Metal clashed against solidified magic in a violent, high-tempo exchange that shattered the silence of the Inner World. Albion held his iron pipe with both hands, his body angled low and centered, reacting with precise, tight movements.
Across from him, Amon moved like a predatory beast unleashed. His dark purple blade cut through the air in erratic, vicious arcs, every strike aimed straight for a killing blow.
The impacts echoed across the motionless dark expanse. The Black Water beneath their feet erupted under the force of their footwork, throwing up sheets of dark liquid with every sudden pivot.
Amon's fighting style was terrifyingly aggressive. He didn't just swing his blade, he lunged with his entire body, throwing his weight into relentless thrusts, closing the distance every single time Albion tried to create space. He fought with a ferocious, feral intensity, his teeth bared in a tight, strain-filled sneer, his three crimson eyes locked onto Albion with a focused malice.
Yet Albion didn't break.
Deep down, his heart was hammering against his ribs, but outwardly, his breathing remained leveled. His posture was balanced, his shoulders loose, his fuchsia eyes wide and completely absorbed in reading the trajectory of every strike. He wasn't relying on brute force to match Amon's violent swordplay. He was parrying, deflecting the black blade just barely, sidestepping thrusts, and using tight movements to absorb the force of Amon's blows.
In close quarters, Albion was holding his ground. Not because his body had suddenly become stronger than Amon's, but because his mind was actively channeling a pattern.
Every shift of his footwork, every sudden twist of his hips to avoid a lethal cut, was drawn directly from his vivid memory of Gajeel Lionheart.
He recalled the iron dragon slayer's overwhelming leverage, his violent strength and the angles Gajeel used when suffocating an opponent's momentum. Albion was executing those precise adjustments in real-time, elevating his close-quarters defense to match Amon's ferocity.
Amon suddenly slashed downward, a wide, sweeping arc meant to sever Albion's torso.
Instead of stepping back, Albion feigned a retreat, drawing Amon's weight forward. The instant the blade fell, he sidestepped inside the weapon's reach, swinging the heavy iron pipe in a short, brutal arc aimed at Amon's temple.
Using the dark environment with ruthless ingenuity, Amon stomped his leather shoe onto the Black Water. A wall of dark liquid splashed upward like a thick sheet, completely cutting off Albion's sight.
Through the curtain of water, the tip of Amon's purple sword thrust forward like a striking viper. Albion reacted instantly, bringing the iron pipe up at a sharp angle. The tip of the iron pipe collided directly with the tip of Amon's blade mid-air.
The clash of point against point unleashed a shockwave that blew the curtain of water into a fine mist. The force drove both boys backward, their leather shoes and bare feet skipping across the Black Water for several yards before they finally dragged to a halt.
Silence reclaimed the domain, broken only by the sound of heavy, ragged breathing.
Sweat dripped from Albion's hair, running down his pale cheek. Across the dark floor, Amon stood with his weapon lowered slightly, his hands trembling faintly against the grip.
'How?' Amon's mind raged, his wild crimson eyes staring at Albion in disbelief. 'How is he doing this?! How is Albion of all people keeping up with me in a physical exchange?!'
Amon's thoughts flashed back to their first fight in the inner world, back when Albion had been nothing more than a panicking child breaking under the weight of his own life.
'Last time, I dominated him. I controlled every second of that fight. I crushed him physically and mentally. Did... did I do this to him? Did breaking him force him to rebuild into this?! Is this what I wanted?!'
Amon violently shook his head, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth as his expression twisted back into pure rage.
'No! No! I want to kill him! I want to destroy him completely to prove my existence is supreme! I am the king! Why am I even questioning this?!'
Across the floor, Albion was fighting his own internal battle. His vision flickered with exhaustion, but he forced his lungs to take slow, deliberate gulps of air.
'Focus, Albion. Focus' he repeated to himself like a mantra. 'You have to get better. You have to move faster. Think three steps ahead. You can't just survive this fight, you have to evolve through it. Become a competent wizard. Like Juvia. Like Sheila.'
His mind flashed back to the guild hall—to Gajeel Lionheart's raw speed, his violent strength, and the terrifying efficiency of his strikes. Thanks to the analytical precision of his magic, those memories weren't faded images, they were crisp, perfectly stored in his mind.
Albion's fuchsia eyes began to glow with a sharp, vibrant light.
'Rebuild yourself from the ground up. Use Gajeel as the foundation. I will devour his combat strength.'
Through Codex Magic, exceptional memory, analytical processing, and repeated exposure to combat, Albion possessed the ability to assimilate observed phenomena into his own personal development, a process he referred to internally as "devouring." He did not steal abilities or copy individuals directly. Instead, he extracted the underlying principles behind what he encountered and adapted them to his own capabilities.
Within Phantom Lord, almost every person, battle, and magic he encountered served as fuel for this internal growth. What had originally begun as a cold, desperate desire to consume power from others had gradually evolved into something far deeper. Learning from the strength of those around him without needing to destroy them. Nothing Albion experienced was ever wasted.
'What is happening to me?!' Amon screamed in his head, his teeth grinding together so hard his jaw ached. 'The gears are slipping! This fight was supposed to be mine!'
In a fit of violent frustration, Amon flung his dark purple sword straight into the air. Instead of falling, the blade hovered mid-air. He extended his magical aura flaring outward as he assumed remote control over the weapon, sending it shooting through the air toward Albion at blinding speed.
'He didn't create additional swords to attack me from multiple angles... I see. My initial assumption wasn't wrong.'
Understanding in a flash, Albion tossed his own heavy iron pipe into the air. Drawing upon his stored comprehension of the metal's weight and composition, he used Reconfiguration—the fourth application of his innate magic—to grip the information thread of the pipe and drive it forward to intercept Amon's weapon.
High above the black water, the two airborne weapons collided in an intense, high-speed dogfight. Amon's floating blade lashed out with ferocious, jagged movements, while Albion's iron pipe wheeled, flipped, and parried mid-air with fluid grace. The sharp metallic rings of their proxy duel resounded continuously through the vast, quiet realm, throwing off sparks of dark purple magic.
As the weapons clashed above, Albion maintained his steady analysis. Earlier, he had assumed Amon couldn't maintain physical combat while simultaneously guiding a long-range weapon. When Amon had caught him off guard, Albion thought his theory was wrong. But watching Amon now, the truth was obvious.
Directly controlling raw magical energy without spell formulas—Ethernal Manipulation—placed an immense cognitive burden on the caster. It demanded internal focus and flawless perception of one's own magic. For a Magical Beast, this process was an effortless genetic instinct. But Amon's mind was currently breaking under the weight of his own unhinged rage and doubt.
He couldn't manifest multiple weapons while maintaining control because his mental state was deteriorating with every passing second.
The mid-air clash reached its limit. Albion's iron pipe struck the center of Amon's floating blade with maximum force. The iron pipe shattered into hundreds of metallic fragments, dissolving instantly back into the Black Water. But the force of the impact was enough.
Amon's sword shattered violently, its momentum failing as it plummeted out of the air, splashing harmlessly into the dark floor below.
Amon stood panting, his shoulders trembling, but a dark, eerie smile slowly spread across his face, pushing his stitched lips to their limit.
"You talk so much about connections, bonds, and the value of people. Once I break you, take over this body, and step out into the real world... I'll kill those little friends of yours first."
The memory of Juvia's smile flashed through Albion's mind. In an instant, the calm composure on Albion's face vanished, replaced by an expression of pure, unadulterated rage.
"I won't let you touch them!" He roared.
Albion charged forward, abandoning his defensive posture completely. Amon lunged to meet him, and the two collided in a brutal, hand-to-hand brawl.
Fist met fist. Their knuckles collided with such immense force that the Black Water beneath them violently exploded outward in a massive ring of displacement. They didn't stop. A second punch collided, knuckle against knuckle. Then a third, a fourth, a fifth. A continuous, blinding volley of bare-knuckle strikes traded back and forth in mid-air. The sheer shockwaves generated by their violent exchange tore through the sleeves of Albion's white robe, shredding the fabric until it blew away into the dark expanse.
Albion landed a heavy right hook flush across Amon's jaw, sending him skidding across the water. But Amon dug his shoes in, recovered instantly, and lurched right back into the fray with a wild left jab that caught Albion directly across the cheek.
Neither backed down. They traded headbutts, the impact ringing like iron, before locking back into a furious flurry of bare-fist strikes.
Reading Amon's violent momentum, Albion ducked under a wild haymaker. Drawing on the grappling leverage he'd analyzed from Gajeel, he stepped inside Amon's reach, locked his arms around his waist, and drove him headfirst into the solid floor with a devastating slam.
A high-pitched ringing exploded inside Amon's ears as his head bounced off the dark surface, his vision blurring instantly into white noise. Before he could recover, Albion grabbed him by his shirt, spun his entire body with momentum, and hurled Amon high into the air.
As Amon flew upward, Albion leaped from the water, caught up to him mid-air, grabbed Amon by the face, and violently dragged him back down.
Albion slammed Amon's head deep into the Black Water, sliding across the surface for yards while pinning him down, before slamming him a second time. Mounting Amon's chest, Albion drove fist after fist down into Amon's face without mercy.
"I didn't want to fight you! And I will not kill you, Amon!" Albion screamed, his voice raw as his fists rained down, blood splattering across his pale knuckles and white robe. "But I created you! I have to take responsibility for your existence! I will never let you harm anyone I care about! You will never touch Juvia! Do you hear me?"
Underneath the relentless assault, Amon's bloodied hand suddenly reached up, clamping tightly over the side of Albion's face. With monstrous physical strength, Amon began forcing Albion's head back. Albion strained against the grip, his face contorted in anger, but he didn't stop speaking.
"You said I only had three options, Amon," he growled through gritted teeth. "You were wrong! There's a fourth!"
Albion reached up, grabbed Amon's outstretched wrist, and squeezed with everything he had.
Amon's wrist bones groaned under the sudden, unnatural pressure, forcing a scream of agony from Amon's throat.
'How?!' Amon's mind shrieked in terror. 'Is he getting stronger right now?! In the middle of our fight?! How is that possible?!'
"The fourth option is to defeat you so completely that you're forced to see that compassion is stronger than hatred!" Albion yelled, his voice echoing across the realm. "We don't have to do this anymore! Come with me to the outside world! We can face Phantom Lord together! Why fight each other when we can accept who we are instead of trying to erase one another?! If we do that, the inner war ends! You can be a part of our bond!"
The faces of Juvia and Sheila flashed across both of their minds—a vision of a life built on real connections rather than isolated survival.
Suddenly, a piece of the broken sword rose from the water, whipped through the air, and struck Albion violently across the side of his head.
The surprise impact shattered the fragment, but the force threw Albion off Amon's chest, sending him rolling across the floor, temporarily dazed and blinded by a flash of light.
Amon scrambled to his feet, blood pouring down his face, his expression completely unhinged. He lurched forward, driving his knee directly into Albion's ribs before he could recover.
"NO! NO!" Amon screamed, unleashing a frantic, chaotic rain of blows onto Albion's guarded arms. "You can't change who I am! I am the king! I will always be the king! A true king never relies on others! A true king never bends! A true king keeps moving forward no matter the cost! A true king will never give up on his belief to survive!"
Amon threw a final, desperate punch that knocked Albion several feet back across the floor.
Both boys stood panting heavily, covered in bruises and blood.
From the dark water beneath Albion's feet, another heavy iron pipe rose into his hand.
In Amon's hand, a fresh, solid blade of dark purple magical energy condensed into physical form.
Without a single word, both boys kicked off the floor, charging toward each other at top speed, faster than either had moved since the battle began.
In moments of extreme psychological or physical trauma, Albion's body possessed a rare, instinctual trait: Adaptive Evolution.
When facing destruction, his physiological and mental limits shattered, rapidly accelerating his growth to handle burdens far beyond his age.
It was the sole reason his physical capabilities had surged after becoming king for the first time. A latent trait tied directly to the unknown bloodline running through his veins—a bloodline that stood as an ancient enemy to gods.
Amon could match Albion's initial output through raw instinct, but when it came to real-time adaptation, Albion was an anomaly like no other.
They met in the center of the realm. Albion's speed surged beyond his physical limits, his iron pipe blurring through the air half a second faster than Amon's blade. He had the opening. Amon was completely exposed. One clean strike to the temple would end the fight.
Then, for a moment, a memory flickered in Albion's mind.
«I will not kill you, Amon.»
A single instant of hesitation. A tiny fraction of a second where Albion's swing slowed, his resolve flickering at the thought of truly harming the part of himself he wanted to save.
It was a fatal mistake.
The sound of cutting flesh echoed loudly across the silent black water. A heavy spray of crimson blood erupted into the air, throwing dark droplets across the ambient light, before a body fell heavily to its knees.