The War-Sovereign did not descend with a flourish. He stepped off his balcony and simply dropped.
BOOM.
The black basalt of the Arena shattered under his weight, sending spider-web cracks for miles. He stood seven feet tall, his skin not just scarred iron, but [Living Star-Steel] that pulsed with a deep, rhythmic orange glow.
"I am Lord Bastion," the Sovereign rumbled, his voice vibrating the teeth of everyone in the stands. "I have held this Arena for eight thousand years. I have eaten the hearts of ten thousand 'Prodigies.' Tell me, little ghost—does your 'Nothingness' have a taste?"
Shen Yuan stood ten paces away. His body was lean, his skin the color of a moonless night. He didn't take a stance. He just let his arms hang at his sides.
"It tastes like the end of your era, Bastion," Shen Yuan said.
"[Sovereignty of the First Law: Absolute Density]"
Shen Yuan didn't use Qi, but his mass suddenly increased by a factor of ten thousand. The air around him shrieked as it was sucked into the gravitational well of his body.
Bastion grinned, a terrifying sight of iron teeth. He lunged.
THWACK.
The first punch was faster than sound. Bastion's fist, the size of a man's head, slammed into Shen Yuan's chest. The shockwave blew the blood-mist from the previous thousand kills right out of the Arena, clearing the air in an instant.
Shen Yuan didn't move. His ribs didn't crack. The "Nothingness" inside his cells absorbed the kinetic energy, compressed it, and stored it.
"My turn," Shen Yuan whispered.
He delivered a simple straight punch. No technique. Just the released energy of Bastion's own strike, combined with his new density.
CRACK-BOOM.
Bastion's iron forearm shattered. Shards of star-steel flew into the stands like shrapnel. The War-Sovereign staggered back, his orange glow flickering.
"Impossible!" Bastion roared, his broken arm knitting back together with a screech of metal on metal. "[War-God's Art: The World-Crushing Hammer]!"
Bastion's entire body turned into a blur of orange heat. He unleashed a barrage of thousands of punches per second. Each strike was enough to level a city. The Arena floor turned into lava beneath their feet.
Shen Yuan stood in the center of the storm. He wasn't dodging. He was drinking.
[Void-Vessel Absorption: 40%... 70%... 95%...]
"Is that all?" Shen Yuan's voice came from inside the fire. "Is this the 'War' you've spent eight thousand years perfecting? It's... shallow."
Shen Yuan reached out through the storm of fists and grabbed Bastion's throat. The heat of the Sovereign's skin burned Shen Yuan's hand, but he didn't let go.
"You rely on 'Force'," Shen Yuan said, his eyes turning into twin singularities. "I am the 'End of Force'."
"[Void-Art: The Total Collapse]"
Shen Yuan didn't hit him. He imploded the space inside Bastion's body. The orange glow of the War-Sovereign turned purple, then black. The iron plates of his skin began to fold inward.
"Wait!" a voice screamed from the balcony.
The Silent Blade, the Second General, leaped down, his grey cloak fluttering. He didn't attack Shen Yuan. He threw a silver token between them.
"Sovereign! Stop! If you kill him, the Fifth Heaven's 'Heart' will detonate! He has linked his life-force to the Arena's foundation!"
Shen Yuan looked at the Silent Blade, then back at the collapsing Bastion. "Then the Arena shall fall with him."
CRUNCH.
Bastion's body vanished into a marble-sized sphere of ultra-compressed iron.
RUMBLE.
The entire Fifth Heaven began to shake. The red sun in the sky began to flicker. The "Weight-Law" that governed the realm started to fluctuate wildly.
"Master!" Iron-Eye and Frost-Weaver landed beside Shen Yuan as the Obsidian Palace descended to pick them up. "The realm is destabilizing! We have to go!"
Shen Yuan looked at the Silent Blade, who was now kneeling in the rubble.
"You," Shen Yuan said, pointing at the General. "You were the one who taught the Sun-Emperor how to forge Star-Steel. Why are you here?"
The Silent Blade pulled back his hood. He wasn't a man. He was an Automaton—a living machine with a soul-gem in his forehead.
"I was sent here to wait for you, Master," the Blade said, his voice flat. "The Sun-Emperor didn't send me to kill you. He sent me to give you a message."
The Blade's chest opened, revealing a holographic scroll. It showed the Sixth Heaven: The Heaven of Mirrors.
"The Empress Ling Xian is not in the Jade Heavens anymore," the hologram spoke with the Sun-Emperor's dying voice. "She has moved to the Mirror-Realm. She is merging with your 'Past Self,' Shen Yuan. If she succeeds, she won't just be an Empress... she will become you. She will rewrite history so that you never existed."
Shen Yuan's hand tightened into a fist, crushing the iron marble of the War-Sovereign into dust.
"She wants to steal my past?" Shen Yuan looked up at the crumbling red sky. "Then I will go to the Mirror-Realm and show her that the future is already written in black."
"General," Shen Yuan looked at the Silent Blade. "You're coming with us. I need someone who knows how to break a mirror."