Uriel had drawn as many formations on his body as he could to make up for his current weakness.

They numbered in the thousands, each standing as creations of his Star Echelons. He had thousands of Star Echelon formations etched onto him, each fueled by his star rings.

And yet, he couldn’t react.

SHURR!

Kael’s blade sliced down, and Uriel felt a large gash tear across his chest, dancing alongside a burning wave of lightning aether.

The wave of energy fought against the field of his nervous system, frying it and paralyzing him.

Taking advantage of this, Kael stepped forward and, with his free hand, viciously grabbed Uriel’s neck.

He squeezed once, shattering the boy’s trachea, then spun and threw him overhead to slam him down into the charred ground.

BOOM!

Uriel’s body slammed heavily against the ground, his neck crashing into it at an awkward angle, nearly shattering entirely as it was already weakened by Kael’s earlier attack.

Though it hurt—though he felt the gates of death open to him—Uriel didn’t scream. In fact, the pain pushed him into a deep state of focus.

[First Wood Star Echelon: Primal Suit]

Wood aether coalesced across the folds of Uriel’s body, weaving through the layers of his flesh and the fibers of his bones to form a harmonious, almost symbiotic armor of vines and flowers that filled every empty gap in his frame.

In a blink, he became a human Treant, and the weakness of his flesh was snuffed out.

Uriel pushed himself off the ground, dodging a vicious follow-up stomp by Kael, and landed on the balls of his feet, crouched.

He pushed off and backflipped again, dodging a slice aimed for his head just as he cast another spell.

As the spell formed, a platform of sand appeared parallel to his airborne, spinning body, and before he could complete the rotation, he pushed off it and launched at Kael.

[First Dark Star Echelon: Creeping Shadows]

Kael blinked—and suddenly Uriel’s body fractured into countless variants and shadows, attacking from all sides.

Not only that, he found himself unable to discern truth from falsehood, let alone the sequence of incoming attacks.

He reacted instantly, switching to a defensive stance as his lightning exploded outward in a wide field. He hoped that doing so would neutralize Uriel among the shadows.

Regardless of how many there were, one had to be real—and if it couldn’t get past his lightning, what was the point?

Unfortunately, Kael’s assumption was wrong. Based on his previous attack, he believed his lightning was effective against Uriel, but it wasn’t.

If it had been, how would Uriel have recovered after having his nervous system fried? He couldn’t heal, after all. He would have lost instantly.

The answer was simple. Uriel had—

[First Dark Star Echelon: Horrifying Severance]

—been acting.

SHOO!

A sharp blade of darkness formed in his grasp, born from his dark path of poison and inspired by the phenomenon caused by Lucianna’s servant.

Just like that servant, the blade was rejected and hated by the fabrics of reality.

But Uriel wasn’t done.

[First Light Star Echelon: Ivory Radiance]

His dark blade ignited, consumed by radiant white flames.

Uriel pushed off the sand platform, light aether flooding his body as he launched toward Kael, crossing the distance in a single breath.

His left foot planted forward as he slid to a stop less than a meter away, body twisted inward, eyes locked in absolute focus.

The light aether ignited fully, and his body unfurled; hips torquing as he unleashed a chaotic swing aimed at Kael’s belly.

SHI!

Caught off guard by the sudden explosion of speed, Kael barely reacted in time, thrusting his blade forward in an attempt to parry.

To his credit, he was fast enough, and their blades met.

But Uriel’s strike carried such force that Kael’s arm was blown back, nearly torn from its socket.

The blade dug into him, and he expected pain, expected gore but nothing came.

The blade didn’t cut. It simply embedded itself.

WHOOOSH!

The dark poison forming the blade dissolved into Kael’s body, resonance and harmony erupting as Uriel used resonant dominance to forcibly alter Kael’s relationship with the world. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Just like he had while learning Veiling, but this time, he didn’t erase the man from perception.

He bound the poison to him completely, making them indistinguishable in the eyes of the world. And now, as much as the fabrics hated that poison, as they once hated the Horror, they now hated Kael.

In a single act, Kael lost nearly everything.

Aether, talents, techniques, martial arts, enhancements, runes, core dominance; it was all gone. And then Uriel’s light spell came alive.

The white flame became a vessel of Will, an amplifier and a guide. More precisely, it became a vessel for the world’s newfound hatred toward Kael.

Suddenly, it was fueled by the laws, the energy, the very fabric of the dimensional prison itself. The will of the space funneled into a singular purpose: Destroy Kael.

The entire attack was genius. And it was—

BOOOOOM!

—devastating.

The force alone sent Uriel flying, his body flung across the dungeon until his back slammed into one of the moss-colored walls. He lost consciousness for a split second from the shock.

Kael fared far worse.

He, too, had been blown back? but his body crashed into a dozen chains hanging from the ceiling at such speeds that they pierced through him, tearing in and out of his flesh before wrapping tightly around his frame.

His body burned with Uriel’s white flames, the world itself expending energy to drag him toward death, stripping him of any right to exist as he stood severed from the fabrics.

At the same time, the laws of the world pressed against his mind, seeking to shatter his Will. He didn’t even bleed, every drop of him burned away instantly.

He couldn’t scream either. His throat was crushed, his jaw shattered, a thick chain driven through it.

It was gruesome and he should have been dead.

But he wasn’t.

"...argh...!"

Uriel forced himself to his feet, the Primal Suit still holding strong. Even so, he swayed heavily, nearly collapsing as his body trembled and he vomited mouthfuls of blood.

Weakly, he wiped his mouth and looked into the distance, locking onto Kael’s broken, hanging figure.

The chains hadn’t even been part of his plan, but they had worked in his favor. Just as he began to look away, thinking of how to escape—

"Boy, boy, boy,"

—Kael spoke.

The charred body stirred.

One by one, the chains piercing him began to glow—red, then white—before melting away entirely.

Molten droplets slid down his ruined form as he freed himself.

His feet touched the ground. He didn’t stagger nor sway as he recovered. Even while burning, he stood tall; back straight, and presence immense.

Even as the world rejected him, he remained unbothered.

A deep aura radiated from him, something Uriel could sense but not name. It felt as though, in being cut off from the world, Kael had awakened something within himself.

"It’s like I said... grace often follows the fall."

If Uriel had to describe it, it was as if he had awakened Kael’s... path. The same feeling Uriel experienced before the Supreme Spirit now surfaced again.

As if Kael stood as ruler of his own world—his own laws—with his Will as the anchor of reality itself.

It was... horrifying.

’No... how?!’

Kael chuckled. Then laughed.

Pure, unrestrained joy spilled from him, his soul brimming with peace and ecstasy. He reached up to his shattered face—

CLICK!

—and tore off his mask, tossing it aside without a second thought.

"To think I’d be enlightened by a mere boy, ha!"

Space trembled.

A Simple Domain unlike anything Uriel had ever seen erupted into existence. But it didn’t feel like before.

It didn’t feel like the world had been pushed away to form a void, no, it felt like an entirely new world had overwritten the old one.

A world where Kael’s Will was absolute.

WHOOSH! BANG! BANG!

Violent winds roared outward as reality itself shifted.

All color and shape collapsed into endless darkness—then surged back, weaving into a grotesque new tapestry.

The sun became a massive eye, engulfed in abyssal black flames. The sky turned crimson, dotted with stars of rotting, fused flesh.

The ground was worms.

An endless sea of massive golden worms writhed beneath pillars of blue lightning, their hunger insatiable, their rage unending.

Kael floated high above, arms spread wide, laughter echoing across the warped sky.

Who needed the world when he could forge his own?

If the world rejected him, then his Will would create one that bowed to no one but him.

He needed nothing but himself.

"Come!"

Kael looked down.

Far below, Uriel struggled within the sea of worms, fighting to avoid being devoured. With a wave of his hand, one of the flesh-stars trembled, and a blood-red pillar of lightning tore through the sky.

BOOOOM!

The worm-sea bent like liquid beneath the impact.

And perhaps it truly was. Who could say otherwise here?

Kael moved his hand again and the currents and laws of gravity warped.

Uriel’s charred body was dragged upward, lifted into the sky until he hung before him.

"Don’t we look alive now, hm?"

PURCHI!

The sound was sickening.

Kael’s hand plunged into Uriel’s chest, grasping his spine—

"HAHAHA!"

—and ripped it free.

His body split apart, broken and torn into two halves forever severed.

Uriel died.