Vaelrix moved first.
Not fast.
Immediate.
Space between him and Jinyoung collapsed inward, folding like paper crushed in a fist.
Jinyoung's white/grey aura reacted on instinct—erasure spreading outward, canceling the collapse before it reached his chest.
Black/purple surged next.
The devouring side ate the remaining distortion, ripping it apart.
Jinyoung stepped through the tearing air and struck.
A straight punch.
No technique.
The impact detonated like reality breaking glass.
Vaelrix slid backward, boots carving trenches through concrete, cloak flickering between forms.
"Hm."
Vaelrix lifted a hand.
The concept of impact vanished.
Jinyoung's follow-up strike passed through him—force erased mid-motion.
Vaelrix countered with two fingers to Jinyoung's chest.
Jinyoung felt it instantly.
Not pain.
Removal.
The idea of "defense" around his heart was stripped away.
Blood sprayed.
Jinyoung grunted and twisted away, black/purple flaring violently to replace what was lost—devouring the void Vaelrix created.
Riku appeared behind Vaelrix, blade humming.
The world stuttered as Riku accelerated past causality—
Vaelrix turned anyway.
His hand snapped shut.
Riku's speed collapsed into stillness.
"You rely on motion," Vaelrix said calmly. "I hunt certainty."
Haru fired.
Pure destruction mana—compressed, unstable—tore through the frozen space, shattering Vaelrix's grip.
Riku vanished the instant freedom returned.
Vaelrix's shoulder was gone.
Not wounded.
Removed.
Black/purple energy clung to the missing space, refusing to let it be rewritten.
Vaelrix looked down, genuinely interested.
"…You consume absence," he said. "Fascinating."
Riyomi struck from every shadow at once.
Six blades.
Six angles.
Vaelrix dissolved into fractured geometry—
—but one blade still connected.
Blood spilled.
Vaelrix lashed out.
The shadows themselves screamed as they were invalidated.
Riyomi was thrown clear, skidding across shattered ground.
Jinyoung roared.
Duality exploded outward—white/grey erasing Vaelrix's conceptual edits while black/purple devoured what remained.
The battlefield collapsed into chaos.
Buildings erased mid-fall.
Frostless silence.
Then—contact.
Vaelrix and Jinyoung collided.
Fist to palm.
Reality screamed.
Vaelrix's cloak shredded, revealing a body half-formed of overlapping laws.
Jinyoung's aura flickered violently.
Yogaroth's presence surged—
Devour.
Jinyoung forced it down.
Black and white stabilized—barely.
He drove his knee into Vaelrix's torso.
Vaelrix coughed—actually coughed—and was hurled back.
He landed, cracking the ground beneath him.
Silence.
Vaelrix rose slowly.
Blood dripped.
Form unstable.
"…You're not ready," he admitted.
"But you will be."
Jinyoung stood, shaking, aura roaring.
"Run," he growled.
Vaelrix smiled faintly.
"I don't run."
The fracture reopened behind him.
"I wait."
He vanished.
The battlefield finally stopped screaming.
Jinyoung dropped to one knee, breath ragged.
Not victorious.
Not defeated.
But proven.