The Second Form unfolded seamlessly, his movements minimal, efficient—turning lethal force aside with nothing more than calculated motion.
Leon's eyes narrowed, his mind racing.
Adamantium Fist Style was not a single discipline—it was a system.
The First Form honed movement, sharpening the body into a weapon of precision and fluidity.
The Second Form adapted—bridging offense and defense, shaping combat into a controlled exchange.
But the Third Form…
The Third Form was finality.
Adamantius Validus transformed the body into an absolute defense by forcing the user's molecular structure into high-frequency oscillation. Muscles, bones, even the outer layer of the skin vibrated at such intensity that they hardened beyond natural limits. Beneath it, the foundational technique—Validus—reinforced the mana skin, that thin veil of energy wrapped around every Ascendant.
Together, they didn't just stack.
They multiplied.
The vibrating body and reinforced mana field fused into a singular defensive state—one that absorbed, dispersed, and returned force with terrifying efficiency.
A body that could not be broken.
A defense that turned offense into futility.
And Titus…
Titus had perfected it.
As if that weren't enough, his elemental affinity made him even more monstrous. Carbon—an Earth Deviant element—answered his will. The black rods that surged from the battlefield weren't mere constructs, but condensed manifestations of his control over mineral structures. Dense. Refined. Unyielding.
He wasn't just defending.
He was the earth itself, given form and intent.
Leon exhaled sharply, tension coiling through his body.
So this is what it means… to stand at the peak of the Master Realm.
He shifted his stance and, in one fluid motion, dismissed Solus's scabbard. The blade pulsed brighter in his grip as mana surged into it, heat distorting the air in violent waves.
Then he moved.
A storm of slashes followed—faster, sharper, heavier. Each strike burned hotter than the last, forcing the battlefield itself to recoil under the pressure.
Titus answered without hesitation.
His steps blurred—First Form.
His hands moved—Second Form.
Everything was controlled.
Everything was exact.
Leon's assault, no matter how ferocious, was being unraveled in real time.
Then—
Titus stepped in.
No warning.
No hesitation.
One instant he stood beyond Leon's reach—The next—
He was there.
A massive arm whipped through the air in a brutal lariat, the motion compact yet devastating. Leon's instincts screamed as he reacted, forcing mana into his skin—
Validus.
The reinforcement snapped into place just as the strike landed.
Impact.
The world shattered around him.
The force was catastrophic—far beyond anything he had braced for. Even with Validus active, the blow tore through his defense, sending him flying like a ragdoll. Buildings collapsed in succession as his body crashed through them, each impact detonating concrete and steel into clouds of dust and ruin.
Glass rained like shards of light.
Steel screamed as it bent.
Below, the city erupted into chaos.
Onlookers scattered in terror, their screams swallowed by the thunder of destruction as debris cascaded down into the streets. Entire sections of buildings gave way, collapsing under the sheer violence of the exchange.
And through it all—
Leon kept flying.
A trail of devastation marking the path of a single, overwhelming truth.
He had picked a fight with something that did not yield.
Leon's body finally came to a violent halt—crashing through tiled walls and splintered wood—before landing upside down in the cramped restroom of a nearby building.
The world rang.
Shattered sinks spewed water across fractured tiles, the steady gush echoing through the ruined space. Pipes hissed. Mirrors lay in glittering ruin. Leon hung there for a moment, suspended in the wreckage of a broken cubicle, breath uneven, blood pooling at the edge of his lips.
Then the anger came.
Hot. Immediate. Suffocating.
How?
His fingers twitched against the cracked floor as the question burned through him. That attack had been simple. Direct. Obvious.
And yet—
He had been hit.
Leon spat a mouthful of blood onto the tiles, the crimson staining pale porcelain as his jaw tightened. Speed had always been his domain—his advantage, his edge, the one constant he could rely on.
But Titus had erased it.
Not by being faster—
But by being better.
"...Tch."
His pride stung. His instincts screamed.
If he kept fighting like this, he wouldn't just lose—
He would die.
Get a grip.
His breath steadied, sharp and controlled, as he forced himself upright. Pain laced through his body, but he ignored it, letting focus consume everything else.
Anything can happen in battle.
Heat began to build within him.
At first, it was subtle—a low simmer coiling through his core. Then it surged, expanding through his veins like liquid fire. Leon drew it inward, compressing it, refining it, forcing the wild blaze into something denser… sharper.
Controlled.
Thermal energy condensed at the center of his being, merging seamlessly with the mana coursing through his pathways. The fusion was violent, unstable—but Leon forced it into alignment, his body becoming both furnace and vessel.
Power answered.
[Sol Fusion: Hyperion State – Nova Combustion]
The air shifted.
An invisible aura of blistering heat erupted from him, distorting the very atmosphere. The restroom became an inferno in seconds—water from the shattered sinks vaporizing instantly, steam swallowing the space in a thick, suffocating haze. The tiles cracked further under the strain, the air itself trembling with rising pressure.
Leon stood at the center of it.
A burning core given form.
Footsteps echoed.
Unhurried.
Unaffected.
Through the veil of steam, Titus stepped inside.
The heat did nothing to him.
The pressure did nothing to him.
Even the suffocating mist seemed to part around his frame, as though reality itself refused to cling to him.
Leon didn't hesitate.
Solus flashed into his hand—and with his other, he drew a short blade, both weapons igniting with condensed heat and radiant energy. In one seamless motion, he slashed.
A golden arc tore through the room.
It screamed as it moved—compressed heat and light fused into a single devastating edge. The confined space amplified its force, forcing Titus backward as the attack detonated outward, ripping through walls and blasting him out of the restroom.
Leon moved.
He didn't chase—
He erupted.
The floor beneath him shattered as he launched forward, bursting through the collapsing structure in a streak of heat and motion. In an instant, he closed the distance, his body twisting mid-air—
Knee driving forward.
Impact.
The strike landed against Titus's face with explosive force, a sonic boom cracking through the air as the collision rippled outward. The sheer power behind it should have sent even a Master-level Ascendant hurtling across the skyline.
But—
Titus caught it.
Mid-strike.
His hand clamped around Leon's knee with terrifying precision, halting the momentum as if it had never existed. For a single, suspended heartbeat, the world seemed to pause.
Then—
He moved.
With a sharp, controlled motion, Titus redirected the force and hurled Leon away.
Leon's body tore through the air, smashing through multiple structures in succession. Walls collapsed. Steel twisted. Glass erupted in cascading shards as his trajectory carved a violent path through the city.
Pain flared.
The metallic taste of blood flooded his mouth again, thicker this time, heavier. It dripped from his chin as he finally crashed to a halt, the impact rattling through his bones.
Silence followed.
Brief.
Tense.
Leon staggered to his feet, breath ragged but eyes sharper than before. The chaos around him blurred into the background as something deeper took hold—
Survival.
Focus.
Adaptation.
Above, the night sky stretched wide and indifferent.
And then—
A presence descended.
Titus landed on a nearby rooftop, the pale glow of the moon casting long, cold shadows across the broken city. His white cloak shifted softly in the wind, untouched, unmarked.
Unshaken.
Across from him stood Leon—battered, bloodied, burning.
The contrast between them was absolute.
One, an unyielding pillar of perfected power.
The other—
A storm, just beginning to rise.
Tch… that technique is dangerous, Titus thought.
With a sharp motion, he tore away what remained of his white cloak, letting the scorched fabric fall in smoldering strips to the rooftop. Beneath it, his form stood unmarred—yet the faint heat still clinging to his skin told a different story.
That strike… it nearly breached Adamantius Validus.
His gaze settled on Leon again, deeper now. More attentive.
"...That technique of yours," Titus said at last, his voice calm, measured—but laced with a quiet intrigue, "at first glance, it resembles conventional mana application. Reinforcement. Infusion. Perhaps even mantle layering."
He paused, eyes narrowing slightly.
"But that aura… it behaves like mana skin—only far more evolved. Refined beyond standard structure." His tone dipped, thoughtful. "I have never seen Jonathan Haravok wield anything like it."
Leon stood across from him, heat still bleeding from his body in wavering distortions. The energy radiating from him was… strange. Familiar, yet not. It carried echoes of the Hyperion Factor—yes—but there was something else layered beneath it. Something sharper. Something self-forged.
Titus studied him in silence.
Is it inherited… or created?
Leon exhaled, a faint grin pulling at the corner of his lips despite the blood trailing down the side of his face.
"Yeah," he admitted. "You're not wrong."
His fingers brushed the wound absently, smearing the crimson as if it were nothing more than sweat.
"It's not part of the Haravok style. Not something passed down." His grip tightened around Solus, the crystalline blade humming faintly in response. "This?"
His eyes sharpened, gleaming with something reckless.
"I made it."
A flicker of heat pulsed outward from his body, distorting the air between them.
"For moments like this."
His second blade was gone—lost somewhere in the destruction—but Solus remained, steady in his hand. That was enough.
Titus regarded him for a moment longer… then his expression flattened.
"You're a disappointment, Leonard."
The words fell cold.
"Is it the absence of the Sun that's limiting you?"
Leon's gaze flickered, narrowing just slightly—but he said nothing.
Titus continued, voice steady, precise—like a blade drawn with intent.
"I know the flaw of the House of Leo. Unlike the other Pleiadian Houses, your lineage is not bound to a household deity. You receive no divine patronage. No direct blessing."
Only truth.
"Your strength is borrowed—from the Sun. From the stars. From the constant flow of Gratia that sustains your bloodline."
His eyes sharpened.
"And here… beneath a darkened sky—"
"We're weaker," Leon finished for him.
Silence lingered for a breath.
Then—
Leon laughed.
It wasn't soft. It wasn't forced.
It was deep. Resonant. Alive.
His head tilted back slightly as the sound broke through the tension, echoing across the ruined rooftop. Heat flared with it, pulsing outward in uneven waves as something inside him began to stir.
"Is that really what you think?"
His voice dropped as the laughter faded, replaced by something sharper. Wilder.
The adrenaline surged through him like wildfire, flooding his veins, igniting every nerve. His muscles trembled—not from exhaustion, but from anticipation. From hunger.
From joy.
This feeling…
It had been so long.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears, each pulse louder than the last, drowning out everything else. Pain. Fatigue. Doubt.
All of it burned away.
Replaced by something raw.
Something intoxicating.
His lips curled, not into a grin—
But something more dangerous.
A smile that bordered on madness.
This is it…
The heat around him intensified, warping the air, rising in chaotic waves as his presence sharpened.
A fight where I might actually die.
A tremor of euphoria coursed through him, sending a shiver down his spine.
It was overwhelming.
Addictive.
Beautiful.
And Leon—
Leaned into it.
"You're right," Leon admitted, his voice settling into a quiet, measured calm. "Most of the House of Leo draws directly from the Sun. In daylight, they shine at their peak… and by night, they fade."
He shifted his footing, his body aligning into the unmistakable posture of the Heavenly Radiance combat art—every movement deliberate, every angle precise.
"But here's the part people don't understand…"
His gaze lifted, steady and unwavering.
"That rule was never meant for me."
The air changed.
At first, it was subtle—a rise in temperature, a faint distortion rippling through the atmosphere. Then it escalated.
Sharply.
Golden threads of light began to gather, drawn from the unseen layers of the Odyllic like strands answering a silent command. They flowed toward Leon in radiant streams, weaving around his body in intricate, living patterns. Each strand pulsed with energy, binding together into a luminous shroud that clung to him like a second skin.
His body began to glow.
Not like reflected light—
But like something generating it.
Leon reached inward, deeper than before, tapping into the sealed reservoirs hidden within his own cells. Power surged outward in controlled bursts as he guided it through his pathways, merging it seamlessly with his mana and Odic flow.
The result—
Was something denser. Heavier. More absolute.
The golden aura around him intensified, compressing and refining until it burned with the weight of a newborn star. The rooftop beneath his feet groaned under the pressure, cracks spiderwebbing outward as heat and force distorted the space around him.
[Sol Fusion: Hyperion State – Nova Force]
He stood there, encased in light.
Not borrowing from the Sun—
But becoming something akin to it.
"I see…" Titus murmured, his voice steady, though a flicker of interest surfaced beneath it. "A limiter. A binding mechanism imposed upon your own power."
His gaze sharpened.
"You've entered into a contract with the Odyllic, haven't you, boy?"
Leon didn't answer immediately.
Instead, a slow smirk crept across his face, the golden light reflecting in his eyes like twin flares.
Titus continued, voice low, analytical.
"There would be conditions. Thresholds. Requirements that must be fulfilled before those restrictions are lifted." His eyes narrowed further. "It seems you've met them."
Silence.
Then—
Leon vanished.
No burst of motion.
No warning.
Just absence.
For a fraction of a second, the world seemed to fracture—time stretching thin, every movement lagging behind reality itself.
Then it snapped back.
Leon reappeared behind Titus.
His leg was already in motion.
Impact.
The kick slammed into Titus's ribs with explosive force, a thunderous shockwave erupting outward as the air split from the collision. The sheer power behind it sent Titus hurtling across the rooftop, his massive frame crashing through the side of a building across the street.
Leon didn't stop.
He pursued.
[Rapid]
The distance collapsed instantly as he surged forward, heat trailing behind him like a comet's wake. By the time Titus regained his footing, Leon was already there—within range, within striking distance.
Titus stood.
Unmoved.
Unyielding.
Even after that blow.
Leon's lips twitched.
Tough bastard.
The response came immediately.
Black rods erupted toward him, slicing through the air with lethal precision—but Leon was faster now. Sharper. More refined.
His hand snapped out—catching three mid-flight.
The fourth—
He caught with his teeth.
The carbon constructs, once dense and unbreakable, felt… brittle. Fragile. Like dry branches under strain. Leon crushed them effortlessly, snapping them apart as fragments scattered across the battlefield.
Then he moved again.
Forward.
Titus met him head-on.
A barrage of punches followed—each strike carrying crushing weight, capable of shattering stone and collapsing steel. But Leon answered in kind.
He didn't block—
He redirected.
Each strike was parried with fluid precision, his movements seamless, his body responding with perfect timing. Their clash echoed like thunder, shockwaves rippling outward with every collision.
The ground beneath them gave way.
Cracks deepened.
The building groaned.
Then—
It collapsed.
Floors shattered under the strain of their battle as the two of them crashed downward, tearing through level after level. Concrete exploded into dust, steel beams twisted and snapped, debris cascading around them in a violent storm.
The structure couldn't hold.
Nothing could.
The building began to crumble entirely, its foundation surrendering to the sheer force of their exchange.
But Leon—
Didn't care.
Not about the destruction.
Not about the people who might be caught in it.
Not about the consequences.
All of it faded into irrelevance.
Because in that moment—
There was only this.
The heat in his veins.
The roar of his heartbeat.
The exhilaration of a fight that pushed him to the edge of death.
It consumed him.
Filled him.
Thrilled him.
And Leon embraced it—
Completely.
But then—
Something shifted.
It wasn't immediate. Not obvious.
Just… wrong.
The rhythm of the battle began to tilt, the balance tipping—slowly at first, then with undeniable weight—in Leon's favor. His movements grew sharper, his strikes heavier, his presence more oppressive. Nova Force coursed through him like a second heartbeat, amplifying everything he was.
Too much.
Too fast.
Titus felt it.
What had once been an unbreakable defense—Adamantius Validus, perfected and absolute—began to fracture under the pressure. Not visibly, not yet… but in the subtle delays, the micro-adjustments, the infinitesimal shifts in his stance.
Leon's blows were no longer being absorbed cleanly.
They were breaking through.
Each strike chipped away at the foundation of Titus's guard, forcing him to adapt, to compensate—something he had not needed to do until now.
And Leon—
Leon had surpassed him.
For the first time in the fight, his defense overtook Titus's. The Nova Force radiating from his body formed a blazing field of condensed thermal energy, a corona of white-hot force that devoured incoming attacks before they could even reach him. The air around him warped violently, bending under the sheer density of his power.
He wasn't just fighting anymore.
He was overwhelming.
For Titus—
The battle was slipping.
For Leon—
It had only just begun.
"...Then let's see how long you can hold it," Titus muttered under his breath.
Leon moved first.
[Flying Nova Slash]
Solus flared, and a beam of concentrated golden light erupted from its edge—blazing forward with catastrophic force, tearing through the air as it sought to erase everything in its path.
Titus didn't dodge.
He answered.
[Earth Creation: Rock Boulder]
The ground surged upward at his command, forming a colossal wall of dense stone between them. The golden beam collided with it instantly—
And detonated.
The explosion swallowed everything.
Light and debris erupted outward in a violent storm, the shockwave tearing apart what remained of the already ruined building. Concrete disintegrated. Steel twisted and snapped. The entire structure gave way under the force, collapsing into ruin as both fighters were hurled from the epicenter.
They crashed into the street below.
The impact carved deep craters into the asphalt, fractures spreading like veins through the road as dust and smoke billowed upward, cloaking the battlefield in chaos.
Leon groaned.
Pain returned—sharp, immediate, grounding.
His breath hitched as the truth caught up with him.
His energy was fading.
Fast.
The blazing intensity of Nova Force began to falter, the overwhelming heat field around him shrinking, its once-dominant presence collapsing inward. The radiant shroud that had cloaked him moments ago dimmed, thinning into something fragile—unstable.
His body trembled under the strain.
He couldn't maintain it.
Not for much longer.
And Titus—
Titus saw it.
A shift in stance.
A flicker in the aura.
An opening.
[Adamantius Fist Style: Shattering Star]
Leon had barely forced himself upright when the smoke parted.
Titus stepped through.
His fist burned with a concentrated fusion of white and emerald light, the energy forming a distinct cross-shaped pattern across his knuckles. It pulsed—slow, heavy, absolute—like a star on the verge of collapse.
Leon tried to move—
Too late.
The strike landed.
Clean.
Unstoppable.
It tore through what remained of Leon's defenses as though they weren't there at all. The weakened Nova field shattered on contact, dispersing like fragile glass under overwhelming force.
Then—
Impact.
Leon's body was launched backward, ripping through the front of the towering Greyhorn building in a violent explosion of debris. Blood sprayed into the air in crimson arcs as he crashed through walls and steel supports, his body finally slamming into the ground below.
He didn't get up.
He couldn't.
His body lay broken, sprawled across the cold concrete floor—right beside the black rods that formed the cage imprisoning Sam.
Silence followed.
Heavy.
Final.
Above, Titus descended.
He landed on the fractured rooftop with a dull, thunderous thud, the smoke around him slowly dispersing. His form remained unshaken, his presence as immovable as ever. Faint trails of green mana coiled around his fists as he began walking forward—slow, deliberate, inevitable.
Step by step.
He reached Leon.
Paused.
Then bent down, gripping the collar of Leon's torn jacket and lifting him effortlessly, as though he weighed nothing.
Limp.
Unconscious.
Broken.
Titus raised his other hand.
Energy gathered.
Dense.
Ominous.
Final.
His fist drew back—poised to end it in a single, decisive strike.