[The Shattered Sky]
The world turned white as Yoru's Final Annihilation Beam streaked toward the crater. The onlookers shielded their eyes, certain that the "Perfect Being" was about to be erased from the records of history.
But at the final microsecond, Gudmaro's body twitched. His "Perfect" biology forcibly overrode the negative frequency lock. His eyes snapped open, glowing with a frantic violet light.
"Space Warp: Mirror Reflection!" Gudmaro roared.
The air in front of him bent into a diamond-hard lens. The massive beam struck the lens and bounced upward, screaming back toward the clouds. Gudmaro leaped out of the crater, hovering in the air with a manic grin. "Behold! My perfect perfection! Even your ultimate move is just fuel for my defense!"
Yoru looked up, her expression calm, almost bored. He thinks he reflected it... but he just gave me a better angle.
In a flicker of gold, she used Instant Teleportation to appear directly above him. Before he could react to her new position, she coated her fist in a thick, vibrating layer of negative energy.
"BE PERFECT IN HELL!"
She drove her fist into his jaw with enough force to shatter his remaining "perfection." Gudmaro was sent hurtling back toward the arena floor like a fallen meteor.
Yoru didn't stop. She teleported again, landing gracefully in the center of the arena. She raised one hand toward the falling Gudmaro, charging a second beam. "Final Annihilation Beam!"
Gudmaro, falling through the air, gritted his teeth. I'll just reflect it again! She's desperate! But then he felt a heat coming from behind him. He looked up, and his heart nearly stopped. The first Annihilation Beam—the one he had reflected into the sky—was no longer flying away. It had performed a sharp, 180-degree turn and was screaming down toward his back.
"What?!" Gudmaro's voice cracked. "How?! You can't control the direction after it's fired!"
Yoru stood on the arena floor, her second hand extended and fingers twitching like she was pulling invisible puppet strings. "I didn't fire it and forget it, Gudmaro. My mana is Water. It flows where I tell it to flow."
Gudmaro was now trapped. A beam from below, a beam from above, and the Queen of Speed holding the strings.
"He used my technique... but it's a death sentence for him now!" Lapis shouted, his hands trembling as he watched the two beams converge. "Finish him, Yoru!"
"Shut up and watch," Cynthia snapped. Her eyes were fixed on Gudmaro's hands. She saw the desperation in his mana—the sign of a beast backed into a corner.
Gudmaro screamed, his throat raw. "I said I wasn't going to use this... but I have no choice! Total Absorption!" He threw his arms wide, his palms turning into black holes designed to swallow her energy and turn it into his own strength.
But Yoru's eyes flashed. With a flick of her fingers, the two beams curved at 90-degree angles, circling around him like hungry sharks instead of hitting his palms.
"You are not going to use that on me," Yoru said, her voice colder than the vacuum of space.
Gudmaro growled, preparing to warp away from the pincer. But before he could even trigger the spatial fold, Yoru performed a blind, back-side kick.
CRACK!
The space "bruised" and rippled just as Gudmaro's face appeared exactly where her heel was waiting. He had teleported directly into her attack.
"How... how does she know where he's going to be?!" Techyon gasped, his mind struggling to process the prediction.
Cynthia didn't turn her head. "I already told you," she said, her voice filled with a rare, fierce pride. "She is the Super Warrior. She isn't reading his body; she's reading the rhythm of the universe itself."
Yoru clapped her hands together, the sound echoing like a grenade. She thrust her arms toward the sky. "Now!"
The two circling Annihilation Beams slammed into Gudmaro from opposite sides. The explosion was blinding. Gudmaro emerged from the fire, his skin charred black, his "Perfect" armor melted into his flesh. He was tanking it through pure, stubborn malice—but he was broken.
He looked up, and his remaining eye widened. Above him, Yoru was descending like a falling star, a Giant Pillar of fused yellow and blue lightning manifesting from her palms. It wasn't just a beam anymore; it had the physical weight of a mountain.
"Finisher Blade!"
Yoru gripped the massive hilt of energy and slammed it down with everything she had, driving the point directly into the center of Gudmaro's head.
"You are finished."
The Finisher Blade descended like the sword of a titan, but just as it made contact with Gudmaro's skull, the expected explosion didn't happen. Instead, there was a sickening slurp—the sound of a vacuum eating a star.
"No! Yoru, get back! It's a trap!" Cynthia screamed, her voice cracking the mountain air.
Gudmaro looked up, his charred hands gripped tightly around the energy blade. "I adapted," he hissed, his voice sounding like two stones grinding together. "Negative energy, positive energy... it's all just mana in the end. And I am a hungry god."
The massive pillar of lightning began to flicker and dim. In a horrifying display of gluttony, Gudmaro inhaled the mana directly from the blade. The giant weapon didn't break—it vaporized into thin air, its essence flowing into the violet veins of the God's arms.
Yoru, who hadn't broken a sweat through the entire MFTL+ duel, suddenly gasped. Her golden aura vanished instantly. She fell to her knees, her lungs burning as if she were breathing glass. Her mana level was plummeting so fast the System's warning sounds were becoming a single, flat tone.
"Now..." Gudmaro stood over her, his body swelling with her stolen power. "You are finished."
He raised a fist to end her, but the air behind him didn't just heat up—it became a plasma-core.
"Not her," a voice boomed, vibrating through the very marrow of Techyon's bones. "It's you who is going to die."
Cynthia stepped forward, her obsidian-black eyes now turning into swirling white suns. She didn't just manifest a weapon; she birthed a Fusion Flare—a massive spear of white-hot flame that made the previous Annihilation Beams look like candles.
The ground for ten miles in every direction turned into liquid lava instantly.