The name hung in the air between them, heavy with history, a ghost resurrected from an age of blood and glory.
Phantasm Slasher.
In the brutal ecosystem of the Abyss Battlefield, geniuses were the common currency of survival. Every cycle birthed monsters who rose like flames, only to be extinguished just as quickly. Among these, Tony and Mark stood apart, prodigies sharpened by the forge of a legendary dojo. Their rise had been meteoric yet insulated—their master's reputation loomed so large that rivals were forced to fight them only in sanctioned matches. No ambushes, no assassins in the night. Their path, while grueling, was guarded.
But Phantasm Slasher? He was a storm with no shelter. A wolf who clawed his way out of the gutters with nothing but bloodied knuckles and raw instinct. No dojo, no patrons, no ancient master whispering secrets of refinement. He learned by trial, by error, by pain. Where others had maps, he had only the wilderness, and still, he reached the summit.
He carved a streak of forty-two victories, a crimson ledger that cemented him among legends. His fighting style—an unpredictable, flowing dance of illusions and sudden death—earned him his moniker. Every fight became a spectacle. Every slash, a phantom that bewildered enemies before cutting them down. The crowd roared his name, corporations and clans sent emissaries with gilded promises, and his face appeared on every martial journal.
And then arrogance set in.
He spat on every offer. Dojos, guilds, families—he rejected them all. He declared that his strength was his only shield, his freedom the only chain worth bearing.
The most shocking refusal was aimed at Emperor Speed Star, one of the ten Supreme Experts whose names shaped the martial world. The Emperor offered him not only training but sanctuary, protection against the venomous politics that thrived in the Abyss. He even promised to pass down a legacy few ever glimpsed. And still, Phantasm Slasher laughed in his face.
"I will never chain myself to another's will," he declared. "I'd rather be broken and free than whole and owned."
The public devoured those words, chanting them as a creed of defiance. But in the shadows, where power whispered and plotted, the declaration was a death sentence.
He had humiliated the wrong people. The final insult was dealt to the heiress of the Adira family, one of the three Ancient Families whose roots coiled deep into every pillar of global power. Wealth, politics, technology, martial might—they possessed all of it, even influence within the Earth Federation itself.
To them, Phantasm Slasher was no genius, only an unclaimed asset. By refusing, he became an insect who dared sting a dragon.
And dragons did not forgive.
The Adira struck where he was most vulnerable. Threats, sabotage, rigged matches—he survived them all. So they sank lower. They struck his heart: his lover, the woman who had cheered his every victory since his earliest brawls in the alleys. The details were erased from records, but the outcome was carved into him.
Blinded by rage, Phantasm Slasher attacked one of their strongholds. It was an act so suicidal that even Supreme Experts would hesitate. He emerged broken, his lover left in a twilight state between life and death. His streak ended. His legend collapsed. And then, he vanished—swallowed by time, remembered only as a cautionary tale.
Now, ten years later, the ghost stood before Tony.
"Man," Tony said at last, his voice slicing through the heavy silence of the clearing. "You disappeared so completely that most think you're dead. So why? Why reveal yourself to me?"
Silent Shadow—the man once called Phantasm Slasher—let out a dry, rasping laugh. "Don't read too much into it, kid. If I'd known you were truly the Mad Demon, I'd never have stepped from the shadows. I was careless."
Tony shook his head, sharp gaze unyielding. "No. Carelessness is forgetting a step in your stealth. What you did was more than that. You chose to tell me your name. Why?"
For the first time, Silent Shadow stilled. The question dug beneath his armor. His eyes flickered with something—confusion, perhaps even vulnerability.
"…Call it pride," he muttered at last, his tone like poisoned ash. "A broken pride that refuses to die." He turned, his figure melting back toward the shadows.
But Tony's next words froze him where he stood.
"Is she still alive?"
The forest stopped breathing.
The cheerful chirps of birds cut off. The leaves no longer rustled. A suffocating killing intent exploded outward, swallowing the clearing in an icy tide.
Suzy gasped, her body convulsing with tremors she couldn't control. Maya's staff slipped from her trembling hands as her knees buckled. Their faces drained of all color. Behind them, villagers collapsed to the ground, clutching their chests, their eyes rolling with primal fear.
Silent Shadow's gaze was a blade honed by a decade of despair. His aura pressed down like a glacier, heavy and merciless. Unlike Tony's waves of killing intent, raw and overwhelming, Silent Shadow's had form. It crushed the will. It whispered hopelessness. It made death feel inevitable.
Even Tony's heart skipped. So strong… his killing intent has taken shape.
Silent Shadow's voice, when it came, was a shard of ice. "How… do you know of this?"
Tony's reply was calm, almost casual. "My master knows many things. He told me the story."
The tide receded, but the chill in Silent Shadow's eyes deepened, harder than tempered steel.
Tony stepped forward. His voice lost all its warmth, becoming a scalpel. "You're one of the few I respect. That's why I won't hold back. What happened to your lover… was your fault."
Silent Shadow snarled, fists clenched until his knuckles cracked. "Don't you dare! You're just a pampered brat! You know nothing!"
"You think the only difference between us is that I had a master? Idiot," Tony spat, eyes flashing with disgust. "Yes, my master helped me. But you had the same chance. Emperor Speed Star himself begged you to be his disciple. He promised training, resources, protection. He would have shielded you. If you'd accepted, even the Adira wouldn't have dared to touch her. That was your first mistake."
Silent Shadow trembled. Rage burned in his eyes, but he said nothing.
"Second," Tony pressed mercilessly, "you underestimated them. You knew they were circling, and yet you believed they had a bottom line. That they wouldn't sink low enough to use her against you. That arrogance was your second mistake."
Each word stabbed deeper.
"Third," Tony continued, voice like thunder, "when they hurt her, they broke you. You abandoned sense. You didn't search for cures. You didn't fight smart. You threw yourself at their headquarters like a beast. Even my master wouldn't dare something so reckless. You sacrificed everything for a moment of blind rage—and lost her anyway."
Tony shook his head, eyes filled with disappointment. "Your body wasn't ruined. Your future wasn't stolen. You destroyed yourself. You let guilt eat you alive until Phantasm Slasher became nothing but a ghost too ashamed to bear his name."
Silent Shadow's shoulders slumped. His head lowered. His voice was hollow, scraped raw. "Everything you said… is true. Regrets are the poison I drink every day. If I could turn back time, maybe… maybe everything would be different."
Tony laughed bitterly. "Pathetic. To hear the Phantasm Slasher whimper like this—pitiful. They didn't just break your body. They shattered your will."
He stepped closer, forcing the man to meet his gaze.
"Tell me something. If the man you were ten years ago—the monster who made the world hold its breath—stood before you now, what would he say?"
Silent Shadow's eyes widened. The question struck harder than any blade.
Tony didn't wait. "I'll tell you. He'd beat you bloody. He'd curse you. Because the real Phantasm Slasher wasn't a coward drowning in regret. He was a storm. He sought solutions, not excuses. The truth is this: you doubted yourself. That doubt killed your warrior's heart. And the man standing here isn't worth thirty percent of my strength to put down. So choose. Either drag the real Phantasm Slasher out of the grave, or crawl back into your hole and stop spitting on your own legend."
Inside Silent Shadow's mind, Tony's words detonated like bombs. Memories surged—the roar of the crowd, the glow of his lover's smile, the fire of his victories, the agony of betrayal. The voice of regret, which had haunted him for a decade, shrieked louder than ever.
And then Tony's ultimatum hammered it into silence.
Another voice rose in its place: the one he had ignored long ago. Emperor Speed Star's final words before his rejection—"Without a fearless heart, you can never be a true warrior. Without it, how will you ever make the world tremble beneath your feet?"
Silent Shadow staggered back. His spine, bent for ten years, straightened. He raised his head to the sky, inhaled deeply, then exhaled as though purging a decade of poison. His suffocating aura dissolved, replaced by something sharper, clearer, alive.
He opened his eyes. They were no longer dead and cold, but bright with focus. A faint smile touched his lips—the first genuine one in years.
"Kids these days," he said, voice steady, tinged with wry amusement, "have no respect for their elders."
Tony grinned, fierce and approving. "The man you were a minute ago didn't deserve my respect. But this man?" He inclined his head. "This man is worthy of the name Phantasm Slasher."