The silver leaf touched ground.
Null vanished.
He reappeared inches from Marcus, black holes sparking around his hands like hungry stars. His fist cut through empty air where Marcus's head had been—the older boy had shifted just enough, his weight transferring with the practiced, effortless ease of a master.
"Finally," Null said, a grin spreading across his face. "Let's play."
Marcus's eyes tracked him with inhuman calm. "Interesting. You move fast."
The arena pulsed in response. Roots embedded in the floor twitched like waking serpents. Branches overhead swayed despite the absence of wind. The Great Tree itself was watching.
Marcus threw his first punch—a probing jab, testing range. Null teleported six inches to the left, the fist slicing through a fading afterimage. The second strike followed instantly, predicting the dodge. Null wasn't there either. He had blinked behind Marcus, a micro black hole blooming at his fingertip.
Marcus spun, forearm rising to intercept without even looking. Where their energies met, reality groaned. A shimmer rippled across Marcus's arm, coalescing into translucent armor.
Null teleported back, creating distance, his expression sharpening as he studied the change.
"Not fast enough," he said, then disappeared again.
This time he descended from above, gravity bending around his fall. Marcus glanced up and shifted aside, catching Null's ankle mid-air. His grip was iron, far heavier than it should have been. He was anchored, as if the planet itself held him steady.
Null twisted, spatial distortion rippling down his caught leg. Marcus released him before the warping could spread. They separated, circling each other, and the arena reacted to their every step. Where Null teleported, the air shimmered like disturbed water. Where Marcus planted his feet, the roots thickened, reinforcing his stance. The Tree was learning them both.
"Better," Null murmured, excitement building in his tone.
He attacked in earnest. Teleport strikes from every angle—left, right, above, behind. Each appearance was a flicker, each strike precise. Marcus didn't chase the speed. He minimized movement, blocking only what mattered, letting near-misses slide past.
And with each exchange, he changed.
The armor solidified around his arms and shoulders, growing denser at impact points. His stance shifted wider when Null attacked low, tightened when the strikes came from above. His fists began to glow faintly—not with light, but with condensed force.
Null's grin widened. This was what he wanted.
He opened a black hole beside Marcus's head—not an attack, but a distraction. While Marcus adjusted to the sudden gravitational pull, Null teleported low, sweeping his legs out from under him. Marcus jumped, but Null had predicted it. A second black hole appeared above, tugging him off balance mid-air.
Marcus twisted his body unnaturally, redistributing weight against the conflicting gravities. He landed clean, already launching a counterpunch toward where Null would reappear.
The blow grazed Null's shoulder as he teleported away—first blood.
Null touched the scrape, studying the trace of red on his fingers. His smile turned sharp. The arena shuddered. Roots cracked under sudden pressure. Branches groaned overhead. The very air grew heavy as Null's spatial distortions expanded outward.
"Almost too slow," he said softly.
Then he stopped holding back.
The following exchange was too fast for the average person's eyes to follow.
Null became a storm of displacement. Not one position, but many, teleporting continuously. Each appearance lasted only long enough to strike. Black holes opened and closed like breathing—dragging Marcus's balance, warping his counters, twisting the ground beneath them.
Marcus stood in the storm's eye, adapting faster than thought.
His armor thickened into gleaming plates, no longer translucent but radiant with condensed force. His fists cracked the air with each strike, carrying enough weight to pulverize stone. When Null appeared behind him, Marcus's elbow was already waiting. When a black hole pulled, Marcus used its gravity to accelerate his own blows.
The arena cracked under their duel.
Roots shattered in showers of splinters. Branches whipped wildly, drawn into distorted currents of space. The floor fractured in expanding circles from each impact. Ether bled from the Tree itself, golden streams rushing into the chaos like moths to a flame.
"I like this," Null said between strikes, grin widening. "But if that's all…" He tilted his head, eyes blazing with anticipation. "I'll get bored."
Marcus answered with action—a combination of punches that forced Null to teleport three times in rapid succession.
Marcus answered with action—a combination of punches that forced Null to teleport three times in rapid succession. Each strike evolved from the last. The first was swift—the second, swifter and heavier. The third carried such force that it compressed the air into a visible shockwave.
He unleashed a storm of black holes—six of them, positioned around Marcus, each pulling in a different direction. A prison of gravity, impossible to escape.
Marcus stood unmoved. His adaptation had advanced again. His body had grown dense enough to resist the pulls outright, his armor spiking into the floor like anchors. His entire presence radiated controlled violence.
"Impressive," Marcus said calmly.
The word hit harder than any punch.
Null shifted tactics. Feints. False teleports. Black holes that existed only long enough to mislead. He folded space, so Marcus struck at distances that weren't real. For a moment, it worked—Null's fists struck ribs, thigh, shoulder, each carrying a spatial distortion meant to tear.
But Marcus adapted even to that.
His body began to anticipate the distortions. His armor thickened exactly where Null would land. His counters began aiming not at where Null was, but at where he would be. The adaptation was no longer just physical—it was predictive.
The arena groaned under the escalation. Half the floor lay in ruin. Roots dangled broken from the ceiling. The air itself warped, reality bending under their clash.
Null's eyes gleamed.
He unleashed everything.
Black holes bloomed like deadly flowers, gravity twisting in impossible patterns. Space folded and refolded, creating corridors that led nowhere. Marcus stood in the storm, his armor liquefying into living metal, his fists generating their own gravitational fields, his steps carrying him through folded space as if it were solid ground.
They collided at the center.
Null's fist, wrapped in collapsed space.
Marcus's, blazing with unstoppable force.
The impact stopped everything.
The arena held its breath. The heirs stood frozen. Even Elerion's perpetual smile faltered.
Null and Marcus remained locked, neither yielding. Reality itself shivered around them.
Then Null's expression changed. His eyes widened—not with fear, but with recognition. His grin stretched wider, genuinely delighted.
"Finally," he whispered.
The word carried through the silence.
"Finally, I can stop holding back."
The Tree trembled, not from damage but in anticipation. Something greater was about to break free.
For the first time, Marcus's composure wavered. A flicker of uncertainty crossed his face.
And Null's black-hole eyes began to glow.