Minute 7:00 to 4:30.
With both of them screaming, Lucien exploded forward first. He loaded up his cosmic punch trailing like comets. Seryx vanished in a ripple, only to rematerialize where Lucien's chest had been seconds before. A rending strike of thousands of echo-blades carved a canyon through the vaporized stone behind him. Lucien dodged them all by teleporting to the other side of the arena, gravity itself warping around him as he summoned Higher-Dimensional Manipulation to fold space beneath his feet. He erupted upward, leaping over a storm of phantom swords tha he summoned.
Seryx intercepted Lucien mid-air, phasing into Lucien's side with Irrelevant speed. He summoned millions of mini stars that hit through Lucien's ribs, shredding everything in an instant. But it didn´t do much. It looked like Lucien didn´t even get hit.
"You're fast," Lucien growled, voice layered with cosmic echo.
"Not fast enough."
He thrust both fists into Seryx's chest. Cosmic Punches detonating with the force of ten dying big bang storms. The people at the boundary line even felt the aftershock of what just happened. Seryx his wings of temporal distortion were folding inward. Lucien landed and drove a jagged shard of void-forged reality through Seryx's chestplate. For the first time there was a clear crack in the Crucible arena. It only meant one thing that Lucien slowly started to realize. He was evolving
As Seryx took a step back, Lucien felt a surge within: Evolution. A power born of his own forging, whispering in his bloodstream that he was no mere pawn of the Creator's design. Each strike, each wound, each surge of flame refined him further. His armor of vengeance shimmered—cells realigning for greater strength.
Seryx looked at Lucien in complete shock, dark flames sputtering, his shields of Probability Manipulation flickering under the onslaught. Then Seryx did the impossible. Its eyes were like fractured galaxies, and wove Nexus of All Realities Manipulation. From the sky, echo-echo versions of Seryx lunged: Infinite fractured selves, each brandishing rippling blades of temporal hatred.
Without a single thought Lucien casted his Total Venom Erasure—an anti-temporal bubble that dissolved each phantom before it could strike. He slid through the ghostly remnants and leapt directly at Seryx's throat, channeling newly awakened Evolution into his arm. Seryx's eyes widened as the proper reality-shard impaled him, flesh ripping with the thunder of collapsing universes.
Beyond the Crucible, in a place where nothing exists, exept for one single creature. The Creator of Gods watched the fight continue. Her form was an elegant, fluid silhouette that never looked quite human. Her body was fluid and seems composed. She always appears in a slighty feminine form. She is the mother of existence itself. She is the creator of everything.
"This is remarkable," she whispered to the void. "Not even the previous God of Vengeance could transcend so purely. The previous God of Vengeance couldn´t surpass me but Lucien. He is different."
The cosmic winds carried her awe back to the battle below, an imperceptible tremor in the multiverse.
Back in the Crucible arena, Seryx convulsed as his armor reknit, quicker than ever—but Lucien's Evolution blazed brighter. He sensed every mote of cosmic energy around him. Lucien knew each possibility that could happen and bent them to his will.
Lucien slammed the arena floor with a hurricane of force. Fractal Cataclysm Edges tore open above: time-rift blades phased into existence, each edge promising oblivion. He commanded them with Dual Warping precision: every blade followed a distinct timeline path, converging on Seryx from impossible angles.
Seryx countered with Temporal Mirror Haven and Causality Lock. Seryx knew he needed two layers of defense to counter this attack. It meant to freeze Lucien's intent and reflect reality-warps at him. Freezing Lucien his intent didn´t work. No manipulation could trick Lucien anymore and the Same goes for Seryx. The blades clashed with mirrored spheres, shattering in showers of prismatic light. Still, dozens of small blades slipped right through the defence, carving jagged gashes into Seryx's obsidian hide.
Seryx did have invulnerability. But still he felt pain flickering through his layered shields of immortality and invulnerability. That's because Lucien's attacks now target all possible souls in all possible timelines and universes. Thus, it continues to affect this timeline's immortality and invulnerability. Seryx unleashed Reality Warp Nullification—a pulse meant to purge Lucien's enhancements. But Evolution resisted: Lucien's form flared indestructible, a nexus of transcendent force. He surged forward, fist ignited in cosmic energy.
The resulting Cosmic Punch went through infinite amount of layered immortality. Now Now Seryx no longer has a hundred layered immortality but only ninety-nine. Shockwaves tore through rifts in the Crucible's floor, and for an instant, both combatants hovered in a void of dust and flame. Lucien's eyes burned with white-hot conviction; Seryx's, darkly amused.
"Impressive, your evolving on the spot and getting stonger each second. Even i the reflection of you can´t do that which means this power is only yours" Seryx rasped, summoning Invisibility and phasing away.
"Your getting predictable Seryx," Lucien answered, tapping Probability Manipulation of his own—he bent chance of Seryx's htting him and the next blink misaligned, materializing him directly into Lucien's brace.
He caught the echo by the jaw and spun him like a hammer, sending him skidding through shattered stone. Lucien teleported alongside, delivering a phase-wrath strike: once physical, once emotional, each blow resonating across infinite timelines. Seryx snarled as his existential shield flickered.
At exactly six minutes remaining on Lucien's ring, he knelt,planting a fist in the fractured arena. Seryx got confused but then he saw it. With Higher-Dimensional Manipulation he ripped open the boundary between planes—summoning a torrent of nothingness and void. Then, Evolution burst anew: his flesh reformed into a glowing tapestry of violet and silver, each muscle fiber humming with self-forged power.
Seryx lunged, desperate trying to stop Lucien, wielding Nigh-omnipotent Energy Manipulation and Time Reap's Echo Blink in tandem. He phased and got to Lucien in an instant, attempting a two-strike kill: one cut to the body in infinite possibilities and one to the soul. But Seryx forgot one thing. Lucien had given up his humanity. Lucien still only had six minutes, but for those six minutes, Lucien made a deal with the Creator of Gods to completely abandon his humanity from minute six to minute zero. This meant that Lucien, with the power of the God of Vengeance and his evolutionary power, was all-powerful. He dictated what happened. Lucien's Evolution had already rewritten the code of his being—he absorbed the hits, converting them into raw Purgeflame energy.
He ascended above Seryx in a pillar of cosmic flame, launching a volley of 1.000.000 empirical blades. It was a bigger version of his 100,000 earlier, but sharper faster and stronger, each forged in the crucible of his own evolution. The sky above the arena cracked open, raining shards of vengeance.
Seryx's layered shields—Antangenheit-Reflection, Temporal Mirror Haven, Probability Phalanx—flickered under the deluge. Seryx got desperate. His silhouette fractured into a infinite possible outcomes, each screaming as it was extinguished. Finally, his armor cracked. For the first time Lucien saw Seryx his face. He saw himself under the armor.Then the armor reknit itself.
Lucien descended like an omnipotent being. His divine wings unfurled—Pinnacle Condition realized. He delivered five-hundred consecutive no-windup Cosmic Punches. Each blow felt like ten supernovae colliding, each shattering a piece of Seryx's immortality. Seryx now had only fifty infinite immortalities left.
The echoes of instant regeneration sputtered, unable to keep pace with Evolution's relentless cycle. Sparks of dark flame sputtered into oblivion as flesh reknit too slowly. For the first time, Lucien sensed true vulnerability in his opponent. He felt that Seryx was scared for the first time.
Seryx screamed in anger, gathering every last breath of Nexus Manipulation. He tore the arena floor beneath them open to reveal infinite mirrored arenas below—an attempt to scatter Lucien's focus. Yet Lucien's Evolution transcended such petty tricks. He blinked out of the ruptured reality. He went through infinite universes and he emerged behind Seryx with Palindrome Echo Beacon resonating through his aura.
He struck Seryx's neck, severing the echo's temporal flow. Blood-red time-liquid sprayed into the void. Seryx slumped, but his regeneration surged anew—resurrection coded into his essence. Yet Lucien pressed on, harnessing Meta-control: he ripped Seryx's intent from him, leaving only the husk of vengeance without purpose.
Lucien choked, wings of paradox folding. He clawed at the air, summoning every infraction of reality he possessed—Omni-Element blasts, Reality Dreaming phantoms, Causality Excision storms. All battered against Lucien's evolutionary shield.
Seryx has one move left so he gathered his one final gambit: Principle Manipulation coupled with Destructo-Creative Warping. Reality buckled under his command, attempting to rewrite reality and Lucien's form into nothingness. The arena convulsed, time itself fracturing. The Crucible arena got destroyed. The same Crucible arena that had the power to overcome Nigh-omnipotent power crumbled because of this final gambit. Lucien rewrote the Crucible arena back to existence. He even made it stronger so it could no longer break
Lucien stood firm. Vengeance pulsed through his veins like a beating heart. He gripped Seryx's gauntleted hand and channeled Absolute Force Manipulation into a single strike: Nigh-Omniversal Impact. The collision rent time into ribbons. A soundless roar reverberated through every plane.
Seryx's silhouette distorted, stretching across past,present and future, before snapping back into nothingness. Then, with an unearthly shriek, he collapsed to his knees at Lucien's feet—dark flames dimming.
Five minutes remained on Lucien his ring. Lucien stood over Seryx, ring pulsing with five glowing segments. Seryx looked up and saw Lucien standing there, his eyes bathed in a purple aura. He was surrounded by Lucien's purple aura. Lucien his Evolution had surpassed even divine design—he was a Pinnacle Being of cosmic vengeance and transcendent gods themselfs. Seryx's armor lay in shards, his aura flickering like dying stars.
Lucien exhaled, cosmic wings folding. Purgeflame settled like embers around him. In that moment, the arena seemed to bow before his triumph: a mortal soul forged through evolution, standing taller than any god that ever existed. The Creator of Gods watched proud as Lucien stood taller then herself.
But the battle was far from over, but already the Crucible whispered his name: the Vessel who transcended vengeance itself.
Lucien's chest heaved, Purgeflame embers drifting around him like dying stars. Five minutes remained on the ring's timer—every heartbeat a cannon shot against the void. Seryx knelt before him, wings tattered, obsidian armor in jagged shards at his feet. Yet even in ruin, the echo's aura flickered with defiance.
Lucien summoned every vestige of Evolution into a single fulcrum of cosmic power. Even people on earth itself quivered at his command.They people on earth felt something shifting. Time slowed, space bent, and the very concept of possibility warped in anticipation. Seryx's eyes widened, sensing the precipice of his defeat—but the echo refused to yield.
With a guttural roar, Seryx unleashed Probability Manipulation at its apex. Every potential strike Lucien could make to kill him was anticipated and nullified before it formed. His own strikes threatened to collapse back into nonexistence. The arena's air crackled as Lucien's fist materialized, then dematerialized, then rematerialized in a haunted loop of aborted intentions.
Lucien's teeth gritted. He didn´t forsee this. Which meant that Seryx was slowly evolving aswell wihtout himself realizing it.Evolution flared: he had transcended mere probability. His will burned brighter than any possible outcome. He channeled Absolute Wish through his mind's eye—defying paradox itself. In a single thought, Lucien rewrote the probabilities around him: every aborted strike became real again, every misfire became a direct hit to his target. The air exploded as he simultaneously landed twenty Cosmic Punches, each blow detonating like a miniature big bang against Seryx's. Lucien his evolution was still a lot stronger tha Seryx´s.
Seryx suffered in pain. Temporal flames sputtering in his throat. He staggered to his feet, summoning Nexus of All Realities Manipulation one last time. He tried to use the same trick over and over again. Lucien saw that coming. The fractured dome overhead tore open, revealing an endless expanse of shattered arenas—a kaleidoscope of battlefields reflecting every moment of their clash.
From each reflection, a shard of possibility—colossal razor-edged monoliths—rained down. They sliced through the Crucible's walls, carving new chasms of broken stone. Lucien stood in their path, Evolution shielding him: each monolith clanged harmlessly against his aura, disintegrating into motes of pure vengeance energy.
He raised both arms, drawing the motes into his palms. With a thought, they combined into a single spear of immanence—an embodiment of his defiance and his mercy entwined. He threw it at Seryx. He tried to predict the spear its route. This time, Lucien used a different method. He threw it without any thought about its route or where it would land. He simply threw it. Seryx, in his future vision and all the infinite forms of probability manipulation, hadn't seen that. He can't predict something without thinking about it.The the spear tore through every posibility and through the echo's resurrected flesh, pinning him to the cracked floor like a cosmic banner.
Seryx howled in rage and agony, reality around him buckling with each breath. He unleashed Temporal Mirror Haven and Causality Excision Matrix, trying to sever Lucien's intent from the spear's trajectory. But the spear of immanence was born of Lucien's Evolution: it could not be denied, redirected, or reflected. It shattered the echo's layered shields and burst through his core, erupting in a supernova of purple flame.
For an instant, Seryx was reduced to a single point of light—then gone. Yet the echo's immortality flickered; a new form began to coalesce from the embers. Lucien's spear held fast, chaining every possible iteration of Seryx's revival into one locus of defeat. The echo's rebirth sputtered—and then collapsed in on itself.
Silence fell. The arena trembled beneath Lucien's feet. Only the faint crackle of his divine light broke the stillness. Seryx lay beneath the spear of immanence, entire multiverses felt the spear. Echoes bound in one final, unbreakable chain. His wings fluttered, faded, then stilled.
Lucien knelt down and withdrew the spear. As he did, he felt the residual pulse of Evolution rippling through him: it was a reminder that his power would only continue to grow as the battle pressed on. Every wound he took, every strike he delivered, infused him with renewed purpose and newfound strength.
He rose, cosmic wings unfurling in a blaze of silver-white light. The ring's timer glowed—4:30 exactly—its segments pulsing once in acknowledgment of the victor.
Lucien exhaled, his voice echoing across the shattered Crucible.
"This… is my evolution."
Behind him, the fractured arena walls reknit themselves—an unconscious display of his omniversal influence. Seryx's chained echoes lay stagnant, folded into the spear's fading glow. The echo's will, unvanquished only moments ago, was now silent beneath Lucien's indomitable emergence.
As the ring's timer ticked down toward 0:00 and there were only two minutes left, Lucien stood alone at the center of the arena. What just happened was a testament to mortal resolve remade into divine ascendance. The battle had shown that no power, no nigh-omnipotent manipulation, no echo of infinite possibility could stand against Evolution forged in the crucible of vengeance and tempered by humanity's unbreakable spark.
The Crucible awaited its final verdict, but already the echoes whispered his name: Vessel of Ascension, the one who surpassed gods and redefined vengeance itself.