Michael looked down at Caelan through the translucent golden chest of the Aegis Avatar, his smile unchanged, his bright eyes carrying something that wasn’t quite respect but bordered on it. The hundred swords that had pinned his shadow were gone now, dissolved into nothing under the overwhelming brilliance of the construct’s halo. Golden light poured off the avatar in waves, warming the air, casting long shadows that stretched across the ruined street.

"To make me use my bloodline ability," Michael said, his voice amplified by the avatar until it resonated like a cathedral bell. "You should feel proud of that, sword cultivator. Very few people in this generation have managed it."

Caelan stood below, barely upright, his body a canvas of wounds. The Sword Domain was crumbling around them, the planted swords flickering and dimming as his mana reserves hit critical levels. He could feel the domain eating him alive, the cost of sustaining a Reality Annex far beyond what his cultivation could support. His meridians burned. His vision was tunneling. Blood ran freely from his nose, his ears, the corners of his mouth.

But his grip on his sword didn’t waver.

Michael raised the Aegis Avatar’s colossal arms. The greatsword of light in its hands gleamed with intensity that made the air itself recoil. The construct’s six wings spread wide, casting a shadow that swallowed an entire city block.

"Let’s end this in one final strike."

Caelan raised his left sword. His right one had finally shattered three exchanges ago, the blade reduced to a useless hilt that he had discarded.

He didn’t have enough mana for another technique. He didn’t have enough mana to maintain the domain for another minute. But the domain itself still had energy. The hundred swords, even without their physical forms, had absorbed ambient mana throughout the fight. Every clash, every deflected strike, every shockwave that had rippled through the field had been partially captured by the sword network.

Caelan reached into that stored energy with everything he had left.

All the swords in the domain, the scattered remnants, the dissolved blades, the residual mana patterns etched into the ground, they all responded. Light gathered above his raised blade, condensing, compressing, taking shape. A hundred swords worth of accumulated energy merged into a single colossal blade of white light that dwarfed even the Aegis Avatar’s weapon.

The avatar’s giant arm extended outward. Raw, purified mana condensed from the surrounding air, drawn from Michael’s vast reserves and filtered through his bloodline, crystallizing into a radiant greatsword that burned with the intensity of a small sun.

"Blade of Sanction."

Caelan poured everything into his voice. His remaining mana. His sword intent. His will. His pride as a man who had done nothing but cut since he was a child.

"Whispering Willow Technique, Fifth Form. Sky Departure."

Both giants moved.

BOOOOOOM.

The collision was not a clash. It was a catastrophe.

Light. Pure, blinding, absolute light erupted from the point of contact as the two colossal blades met. The shockwave alone flattened every building within a two-hundred-meter radius. Walls exploded outward. Roofs caved in. Windows shattered in cascading waves that spread for blocks.

CRACK. CRACK. CRACK-RACK-RACK.

The ground split beneath them in radiating fissures, concrete and rebar and earth torn apart like wet paper. A Mana Heart Rank 2 beast that had been lurking in a nearby alley was caught in the shockwave and died instantly, its body torn apart before it could even shriek. Two Rank 1 beasts further down the street were crushed by falling debris.

The two blades grinding against each other screamed with a sound that wasn’t physical. It was the sound of two opposing forces, light and sword intent, trying to annihilate each other.

Thirty seconds.

Caelan arms burned. His muscles tore. Blood vessels burst across his forearms, painting his skin red beneath the sleeve of his combat uniform. His bones creaked under the transmitted force, micro-fractures spreading like spider webs through his wrists, his elbows, his shoulders.

But he held.

Because Sky Departure didn’t just cut through obstruction. It cut through the concept of obstruction. And right now, the only thing obstructing him was Michael Weston’s blade. So he cut at it. Not with physical force, but with will. With the absolute conviction that his edge would reach its target.

A hairline crack appeared in the Blade of Sanction.

Michael’s eyes widened slightly.

The crack spread. The light dimmed at the point of fracture. For one single, crystalline moment, Caelan’s will was stronger than Michael’s bloodline.

Then the Blade of Sanction erupted, releasing a surge of concentrated light that shattered Caelan’s giant sword like glass.

SHATTER.

The backlash hit Caelan like a freight train.

He was launched backward, skipping across the destroyed street like a stone across water.

Pam. Pam. Pam.

Each impact broke something new. Ribs. Collarbone. The concrete he bounced off cracked and cratered.

He came to rest against the rubble of a collapsed building, slumped in a sitting position, his left arm bent at an angle that made it clear the humerus was snapped clean through.

His body began to dissolve.

Particles of white light rose from his skin, his clothes, his hair, like embers from a dying fire. The Reality Annex was collapsing, and it was taking his physical form with it. The bracelet on his wrist flared red.

[ELIMINATED]

Caelan looked up at Michael through fading vision. The Aegis Avatar was dissolving too, its golden form unraveling into streams of light that flowed back into Michael’s body. Michael descended slowly, light wings beating gently, and landed on the fractured ground.

A diagonal cut ran across his chest.

Sky Departure had reached him. At the very end, through the shattering of his own blade, Caelan’s final cut had landed.

Caelan smiled.

"Thank you."

Michael looked at him for a long moment. Then he smiled back. It was the first genuine smile anyone had seen from the Empyrean Celestial captain.

In the stadium, Caelan’s unconscious body materialized on the stage. Uninjured. The resurrection restored everything the round had taken from him. His chest rose and fell with steady breathing, as though he were simply sleeping.

The crowd erupted.

"Caelan Asten has been eliminated!" the Commentator shouted over the roar. "But what a performance! He forced the number one ranked individual to use his bloodline ability! The two pushing themselves to their absolute limit! But is that really the limit of the Empyrean Celestial captain? That is what this tournament is about!"

Back in Valdris, Michael sat down on a broken slab of concrete and let out a long breath. The cut on his chest stung. His mana reserves were sitting at roughly fifty five percent, the Aegis Avatar having consumed a significant portion. He checked his bracelet.

[4,700 PTS]

Still first. Comfortably.

His eyes flicked to the second name on the individual ranking.

2nd: Kael Cassian Vorn — 3,000 PTS]

A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"It will be fun to face him," he murmured.

Crunch.

Behind Michael, twenty meters away, a curved blade was descending toward the back of his neck. The wielder was invisible, but the displaced air and the faint sound of breathing gave away the position of a Mana Heart Rank 3 criminal who had been watching the entire fight from the shadows.

The criminal’s thought process had been simple. The captain of Empyrean Celestial was exhausted, sitting down, off guard. One kill. Six hundred points. Freedom.

The blade never reached him.

SHLCK. SHLCK. SHLCK. SHLCK. SHLCK.

Five light blades materialized simultaneously around the invisible criminal, each one piercing a different vital point. Heart. Lungs. Throat. Spine. Skull. The criminal froze, invisibility flickering as shock disrupted his concentration, his form becoming visible for the last time.

His eyes were wide. His mouth open. The curved blade clattered uselessly to the ground.

Michael turned toward him slowly, his bright eyes carrying a cold, imperial indifference that hadn’t been present during his fight with Caelan.

"How useless," Michael said quietly. "An invisibility ability is useless before the eyes of this emperor."

The light blades contracted.

The criminal died without making a sound.

[4,700 → 5,200 PTS]

Michael stood, brushed dust off his uniform, and walked away from the bodies without looking back.

Several kilometers away, in the eastern district of Valdris, another fight of entirely different character was raging.

Gareth Ganesha, captain of Iron Nexus and prodigy of the Royal Divine Elephant beast clan, stood in the center of a collapsed intersection. His metallic skin gleamed dully under the gray sky, each breath he took causing the ground beneath his feet to crack from the sheer density of his body. Mana Heart Rank 3. Built like a mountain and twice as unmovable.

Across from him, Karacus Drakemore’s partial dragon transformation blazed with white-hot intensity. Scales rippled across his arms and chest. His tail smashed through a ruined vehicle. His horns gleamed. His eyes had shifted from human to something far older, far hungrier.

BOOM.

Their fists collided, and the shockwave leveled the remaining walls of the surrounding buildings.

In the southern district, Mason Croft stood in a wide plaza, blood running from a cut above his eyebrow, his breathing heavy but controlled. Across from him, a woman with crimson hair and an Empyrean Celestial uniform watched him with calculating green eyes.

Rhea Harrison. Mana Heart Rank 3. Ranked seventeenth individually with 1550 points. Mason was ranked thirteenth at 1,700 points. Peak Mana Heart Rank 2 against a full Rank 3.

Not ideal odds. But Mason had never cared about odds.

"So," Rhea said, rolling her shoulders, light gathering around her fists. "The War God brat. I’ve heard things about you."

Mason wiped the blood from his eyebrow and settled into a fighting stance. His Solar energy flickered beneath his skin, golden veins tracing patterns across his forearms.

"And I’ve heard things about you," he replied. "None of them interesting."

Rhea smiled. "Let’s see if I can change that."

She moved. Mason moved to meet her.

PAM.