The arena fell silent, and Orion’s smile grew more serious.
He lifted both hands. The nine star marks across his body brightened in unison, and the space above the arena transformed into a vast night sky teeming with countless small stars.
At first there were hundreds, then a thousand, and then several thousand more. The starlight gathered so densely that it looked as though an inverted galaxy had formed above the central stage.
Even Max’s eyes sharpened slightly, for this attack was anything but weak. A thousand star beams did not simply mean greater numbers. Every beam carried Orion’s personal control, and every star possessed its own angle, speed, delay, and trajectory.
Against any ordinary opponent, an attack of this kind would be impossible to defend, because even if they somehow blocked hundreds of beams, the remainder would pierce through whatever opening appeared.
Orion’s voice rang out with calm authority.
"Nine Star Court. Thousand Star Rain."
The galaxy descended. Thousands of star beams plunged toward Revona, and the entire arena was swallowed in starlight. The barrier around the central stage flashed as the pressure of the attack rolled outward, and audiences throughout the Divine Realm erupted in shock.
The disciples of the Nine Star Court, watching from their own divine viewing platform, rose to their feet with shining eyes and faces full of pride. This was exactly the kind of grand and overwhelming assault their force was famous for. Their stars never needed to draw close, for their stars passed judgment from above.
But Revona stood beneath that falling galaxy and simply raised her head. Her Void Origin Eyes released a deeper glow. The first layer of starlight vanished, then the second, and then the third. The beams poured down without end, yet wherever her eyes traveled, they dissolved into nothingness.
The sight was almost impossible to believe. A thousand beams of starlight descended with magnificent force, and they were erased layer after layer, as though the sky itself were being emptied by nothing more than her gaze.
Some beams attempted to strike from behind her, but Revona’s eyes flickered, a faint ripple of void spread around her body, and those beams disappeared as well.
Other beams delayed their descent and dove in from blind angles, yet she turned only slightly and they vanished before arrival. Still others split into smaller beams at the final moment, and even those fragments were wiped away.
By the time the Thousand Star Rain ended, Revona remained standing exactly where she had begun, untouched and unshaken. The stage around her had not suffered so much as a scratch, because not one of the attacks had ever been permitted to land.
The silence that followed weighed heavier than any before it.
Orion regarded her for a long moment, then lowered his hands, and his smile turned wry. "You might be the worst possible matchup for me."
Revona watched him quietly.
Orion shook his head and went on. "Nearly all of my attacks are long-ranged. I fight with star beams, star rain, star spears, falling star arrays, and celestial suppression. I control the battlefield from a distance and overwhelm my opponents before they can ever approach me. But your Void Origin Eyes can nullify ranged attacks before they reach you, and against someone like me, that ability is almost unfair."
Revona’s expression stayed calm. "Almost."
Orion laughed softly. "You are right. Almost."
On the pillars, the top geniuses watched with grave expressions, and Max’s gaze remained fixed on the stage. He had expected Revona to be troublesome, but watching her erase Orion’s attacks one after another confirmed just how much stronger her eyes had grown.
A single beam, ten beams, a hundred beams, and finally a thousand beams had all dissolved beneath her gaze. Unless Orion revealed something deeper, this battle would lead nowhere.
Revona looked at Orion and spoke with quiet certainty. "Use your Pseudo Cosmic Path."
Orion’s smile slowly faded. The nine star marks on his body began to glow once more, but this time the light was different. It ran deeper, felt older, and carried a majesty far beyond anything he had shown. Revona’s Void Origin Eyes brightened as she watched him.
Orion lifted his gaze to the vast space above the arena and said softly, "I was hoping to save this for later." Then his eyes returned to Revona. "But against you, ordinary stars truly are useless."
The stage began to tremble faintly, and high above the central arena, the rivers of time-light reflected the birth of a new starry sky.
Orion raised one hand. "Then let us see whether your Void Origin Eyes can erase my path itself."
The moment Orion raised his hand, the entire atmosphere of the central stage transformed. The thousands of stars that Revona had erased did not return, yet their disappearance seemed to have roused something far deeper within him.
The nine star marks on his body no longer resembled simple symbols. They had bee nine ancient star gates carved into his flesh, and each one released a different rhythm of celestial power.
One gate carried burning heat like a young sun, another carried cold silver light like a frozen moon, and another carried sharpness like a falling meteor. One bore crushing weight like a dead star, one held speed like a shooting et, and one radiated endless pressure like a collapsing sky. The remaining three were more mysterious still, glowing with colors that shifted between gold, blue, violet, and pure white.
Revona’s expression finally changed by a fraction. She could tell that what stood before her was no longer a mere star technique. This was no longer a simple attack that fell from the sky and flew toward her body.
This was a path. It was a majestic, plete, and terrifying Pseudo Cosmic Path that had gathered the inheritance, the pride, and the very foundation of the Nine Star Court into a single body.
Orion slowly lowered his hand to his chest, and the star marks across his body blazed brighter and brighter until the space above him fell into darkness. It was not dark in the way of the abyss that surrounded Ervin, and it was not the darkness of empty nothingness.
This was the darkness of the universe in the moments before dawn, wide and silent and endless, filled with countless stars waiting for the signal to awaken.
Then the starry sky descended, and it did not fall upon Revona. It converged into Orion.
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