The air on Earth didn't just vibrate; it groaned under the weight of a massacre.
Rax swiped his obsidian claws, sending the Wind Arcon tumbling through the stadium rubble like a broken doll. As the dragon raised his hand for the killing blow, a blur of motion intercepted him.
"I'm not letting you kill my father!" Kin stood there, his breathing heavy, his blades trembling but held firm.
"Kin, are you out of your mind?!" the Arcon roared, coughing up blood. "Get away! This is my fight—my burden!"
Kin didn't look back. "Father... your ego was always your greatest enemy. Today, we stand as one, or we don't stand at all."
Rax didn't wait for the melodrama to finish. He unhinged his jaw, a violet glow building in his throat before a torrent of Dragon Breath erupted. In that final microsecond, the Wind Arcon realized the truth. He didn't push Kin away; he pulled him into a desperate, final embrace.
"I'm sorry, Kin," the Arcon whispered as the flames engulfed them. "I was the weakest. I couldn't save your mother... and now, I can't save you."
The roar of the fire drowned out the rest. Two pillars of the "Standard" world were reduced to ash in an instant.
"NO!" Techyon screamed, his eyes glowing with a feral light as he charged. But a hand clamped onto his shoulder like a vice.
"Techyon, stop!" Cindar pulled him back, his face grim. "You are our last hope. You carry the blood of the Light Clan. You are the only one who can eventually face that Monarch. You cannot die here."
With a roar of effort, Cindar gripped Techyon's arm and hurled him toward the horizon, far away from the stadium. Cindar then turned to Rax, a calm, lethal aura surrounding him. "Let me show you what an S-Rank truly means."
Rax smirked, his scales rattling. "S-Rank? I am S+. This might actually be interesting."
As they lunged at each other, the ground didn't just shake—it liquefied. But it wasn't from their fight. A tremor felt by every living soul in the universe rippled through space-time. The shockwaves from a distant galaxy were reaching Earth.
The Void of Sector 7G
Every time the Monarch and Mayanee's fists collided, a localized supernova erupted. The planet beneath them was nothing but dust now; they were fighting in the wreckage of a solar system.
"You are a strong woman," the Monarch said, catching her fist with a palm that absorbed the kinetic energy of a thousand suns. "What is your name?"
"I am Mayanee Reidan," she hissed, her gravity core burning white-hot.
"My name is—"
"I don't care what a monster calls himself!" Mayanee interrupted, her voice cracking with a pain she had hidden for years. "Do you even know what you did to me?!"
The Monarch tilted his head, his single red eye pulsing. "Why so angry? Did someone kill your family?"
"You did! You killed my little sister!"
The Monarch paused, a cruel, mocking smile tugging at the corner of his bandaged face. "Ah... your sister. I remember now. She had the same eyes as you. I truly loved the sound she made when I ended her."
"YOU WILL PAY!"
Mayanee drew her katana in a movement that surpassed the speed of thought. [SECRET ART: ETERNITY SLASH].
The Monarch leaned back, the blade missing his throat by a hair's breadth. He escaped the hit, but the energy released by the swing didn't stop. The white arc of light traveled millions of miles in a blink, slicing through the distant Andromeda Nebula and literally cutting a galaxy in half.
The Monarch laughed, a sound that chilled the vacuum of space. "Yes! That is the hate I was looking for!"
Inside Mayanee's mind, reality was slowing down. 'He isn't just fast,' she thought, her blade whistling through the void toward the Monarch's neck. 'He's moving between the seconds.'
Suddenly, the Monarch's hand snapped up. He didn't block the katana—he caught it. The vibration of the steel meeting his palm shattered the space around them.
"Playtime is over," the Monarch whispered.
He launched a punch that carried the weight of a dying star. Mayanee's instincts screamed. She let go of her katana, leaving it in his grip as she twisted her body mid-air, the Monarch's fist missing her ribs by a fraction of a millimeter. She didn't just dodge; she countered, her fist glowing with concentrated gravity as it hurtled toward his face.
The Monarch tilted his head, the punch grazing his bandages. He laughed, a dry, metallic sound, and tossed her katana back to her.
"Take it," he mocked. "Let's start the fight for real."
Then, the universe went dark.
From the perspective of any observer in the galaxy, it looked like a storm of Violet-Purple and Red-Black lightning had replaced the stars. In a single millisecond, the two entities collided ten million times. Each strike sent a ripple through space-time that blew out the suns of nearby solar systems.
They crashed onto the surface of a nearby moon, the impact instantly turning the rock into glass.
Mayanee dropped to one knee, her chest heaving. 'I'm losing stamina... my core is overheating. But him? He hasn't even broken a sweat.'
The Monarch of Destruction stood before her, his posture relaxed, his single red eye glowing with a predatory light. "Is that all?" he asked, his voice filled with genuine disappointment. "I expected more from a woman called the Strongest of Today."
Mayanee didn't answer with words. She stood up, her aura suddenly shifting from heavy gravity to a sharp, metallic electricity.
Her hair began to drain of color, turning a haunting, ghostly White. Her violet eyes bled into a deep, murderous Red. The air around her didn't just vibrate; it began to weep blood-colored sparks.
"Looks like I have to use my full power," she said, her voice sounding like two stones grinding together. "This is my Blood Lightning form."