"Architects Tyranny."
The mont Caius spoke, I braced myself for sothing dramatic—an explosion of energy, a violent surge of mana, sothing that would shake the ground or distort the air.
But nothing like that happened.
Instead, the world… shifted.
There was no sound to it. No visible transition. One mont I was standing on the wall of his settlent, and the next, everything was gone.
I found myself standing in a blank expanse of pure white that stretched endlessly in every direction. There were no walls, no sky, no ground in the conventional sense, just a flat, seamless plane beneath my feet and an endless void above and around , all of it the sa uniform color, with no shadows, no horizon, and no sense of distance.
It felt… wrong.
I frowned slightly, tightening my grip on my blade as [Focus] kicked in, sharpening my awareness and anchoring my senses despite the abrupt displacent. My perception steadied, filtering out the disorientation that kind of transition would normally cause.
Then I looked forward.
Caius was no longer standing where he had been.
He was seated.
A throne had ford beneath him, pure white, carved in clean, rigid lines, elevated above by a staircase that rose from the sa featureless ground. The entire structure looked as though it had always been there, part of this space rather than sothing newly created.
He sat calmly, one arm resting against the side of the throne, his posture relaxed but elevated—literally and figuratively.
I narrowed my eyes slightly as I looked upward.
"What is this?" I asked. "So sort of domain?"
"You're right," Caius said calmly from above. "It is my domain."
I glanced around again, taking in the endless white, the lack of structure, the absence of anything that could be used as a reference.
"Sort of boring, isn't it?" I said lightly. "I expected sothing more… dynamic."
Outwardly, I kept it casual.
Inwardly, sothing wasn't right.
I had tried to activate one of my skills, but nothing was happening.
I tried again, more deliberately this ti, pushing mana through the pathways I had already grown accustod to using.
Still nothing.
No, not exactly nothing.
The activation went through.
But the effect didn't manifest.
It was as if sothing intercepted it midway and extinguished it before it could take form.
So this was his domain.
The realization settled quickly.
The good part was that it wasn't absolute. My passive skills were still active, my stats hadn't dropped, and my physical state remained unchanged. Whatever was interfering was targeting my active output, not my entire system.
That ant there was a foothold.
And if there was a foothold, there was a way to break it.
I just needed ti.
"What's the point of it being dramatic?" Caius replied. "It's effective nonetheless."
"Effective…" I repeated, narrowing my eyes slightly. "Is this, by any chance, a domain that prevents targets from using their skills while you're free to use yours?"
Caius studied for a brief mont, then shook his head.
"Not quite."
Then he stood.
He rose from the throne slowly, stepping down from the white staircase with asured ease, a faint grin forming on his face.
"I also cannot use my active skills."
The mont Caius finished speaking, the world responded.
Dark crimson lines spread outward from where he stood, thin at first, then branching into faint patterns that etched themselves across the white floor. At the sa ti, the space behind him deepened, shifting into muted shades of black and red that gave his position a sense of weight, as though reality itself was acknowledging him as its center.
The throne vanished.
Color bled into existence beneath his feet in controlled strokes, like ink spreading across a blank canvas, and he floated downward from the elevated steps with unhurried ease, the descent deliberate, almost ceremonial.
I steadied myself.
But sothing was off.
The ground beneath didn't react the sa way.
The white around my feet thinned slightly, losing that uniform density the rest of the space held. It felt… hollow. Not unstable, but not fully solid either, as though the space I stood on hadn't completely committed to existing.
It was subtle.
But noticeable.
Caius' aura shifted again.
A faint crimson glow wrapped around his body, barely visible at first, then sharpening along his outline like heat distortion. The color deepened as it settled, not flaring wildly, but concentrating—controlled, focused, heavy.
He wasn't just standing in this domain.
He had authority over it.
I exhaled slowly.
Standing still and watching him build presence while I remained dulled in comparison wasn't an option.
So I moved.
I stepped forward, bringing Gravefang up in a clean motion, the blade angled as I closed the distance.
But mid-dash, I noticed it imdiately.
I was slower.
Or rather, there was a resisting force pressing against my movent, subtle but consistent, as though the space itself was pushing back just enough to interfere with my montum.
It wasn't enough to stop .
But it was there.
CLANG!
Our blades t.
The mont steel touched, the white expanse around us fractured—not physically, but visually. Crimson streaks flared outward from Caius' side, reinforcing his position, anchoring him in place, while the space around dulled slightly, losing contrast, as if I was being pushed out of focus within his domain.
I pushed forward.
He didn't et my strength directly.
Instead, he redirected.
My blade slid off at an awkward angle, my force misaligned before I could correct it. The resistance I had felt earlier compounded the misstep, making the recovery just a fraction slower than it should have been.
That fraction was all he needed.
He stepped in, and the space behind his step solidified, darkening just enough to support his advance, while the ground beneath felt lighter—barely noticeable, but enough to throw off my balance during the transition.
WHUMP!
His elbow drove into my ribs.
I braced through it, [Iron Persistence] and [Blood Resilience] absorbing most of the impact, dulling the force enough to keep stable—but the timing was perfect. It landed at the exact mont my footing was weakest, and his blade followed imdiately.
I leaned back, relying on instinct, expecting my passive [Fractured Existence] to handle the contact the sa way it always did.
But...
Sothing felt wrong.
I sensed danger.
Real danger.
And at the last possible mont, I pulled back further, abandoning the idea of tanking the hit entirely.
SHRKK!
Still...
A sharp line of pain cut across my chest, and warmth spread instantly.
I looked down and saw blood. My blood.
And I froze for a fraction of a second, unable to fully process what had just happened.
Then it hit .
The defense, which I believed to be absolute, had been breached.
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