Below the sky of intrinsic deep grey clouds, the towering white bone coliseum fell into a momentary silence. The crowd of golden, identical faces held their collective breath, waiting for the next movement upon the stage.
On the right side of the arena, Malakor Vael-Oryn stood at the center of the monolithic stone spires, his presence completely domineering. Around his massive frame lay heavy platinum chain links, shattered and loose. Large sections of the chains remained intact, their ends cracked and broken, no longer possessing the strength to bind the vanguard .
Then ,Ryo flicked his wrist. The stone spires responded instantly, producing a new wave of long platinum links. These chains were larger than the last. They bypassed the standard whistling sound of movement, instead generating massive gusts and gales of razor-sharp wind as they snaked through the air.
Malakor refused to remain stationary. Moving with pinpoint accuracy, he dodged each incoming link. His speed had increased significantly. He evaded the relentless onslaught of metal that whipped across the stage in an attempt to snare his huge figure.
In comparison to the scale of this battle, Ryo looked incredibly small. His lone, tall figure resembled an ant caught in a clash of titans.
A massive myriad of whipping chain links converged from multiple sides. Despite standing over three meters tall, Malakor displayed outstanding agility, his movements carrying an unnatural grace.
A link descended from above, cutting through the space where he stood a fraction of a second prior.
Boom.
The chain struck the ground with a loud bang, leaving a massive crater that overlapped with the existing scars on the stage.
Another chain missed its target midair. It whacked against the atmosphere, producing a sharp sonic boom that rattled the skull, carrying enough force to violently rupture the eardrums of an ordinary human or a cultivator with a low soul body status.
This destruction repeated with every missed strike. When the chains did manage to land, they left heavy dents in the vanguard's armor. The valiant blessed adorer showed no concern, relying entirely on his superior durability.
Malakor's speed, durability, agility, and predictive capabilities grew exponentially. Every physical aspect, technique, and ability surged with newfound power.
'Could this be the doing of the Artefact?' Ryo thought, watching the scene while his clones continued to mumble something indiscernible in the background.
'I need to take care of those stone spires producing these problematic chains,' Malakor thought to himself.
The relentless metal kept Malakor on his toes. He avoided breaking the chains directly, noticing they grew larger and more durable with each replication. Instead, he chose to evade or simply tank the heavy impact of the blows.
Even with his outstanding speed, a few chains managed to snag his limbs. The sudden restriction caused him to trip. A larger link struck his chest, sending him crashing toward the surface.
He managed to twist mid-movement, landing firmly on his feet with a heavy thud that shook the entire stage.
A crude, effective strategy formed in Malakor's mind. A moment later, his leg muscles bulged. He leaped high into the air, the platinum links trailing closely behind his ascent.
Stretching his arms toward the sky, he brought his hands together in a powerful clap, generating a concussive force that propelled him back down with tremendous momentum.
Before making contact with the ground, he twisted his torso, flipping his massive figure to extend his legs. The impact shook the stage violently, generating a miniature stage-quake.
The sheer force shattered the travertine bone surface of the arena. A massive wave of debris and a violent tremor surged toward the opposite side of the stage, shaking the bone tiles beneath every footstep and sending a billowing cloud of dust across the floor.
Several massive stone spires jutted at awkward angles, losing their ability to produce the heavy platinum chains.
Malakor gained a brief pocket of freedom, though his movements remained restricted.
Ryo and Malakor closed the distance, exchanging a rapid myriad of blows.
Ryo focused primarily on evasion, occasionally tanking the strikes of the towering vanguard.
Each collision left webbed cracks in the floor beneath their feet. Ryo held a natural disadvantage due to his smaller stature against the bellowing Malakor, however, his small frame made him a difficult target to hit.
Malakor's precision countered this advantage. His accuracy was horrifying, to the point where his rare misses seemed entirely intentional.
Both combatants took a single step back to catch their breath, but the respite lasted only a fraction of a second.
BOOM.
A loud screeching sound tore through the arena, followed by a devastating boom.
The ground buckled and tore apart completely. Then launched all the combatants into the air alongside thousands of jagged, floating rocks and massive boulders. Shattered monoliths of stone and bone broke away from the stage, levitating into the sky.
Perched precariously on the ridge of the largest floating boulder, Kurael braced himself in a low, white-knuckled crouch. His eyes narrowed, staring directly through the rising dust at Shiunoko.
Standing upon his broad shoulders for a split second before the spatial divide separated them was one of Ryo's indifferent clones, its conical hat tilted low while its ring of paper talismans spun in a frantic, defensive blur.
To the left, the pale, translucent female warrior plummeted headfirst through the chaos in a controlled, elegant dive. Her straight-cut dark hair streamed upward toward the Eigengrau sky. Her fingers tightly gripped her folding fans, ready to unfurl them into a deadly arc aimed directly for Kurael's throat.
Opposite her, the towering, single-eyed form of Malakor Vael-Oryn drifted upward on an isolated block of stone. His lone eye remained wide and unblinking before Ryo's main body vanished alongside him, continuing their private slaughterhouse on the far side of the ruined stadium.
They dashed from one floating boulder to another as they fought. The boulders were in a state of free-fall, yet the extreme speed of the combatants seemed to slow time to a crawl. The brutality of the exchange turned every boulder on the right side of the stage into fine white sand and dust.
Malakor's distorted figure reflected in Ryo's eye. The image triggered a memory from Ryo's hunting past, filling him with an uncharacteristic repulsion and malice toward the figure before him.
Ryo had had enough. His preparations reached completion, anyways. The original plan involved completely incapacitating the valiant blessed adorer to proclaim victory, but the sudden surge of malice overrode his reason, altering his intentions midway.
The upcoming action carried a level of insanity that almost snapped him back to his senses.
He was crazy,but not crazy enough.
Standing a few paces away, Malakor used his heightened perception to analyze the clones spaced randomly across the stage. They stood idle, mumbling beneath their breath while their Ryoku density increased exponentially.
The accumulation started gradually before rapidly drawing Ryoku from the surrounding atmosphere.
Malakor could not interrupt them, occupied entirely by Ryo's unrelenting barrage of attacks. He had no choice but to ignore them for the time being, though their presence demanded attention.
They felt far too ominous. The seven clones represented the absolute unknown.
Malakor's heightened perception, augmented by his soul-bound Artefact, confirmed their status as clones. They only absorbed Ryoku, never seeping out a single fraction of energy, a trait that deviated from every known living creature, human, dreadspawn, and abomination alike.
Before Malakor could react, the seven Ryoku-saturated clones dashed toward Ryo with incredible speed, their lips still moving in silent murmurs. The moment they reached Ryo's side, they transformed into luminous points of golden-white light, fusing directly into his figure.
The seven talismans floating behind Ryo glowed with intense brilliance. The halo they formed grew vibrant. Ryo's massive sea of Ryoku reserves expanded several fold, unleashing a heavy pressure that demanded allegiance from the living.
The overlapping voices of the murmuring clones stopped simultaneously.
Ryo reined in the massive reservoir of energy. Numerous smaller, glowing paper talismans began to orbit his figure in a tight, horizontal circular plane. He locked his gaze onto the figure he perceived as Malakor, his eyes radiating a thick, seething bloodlust.
The intent was strong enough to overlay the immediate surroundings with an eerie, crimson glow.
Malakor took a step back, a powerful premonition of danger slamming into his consciousness. He choose not to see the immediate future, but the sheer instinct forced him to pull his awareness as close to the absolute present as possible. He considered dismissing his Artefact, but ultimately maintained the connection, knowing he required every ounce of protection and durability available.
Malakor roared, his voice carrying an unusual blend of panic, anger , fear, and confusion?,
"You mad man! What you are planning to do is the pinnacle of madness for someone of your level! It is taboo! Vile creature, do not proceed with—"
Before the vanguard could finish his warning,
Ryo took a deep breath...
He uttered a single compact, dense word.
The syllables carried the fundamental concept of dimension itself.
Compressed within its utterance, was the complete, unabridged history of what the word had been, currently was, and would become, filling every angle of perception that Malakor Vael-Oryn could comprehend.
"¿¡‽■■■■‽¡¿ [1] "
Every being in the vicinity heard, felt, saw, smelled, tasted, and understood the word in its entirety.
And most, if not all , weeped crimsom tears .
BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG...
A succession of loud, ear-rupturing booms echoed through the coliseum. The heads of the identical spectators exploded violently, filling the atmosphere with a dense crimson mist of blood,bone, and viscera.
A sea of crimson surged from the stands, flowing directly into the excavation canal that separated the arena floor from the spectators.
The stage was completely surrounded by a sea of blood.
The Eigengrau sky above darkened considerably. A sharp fracture,fissure, maybe a rift , ripped through the atmosphere of the Eigengrau sky, to reveal another sky within .
A singular, prolonged thunderclap originated from the tear, completely drowning out the sound of the exploding heads below.
Dark gray clouds with a deep purple hue began to spiral around a central point within the fracture.
And at that center,a central aperture reaveal the inner sky .
Inside the coliseum, the remaining spectators in the highest rows flinched in unison.
Five hundred thousand identical faces reformed from the bloody stamps of their necks , turning their gaze upward toward the sky.
On the stage, the remaining platinum chains snapped simultaneously, shattered by the expanding shockwave of the spoken word rather than Malakor's physical strength.
The vanguard's knees remained uuprigh and his large frame did not collapse.
He simply stood perfectly still.
The Artefact above his head, which had amplified his perception , encountered a fatal conceptual error through that very same amplification.
The silver droplet suspended above the right tip of the Artefact shattered into pieces.
Malakor Vael-Oryn looked toward Ryo with a single, bottomless, bloodshot eye, crimson tears tracing paths down his face, The illusion began to dissipate.
The face he perceived, which had been half vaporized and half replaced by something else, dissolved entirely without completing its form, leaving only the vanguard's true visage.
"H...How is, it possible...that you can... use such a thing?" Malakor asked.
His voice carried a quiet tone, stripped of its previous booming volume. The change did not stem from weakness, but rather a sudden shift that felt closer to absolute clarity than defeat.
Deep, dark crimson blood that appeared almost black seeped through the seams of his armor, dripping steadily onto the sand below his feet.
He reached toward the Artefact floating above his head. His articulated fingers closed along the outer frame, grasping the obsidian with a firm pull, he severed the connection.
The Artefact went dark instantly. The shattered fragments of the silver droplet dissolved into nothingness. The iris within the spherical core stilled completely, the mechanical pupil turning opaque.
"Please, accept it. Think of it as a gift..." Malakor said, his voice steady. "To the valiant warrior. Use it with valor."
"My lord, forgive me, for I have seen the extent of my failure."
The pupil of his single bloodshot eye dilated completely, losing its remaining glint of life.
His head lowered slowly, though his body remained standing.
The great blessed adorer, Malakor Vael-Oryn, became perfectly still.
Ryo stared at the Artefact as it slowly descended beside him.
He maintained a long silence before reaching out to claim it. The object felt heavier than its appearance suggested, carrying a cold, metallic touch.
A faint trace of corruption lingered within the frame, representing the small, residual energy of a well-carried, severed bond.
He extended a fraction of his remaining Ryoku into the core, establishing a temporary connection. The Artefact became completely illusory and incorporeal, vanishing from sight.
Up in the Pulvinar, Mnemoscopus remained exceptionally quiet. He leaned to the side, resting his face upon his palm while his elbow remained supported by the armrest of his seat. A wide, playful grin formed on his golden face.
"I have not seen a near-complete, Holistic Signifier produced by a mortal in a considerable span of time," Mnemoscopus said, breaking the silence.
"In fact, it is such an ineffable feat that it triggered a partial heavenly tribulation."
Mnemoscopus raised his free arm, pointing directly toward the fractured sky.
Ryo adjusted his conical hat, offering no reply.
"The crack in my sky will require some attention," Mnemoscopus continued, his mild tone suggesting a minor inconvenience rather than a structural crisis.
"But I will take care of it later. "
"You put on quite a show. A part of the contract has been satisfied."
[1] since this word is Holistic Signifier , it cannot be written in ordinary text