The lingering line of purple static hovered suspended in mid-air, flickering like a jagged, unhealing wound across the fabric of space. Absolute, suffocating silence held the tens of thousands of spectators in the Hidden Maliqun Country's grand arena completely captive. High above the stadium floor, the massive holographic display screens flickered violently, their diagnostic sensors struggling to comprehend the sudden, terrifying shift in environmental parameters. The atmospheric pressure inside the transparent containment dome had plummeted, replaced by a dense, crushing weight that made even the seasoned warriors in the stands struggle to draw breath.
Down on the platform, Leomord stood rigid atop the ruined, melted steel tiles. His midnight-black plate armor was scored with glowing violet embers where Thunder's purple cutter had passed, and his heavy gauntlets trembled slightly around the hilt of his massive Knight's Sword. Behind his dark visor, Leomord's eyes darted frantically across the shattered horizon of the ring. Every martial instinct he had honed through a hundred battlefield victories screamed at him that danger was imminent, yet his high-grade spatial sensors picked up absolutely nothing.
"Where... where did he go?!" Leomord muttered, his voice ragged and echoing inside his helmet. His chest rose and fell in rapid, shallow gasps. "There was no spatial fold... no displacement signature... no Sakti trajectory! It is as if he completely erased his existence from this plane of reality!"
On Team Thunder's bench, the shock was equally profound. Dent had his hands pressed hard against the transparent barrier, his knuckles white, while Gic stared with wide, unblinking eyes at the empty space where their teammate had been standing a microsecond prior. Fi remained standing beside them, his posture tense, his breath catching in his throat as his eyes searched the distorted air above the stage.
Only Mark remained seated, though his cybernetic visor was humming at maximum capacity, cooling fans whirring loudly as it processed millions of data points per second. "He didn't teleport," Mark whispered, his voice shaking with a mixture of profound awe and cold terror. "His speed exceeded the refresh rate of the arena's spatial tracking matrix. His body didn't leave the dimension—it became so dense with high-frequency Destruction Sakti that the physical world literally couldn't register his presence until he decelerated."
Suddenly, a low, guttural growl broke the silence of the arena.
Beside Leomord, the colossal eight-ton armored Triceratops shifted its heavy mass. Its massive steel-plated tail lashed against the metallic floor, sparking violently against the scorched tiles. While human eyes and artificial sensors failed to track Thunder's position, the creature's primal, battle-tested instincts—honed by centuries of survival—detected a sudden, catastrophic spike in atmospheric temperature directly fifty meters above the center of the ring. The air up there was atomizing, burning with a strange, violent thermal friction.
ROAAAAAR!
The creature let out an ear-splitting, bloodcurdling roar that shattered several outer glass panels on the stadium's lower tier. Throwing its massive head back, the Triceratops ignited its three spiked iron horns with a blinding, white-hot elemental energy.
Fire Barrage!
The creature unleashed its devastating Thermal Type Attack. From the tip of its glowing horns, a continuous stream of superheated plasma spheres and explosive fireballs erupted upward into the artificial sky. The barrage saturated the targeted coordinate in a blinding, roaring inferno of pure thermal destruction. The air turned into a shimmering, distorted heat haze, reaching temperatures capable of vaporizing solid titanium within milliseconds. The crowd shielded their eyes from the blinding radiance, convinced that no living entity could survive being caught in the center of such an elemental maelstrom.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A rapid succession of deafening detonations shook the stadium, filling the upper atmosphere with a thick, swirling cloud of black smoke and white plasma flames.
Yet, before the sound of the explosions could even echo back from the dome, the inferno was brutally torn apart.
SWOOSH!
A singular line of dark violet light cleaved directly through the heart of the thermal storm. Thunder emerged from the center of the white-hot plasma completely unscathed. The intense heat of the Fire Barrage didn't even singe his dark combat attire; the sheer pressure of the purple aura surrounding him acted as an absolute void, extinguishing the flames the instant they touched his perimeter.
Driven by a monstrous, incomprehensible speed that defied the laws of momentum, Thunder descended from the sky. He did not fall; he accelerated downward like a falling star, leaving behind a sonic boom that pulverized the surrounding smoke clouds into nothingness.
Leomord barely had time to register the shadow falling over him. "He's fast—!"
Before the thought could finish forming in Leomord's mind, Thunder re-materialized directly in front of him, standing well within his guard. Thunder's face was completely emotionless. His dark hair drifted upward in smooth, anti-gravitational waves, and his eyes—burning like pure, miniature purple suns—stared blankly through Leomord as if looking at a ghost.
Thunder's right hand, fully transformed into the crystalline, high-frequency blade of the Lightning Cutter, moved in a clean, effortless arc.
SLASH!
The purple lightning blade cut through the air with a high-pitched, screeching hum that sounded like thousands of birds screaming at once. The strike cleaved directly across Leomord's heavy iron plate armor. The impenetrable spatial Abha barrier that Leomord had built around his body was shattered like brittle ice upon contact. The purple blade carved a deep, brutal arc across Leomord's torso, tearing through the heavy steel plating, the underlying chainmail, and deep into his chest.
"GAAAAAH!"
Leomord screamed in agony as fresh, hot blood erupted from the wound, instantly vaporizing into red mist against the intense heat of the purple lightning. The kinetic force behind the casual strike was so immense that Leomord's eight-hundred-pound frame was lifted clean off his feet and sent skidding backward across the metal floor.
Thunder, however, gave him no time to breathe, no time to recover, and no quarter.
Hovering a few inches above the ground with effortless anti-gravity control, Thunder raised his left palm toward the airborne knight. His fingers twitched, and the raw Destruction Sakti surging through his core overflowed from his skin in a terrifying cascade of pure electrical energy.
Thousands of Electric Shots!
A blinding, endless barrage of needle-like purple lightning bolts erupted from Thunder's open palm. Thousands of high-voltage electrical needles rained down upon Leomord in a continuous, deafening storm. Each individual needle carried enough localized Destruction Sakti to pierce through heavy tank armor, and together, they formed a solid wall of purple destruction that pinned Leomord against the ground, pelting his body with relentless, agonizing strikes.
BZ-BZ-BZ-BZ-BZ-BZ-BZZZT!
"ARRRGH!" Leomord's screams were drowned out by the thunderous roar of the continuous electrical execution. His heavy armor turned bright orange from the heat, the dark Astrager Abha surrounding him being stripped away layer by layer under the sheer volume of the assault. Sparks, metal fragments, and scorched armor plating flew in every direction as the floor beneath him was reduced to a crater of molten slag.
"MASTER!"
The armored Triceratops roared in desperation. Seeing its rider on the absolute brink of death, the beast threw aside all self-preservation. Its massive feet pounded against the ground, shattering the metal tiles into powder as it surged forward into the blinding storm of purple electricity.
Reaching Leomord's side, the creature planted its massive forelegs into the ground and unleashed its ultimate defensive technique.
Protect!
A brilliant, translucent dome of pure, high-density Normal Type energy expanded from the creature's core, enveloping both itself and Leomord in an impenetrable sanctuary. The glowing barrier took the full force of Thunder's Thousands of Electric Shots. The purple lightning needles slammed into the shimmering surface of the dome, crackling wildly as their destructive energy was absorbed and safely redirected into the surrounding earth.
The creature didn't stop there. Harnessing the true depth of its bond with its rider, the Triceratops began to channel its inner vitality. The inner surface of the Protect barrier began to radiate a soft, golden-green light that washed over Leomord's broken body.
It was a combined healing and attribute-boosting aura. The deep, bloody gash across Leomord's torso began to stop bleeding as the radiant energy knitted his damaged flesh and reinforced his cracked bones. At the same time, a surge of adrenaline and boosted physical strength flooded through Leomord's veins, forcibly lifting him out of a state of shock and restoring his flagging stamina.
"GRRRR-ROAR!"
With its rider protected and stabilized, the eight-ton beast lowered its horned head once more. Fuelled by the boosted attributes of its defensive field, the Triceratops executed a ferocious, earth-shattering bull-tackle, charging straight through the storm of purple static to ram Thunder directly.
The sheer physical mass and momentum of the creature were terrifying. Thunder, remaining in his cold, calculating trance, recognized the immovable weight of the charge. Instead of meeting the eight-ton monster head-on, he allowed his body to drift backward like a feather caught in a draft.
SWOOSH!
Thunder leapt smoothly into the air, executing a flawless backward vault that allowed the Triceratops's horned snout to pass mere inches beneath his boots. The creature's charge plowed into the distant arena wall, causing the entire structural support of the stadium to groan under the massive physical impact.
Thunder landed softly on a floating chunk of shattered steel plate that hung suspended in the air by his magnetic field. His eyes remained hollow, glowing like burning purple suns in the shadows of his dark hair. He didn't look at Leomord, nor did he look at the beast. He didn't utter a word, nor did he display any sign of exhaustion or pain from the severe wounds he had suffered earlier in the match. His physical body was being entirely sustained and driven by the primordial force residing within his bloodline.
Slowly, methodically, Thunder raised both hands toward the dome of the arena.
The temperature inside the stadium dropped drastically, followed immediately by a terrifying, low-frequency hum that vibrated deep within the chests of everyone present. The artificial sky above the battleground began to distort. The bright spotlights of the stadium were swallowed by deep, bruised-violet clouds that materialized out of thin air, swirling into a massive, unnatural hurricane directly above the ring.
Destructive Thunderstorm!
Thunder released the full, unbridled power of his awakened Destruction Sakti into the atmosphere.
CRACK-BOOM!
The sky tore open. Dozens of massive purple lightning bolts, each as thick as ancient oak trees, rained down indiscriminately upon the arena floor. Unlike normal lightning, which strikes in a fraction of a second and dissipates, these purple thunderbolts slammed into the ground and stayed, burning like towering pillars of raw, chaotic plasma that melted everything they touched.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The entire battleground was systematically pulverized. The reinforced steel platforms, the automated repair matrices beneath the floor, the heavy stone foundations—all of it was reduced to a bubbling sea of red-hot molten slag. The atmospheric shockwaves hit the transparent containment dome with catastrophic force, causing spiderweb cracks to spread across the heavy reinforced glass. Spectators in the front rows screamed in terror, scrambling backward as the containment field groaned under the unimaginable internal pressure.
"This... this isn't a tournament match anymore!" Gic shouted from the bench, holding onto his seat as the bench platform shook violently. "He's going to destroy the entire citadel if this keeps up!"
"He's not in control!" Mark yelled back, his cybernetic visor flashing red warning indicators across his field of vision. "The Destruction Sakti has completely taken over his nervous system! It sees everything in the arena—Leomord, the creature, the guards, the stadium itself—as a threat that must be erased from existence!"
In the center of the roaring purple hellscape, Leomord pushed himself up from the ground, leaning heavily on his Knight's Sword. His armor was ruined, his body was battered, but the pride of an iron knight burned fiercely in his heart. Beside him, his Triceratops stood ground, its iron plates red-hot from the ambient lightning, yet its eyes remained fixed on the floating figure of Thunder.
"I am Leomord of the Iron Vanguard!" Leomord roared into the storm, his voice carrying the desperate, unyielding courage of a warrior facing absolute oblivion. "I have survived a hundred battles across the outer territories! I will not be felled by a mindless storm!"
Gathering every remaining drop of his Astrager Abha, Leomord poured the dark, corrupted spatial energy into his sword. The broad blade grew heavy with pitch-black light, warping the space around it as Leomord raised it high above his head.
"Spatial Cleave: Void Breaker!" Leomord screamed, swinging his sword downward with everything he had left.
A massive, crescent-shaped wave of pitch-black spatial Abha erupted from the blade, tearing across the molten floor directly toward Thunder's floating position. The attack carried enough spatial compression to slice through heavy mountain ranges, an ultimate technique designed to sever both physical matter and Sakti flows.
Thunder didn't dodge. He didn't even raise his arms to defend. He simply floated there in the air, his glowing purple eyes fixed on the incoming wave of darkness.
THWACK!
The dark spatial Abha blade struck Thunder directly in the center of his chest.
The entire arena held its breath, expecting an explosive collision of forces. But what happened next shocked every warrior and grandmaster sitting in the spectator stands.
There was no explosion. There was no impact.
The moment the dark Astrager Abha touched Thunder's chest, it didn't pierce his skin. Instead, a strange, swirling black-and-purple vortex manifested at the point of impact. The dark spatial energy was forcibly stopped in its tracks, pulled inward by a terrifying, irresistible gravitational pull.
Within a fraction of a second, the entire wave of Astrager Abha was completely swallowed up, absorbed directly into Thunder's chest as if it were nothing more than smoke drawn into a vacuum.
Something far too ancient, infinitely powerful, and terrifyingly vast within Thunder was residing beneath his consciousness—a primordial core that did not merely deflect external energy, but consumed it, converting the dark spatial corruption into raw fuel for its own manifestation.
As the dark Abha was absorbed, Thunder's aura expanded exponentially. The dark purple lightning crackling around his body grew so dense that his physical outline began to blur. He was merging entirely with the Lightning Cutter. His flesh, his bones, his dark hair, and his combat attire became indistinguishable from the high-frequency, super-dense purple plasma surrounding him. He was no longer a human wielding a technique; he had become the technique itself—a living embodiment of pure, unbridled destruction.
SWOOSH!
Thunder flickered.
He didn't cover the distance between himself and Leomord by flying or stepping through space. He simply ceased to exist at his previous coordinate and materialized directly beside Leomord, his body hanging suspended horizontally in mid-air as he passed by.
The razor-sharp tip of his purple lightning sword grazed Leomord's right shoulder by a mere millimeter. It was a touch so light, so brief, that it seemed almost completely harmless.
Yet, the reaction was catastrophic.
BOOM!
The localized Destruction Sakti condensed within the tip of the Lightning Cutter exploded upon contact with Leomord's armor. The microscopic graze delivered a shockwave of concentrated energy that instantly ripped through Leomord's heavy iron shoulder plate, shattering the underlying armor into thousands of tiny shrapnel pieces. The force traveled inward, completely disintegrating his collarbone, tearing through the deep muscle tissue, and sending a violent electrical pulse through his entire skeletal structure.
"AAAAAAAAHHH!"
Leomord let out a bloodcurdling scream as he was hurled sideways by the sheer force of the graze. He crashed brutally into the molten slag of the arena floor, rolling several times before coming to a stop on his back. His right arm hung limply at his side, completely useless and covered in severe electrical burns. His Knight's Sword flew from his grip, landing thirty meters away and sinking into the liquid steel.
Beside him, the Triceratops let out a weak, whimpering cry, its Protect barrier completely shattered by the ambient shockwave of the graze. The beast collapsed onto its knees, its heavy head resting on the scorched earth, its strength completely exhausted.
Thunder turned slowly in mid-air, landing lightly on his feet near the fallen knight. His glowing purple eyes looked down at Leomord with cold, absolute detachment. To the primordial entity controlling Thunder's body, the fight was not over until the threat was completely extinguished.
Thunder raised his right hand. The blade of pure purple lightning extended upward, its high-frequency hum vibrating through the shattered stadium, preparing to drive the blade downward through Leomord's chest for a final, lethal execution strike.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
"MATCH TERMINATED! EMERGENCY INTERVENTION PROTOCOL ACTIVATED!"
The automated stadium speakers shrieked in high-pitched alarm signals. The holographic displays flashed bright red warning lights across the entire dome.
"STOP THE MATCH IMMEDIATELY! PARTICIPANT IS UNABLE TO CONTINUE!"
From the upper perimeter of the arena, over thirty elite arena guards clad in heavy, anti-Sakti battle suits vaulted over the cracked containment walls. They carried high-caliber stasis rifles and heavy energy suppression nets, dropping onto the field in a tactical formation around Thunder.
"Target has lost emotional control! Deploy Level 4 Suppression Fields!" the guard captain shouted, raising his rifle. "Fire!"
Dozens of high-density suppression nets and blue stasis beams erupted from the guards' weaponry, converging on Thunder from every angle. The nets were designed to neutralize high-level Sakti outputs, capable of subduing even grandmaster-level fighters in a matter of seconds.
BOOM!
Thunder didn't even turn his head toward the guards. He didn't raise a hand. He didn't shift his stance.
A casual, effortless flick of his purple aura erupted from his body in a thirty-meter radial shockwave. The heavy suppression nets were instantly incinerated into ash before they could reach him, and the blue stasis beams were bounced back like light reflecting off a mirror.
The surrounding thirty elite guards were caught in the radial shockwave. Their heavy anti-Sakti armor cracked, their weapons exploded in their hands, and all thirty men were blasted backward through the air, crashing violently into the reinforced concrete walls of the stadium. They slumped onto the ground, unconscious and broken, their suppression equipment utterly destroyed.
The spectator stands descended into total panic. People began rushing toward the exit tunnels, screaming as they realized that the arena's safety measures were completely useless against the monster standing in the center of the ring.
Thunder raised his purple lightning blade once more, pointing the gleaming tip directly at Leomord's exposed throat. The edge of the blade hummed, mere inches from ending the knight's life.
FLASH!
Before the purple blade could descend, a single figure appeared between Thunder and Leomord in a flash of speed that defied all physical comprehension.
The Honoured 8th Hidden Maliqun King, Khandker Al Khalid stood there.
He wore his standard, simple long coat, which fluttered gently in the violent wind of the purple storm. His expression was completely calm, devoid of any fear or hesitation as he stepped directly into the lethal trajectory of the executioner's blade.
Thunder's hand drove the Lightning Cutter forward with catastrophic force, a strike capable of severing a mountain.
PAK!
The Honoured 8th Hidden Maliqun King, Khandker Al Khalid raised his left hand and caught the blade of pure, high-frequency purple lightning with his bare fingers.
The crowd, those who had paused in their escape to look back at the field, gasped in collective horror. But there was no explosion. There was no spray of blood.
A subtle, dull-grey aura enveloped Khandker Al Khalid's bare hand. The moment the blade of pure purple Destruction Sakti touched that dull-grey light, its violent humming instantly died down. The super-dense plasma, the atomic friction, the terrifying pressure that had shattered the entire battleground—all of it was forcefully suppressed, shrinking down until the purple lightning blade dissolved into thin air, leaving behind only Thunder's normal, bare hand trapped within Khandker Al Khalid's iron grip.
The massive purple storm swirling in the sky above the stadium froze, its violent clouds dissipating into a clear, quiet sky in less than two seconds. The suffocating pressure that had held the entire dome captive vanished completely, replaced by a cool, gentle breeze that swept across the ruined, smoking arena.
Thunder's body stiffened. The glowing purple suns in his eyes flickered violently, struggling against the absolute suppression field radiating from Khandker Al Khalid's grip.
Khandker Al Khalid didn't let go. Instead, he stepped in close, pulling Thunder by his collar until their faces were mere inches apart.
Khandker Al Khalid looked directly into Thunder's flickering purple eyes. His face was cold, sharp, and unreadable. He leaned toward Thunder's ear and whispered in a low, heavy, dead-end voice that sent a deep, primal chill through the core of Thunder's subconscious mind:
"I know it's you! You're trying to break free... but you can't."
Thunder's eyes widened slightly. The violet light in his irises completely extinguished, returning to their natural, deep dark color. His knees buckled, his consciousness fading instantly as his body went completely limp, falling forward into Khandker Al Khalid's arms.
The Honoured 8th Hidden Maliqun King, Khandker Al Khalid caught the unconscious fighter effortlessly, slinging his arm over his shoulder, before turning his head toward the silent, stunned spectator stands.
TO BE CONTINUED...