"Let's see who goes bankrupt first."
The words hung in the toxic, rain-slicked air of the ruined courtyard.
Arthur stood with his left arm pulverized. His breathing was ragged, his pitch-black eyes locked onto the Level 50 Warlord. He was waiting for the charge. He was calculating the exact moment to warp the space around him again.
Vance didn't answer.
He didn't charge.
He simply raised his scarred, heavy iron greatsword high above his head and brought it down.
Not at Arthur.
Not to destroy the boy.
He didn't strike to break the ground.
He struck to deny it.
BOOM.
It wasn't just a shockwave of displaced air. It was a devastating spike of pure, golden kinetic force that drove deep into the bedrock of Sector 2.
The asphalt shattered, tearing apart the thick, pulsing, vine-like shadows that connected the [Graveborn Mana Heart] in the tower to the earth beneath Arthur's feet.
Arthur gasped, his eyes widening for a fraction of a second.
The oppressive, heavy hum of his [Domain of the Dead] didn't fade.
It was cut.
Like a heartbeat... that simply refused to continue.
For a brief, terrifying moment, Arthur felt light.
Not stronger. Not free.
He felt empty. As if a massive, beating organ had just been ripped from his chest.
The constant, dark whisper of the Heart fueling his mana reserves was abruptly gone.
[Warning: Domain Leylines Severed.]
[Ambient Mana Extraction: Failed.]
[Host isolated from Core Power Source.]
General Vance slowly pulled his greatsword from the cratered earth. The golden light of his aura flared brighter, suffocating the air in the absence of the Domain's suppression.
He hadn't attacked Arthur's body. He had attacked his supply line.
"You draw power from the earth. You manipulate the space," Vance rumbled, his voice devoid of anger, echoing only with absolute, tactical efficiency. "A fortress is only as strong as its foundation."
Vance took a heavy step forward.
"I am breaking your foundation."
He leveled the iron greatsword at Arthur.
"Stand on your own, or fall."
Arthur looked at his right hand. The residual, toxic-green sparks of Domain-Mana fizzled and died.
He couldn't pull raw energy from the Heart anymore. He couldn't flood the battlefield with corruption.
Worse, the physical instability caused by Vance's repeated ground-strikes made the air around them vibrate with a sickening lag. The space was too shattered to warp cleanly.
He's not fighting me, Arthur realized, the cold logic of the Warlord becoming terrifyingly clear. He's starving me.
Vance didn't give him time to adapt.
The Warlord moved.
SLASH!
The iron greatsword swept in a brutal, horizontal arc, aimed directly at Arthur's ribs.
Arthur didn't try to block. With one arm, it was impossible.
He focused his monstrous Mental Energy, attempting to force a [Spatial Misalignment]. He needed to delay the strike by just half a second, pushing his body slightly out of sync with the blade.
CRACK.
The space warped, but the unstable, lagging reality of the courtyard fought back.
The trick wasn't perfect.
The blade didn't pass completely through a phantom.
The heavy iron edge clipped Arthur's side, tearing through the [Mantle of the Fallen Lord] and carving a deep, bloody gash across his ribs.
Arthur hissed in pain, thrown off balance. He rolled across the jagged concrete, dodging a devastating downward smash that obliterated the spot he had just occupied.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Vance advanced relentlessly. There was no hesitation. No talking. Just the rhythmic, terrifying march of an executioner.
And wherever he stepped, the ground did not recover behind him.
SWISH!
Another strike.
Arthur desperately warped the space again, leaning backward at an impossible angle.
The blade missed his throat, but the sheer kinetic pressure radiating from the sword caught his chin, slicing the skin open.
Blood dripped down Arthur's pale neck.
His chest heaved. His lungs burned. The 99% Soul Capacity was screaming in his mind, threatening to tear his physical form apart if he pushed his Mental Energy any further.
He was losing ground. He was bleeding. He was isolated from his Domain.
But he wasn't running.
He was measuring.
Vance swung again, a relentless, overwhelming barrage of golden kinetic force.
CLANG! BOOM! CRASH!
Arthur was dancing on the edge of a razor blade, dodging, misaligning, and retreating.
But he was getting slower.
A glancing blow cracked his right shin. Another grazed his cheek.
He was being dismantled, piece by piece, by a man who refused to give him a single millisecond to breathe.
Arthur stumbled, his back hitting a shattered concrete pillar.
He tried to move.
His body didn't respond fast enough. The physical limits of an eighteen-year-old frame, deprived of limitless mana, had been reached.
There was nowhere left to retreat.
Vance stopped two meters away.
The Warlord raised his greatsword, the golden aura condensing around the blade for the final, executing strike.
"You built an empire on borrowed power," Vance said quietly, looking down at the broken, bleeding teenager. "But when the throne is gone... you are just weight that can be cut."
Arthur leaned against the pillar.
His left arm was pulverized. His ribs were bleeding. His face was bruised and cut. He had no mana left to extract. He had no spatial stability left to hide behind.
He looked up at the Level 50 General.
And then, Arthur did something Vance didn't expect.
He didn't activate a hidden skill. He didn't summon a monster.
Arthur closed his eyes.
For a moment... nothing happened.
The rain continued to fall. The Warlord's blade loomed closer.
Then—
A low, dark chuckle slipped out.
It wasn't a loud, maniacal cackle. It was a quiet, genuinely amused sound that sent a terrifying chill through the rain.
Vance didn't interrupt.
But for the first time since the battle began... his grip on the greatsword tightened.
Arthur opened his eyes. They weren't glowing with the red lightning of Synthesis or the toxic green of the Domain. They were just pitch-black, endless voids.
"You took the Domain," Arthur whispered, wiping a smear of blood from his cheek with the back of his good hand. "You broke the space. You severed the connection."
He pushed himself off the pillar, standing perfectly straight despite the agonizing pain in his shattered body.
"Good," Arthur said, a cold, predatory smile spreading across his bloody face.
He didn't look at the massive sword. He looked directly into Vance's scarred eyes.
"Now it's honest... no system, no lies, no distance."