Lucien stood tall on both of his feet looking down on Seryx. Every breath burned and hurt in every muscle in his body. The battlefield lay broken beneath him: everything was shattered to pieces, time‑rifts curling into the sky, gravity looping like a knot in reality. He thought he had won, but he also thought that it would be to easy for it to be over.
So as Lucien expected. Seryx rose again.
Lucien was suprised too see that no damage was visible on the body of Seryx. No crack in his form. Nothing.
Seryx breathed—and every shard of broken time around him shimmered back into place. A hundred blades hovered in mid‑air. The platform that Lucien and him both stood on pulsed. The ring at Lucien's chest glowed steady as a heartbeat.
Lucien looked with his x-ray vision through the mask into seryx's eyes—but there were no eyes left for Lucien to look in. He saw flames inside his obsidian mask. In a voice both cold and amused he said:"I never feared you not for your strength, Lucien. But I wanted to see your truth. Now that you almost made your choice, it will be my turn to unlock your true potential."
He flexed. Time warped. The air doubled.
Stage One activated: Awareness
With one single step Seryx released his power Time Reap. Shadows fell forward as if slashed from the future, cutting lines in the air that felt like promises of pain. Lucien raised flame and braced.
Karu's voice echoed in Lucien mind, almost like he was whispering in his ear, brought through the ring: "Breathe. Focus. We are here watching you."
From the boundary line Rylen raised both of his hands with blades in each hand. Jason's kinetic fists hummed at the ready. Others flared shapes of energy—forms flickering in time. All silent, all watching.
Seryx spoke: "Expand yourself Lucien. Unlock your true potential. Fight well."
Stage Two arrived: Full Speed
With a small tilt of his head Seryx vanished into the air. Lucien thought he had gone invisible—but then he sensed resonance. In his mind a dozen echoes of Seryx flicked into being: Echo Blink. Alternate versions of himself stepped out of possibility: bright versions, bright dark versions, young and old versions. Each struck with a deadly force.
Lucien staggered as each blow that he took carried delayed pain. One hit he felt immediately, then throbs of agony rippled through his body like shockwaves.
Then Lucien closed his eyes, inhaled and exhaled.
His palms sparked Purgeflame Pulse. White‑blue flame carved arcs through the void carpet.
But each strike with Purgeflame Pulse met with the Mirror Echo of Seryx: The energy turned back faster, sharper, colder. He gasped for air, he now knew what a Purgeflame Pulse felt like. Sweat and flame leaking into the time‑fractures.
Seryx laughed in joy. That layered voice—jeer, sigh, flame.
Seryx went into Stage Three: Blood and BoneSeryx did turn invisible now. The next moment he stood a few inches from Lucien's right side. A pale fist punched into Lucien's ribs. He felt nothing at the moment Seryx made contact—but then raw pain bloomed: Blood Sync. Seryx pulled the lifeforce thread in Lucien's veins.
Lucien clutched his ribs, breath spitting in his throat. He forced himself to stand up, burning with venom energy, but the pain hit again from the initial strike. Blood came out of his mouth. Lucien tried to use Purgeflame to deactivate Blood Sync but because it wasn't poison venom erasure didn´t work.
Seryx smirked, still invisible. Laughing in the shadows. But each second his blades flickered—Fractal Cataclysm Edges drifting across the cracks of the arena. Around twenty sharp time‑rift blades lanced at Lucien's legs, at his arms, at his chest and at his head.
It been thirty minutes since Lucien had been in here. So Lucien spun into a Cosmic Punch load — hell‑fire swirling around his fist—tens of breaths to charge.
Meanwhile from the boundary Rylen gasped and leaned forward: "He's gone all in, his final punch." Karu squared his shoulders: "Lucien, use everything you got and kill it."
Stage Four: Identity Clash
Lucien erupted the Cosmic Hell Form. He used the power that he got from the King of hell. Lucien transformed temporarily. Lucien his skin flashed obsidian lines; six crimson horns appeared, then vanished. He was faster then ever. His eyes burned with determination. Reality seemed to shatter inward.
Seryx reappeared across the arena, stepping out of a fractal mirror. He watched Lucien with cold approval. "Good. Now come undone."
Lucien charged. With every footstep he used:
X‑ray lasers from his eyes cut through mirror‑blades
Telekinesis hurled pillars of broken floor
Invisibility to dodge Phase Wrath—each unseen strike arriving emotional and physical
Then he used his Cosmic Punch. He struck Seryx at his core.
All while the Temporal Mirror Haven. The barrier that stopped every strike Lucien threw and moved each attack to a different timeline so the attack never actually happened in the first place. But the Cosmic Punch landed.
But then, after the Cosmic Punch it looked like nothing had happened to Seryx. The Seryx froze Lucien his entire motivation with Causality Lock. The power that locks someone motivation. No anger. No hope. No fear. Lucien's hope dimmed. He felt numb. Emotions dulled.
But Lucien reached deeper: to human impulse, to burning resolve.
Stage Five: Defiance
With one shattering cry, Lucien activated Total Venom Erasure at a supernova scale. A shell of white‑blue flame uncoiled outward. Total Venom Erasure no longer simply removed venom, but also removed any disease, poison, or magic that entered Lucien's body that didn't belong there. From then on, if a threat entered Lucien's body, it was immediately removed.
Then his second Purgeflame layer—the Venom Resistance—activated in his own veins. Residual hurt crystalized and turned to energy that bolstered his spirit even more.
Seryx slammed into the wave. He staggered. For a half‑beat he paused.
Lucien soared overhead, launching Soulfire Pulse—an orb of blinding white flame infused with human choice.
It struck Seryx mid‑riff. Reality bent. Time fractured into shards. For a heartbeat, human light spilled from the obsidian shell. But regeneration and mirror aren't weak. The orb cracked the shell; lines of light flared; then the wounds closed as if memory erased them.
Still—Lucien stood firm.
Seryx's blades thundered around them—Fractal Cataclysm Edges looped in fractal motion. Narrative Decapitation flickered as Seryx attempted to erase Lucien's intent.
Seryx's voice layered like dying worlds:"You were supposed to shatter. I need your death to prove my rise."
Lucien wiped blood from his lip. Eyes burning, he said:
"I'm more than the fire you broke me with—I am the flame that refuses to be snuffed out."
Stage Six: Breaking the Mirror
Seryx snapped his blades into a Multiverse Cutter motion. He used his Fractal Cataclysm Edges:
Starting from his back and shoulder crests, a network of exactly one hundred fractal karamp slots appears. Each slot instantly converts into a chain of thousands of extremely thin "multiverse blades"—each blade so sharp it can cleave the bond between two parallel timestreams. It was also so small that you could barely see the blades with your naked eye.
Time Rifts: Upon contact, each blade creates a micro-black hole in causal continuity, trapping the penetrating skin xenocide-style (while simultaneously exerting energy against Lucien).
Pivots of Potential: Each sliced destiny segment traces a different possible future for Lucien; the force of the slaughter explosion is proportional to the number of timelines ruptured—up to fifty explosions per second.
Unique Mechanic: Instead of using pure speed, this is magic created against multiverse bending; attacks are sinusoidally fractured into fragments of pure chaos.
Lucien activated Phase invulnerability—Seryx didn´t know that Lucien had invulnerability. So the different futures that the blades saw and that were connected to Seryx mind didn't see this coming and because of that all the blades went through Lucien as if nothing had happened. Then he pulled his energy inward, igniting a second Soulfire Pulse right before Seryx's face.
The orb burst. This time the light didn't crack— it shattered the mirror inside Seryx. Reflection after reflection glinted shards of Lucien's face—fear, grief, defiance.
Seryx reeled. His mask cracked open.
Lucien whispered into Seryx is ear:
"I am not your shadow. I am the fire you could never extinguish."
Time seemed to pause. The arena sputtered. Gravity halted. Blade shards froze mid‑slice.
Stage Seven: Collapse
Seryx stumbled back—his mask got cracked for the first time—but the healing came fast. His wounds sealed. The mirror shards turned dark. Every damage that should be real vanished instantly: Insane Regeneration.
But now each healed fragment carries human light.
Seryx lifted his left hand. Energy flexed through him. Flames. Ghost‑blades. A dark halo formed around him.
He spoke softly:"I have unlocked you, Lucien. Now show me how far you'll go to defend the people you love."
With that his blades redoubled, his time‑powers refracted, and his light speed. He used Time Reap slices again, Echo Blink and Causality Lock at the same time.
Lucien was got off-guard. He couldn´t react in time.
—
From the boundary line:
Karu clenched an arm across his chest, blood sounding. "He's tanking every attack—but I'm not sure how long he can endure all this."
Rylen whispered to Emiluna: "Everything he has… but this is endless."
Jason's kinetic airwaves rippled: "Hold on Lucien. I will break through this and help you!"
But all silent—no cheering. Only strain.
—
Stage Eight (Final): Lucien's Last Stand
After all those attacks Lucien inhaled deep. The ring at his chest pulsed like a dying beat. He used his Regeneration twice. His invisibility used once more. He tried to dodge some of Seryx's attacks: a phase-wrath slash, a mirror-like edge that cut the space behind, a time-rift spear at his side. Lucien took a deep breath.
He closed the distance in an instant. Mercy or ruin didn't matter now.
He stretched his arms out and leaned into one final radiance.
A disc form of Soulfire Pulse, the biggest as of yet—charged from his whole life, pain and hope and most of all his human will. It exploded in his face, consuming everything in front.
The whole arena shook. Time stuttered. Gravity reversed. Blades bent. The orb crumpled Seryx's mask into atoms of midnight light.
Seryx collapsed backward—then vanished out of sight. But this time he was not healed. He simply disappeared as if unmade across time.
Lucien staggered forward. Almost falling on his face, eyes going dark. The world blurred. The ring died. The broken floor benath him hissed.
He reached out with shaking hands. His voice was a trembling roar:
"Go. Leave this broken trial behind. Let me fulfill my path…"
And then—his strength gave out.
He slowly dropped to one knee in the center of the quiet battlefield. His white hair was completely red because of his blood. His energy faded. His knees hit the ground with a soft thud.
The arena was dead silent except for his ragged breath. Trying to stay alive and conscious. Time pulled back. One column spun upright. A stray blade fell to dust in the air.
Above him, unseen watchers held their breath.
His ring pulsed faintly as a memory heartbeat.
Lucien bowed his head, chest heaving.
He knelt—not broken. Exhausted. And defiant.