The God of Strength advanced once more.
He was not furious.He was certain.
Each of his steps compressed the world. Gravity bent toward him, as if reality itself sought to uphold him. His muscles did not tense—they existed. He did not know doubt, because he had never needed it.
Lusian did.
The next blow descended with less spectacle and more intent. A clean, direct strike, designed to erase whatever resistance remained. There was no speech.
Only execution.
Lusian did not meet it.
He vanished.
Not as teleportation—as absence.
The fist tore through the space where a body should have been, and for the first time in eons, the God of Strength missed.
He frowned.
That gesture—minimal, almost imperceptible—was enough.
Darkness slid beneath his feet.
It was not shadow.It was not visible magic.
It was a concept.
Lusian extended his dominion a hand's breadth below the ground, nullifying something the god had never questioned:
Friction.
Not zero as a number—zero as a law.
The colossus's next step found no resistance.
His absolute weight did not hold.
The world did not reject him…it simply stopped supporting him.
The God of Strength lost his balance.
He did not fall.
But he staggered.
The air shattered around him as he tried to correct with raw power what he did not understand. Every attempt to anchor himself met the same answer: nothing. No grip. No opposition.
His strength had nowhere to apply.
"What have you done?" he roared—and this time, his voice carried something new.
Lusian appeared at his side.
Too close.
"Fought," he replied. "Not imposed."
The god threw a desperate strike—faster, heavier, loaded with everything he was. Lusian slipped inside its arc, not backward—
forward.
Darkness condensed in his hand.
It did not form a weapon immediately.
First, it defined an edge.
A line so fine it separated existence from absence. The divine mana of Darkness did not shine—it devoured the surrounding light, shaping a blade that was black, absolute, silent.
It was not large.It was not grand.
It was precise.
The god tried to invoke his Throne.
It did not answer.
For the first time, the colossus understood.
He was not losing strength.
He was losing time.
Lusian moved.
One step.One cut.
He did not aim for the heart.He did not aim for the throat.
He aimed at the exact point where Strength became dependence.
The blade passed through.
There was no explosion.No scream.
The God of Strength stood still.
He looked down at his chest, where the black blade emerged—without blood, without light, without resistance. The wound did not drain power.
It interrupted it.
"I…" he tried to say.
He had never needed to finish a sentence like that.
Darkness spread within him—not as corruption, but as silence. Strength, without anchorage, without friction, without conflict to overcome, dispersed.
The colossus fell to his knees.
The liquid gold of his aura faded.
His Throne fractured in the heavens like a nameless statue.
When his body fell, it did so with weight.
With the weight of something that was no longer eternal.
Lusian withdrew the blade.
It dissolved into nothing.
Silence returned.
The gods did not speak.
Because they had just witnessed something impossible:
A god had not been defeated by a greater power.
He had been surpassed by someone who knew how to die—
and did not.
The Chosen do not flee.
That is the first sign that something has broken forever.
To flee implies believing there is somewhere safe.
And after what they had just seen, the concept of safety was gone.
The Twenty looked into the crater.They looked at the body of the God of Strength—now only nameless matter.They looked at Lusian.
And they understood.
They had not lost their guarantee of victory.
They had lost the very idea of a guarantee.
One of them—an ancient hero, blessed by three Thrones—let his weapon fall. The sound of metal striking stone rang out like a verdict.
Then he knelt.
Not out of faith.
Out of understanding.
One by one, the others followed.
It was not a military surrender.
It was an ontological acceptance.
"The Throne has decided," one whispered, not daring to raise his gaze.
Lusian did not answer.
He did not need to.
The darkness beneath them did not force them.
It simply made one thing clear:
If they rose without permission,the world would not hold them.
Submission was not demanded.
It was chosen.