I kept dodging. The air around me was a continuous, lethal hurricane of dark runic metal and heavy, sweeping chains. Zarha, the white-masked assassin, had entirely abandoned his previously calculated, perfectly paced rhythm, completely surrendering to a frantic, hyper-accelerated onslaught. His dual daggers were nothing but a terrifying blur of black and purple shadows slicing endlessly through the dim, crimson-tinged mist of the dimension. I threw my weight backward, feeling the chilling wind of a horizontal slash graze the bridge of my nose. I immediately dropped my center of gravity, planting my left hand firmly against the violently vibrating invisible floor, and swept my legs out to perfectly evade a low, aggressive chain whip designed to shatter my ankles. My breathing was ragged, my muscles screaming under the absolute, agonizing strain of continuous, flawless evasion. I was trapped in an impossible, microscopic cage of lethal trajectories, but as the assassin aggressively overextended on a violent, downward twin-strike, the impossibly tight rhythm of his assault briefly, fatally fractured.
I did not hesitate for a single fraction of a millisecond. I violently pushed off the invisible surface, twisting my entire torso with every single ounce of kinetic force I possessed. I swung my sword at Zarha.
The white gold blade tore through the heavy, suffocating air, leaving a brilliant, blinding trail of emerald light in its devastating wake. The heavy, flat side of my massive weapon aggressively collided directly with the center of the assassin's torso before he could even attempt to physically teleport away. The impact was absolutely deafening, a massive, resonant boom of localized thunder that violently shattered the air in our immediate vicinity.
And he got sent flying into the masked man sitting in his throne.
The sheer, catastrophic kinetic force of my swing instantly stripped Zarha of all his physical momentum and agency. He was violently launched backward through the infinite, reddish-black void like a heavily fired cannonball. His body spun wildly out of control, a chaotic blur of dark clothing and trailing metal chains, hurtling directly toward the massive, imposing structure of jagged bone and dark obsidian hovering high above the fractured battlefield.
I watched, my chest heavily heaving, as the unconscious projectile rapidly closed the distance. The masked man did not flinch. He did not shift his posture. He remained completely, utterly relaxed, leaning back against the heavy structure of his seat. As Zarha's violently spinning form was mere inches away from catastrophically colliding with the throne, the masked man simply, casually raised his right hand.
But he just deflected Zarha.
There was no explosive burst of mana, no complex manifestation of defensive magic. With a terrifyingly lazy, almost completely dismissive flick of his wrist, the masked man casually swatted the incoming assassin entirely aside. The physical trajectory of Zarha's high-speed flight was instantly, violently altered.
And he fell into the ground unconscious.
Zarha plummeted aggressively downward, his body violently slamming into the invisible floor with a sickening, heavy thud that briefly echoed across the infinite emptiness. He bounced once, his broken mask scraping harshly against the unyielding surface, before finally coming to a complete, absolute halt. He did not twitch. The relentless, teleporting phantom who had continuously plagued my every waking second had been instantly neutralized by the casual backhand of the dimension's true master.
The chaotic, deafening sounds of the wider battlefield abruptly, terrifyingly ceased. The booming impacts, the shattering shockwaves, the metallic clashes—everything instantly fell into an impossible, suffocating silence.
The masked man stood up.
The motion was incredibly slow, heavily deliberate, and completely devoid of any urgency. As he rose from his towering obsidian seat, his dark, featureless mask angled slightly downward to survey the violently ruined state of his arena, he finally broke his long, uninterrupted silence. His voice was completely calm, smooth, and heavily laced with an aura of absolute, terrifying certainty.
He said, "As I expected."
The very instant those three words left his lips, the fundamental nature of the dimension violently collapsed inward. Suddenly, we all felt a sudden pressure of fear.
It was not a simple emotional response. It was not a basic psychological reaction to a highly intimidating foe. It was a tangible, physical, apocalyptic weight that instantaneously crushed the very oxygen out of the surrounding atmosphere. The reddish-black mist violently violently plummeted to the floor, instantly flattened by the sheer, unadulterated gravity of the terror he naturally exuded. The temperature dropped to an absolute, agonizing zero, frosting the edges of my vision and instantly turning the sweat on my skin into sharp, biting ice. My heart slammed violently against my ribs, a primal, inescapable instinct screaming at my body to completely shut down, to simply cease functioning in the presence of an apex predator that transcended all known logic.
The physical toll of this radiating dread was absolute. Most of us, even Tokine and Zaltraf, kneeled down out of fear.
To my left, the fierce, highly aggressive scythe-wielder violently collapsed. Tokine's massive weapon clattered uselessly onto the invisible surface as her legs completely, instantly gave out beneath her. She crashed heavily onto her knees, her hands desperately clutching at her own throat as she struggled to draw breath in the incredibly heavy, fear-saturated air. Her eyes were blown wide, completely stripped of their previous predatory light, replaced entirely by an overwhelming, paralyzing horror.
Even more terrifying was the sight of the Demonking. Zaltraf, the towering, incredibly ancient sovereign who had casually absorbed catastrophic damage without a single flinch, was violently forced downward. The dark, impenetrable barrier of absolute mana surrounding him flickered and violently groaned under the sheer, conceptual weight of the masked man's presence. Zaltraf gritted his teeth, his jaw visibly trembling, but his ancient pride was entirely insufficient. His knees buckled, violently hitting the cracked floor, his head heavily bowed beneath the suffocating, crushing pressure of absolute despair.
Except Euphyne.
Directly to my right, amidst the horrific, kneeling forms of allies and enemies alike, Euphyne remained completely, utterly standing. His chest was heavily heaving, the muscles in his arms tightly corded, but his posture was perfectly, defiantly straight. He gripped his massive, one-sided golden war axes with a white-knuckled intensity, his golden eyes burning with an incredibly bright, fiercely stubborn light that aggressively pushed back against the encroaching darkness. He completely refused to bow. He completely refused to kneel. He simply stared directly upward at the standing figure, his aura violently rejecting the physical manifestation of fear attempting to crush him.
The masked man did not seem surprised. He slowly, methodically stepped down from his throne.
He did not float. He did not teleport. He simply walked down an invisible staircase in the empty air, his boots making a highly deliberate, echoing click against the nothingness with every single descending step. Each footfall sent a fresh, agonizing wave of paralyzing dread rippling through my very core. When his boots finally, softly touched the invisible floor of the main battlefield, he paused.
He raised his right hand, completely ignoring Euphyne's defiant stance, and he snapped his fingers.
The sound was incredibly sharp, entirely cutting through the heavy, suffocating silence of the dimension like a physical blade. The echo rang out continuously, vibrating directly in my eardrums.
Instantly, Celdrich, who was currently violently struggling against the crushing pressure on his hands and knees, desperately reached for his open grimoire. His red eyes flared with a frantic, deeply urgent light as he tried to write in his grimoire. He rapidly dragged his pen across the glowing pages, attempting to formulate a complex, reality-altering command to forcefully overwrite our current, catastrophic situation.
Nothing happened.
The ink did not glow. The ethereal, spiritual shimmer that always accompanied his magical architecture entirely failed to materialize. The words remained completely dark, dead, and utterly powerless against the parchment. The highly intricate, fundamental laws of his personal magic had been instantly, entirely severed.
The masked man laughed. It was a cold, incredibly hollow, entirely mirthless sound that offered absolutely zero comfort. It was the heavily amused chuckle of an entomologist observing insects violently struggling within a sealed glass jar.
And he said that he disabled his grimoire magic.
The sheer, casual nature of the statement was horrifying. He had not engaged in a complex counter-spell. He had not overpowered Celdrich's mana. With a single, entirely effortless snap of his fingers, he had completely, fundamentally erased the very concept of Celdrich's primary offensive capability from the entire dimension.
The blatant display of absolute, reality-breaking superiority was the final trigger. Euphyne, entirely refusing to be intimidated, violently exploded into motion.
Euphyne tried to attack.
He aggressively launched himself forward, completely shattering the heavily fractured floor beneath his boots. He crossed the geographical distance in a blinding, hyper-accelerated flash of golden light, his dual war axes raised high above his head, fully intending to bring them aggressively down upon the masked man's unmoving figure.
But suddenly, the masked man disappeared.
It was not a high-speed movement. It was not a spatial teleportation. The masked man simply ceased to occupy the physical space directly in front of Euphyne's descending blades. Euphyne's eyes widened in microscopic shock as his golden axes violently cleaved through nothing but completely empty, heavily displaced air.
In the exact same microscopic fraction of a millisecond, the masked man materialized completely effortlessly on Euphyne's immediate left flank. His posture remained perfectly, casually relaxed. He pulled his right arm back a mere few inches, entirely devoid of any visible wind-up or kinetic generation, and punched Euphyne.
The physical impact was conceptually impossible. The masked man's fist collided with the side of Euphyne's ribs, and the resulting kinetic transfer instantly, completely bypassed all known logic. There was no massive shockwave. There was no deafening boom. There was only a sickening, heavily wet sound of absolute, overwhelming physical trauma.
And Euphyne got sent into the ground, and he became unconscious.
The sheer, incredibly concentrated force of the singular blow violently drove Euphyne's massive, heavily fortified body entirely straight down. He smashed brutally into the invisible surface, instantly creating a massive, terrifyingly deep crater that heavily spiderwebbed out for dozens of yards. The golden light completely vanished from his eyes. The massive, golden war axes slipped from his heavily loosened grip, clattering uselessly against the broken surface. The one person who had completely, utterly defied the crushing pressure of fear was instantly, casually neutralized by a single, effortless strike.
Seeing his closest ally fall, Celdrich completely abandoned all reason. Despite his disabled grimoire, his glowing red eyes violently flared with pure, absolute desperation. Celdrich tried to attack.
He forcefully pushed himself up from his hands and knees, heavily gripping the hilt of his black katana with both hands. He lunged forward, completely ignoring the agonizing, crushing weight of the fear pressure, and executed a rapid, hyper-aggressive, horizontal slash aimed directly at the masked man's throat.
But the masked man faked an attack.
The masked man's left shoulder twitched microscopically forward, a highly subtle, perfectly executed feint that instantly, completely exploited Celdrich's hyper-focused, future-predicting state. Celdrich violently overcorrected, rapidly adjusting the physical trajectory of his katana to intercept a blow that entirely did not exist. His right flank was instantly, widely exposed.
In that exact, fatal opening, the masked man materialized a sword. A long, slender, completely unadorned blade of pure, highly concentrated dark energy instantly formed in his right hand. He didn't swing it. He simply thrust it forcefully forward.
And he stabbed Celdrich and pinned him into the ground.
The dark blade smoothly, effortlessly pierced directly through the center of Celdrich's right shoulder. Celdrich let out a sharp, highly agonizing gasp as the dark metal completely severed muscle and bone. The masked man continued the heavy forward momentum, violently driving the blade directly downward until the tip heavily embedded itself deep into the invisible floor, securely, aggressively pinning Celdrich's physical body completely flat against the cracked surface. Celdrich writhed in absolute, overwhelming agony, his hands desperately, uselessly clawing at the dark, immovable hilt heavily protruding from his own flesh.
I was entirely frozen. My muscles completely refused to respond. I felt horror as I saw my friends in that situation.
The sheer, incredibly casual, highly systematic dismantling of my closest allies completely shattered my mind. In a matter of mere seconds, the masked man had entirely effortlessly neutralized the strongest fighters on the battlefield without taking a single step or breaking a single sweat. I could only stare, my breathing ragged and incredibly shallow, at Euphyne lying completely motionless in his massive crater, and Celdrich violently pinned and heavily bleeding on the fractured floor.
The masked man slowly turned his featureless, white porcelain face toward me. He tilted his head slightly, observing my complete, absolute paralysis.
The masked man said casually, "Oh, don't worry, they won't die."
His tone was incredibly light, entirely conversational, completely lacking any trace of malice or aggressive intent. It was as if he were simply reassuring a highly frightened child about a completely minor, entirely insignificant injury.
For a single, heavily profound second, a massive, overwhelming wave of immense relief washed entirely over me. As I sighed, the intensely suffocating tension in my chest microscopically lessened. They were heavily defeated, they were severely injured, but they were still alive. They would survive this.
Suddenly, the masked man's posture shifted. The incredibly casual, entirely conversational demeanor vanished completely.
He said, "But they will."
He did not point. He did not look away from me. He simply raised his left hand, entirely casually, and he snapped his fingers.
The sharp, incredibly echoing sound cut through the void a second time. I rapidly, desperately snapped my gaze toward the far edge of the battlefield, exactly where the masked man's heavily implied intent was directed.
Lying completely motionless on the distant, unbroken edge of the invisible floor were the unconscious forms of my classmates. And suddenly, the unconscious elf twins, Elfrich and Elfhine, floated.
Their bodies were gently, highly unnaturally lifted entirely off the ground, passively hovering a few feet in the dim, reddish-black air. They remained completely, deeply asleep, entirely unaware of the catastrophic, horrific reality continuously unfolding around them.
And they got erased.
There was no blinding explosion. There was no highly dramatic, agonizing scream. There was absolutely no blood. The physical, fundamental concept of their existence simply began to rapidly, silently unravel. The very edges of their clothing, their skin, their hair, began to silently flake away, instantly turning into microscopic, completely invisible dust that was immediately, casually absorbed by the infinite, uncaring void. In less than a second, their physical forms completely, utterly vanished. They were entirely, completely gone. Unmade. Deleted from the very fabric of reality itself.
I stood in horror to see my classmates get erased.
My mind entirely, violently completely snapped. The crushing, heavily suffocating pressure of absolute fear that had previously entirely paralyzed my muscles was instantaneously, aggressively replaced by a blinding, fully consuming, apocalyptic rage. The very thought of Elfrich and Elfhine—two people I had known, two people completely innocent of this catastrophic, high-tier conflict—being casually, effortlessly deleted from existence entirely broke my absolute limit.
I firmly gripped the hilt of my white gold sword with both hands. I completely abandoned all thoughts of defense, all thoughts of strategy, all thoughts of survival. I aggressively pulled upon every single, absolute drop of my creation magic, violently forcing it directly into the blade. I charged my sword with all I have.
The metal did not just glow; it violently erupted. A massive, towering pillar of incredibly intense, highly vibrating emerald fire completely engulfed the blade, aggressively radiating a blinding, desperate heat that heavily pushed back the dim gloom of the arena.
I instantly dashed forward.
I moved faster than I ever conceptually had in my entire life. The invisible floor violently shattered completely beneath my boots, propelling me forward like a desperate, highly lethal streak of green lightning. I crossed the distance to the masked man in a microscopic fraction of a millisecond. I swung my sword at him.
I put my entire, absolute soul into the heavy, horizontal arc, fully intending to completely sever his head from his shoulders. The emerald fire screamed violently through the air, carrying the catastrophic, combined weight of my profound grief, my absolute rage, and my complete, unadulterated magical reserve.
He just caught it with his hand.
The catastrophic, highly destructive momentum of my absolutely fully-charged, desperate swing was instantaneously, completely entirely halted. The masked man simply raised his bare, unarmored left hand and firmly grabbed the incredibly sharp, heavily glowing edge of the white gold blade. The emerald fire violently aggressively flared around his pale fingers, desperately attempting to burn him, but the flames completely failed to even singe his skin. The deafening, localized shockwave of the arrested impact violently blew my hair back, but the sword itself was entirely, completely immobilized in his casual grip.
He looked directly at me through the completely featureless white mask.
He said, "Calm down."
I didn't. The command was absolutely, entirely meaningless to me. I violently, aggressively ripped the blade entirely free from his casual grasp, completely ignoring the painful, heavy strain on my own shoulders, and I rapidly stepped forward.
I kept attacking him.
I unleashed a frantic, entirely uncoordinated, highly desperate flurry of devastating strikes. I stabbed aggressively toward his chest. I slashed violently at his legs. I spun rapidly, attempting to heavily cleave through his side. The heavy, white gold sword became a continuous, blinding blur of emerald destruction, actively carving deep, highly aggressive arcs of lethal energy through the heavy air.
But he just kept blocking with his hand.
He did not summon his dark sword. He did not retreat a single, microscopic inch. He simply stood completely, casually still, continuously, effortlessly swatting my incredibly frantic, fully-powered strikes entirely away with the back of his hand, his palm, or a casual flick of his wrist. Every single time my heavy blade aggressively connected with his bare skin, it produced a dull, heavily muted thud, completely failing to leave even a microscopic, superficial scratch. I was aggressively swinging a fully charged weapon of absolute, high-tier creation magic against a completely unyielding, entirely unbreakable wall.
Suddenly, right in the absolute middle of my frantic, desperate assault, he abruptly entirely stopped blocking. He simply stepped completely inside my highly compromised guard, instantly closing the microscopic distance between us.
He suddenly flicked my forehead.
The highly casual, incredibly simple gesture carried the absolute, catastrophic kinetic force of a high-speed, fully loaded freight train.
And I got sent far and into the ground.
My vision instantly, violently flashed a blinding, agonizing white. The sheer, overwhelming concussive force violently snapped my neck heavily backward, instantly lifting my entire physical body completely off the invisible surface. I flew violently backward, rapidly skipping across the highly fractured, deeply scarred floor like a completely discarded stone. I tumbled aggressively, catastrophically through the heavy, dim air, my armor heavily scraping and violently violently sparking against the unyielding ground before I finally, brutally crashed entirely into the bottom of a newly formed crater dozens of yards away.
I lay there, completely, heavily paralyzed. My vision was incredibly heavily blurred, wildly swimming with dark, highly aggressive spots. A sharp, incredibly loud ringing entirely consumed my ears. Blood heavily pooled in my mouth, the metallic, highly agonizing taste of my own absolute, complete defeat entirely overwhelming my senses. I could barely move my fingers.
Through the heavy, deeply violently swimming haze of my entirely compromised vision, I saw movement nearby. I slowly, agonizingly rolled my heavy head to the side.
I saw Lucian starting to be conscious.
He was heavily battered, entirely covered in dark dust, slowly, painfully pushing himself entirely up from the highly cracked floor. He was completely surrounded by the highly deeply unconscious forms of the remaining classmates. He did not look at the masked man. He looked entirely, directly at me. He slowly, heavily raised his trembling, highly exhausted arm.
And he pointed his finger at me.
His face was incredibly pale, entirely drawn with absolute, overwhelming exhaustion, but his eyes burned with a singular, desperate, highly focused intent. He opened his deeply cracked lips, his voice incredibly faint but entirely, completely clear.
He said, "Bond magic."
The very instant the words left his mouth, an incredibly massive, entirely overwhelming, highly indescribable surge of pure, raw energy violently flooded directly into my chest.
And suddenly I felt most magic of my unconscious classmates.
It was a catastrophic, highly overwhelming tidal wave of entirely foreign, deeply distinct magical signatures violently, rapidly pouring into my entirely depleted core. I felt the sharp, highly crisp sensation of wind magic, the deep, heavy stability of earth magic, the rapid, chaotic sparks of lightning magic, all aggressively, seamlessly intertwining and rapidly layering heavily over my own heavily exhausted reserves. The sheer, incredible, massive volume of the entirely transferred power aggressively forced my eyes entirely wide open, instantly violently flushing the heavy, dark spots entirely from my vision and rapidly, highly aggressively revitalizing my completely heavily paralyzed, exhausted muscles.
I gasped incredibly heavily, my entire physical body violently shuddering as the combined, highly concentrated weight of their heavily transferred essence entirely stabilized within me. I quickly, desperately looked back directly toward the source of the incredible, highly desperate transfer.
His trembling arm heavily dropped entirely to the highly fractured floor. The brief, deeply desperate spark of light completely vanished entirely from his eyes.
And then Lucian went unconscious again.