The fight between Afro and Captain Draezen became a blur of speed. It was just fists and dodges against fast axes. Draezen delivered a heavy vertical blow. Afro did not retreat; he defended the blade with his bare hands. The clash of force was so violent that the ground beneath their feet cracked into a web.
"You realize you're no match for me anymore, don't you?" said Afro, straining his arms.
Afro tried to open his hands to break the metal of the blade, but the axe instantly dissolved into smoke. Even dematerialized, the weapon continued its path toward Afro. Afro's heart beat faster when he felt the axe suddenly materialize inside his own body. To avoid immediate death, Afro detached a soul and incarnated it a few meters away, escaping the internal blow.
He stopped, clenched his fists, and spat blood. The liquid evaporated before it touched the ground of that reality. Afro began to charge his fists with equivalences.
"You talk too much," replied the Captain, showing no sign of fatigue.
"At least you answer," retorted Afro. "After all, what is the effect of this Resonance? So far, I haven't felt any effect on me."
Draezen dodged a direct punch from Afro, who appeared in front of him in an instant. The Captain felt the displacement of air. "Before, these fists would have destroyed him; now he uses them naturally. How many hierarchical levels has this monster climbed?" thought Draezen, as he moved between the explosions of equivalence that Afro fired.
"Resonance isn't for you," explained Draezen. "That's why we're here fighting in this paradise."
On the other side, the scene was hellish. The ground looked like a volcano, so much had the earth been churned up. Tara flew high, dodging shots of lava that spurted from the ground, trying to hit her.
"I already know who to attack..." she thought, fixing her gaze.
Meanwhile, Kael moved like a blur against Ganken and Kimyo. He was hit by two feet in the chest and thrown against walls that suddenly formed behind him just for him to hit. When he tried to get up, the air became heavy and pushed him back down. Kimyo appeared with a sword and plunged it into Kael's neck. With a brutal effort, Kael grabbed the blade with one hand before it could slit his throat.
"This Resonance changes space against us at any cost..." Kael growled.
He used his maximum effort and brought one hand to his abdomen. Kael's secret was revealed: inside those scales, he kept cores. He broke the red core. An aura of fire spread instantly, causing Ganken to retreat and forcing Kimyo off him.
In the air, Tara dove toward Yue, who was gesturing with her hands to maintain the resonance.
"This Resonance can only be from this bitch! I just need to tire her out!"
Tara accelerated her movement while reciting something with her hands together. Immediately after, she launched a sphere of red flames at Yue. The ground moved on its own, creating a protective layer, but when the flame touched the barrier, there was a massive explosion. A red light settled on the field in a chain explosion. Tara hadn't used the core to strengthen herself; she had launched the pure red Dao core without filtering the energy in her body. The impact was so violent that it even threw her away, but she regained her balance in the air and broke another core to reinforce herself.
The Resonance cracked. Afro, who was fighting the Captain, retreated and stared at the sky of the resonance that was beginning to fragment. At that moment, he felt something strange: his sword was close. He felt the connection with the 25% of strength he was missing.
"How long do you have before that mask comes off your faces?" Afro asked the Captain, who was already beginning to breathe with visible exhaustion.
On the other side, Yue crouched down. A huge crater had formed due to Tara's explosion. Ganken and Kimyo stopped in front of her to protect her.
"Can you hold on?" asked Ganken.
Yue shook her head. Her effort had reached its limit.
Kimyo analyzed the situation: "They've discovered the weak point. Yue needs to stay in the rear, gesturing nonstop to maintain the induction and move every inch of space. Not to mention that this is a learned Resonance, not natural to her. Only Yue's father could manipulate even the particles of his opponents without wearing himself out like this." Kimyo sighed, realizing that their time was running out.
Tara landed next to Kael.
"Are you crazy? You almost killed us!" Kael complained, wiping the blood from his face.
"Shut up," Tara replied sharply. "The Resonance is cracking thanks to me."
Tara looked at Yue in the distance and confirmed her theory. It was an Infinite Resonance, designed to manipulate all the elements and drive the master's allies away forever. It had been a masterstroke by the Captains, but the cost to Dao of maintaining such a geographical impossibility was too high for Yue to sustain alone for long.
"Ganken!" Kimyo called, giving the signal.
Ganken opened his palms and closed his eyes, beginning the induction, his voice resonating low and rhythmic, reciting the incantation:
"Where weight is born and light is consumed,
Where the sky descends and the rock gains a name.
The center of everything, the end of moments...
"Shit, they're going to do another Resonance!" Tara shouted.
She tried to rush forward to interrupt Ganken, but Kimyo blocked her path. "Strange Sword Art: Kimyo Style, Phantom Cuts." Kimyo executed a sequence of rapid combos; the movement of his blade was so fast that it left spectral traces of swords in the air, creating a network of steel. Tara tried to fly to gain height, but Kimyo's spectral swords appeared from all angles, forcing her to dodge nonstop.
At that moment, Kael launched himself from the air, his body stretched like a projectile toward Ganken. Yue, gathering the rest of her strength, reached out and fired a massive wind wave at him. The impact slowed Kael for a second, but his scales glowed brightly and released fire propelling him forward (as if it were nitro). The momentum forced him through the wind, falling directly onto Ganken.
At the last second, Ganken finished the recitation.
"Resonance: Tetsu no kigen no kigen! Event Crater: (Finite)!"
Yue's reality collapsed. Kael did not hit the captain; instead, he crashed into the ground with impossible force.
The world transformed instantly. The infinite garden disappeared, replaced by a closed dome of black rock. There was no horizon; only distant walls of obsidian that emanated suffocating heat.
The ground there was not continuous. Afro and his group were standing on enormous tectonic plates that floated above an underground ocean. That ocean glowed with a dense cyan light and was the only source of illumination in that place. Although the domain was finite, the obsidian walls still seemed distant, closing off the sky like an oppressive dome.
At the center of the resonance, hovering above everyone, was Ganken, atop a perfect black sphere, serving as the gravitational core of that world.
Kael felt his body being crushed against the ground. Inside the Event Crater, gravity was not normal; it was absolute pressure that multiplied the weight of every atom. The air became dense as lead. Kael tried to raise an arm, but heard his own bones crack under the pressure.
Now, Afro's group was reunited, but isolated. They were on different plates, separated by cracks that revealed the shining ocean below. Tara was kneeling, unable to lift herself off the ground; Kael and Afro remained still, forced into a crouching position by the downward force. Their breathing was heavy and difficult.
On the other side, Ganken's allies, Draezen, Kimyo, and Yue, remained standing, unaffected. Yue was finally able to get up and catch his breath.
Ganken opened his eyes at the top of his black sphere.
"The movement is over," said Ganken, "If I want to, even light will have difficulty escaping here."
He pointed to Afro and his allies, whose bodies were making grooves in the rocks due to the pressure.
"This resonance was designed precisely to nullify demonic physics. Your power depends on mass, vigor, and biological density. In the Event Crater, I control the variable of mass. The stronger your physical body, the more gravity punishes you... If it is dense, if it is organic, it belongs to my ground."
Afro spat blood. The liquid didn't even reach the tectonic plate; it evaporated instantly.
The rule of Ganken Resonance was now crystal clear in Afro's mind: gravity there was an equation of punishment. The denser and more powerful the physical body, the greater the force that would try to crush it against the ground. For Afro, who possessed the physiology of a hybrid, this was the worst possible scenario. His own power was being used as an iron chain pulling him down.