Scar couldn't have been more right.
"You are a bothersome fool… you mock your own fate as if it were a trivial joke. How amusing. Because today, your fate is mine to shape… and I will crush it. I will tear it apart before your eyes until despair is the only truth you know. The very power you think you control… will be your doom."
The words were menacing and colder than they sounded. The darkness in her eyes when she spoke and the cheerful smile she immediately retreated to made it worse.
Scar was shaken.
The warning signs had been there. First, his uncle Arthur Rover had sent that strange message. Then, before the ordeal even began, Emma and Mingle approached him with an unusual request: control his emotions.
But now it has been shattered.
He was trapped in a duel with a girl. Her skin was silky, fluffy, and smooth, her blonde hair was pulled in a high ponytail. Bright yellow lightning bolts crackled all around her, wrapping around her arms, shoulders, and head.
She was smiling with a slightly mischievous, excited expression, like she was thrilled by the power she was unleashing.
"There's no need to panic. I'm merely an Executor. My Inheritance doesn't manipulate lightning itself, it creates opposing energies. When united… then boom, the outcome speaks for itself."
The corner of Scar's lip rose slightly.
He tried to forfeit. He didn't need to win, that had never been the objective. With Mingle refereeing, ending this should have been straightforward. But of course not…
The words stuck in his throat, held back by warring doubts. He felt his predecessors' fury and terror clashing inside him. Some were screaming for him to run, to escape while he could. Others hated her lightning-wielding so intensely that they wanted her eliminated. And to make matters worse, she seemed to know Dain.
'…What should I do?'
Outwardly, he maintained an indifferent expression, a soft smile playing at his lips as though he were completely confident. Inwardly, he was dying.
After a pause, Mingle fixed him with a sharp, wary stare. Then he began the duel.
Scar swallowed the bile rising in his throat.
Split-second decision: he'd forfeit as planned. Purple and Julien were up in the stands, waiting for that exact moment.
But that idea immediately turned into terror.
He never got the words out. Lightning struck before he could speak, blasting him to his knees.
His body seized, making him rigid and paralyzed. Cold fire and burning ice flooded through him simultaneously. His brain shut down, unable to process. He felt like he was being roasted from within.
Julien and Purple rose instantly, fear tightening in their chests as Scar's safety became everything. Their dread intensified as Luccy kept up her brutal assault.
His skin darkened with each hit, burned and blackened, but he just stood there, unmoving.
Actually…
After the third bolt, sensation abandoned him entirely. His body was dead weight, paralyzed and unresponsive. Worse, the world was dissolving into a blur.
'Why… why? I thought the Ruler of Zeus enjoyed killing us personally. Is this how it ends for me?'
Thoughts tumbled through his fractured mind: his fate, what to do next, how to survive. Meanwhile, Luccy kept striking, humming cheerfully as she attacked.
His emotions were clamped down, suppressed so completely it felt like his heart was in chains. Without them, his intimidating aura was useless. His muscles hung limp, joints blackened as if smoked from within.
The fact that he could still think at all was a miracle. But speaking? Forfeiting? He doubted the enforcement technique would let him manage even that.
'I can't die now… not like this.'
In the next moment, something dawned on him. Something hopeful.
The red moon's Blessing was everywhere. Where he knelt, where Luccy currently stood, and even within him.
'I can't see, yet if I control the Blessing around me, sensing her attacks shouldn't be impossible. Just enough to avoid them… until I can speak and surrender.'
It was easier said than done, but what choice did he have? His options had narrowed to almost nothing. He had to make this work.
He cleared his mind completely. Despite the chaos, despite Luccy's attacks, his awareness sharpened so much he could hear her stomach growling. Then it happened.
The moment Luccy launched her next attack, everything moved at once. He enforced his body with the Blessing, threw himself to his feet, yanked his sword free, and brought it up just in time to parry the lightning bolt.
The second he parried, he stumbled backward, lungs burning as he gasped for air. His body was a mess… smoking, bruised and every muscle shrieking. What was left of his uniform hung in shreds.
Luccy appeared awed for a second.
"Whoa… didn't see that coming. My lightning may be slower than the real thing, but it paralyzes enemies. You must be using the Enforcement technique, yet… wow, this is really impressive."
His eyes shifted toward the sound of her voice. His vision was too damaged to see her, but her presence registered clearly enough. It wasn't anything impressive, just muscle memory from his uncle's training. And probably a one-time thing at that.
Once a body began absorbing the Blessing, it never stopped, though the process became subtle and continuous. And a body near death absorbed far more readily than a healthy one.
Scar's body was on the verge of collapse, calling to the Blessing with desperate hunger. This made it easier to expand the pool around him while monitoring any atmospheric shifts.
With the Blessing everywhere and his body drawing it in constantly, he extended his senses to feel disturbances even at a distance.
'I couldn't have managed that without my sword. No normal blade should be able to deflect lightning. There's definitely something unusual about it.'
He snorted.
His condition didn't matter, he had to use his Inheritance. The duel's formality demanded it. Holding back would be seen as forfeiting his right to exist, and the Supreme Council wouldn't hesitate to act on that.
When flames engulfed his sword, Luccy spoke.
Her voice returned to that daunting, terrifying tone that seemed to command reality itself. It forced Scar's attention to his own throat as he struggled to make his voice work, to say anything at all.
"You are a flaw. All flaws are removed. You cannot run from correction."
Her expression softened again.
"Sir. Dain instructed me to keep you entertained until he arrives to kill you himself. Though… that isn't my only task. I'm also meant to monitor your progress."
Hmph.
"You know… I'm starting to like you. So I'll give you a treat. Let me show you what Synapse Lock can really do."