Cyrus' arm was buried clean through Owen's chest.
Not jagged.
Not messy.
Precise.
Blood slid down Cyrus' sleeve and dripped onto the shattered stone below.
For a second… nothing moved.
Seishi slipped from Owen's hand.
It never touched the ground.
It hovered.
Humming.
Low.
Unsettled.
Cyrus leaned closer, smiling faintly. "You see, Owen… grief makes people predictable. Rage makes them sloppy. And hope?" His eyes narrowed. "Hope makes them weak."
Owen's head tilted slightly.
No scream.
No gasp.
Just a quiet breath leaving his lips.
"…You talk too much."
Cyrus blinked.
Then—
His expression changed.
There was no warmth.
No pulse.
No resistance around his arm.
His eyes flicked downward.
His fist was through Owen's chest.
But—
There was no heart.
The flesh around his arm began to blur.
Distort.
Like ink dropped into water.
Cyrus' pupils shrank.
"…Spatial afterimage?"
The Owen in front of him smudged.
Collapsed inward.
Gone.
Behind him—
A voice.
Cold.
"You aimed for the center."
Cyrus twisted—
Too late.
Owen stood ten steps away.
Chest intact.
Eyes glowing faint violet beneath the darkness.
The wound Cyrus created?
On the floor.
A carved silhouette in stone shaped like a human torso.
Cyrus pulled his arm free from empty air.
For the first time—
His smile thinned.
"You just got faster."
Owen rolled his shoulder once.
"…I didn't."
The ground around Cyrus fractured.
Mana so dense and heavy began folding around Owen differently now.
Compressing.
Orbiting him like a collapsing star.
"You just weren't fast enough."
Seishi flew back into Owen's hand.
The blade's hum was different now.
It wasn't hungry.
It was aligned.
Cyrus exhaled slowly.
"…Interesting."
The underground chamber trembled again.
Above Zach froze mid-step.
White lightning crackled wildly around him.
"…"
Lucius' golden halo flickered.
He felt it too.
The shift.
The pressure.
Glauderia's playful expression faded entirely.
"…So he's okay."
Her eyes narrowed toward the crater.
"…what the hell is going on down there."
She smiled.
Proudly.
"interesting."
The wind pressure around her intensified.
"You're fighting something worth growing against."
Cyrus stretched his fingers.
Mana rippled from him like a storm front.
"You're still inexperienced."
The air thickened.
"You've only learned to cut space."
The shadows in the chamber began moving unnaturally.
"You haven't learned what lives inside mine."
Dark tendrils erupted from the walls—
Not mana constructs.
Not beasts.
Distorted fragments.
Failed experiments fused into shadow.
They lunged at Owen simultaneously.
Owen didn't move.
Seishi tilted slightly.
The shadows reached—
And passed through him.
Afterimages scattered across the chamber.
Five.
Ten.
Twenty Owens standing in different locations.
Cyrus' brows lifted slightly.
"…"
Owen's voice echoed from everywhere.
"You merged beasts with humans."
A shadow lunged again—
It split in half mid-air.
No swing was seen.
Just a thin black line across its center.
"You call that evolution."
The air distorted violently behind Cyrus—
Owen stepped out of nothingness itself.
Eyes fully glowing now.
Purple threaded with black.
"I call it derangement."
Cyrus pivoted instantly—
Their fists met.
BOOM.
The underground temple fully collapsed this time.
Stonehaven's streets above cracked open further.
Both figures shot upward through the debris as the structure gave out entirely.
They landed atop the broken remains of the guild hall.
Rain began to fall lightly.
Smoke rising.
Fires burning around the city.
Cyrus wiped blood from the corner of his mouth.
"…You're growing too fast."
Owen adjusted his grip on Finternis.
"No."
He stepped forward.
"I'm accepting it."
Mana pulsed.
Darkness and space bending slightly around his body.
"This is who I am."
Cyrus' eyes sharpened.
Then he smiled again.
"…Good."
The air around him shifted violently.
Veins of foreign energy pulsed under his skin.
"You'll make a fine corpse."
Both vanished simultaneously.
The sky split with shockwaves.
Black slashes and distorted space tearing through clouds.
White lightning from afar flickered in response.
Golden radiance clashed with crimson mana at the city's edge.
Stonehaven trembled under four separate battles at once.
And in the center—
Two silhouettes blurred faster than sight.
Mid-air—
Cyrus grabbed Owen's wrist.
Owen twisted and headbutted him.
Cyrus retaliated with a knee to the ribs.
They separated.
Owen's coat torn.
Cyrus' cheek bleeding.
Both breathing heavier now.
Cyrus raised his hand slowly.
The air around Owen locked.
Compressed.
Gravity inverted.
Spatial pressure pinned him mid-air.
"…Let's see," Cyrus murmured, "if you can cut something that transcends the very concept of strength."
A sphere of condensed void formed above Owen.
Not dark.
Not light.
Absence.
Unstable.
Stonehaven's remaining windows shattered from pressure alone.
Owen looked up at it.
Then back at Cyrus.
And smiled faintly.
Seishi began glowing.
Not black.
Not purple.
A thin silver line traced along its edge.
The rain stopped mid-fall around him.
Suspended.
Frozen.
Cyrus' eyes sharpened.
Owen inhaled slowly.
The void sphere descended.
Slow.
Unavoidable.
The air screamed as it compressed, reality folding inward like paper about to tear.
Cyrus watched calmly.
"No space to dodge," he murmured. "No direction to escape."
Owen stood.
Pinned.
Rain frozen around him.
City burning beneath him.
His ribs ached.
His lungs burned.
But his eyes—
Were steady.
Seishi vibrated in his grip.
Not violently.
Not hungrily.
In harmony.
The silver along its edge grew brighter.
Cyrus' pupils narrowed.
"…That blade."
Owen exhaled.
Acceptance.
"I wondered," he said quietly, "why the blade called itself Blade of the Fallen."
The sphere pressed closer. The ground below began collapsing inward.
"I thought it meant the dead."
His grip tightened.
"But it doesn't."
The rain suspended around him began shifting—
Condensing.
Turning crystalline.
Thin, translucent shards formed in the air.
Not ice.
Not exactly.
They weren't cold.
They were still.
Utterly still.
Cyrus' smile faded.
Owen's voice lowered.
"It means the fallen one."
The silver edge of Seishi flared.
Darkness coiled along the spine of the blade.
Space warped along its arc.
And between them—
A third presence.
Stillness.
The kind that exists before a blade falls.
Before judgment.
Before death.
"MANA ART..."
The void sphere descended fully.
"...ECLIPSED HORIZON."