Apeiron and King walked side by side through the outer corridors of the training grounds, the low hum of distant combat echoing around them.
"I won't be here this weekend," Apeiron said casually. "I'm going to Olympus."
King stopped.
"Olympus?" he repeated, eyes widening. "You've been there?"
Apeiron hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah. It's… a long story. I'm close with Princess Pandora."
King stared at him.
"You know the Princess?" he said slowly. "You have access to the palace?"
Apeiron leaned closer, lowering his voice. "I'm not supposed to tell anyone. Keep it down."
King smiled easily, his expression smooth and untroubled. "Relax," he said. "I won't say a word."
As they resumed walking side by side, a faint ripple of power stirred at King's fingertips, so brief and controlled that it never reached the air. When his fingers brushed Apeiron's bag, the contact lasted no longer than a heartbeat, yet within that instant a thread of concealed magic slipped free, coiling inward and embedding itself deep within the fabric.
It was not a crude spell or a glowing sigil, but a silent marker woven into reality itself, keyed solely to Apeiron's presence. Once set, it faded completely from perception, leaving no trace of energy, no disturbance in the bag, and no sign that anything had been altered at all.
King kept walking, his smile unchanged, while the magic settled into place.
"I get it," King continued, his voice serious. "Pandora isn't just royalty. She's… Pandora. The heart of Olympus of your multiverse itself."
He paused. "There are bounties whispered across realms for her alive."
His eyes hardened. "Because she carries fragments of the Source. The power that created the multiverses."
A beat.
"Whoever controls her doesn't just gain power. They gain the right to rule."
Apeiron nodded. "Thanks for understanding. I'm not skipping training. I'm just seeing an old friend."
They came to a stop.
"I'll take us to the other dimension," Apeiron said, his tone calm and matter-of-fact, as though he were suggesting a short walk rather than crossing realities.
King glanced at him, one eyebrow lifting in mild amusement. "You can do that now?" he asked. "You don't have any teleportation powers, and unless you plan on using the crystal, teleportation shouldn't be possible."
Apeiron shook his head slightly. "Master Kujin never taught me a spell." he replied. "He taught me a way of understanding. After everything he's shown us about space and time, powers aren't required."
He turned his gaze forward, focusing on a point that did not yet exist.
"All I need is the dimensional location," Apeiron continued. "Once I know where something is, I don't have to travel to it. I can reach it."
He lifted his fist.
The motion carried terrifying precision, controlled to the point that it felt inevitable rather than forceful. He did not strike the air or tear space apart through strength. Instead, his punch passed through spacetime itself, touching the point where separation could no longer justify remaining intact.
Space folded inward without resistance.
Reality opened cleanly, as though it had always been meant to part there, revealing a corridor of emptiness linking directly to the pocket dimension Apeiron recalled by alignment and position alone. The passage did not glow or shimmer. It simply existed, hollowed from spacetime by precision rather than power.
They stepped through together.
Behind them, the tear closed without a sound, sealing the emptiness as if it had never been disturbed.
On the other side, Master Kujin was already waiting.
He stood with his hands folded, expression calm, eyes ancient.
"You have trained with me for months in the waking world," Kujin said. "But here beyond time and sequence there are no words to measure how long you have endured."
He studied them both.
"I have seen enough."
A pause followed.
"One final trial remains before I make my decision," Kujin said. "A battle between the two of you to decide who may burn through Stage Three and become the future successor."
King straightened at once, anticipation flashing through him.
Apeiron remained still, listening.
"I will not pass on the presence of Mu no Ken, the Empty Fist, yet," Kujin continued, his voice calm but resolute. "You are both still too young for what it demands, but you must understand the true cost before you ever seek it."
He turned away for a moment, as though gathering the weight of memory, then faced them again.
"When the Presence of Mu no Ken, the Empty Fist, is transferred, the one who receives it does not ascend immediately. Instead, they become weaker than they have ever been stripped of the certainty and protection the art will one day provide. Their body becomes vulnerable, their presence fragile, their existence exposed in ways it never was before."
His gaze hardened slightly.
"For one full day, the bearer exists without protection. Only after that period does the Presence fully settle, binding itself completely and granting the true authority of the Empty Fist."
His voice dropped, heavy and final.
"The previous bearer does not survive the transfer."
Silence followed, thick and unmoving.
Apeiron spoke first, his expression steady, his resolve unmistakable.
"If that is the cost," he said, "then no one should receive the Presence of Mu no Ken the Empty Fist yet. We still need you, Master."
Kujin studied him in silence. After a long moment, something like approval, quiet and earned passed through his eyes.
King said nothing.
Outwardly, his face remained calm, unreadable.
Inwardly, his thoughts burned.
This is it.
Everything I've worked for.
All these years, watching them. Learning them. Waiting.
I will win.
Kujin nodded slowly. "I have waited eons for a successor," he said. "And now, at last, I have found candidates worthy of the choice." His voice remained even.
"I have taught this path before. Five others were brought to this threshold." A pause. "None of them were ready. Some lacked discipline. Some lacked compassion. Some mistook ambition for understanding."
His gaze moved between them.
"But one of you is different."
He exhaled softly. "I do not fear death. I have lived long enough to wait for this moment."
His eyes sharpened.
"Only one can inherit what comes next."
He stepped back.
"Prepare yourselves."
Apeiron and King moved into their stances calm, focused, lethal.
The final trial was about to begin.
Apeiron and King settled into their stances.
Apeiron's posture was flawless every discipline across the multiverse flowing together without contradiction. Striking arts, grappling, redirection, pressure-point theory, movement principles refined into a single, seamless form.
Mu no Ken, The empty fist.
King mirrored him.
Almost.
His stance was powerful, aggressive, dominant but there were fractures. Tiny inefficiencies. Micro-delays born of excess force.
Apeiron exhaled slowly.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "We have to fight, my friend. I have to become the master. My revenge depends on it."
King's eyes hardened.
"Friendship doesn't matter," King replied coldly. "Only dominance does. Only being the strongest."
He exploded forward, activating Stage One of Mu no Ken, the Empty Fist, his body snapping into perfect alignment as every learned discipline across the multiverse fused into a single, ruthless expression.
Apeiron met him head-on, Stage One of Mu no Ken, the Empty Fist, awakening in equal measure, his movements sharpening as balance, timing, anatomy, and force blended seamlessly into motion.
Fists and kicks tore through the space between them, the collision of Empty Fist against Empty Fist sending shockwaves through the pocket dimension itself. They moved faster than sight, slipping, weaving, and countering as though the future of each exchange had already been decided. Body shots landed with surgical precision. Knees and elbows carved through defenses measured in fractions of an instant.
King shot in for a takedown, his timing flawless, but Apeiron sprawled instinctively, reversed the momentum, and transitioned smoothly into an arm bar. King rolled through the pressure, escaped, and returned fire with a spinning kick that scraped across Apeiron's ribs, the impact echoing as the battle of Stage One continued without hesitation.
Millions of blows exchanged every second.
King struck first with surgical cruelty, his fingers and knuckles finding pressure points with absolute precision, shutting down Apeiron's arm, then his leg, then the subtle balance that kept his body aligned. Nerve pathways went silent, muscle groups failed, and Apeiron's stance faltered as function itself was stripped away piece by piece.
Apeiron answered immediately, his hands moving in calm, deliberate counterpoints, touching his own pressure points with exact knowledge. He flexed as he worked, drawing breath and control back into his frame, restoring motion through precision alone. Nerves reignited under his touch, muscle fibers realigned and healed, circulation reasserted itself, and balance returned as though it had never been lost.
King did not relent. He pressed in again, striking deeper this time, disrupting coordination, breath, and timing, turning Apeiron's body against itself. Apeiron flowed with the pressure, redirecting, touching, correcting, his mastery allowing him to reclaim each stolen function the moment it was taken.
It became a battle of mastery rather than force, a loop of shutdown and restoration, of emptiness imposed and control reclaimed, each exchange faster and more refined than the last.
Then Apeiron shifted the rhythm.
As King moved in again, Apeiron stepped inside the strike and answered in kind, his fingers and palm landing on King's own pressure points with the same surgical accuracy. King's arm went numb. His leg stiffened. His center collapsed as balance abandoned him mid-motion.
King snarled and recovered, his hands flashing across his own body as he forced circulation and nerve function back into place through sheer will and technique, restoring motion just in time to avoid a follow-up strike.
For a heartbeat, they stood equal again.
Apeiron broke the loop.
His foot snapped out in a perfect arc, the timing flawless, the angle unavoidable. The sidekick landed cleanly, carrying the full authority of Stage One of the Empty Fist, and King was launched backward, ribs crushing inward as he tore through the air and skidded across the battlefield.
King staggered to his feet, blood streaking his lips as his chest heaved, his eyes burning brighter than before while the full weight of the exchange finally settled into his body. He turned his head toward Master Kujin, his expression twisted by fury and ambition rather than pain.
"I won't lose," King growled. "I will be the strongest ever. My master will be proud of me. I will not fail my mission."
What followed was not discipline.
It was power.
King's presence detonated outward as he crossed into Stage Two of the Empty Fist but he did not abandon force in the process. Instead, he amplified it. Demonic energy began to leak from his body in violent waves, seeping through his skin and veins as his mastery fused with raw domination. He moved with martial precision even as his powers flared unchecked, each strike carrying both technique and overwhelming might.
His form split ten identical copies tearing free and scattering across the battlefield each one radiating demonic presence heavy enough to darken the area itself.
They surrounded Apeiron completely, closing in from every angle, every direction layered with killing intent.
Their voices echoed together, overlapping and unnatural.
The battlefield dimmed as they charged in unison, pressure bearing down from all sides as the circle tightened.
Apeiron did not move.
He slowed his breathing, steady and controlled, and closed his eyes as the clones rushed toward him. When he opened them again, his stance had changed, not wider, not lower, not stronger in any conventional sense, but empty.
Stage Two awakened.
No energy flared.
No supernatural force ignited.
Instead, his presence manifested.
A black pressure began to gather around Apeiron, not aura and not energy, but presence made physical, a visible density born from compassion, resolve, and will pushed beyond restraint. It pressed outward from his body like a living weight, bending the air, compressing space, forcing reality itself to strain just to remain coherent.
The dimension trembled.
Not from an attack, but because Apeiron was flexing more of himself into existence.
The ground shuddered, the space above warped, and the pocket dimension groaned under the burden of accommodating him as he took a single step forward. Reality leaned away from that step, thinning and distorting as though instinctively trying to create distance where none could exist.
This was Stage Two of Mu no Ken, the Empty Fist.
And as the clones closed in from every side, the battlefield itself seemed to understand that something irreversible had already begun.
Stage Two pressure screamed through the battlefield as the first are clones eached Apeiron, fist tearing forward with annihilating force.
Apeiron shifted.
The punch missed by a hair.
His counter landed.
Apeiron stepped into motion as the first clone reached him, and his response was immediate and exact. A single straight punch passed cleanly through the clone's chest, not tearing flesh or breaking bone, but emptying it entirely, leaving behind a perfect void where existence had been permitted only a moment earlier. The clone faltered, its form collapsing inward as the absence consumed it, before vanishing without residue, without sound, without even the dignity of destruction.
More closed in from every direction, and Apeiron moved through them with relentless precision. A spinning roundhouse carved through one at the hip, leaving a hollowed gap that erased its lower half from reality, while a following heel kick traced down another from shoulder to waist, emptying it mid-motion. Each strike ended exactly where it needed to, and wherever his blows landed, the clones ceased to exist, not exploding, not dissolving, but simply failing to remain.
They continued to surround him, tightening the circle, attacking in waves, and Apeiron flowed through the pressure, dodging, countering, and striking as empty space bloomed through chests, limbs, and cores in rapid succession. Every movement removed permission, leaving nothing behind but absence where opponents had been.
Then one broke through.
A clone slipped past his guard and drove its hand straight through Apeiron's chest, and this was not a wound in any conventional sense. It was erasure. A section of his torso vanished entirely, space hollowed through him as though it had never been occupied. Blood burst from his mouth as his body reacted to the sudden loss, and he staggered backward, boots skidding across fractured ground as the shock of nonexistence tore through his balance.
The clones pressed in, sensing the opening.
Apeiron inhaled slowly, and Stage Two did not panic.
He focused.
With impossible precision, he struck inward, not with strength or speed, but with precision so exact that it rewrote the error itself. He targeted the emptiness where his body had been removed, not attacking it, but denying the absence permission to remain. The missing space folded back into place, nonexistence collapsing inward as existence reasserted itself, and what had been erased returned as if it had never been taken.
That addressed erasure.
Then Apeiron flexed.
Muscle, bone, and circulation surged as his presence tightened, and the physical damage followed suit, healing under the pressure of his control until breath steadied and blood ceased. Damage and erasure had both been corrected, each through its own mastery, and Apeiron stepped forward again as though nothing had happened.
Distance vanished beneath his feet as he repositioned, calculating, retreating just enough to draw the clones into alignment. They advanced in a widening arc, converging once more, confident in their numbers and fury.
Apeiron raised his hand.
It was not clenched, not tense, but open, relaxed, and utterly certain.
He brought it down in a single Presence Chop Empty Severance.
The strike was a pure martial motion, a precise downward karate chop, executed with perfect form and intent. In that instant, his black presence compressed and sharpened, not as energy, but as will made absolute. When the chop fell, the space before him did not tear or rupture.
It was severed.
A vast, silent line carved through the battlefield, slicing through space, time, distance, and continuity itself, emptying everything it touched of existence and of permission alike.
Every clone caught within that arc vanished at once, erased, emptied, and undone.
Apeiron straightened as the pressure receded, the weight of his own presence settling back into control.
High above the battlefield, King hovered in the air, fury twisting his features as demonic energy poured out of him in violent waves. The power did not gather quietly. It howled. Crimson-black currents spiraled around his body as he charged blast after blast, hurling them downward in rapid succession like falling stars. Each impact ripped through space, cracking reality open as the pocket dimension shuddered violently, its boundaries screaming under the strain. Far beyond its walls, the outside world felt the disturbance as well, a distant pressure rolling outward as though something vast had just shifted its weight.
The battlefield was being overwhelmed by sheer output.
Apeiron moved.
He slipped between the incoming torrents faster than reaction and faster than intent, not fleeing the attacks but meeting them head-on. Each time a demonic blast neared him, he struck, not at the energy itself, but at the space that allowed it to exist. His fists, laced with presence rather than force, punched holes through reality, emptying the attacks mid-flight. One by one, the blasts vanished, not exploding or dispersing, but collapsing into nothing as their permission to remain was stripped away.
Still dodging, still striking, Apeiron exhaled softly.
"I can't keep this up forever," he murmured, not in fear, but in assessment.
He planted his feet, grounding himself as the storm continued above him, his breathing slowed until the chaos around him seemed to hesitate.
"Strength without precision is noise."
With that, he yanked his hand forward, and the distance between him and King did not shorten, it collapsed entirely. Space folded inward as the separation was emptied, and King was suddenly there, dragged into proximity by the absence left behind.
Apeiron's other fist followed instantly.
The punch drove King straight into the ground, the impact shattering the battlefield beneath them as layers of stone and space fractured outward. King coughed blood on impact, but rage carried him through the pain, and he rolled to his feet almost immediately, launching himself forward without hesitation.
They collided again.
Punches, kicks, elbows, and knees exchanged in a relentless storm as Stage Two of Mu no Ken, the Empty Fist, clashed against itself. Every strike landed with terrifying accuracy, and the dimension shook from raw power and from precision so exact that reality struggled to compensate.
Blows landed clean, precise, merciless.
pieces body parts vanished where fists struck, erased from reality for fractions of an instant, only to be restored through impossible precision. Apeiron moved with less waste now. Less motion. Less breath. His strikes landed cleaner. His footwork consumed less effort.
King noticed the shift, and for the first time since the fight began, panic broke through his fury.
With a snarl, he drew deeper. More of his power ignited at once gravity tightening around his frame, multiple energies gathering and compressing as they bled outward from his body. The ground buckled beneath his steps as he surged forward, throwing punches and kicks layered with martial technique and overwhelming magical cosmic and demonic powers, each strike carrying crushing weight and violent intent.
Then he reached inward and summoned more.
Demonic power condensed in his grasp as a sword manifested black, jagged, its surface humming violently with destructive intent. The blade screamed as it cut through the dimension, dragging warped space behind it as King brought it down in a brutal arc meant to end the fight in a single blow.
Apeiron's eyes narrowed, and he stepped forward instead of back.
He slipped cleanly inside the swing and tapped the weapon not with force, but with a single, exact strike delivered to its metaphysical fault. His knuckle touched the hidden point that granted the blade its meaning, the unseen pressure point that allowed it to exist as a weapon at all.
The sword shattered mid-swing. Not broken denied. Fragments unraveled into emptiness before they could reach the ground, dissolving as though the weapon had never been permitted to finish forming.
"No weapons," Apeiron said calmly. "You know the rules. What are you doing?"
King's face twisted with rage rather than shame.
"I'm winning," he snarled. "That's what I'm doing."
High above them, Master Kujin watched without expression.
"I will allow it," the master said evenly.
King roared and surged forward again, abandoning restraint entirely as more swords tore themselves into existence around him and clones split from his body in rapid succession. The battlefield flooded with motion, blades screaming, bodies converging from every angle at once.
Apeiron answered with precision.
Then his gaze sharpened.
Presence Vision, Empty Permission.
At first, it was subtle.
Where Apeiron looked, reality simply failed to respond. Space remained intact, but function thinned, as if the dimension itself hesitated, unsure whether it was still allowed to obey.
His presence moved through his eyes in narrow, disciplined lines, not light, not energy, but intent given direction. The pressure did not strike bodies. It reached past form, past armor and flesh, and touched the hidden points where motion, power, and continuity were permitted to occur.
Limbs faltered.
Momentum lost meaning.
Abilities triggered and returned nothing.
King summoned more clones. Then more. Entire waves unfolded at once, weapons raised, powers igniting, numbers multiplying without limit. Yet as Apeiron's gaze climbed higher, widening with controlled focus, the denial spread.
Clones formed and stalled.
Blades existed without cutting.
Energy gathered and dispersed before it could act.
Space itself began to thin, not collapsing, but refusing to cooperate. Every new summon entered an environment that no longer supported action, emptied the moment it tried to become real.
King continued. He had done this before. He could do it forever.
Apeiron felt the strain in his breath, in the discipline required to hold the denial steady. His presence did not expand wildly. It rose with restraint, measured, precise, emptying only what he could sustain.
Eventually, the flood slowed.
The last clones faded without resistance, leaving no echoes behind them. The battlefield fell into a strained stillness, reality pulled tight around the absence carved into it.
Both warriors stood where they were, unmoving, breath heavy, eyes locked.
Then King lifted his hands.
A massive sphere of demonic energy swelled between his palms, growing rapidly as crimson- demonic cosmic, magical power condensed into a pulsing core of destruction. The air howled around it, and the pocket dimension began to quake violently as fractures spiderwebbed through space itself. The blast did not merely threaten the battlefield, it threatened the entire dimension, its instability rippling outward so violently that even realms beyond its boundary shuddered in response.
"You're still just a human," King shouted over the roar. "I am more than that. I have gifts you can't imagine."
His eyes burned.
"Do you know how many powers I've taken? How many worlds I've crossed? How many beings I've drained to become what I am?"
He stepped forward, presence surging.
"I know this art too. You won't take this from me. I have never failed a mission not once."
His voice dropped, lethal and certain.
"This ends now."
He hurled the sphere forward.
Apeiron did not retreat.
His black presence deepened, compressing tightly around his body as the dimension strained to remain intact near him.
"You're right," Apeiron said quietly. "You were born with more than me."
He stepped forward as the blast closed in.
"But I worked harder than you."
He leapt, and his fist met the incoming sphere in a Presence Punch, Empty Fist, not force against force, but permission to exist against absolute denial. The punch did not explode the attack or disperse its energy. It broke it open and emptied it, stripping the blast of structure, function, and continuity until nothing remained for destruction to occur.
The energy vanished.
In the same motion, Apeiron took a single step forward, and the distance between him and King collapsed into nothing, emptied completely as space folded out of relevance. One moment he was across the battlefield, and the next he was already there, standing directly in front of his opponent.
His next strike followed without pause.
A second Presence Punch, Empty Fist.
It passed cleanly through King's chest.
Not tearing.
Not crushing.
Removing.
King's body folded as blood poured from his mouth, consciousness shattering under the sudden loss, and he collapsed to the ground. The battlefield stilled, the dimension slowly stabilizing now that the threat had been emptied at its source.
Silence settled.
Then, from above, the sound of slow applause echoed through the space.
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
"Winner," Master Kujin said calmly. "Apeiron."