The path to the First Pearl of Existence did not appear as a location.
It appeared as a judgment.
Levincia Arena split open at its core, revealing a fractured domain layered over reality itself—like the world had been folded and stitched into a testing ground.
Arthur's voice echoed faintly through Jhonathan's mind.
"The first Pearl will not be taken. It must be proven for."
Jhonathan stepped forward alone.
No army.
No crowd.
Only silence following him like a shadow that refused to leave.
At the center of the domain stood two figures.
Yvan.
And Svan Ivuch.
Svan tilted her head slightly, her invisible strings extending into the air like veins of fate itself.
Millions of threads.
Each one connected to something alive somewhere in existence.
"You've been breaking too many of them," she said softly.
Not angry.
Just observant.
Like someone noting damage in a system.
Yvan stood beside her, arms crossed.
"You should've stayed broken," he muttered.
The domain responded.
The ground shifted into layered arenas—each one reflecting a different possible outcome of the fight.
Thousands of futures flickered at once.
And in almost all of them—
Jhonathan lost.
He noticed that.
He didn't flinch.
Svan raised her hand slightly.
The strings tightened.
Reality began to restrict Jhonathan's movement before he even moved.
Not physically.
But conceptually.
"You are predictable," she said. "Even your rage follows patterns."
Yvan stepped forward first.
His attack didn't travel.
It appeared completed.
A finished result placed onto Jhonathan's body.
But Jhonathan didn't collapse.
Instead, his eyes darkened slightly.
Brunhilde manifested.
Not as a weapon—
but as resistance against definition.
The result shattered.
Like the world had been forced to admit it was wrong.
Svan's expression changed for the first time.
"…interesting."
She pulled harder on the strings.
Now the domain itself began rewriting Jhonathan's past actions mid-fight.
Dodges he had already made were undone.
Strikes he had already landed were erased.
Yvan smiled faintly.
"You can't win if your history keeps changing."
Jhonathan finally spoke.
"…then I'll fight without relying on it."
He stepped forward.
And for the first time in this domain—
he didn't react.
He chose.
Brunhilde burned brighter.
Not with energy.
But with refusal.
He struck Yvan.
This time, no future corrected it fast enough.
Yvan was thrown back through layered timelines, colliding with multiple versions of himself that hadn't happened yet.
Svan narrowed her eyes.
"…you're severing thread prediction."
Jhonathan turned toward her.
Slowly.
"I'm tired of being calculated."
The strings around him tightened again—but this time, they snapped on contact.
Not cut.
Not resisted.
Simply unable to define him anymore.
Svan took a step back.
For the first time.
Yvan struggled to stand.
"You're just one man…"
Jhonathan looked at both of them.
Quietly.
"I know."
A pause.
Then—
he moved.
The domain collapsed inward.
Not destroyed.
Rejected.
Like reality itself could no longer maintain its assumptions around him.
When the light cleared…
Svan was gone from her position.
Yvan was kneeling.
And at the center of the fractured arena…
a small, glowing fragment emerged.
The First Pearl of Existence.
Arthur's voice returned, faint but relieved.
"First condition cleared."
Jhonathan stared at the Pearl.
Not with triumph.
Not with pride.
But with exhaustion that had learned how to keep walking anyway.
"…how many more?" he asked quietly.
A pause.
Then Arthur answered:
"Seventeen."