THRA~~KABOOOOM.
The sound was not rely heard.. it happened. It was an event that tore through perception itself, a concussive thunderclap so absolute that it felt less like an explosion and more like the mont a star gave up on existing, collapsing inward before violently rejecting reality. The pressure carried no warning, no buildup. One instant the world was intact, the next it was being rewritten by force alone.
At the very heart of that detonation, no one no had ti to react no matter how powerful or strong.. one was..
Razeal’s punch had landed cleanly.
His knuckles struck directly into Knox’s massive jaw, the exact point of impact blooming with a violent flash of light, sharp and blinding, as if reality itself had cracked open at that single point. For a fraction of a fraction of a second, Razeal felt it.. an absurd, impossible surge of power rushing back through his arm, not like strength, but like probability collapsing into certainty.
And in that sa microscopic instant, his eyes widened.
Because even as that catastrophic force detonated outward, even as the very laws governing matter and energy scread in protest, Knox’s skin.. his flesh, his bones remained untouched.
No rupture, no tearing.. Not even any explosion of gore.
Nothing.
Knox’s head just simply turned to the side, the motion slow and heavy, driven by force rather than damage. His jaw did not shatter. His skin did not split. There was no crater, no wound, no mark left behind on his body.. His body absorbed the blow as if it were nothing more than an inconvenience, as if the universe itself had failed to convince him that harm was supposed to occur.
Impossi..
The word barely ford on Razeal’s lips.
But he never finished it.
Because
The backlash arrived.
The explosion he had unleashed did not discriminate. The force rebounded instantly, racing back along the path of his strike faster than thought itself. Razeal felt it tear through his arm.. not as pain, but as erasure.
He watched it happen.
In horrifying clarity.
His skin began to peel away, not ripping or tearing, but disintegrating breaking down into glowing motes of light and vapor as if his body had suddenly decided it no longer belonged in this reality. His sleeve vanished next, fabric reduced to nothingness, followed by muscle, sinew, and flesh. The process climbed his arm in an instant, consuming everything in its path.
There was no blood.
There was no scream.
His entire body followed.
In less than a heartbeat, Razeal ceased to exist as anything recognizable his torso, his clothes, his legs, his head, all dissolving into particles of fading light. What remained, floating in the center of the devastation was.. Only
A skeleton.
Deep luminous crimson skeleton, as if forged from condensed blood and ancient power. Perfect. Untouched. Suspended in midair, intact amidst total annihilation, glowing faintly against the void left behind.
Everything else was gone.
The expanding light surged outward from the epicenter, not accompanied by sound now, but by absolute silence. Water did not churn or ripple it just evaporated. Instantly. Entire volus of it vanished as the energy passed through, leaving behind empty space where an ocean should have been. The light raced outward in a perfect sphere, devouring distance, swallowing the arena in a wave of impossible brilliance.
For those watching, ti itself seed to slow.
High above, risa felt it before she fully understood it.
Her breath caught violently as the blinding white engulfed the arena’s center, and with it ca a sensation so deadly, so overwhelming, that even her instincts.. honed across countless battles scread in raw, primal terror. This was not an attack ant to test. This was an event capable of ending everything it touched.
"Oh no..."
She did not even finish the thought.
She just vanished.
At the sa instant, King Julius’s expression shattered into pure alarm. The composure of a ruler, the confidence of a king, all stripped away in one brutal realization: the existing safeguards were aningless against this. The invisible barrier separating the arena from the stands would not hold.
So he moved.
The world blurred as both figures reappeared at the very edge of the arena, just outside the original water shield, ti stretching thin around their movents as if reality itself struggled to keep pace.
But even that would not be enough.
The expanding light continued to surge outward, rciless, unstoppable, carrying within it the potential to erase millions of spectators in an instant.
risa did not hesitate.
"Ninth-tier protection spell.." her voice rang out, sharp and commanding despite the chaos, every ounce of her authority and power forced into the words. "Ultimate Shield of Unbroken Reality."
Her fingers snapped.
The effect was imdiate.
A massive do of condensed, invisible purple energy slamd into existence around the entire arena layer of reinforced space folding above another.. already existing shield of invisible water.. in rapid succession. The barrier shimred faintly, its surface warping as it fully prepared to take the oncoming force..
At the very sa mont, King Julius stood beside her, his expression no less severe, the usual calm authority stripped away and replaced with naked focus. He raised both hands forward, palms open, shoulders tensing as veins stood out along his forearms. The water around the arena responded instantly to his will, surging and compressing into an invisible barrier as strengthening his already existing water shield.
Then the impact arrived.
The expanding wave of light slamd into the overlapping circular shields with terrifying force. The entire arena was flooded with brilliance, not a glow but a suffocating white that erased color, depth, and shadow alike. From the outside, it looked as though a perfect sphere of blinding radiance had swallowed the heart of the colosseum, a do of white light so intense it hurt to even look at. The collision did not explode outward.. it pressed, endlessly, relentlessly, as though reality itself were being leaned on by sothing that refused to yield.
King Julius’s hands began to tremble.
A sharp breath escaped him, teeth grinding together as realization struck hard. Damn it. He did not have his trident. Without it, the authority of his water manipulation was incomplete, his control reduced to a fraction of what it should have been. The shield he had ford before and even now strengthning over it.. it powerful by any ordinary standard.. But was nowhere near what he could have manifested with his relica in hand. He could feel it already, the strain traveling back through the barrier.
He clenched his teeth harder, forcing more will into the shield, trying to stabilize it. But the pressure only increased. The light did not flicker or weaken. It simply continued.
Five seconds passed. Then six.
That was all it took.
The water shield vaporized.
It did not shatter or crack.. it simply ceased to exist, boiled away in an instant as if it had never been there at all. The force punched straight through it, unimpeded, slamming into the next layer above it.
"Fuck" Julius cursed under his breath as his hands dropped involuntarily, the backlash forcing a sharp exhale from his lungs. But even as his shield collapsed, he did not hesitate. He raised his hands again imdiately, summoning another layer of compressed water and forcing it into place above risa’s barrier. It ford just in ti, spreading like a translucent veil over the thinner purple do that now bore the full brunt of the catastrophe.
Though risa’s shield held.
The purple do did not even tremble or distort. Against the apocalyptic pressure inside, it stood unmoving, absolute, as though the explosion were nothing more than a distant storm battering against an unbreakable wall. Compared to it, Julius’s water constructs felt fragile.. stopgaps rather than true defenses.
And seeing that.. Julius felt relief.
Still he turned his head toward risa... To thank her.. But
One look at her face made his heart suddenly stutter.
Her expression was hollow.
Not focused. Not strained. Hollow as if sothing inside her had been scooped out and replaced with raw dread. Her eyes were fixed on the blinding core of the arena, unblinking, glassy, reflecting the white light without truly seeing it. Tears slid silently down her cheeks, catching the glow as they fell, her lips parted just enough to suggest breath was coming shallow and uneven.
It looked less like a warrior holding back destruction and more like soone watching their ho burn to the ground.
"What happened?" Julius asked sharply, his voice tight despite his attempt to keep it steady. "Can you hold it?"
He didn’t wait for an answer before continuing, urgency bleeding through his composure. "If this fails, everyone here dies. Hold it.. just hold it. I’ll call my trident too."
He grit his teeth, already preparing to summon the relic, already calculating how long it would take, how much ti they had left. risa should have been able to handle this. He knew her strength. He trusted it. But that expression.. that look told him sothing was very, very wrong with her.
Not to sat she did not even respond.
Her gaze never shifted from the center of the arena.
Julius swallowed hard as feeling trident won’t be able to cone at ti.. Feeling that.. he fastly turned his head sharply toward the spectator stands. His eyes scanned the vast colosseum in an instant, bypassing the sea of faces until they locked onto the one he was looking for.
Neptunia.
She t his gaze, confusion clear in her eyes, her body tense as if bracing for sothing she didn’t understand yet.
Julius did not explain. There was no ti.
He snapped the fingers of his left hand.
Far above, Neptunia gasped a little..
The seals binding her power shattered in an instant, dissolving like mist around her body. She felt it imdiately.. the sudden rush of unrestricted flow, the return of sothing vast and familiar surging through her veins. Understanding hit her without words.
She raised one hand.
The ocean answered.
All around the colosseum, the water stirred, then surged, drawn by her will. Massive currents twisted and converged, spiraling upward in controlled violence before sweeping above Julius’s newly ford water shield. Another layer took shape thicker, denser, reinforced by royal blood and ancient authority. It wrapped over the existing defenses, interlocking with them, forming a final barrier around the arena.
Only then did Julius allow himself a breath.
Now, it would hold. He trusted her abilities
He lowered his hands slightly, shoulders still tense, eyes fixed on the terrifying white light raging within the stacked shields. It showed no sign of fading. No sign of weakening. The pressure remained constant, unyielding, as if whatever had been unleashed inside the arena had no intention of ending anyti soon.
I should never be without my trident, Julius thought grimly, his jaw tightening as he stared into the heart of the disaster. This could have turned catastrophic without her.
But honestly it wasn’t even his fault.. How woulve thought sothing like this would Happen..
And the thing is
The impact had co far too fast.
So fast that even beings of their level had not been granted the luxury of preparation. There had been no warning, no gradual build-up only an instant where reality still existed as it was supposed to, and the next where it was being erased. Everything had unfolded in a heartbeat, a fraction of ti so small that even reaction itself felt like an afterthought.
And yet... sohow, they had stabilized it.
Barely.
If it hadn’t been for her, King Julius knew with absolute certainty, the entire colosseum would have vanished. Not cracked. Not collapsed. Vanished reduced to ash, scattered remnants, and erased lives. Millions of spectators, nobles, warriors, and civilians alike would have been wiped out without even understanding why. The thought made his grip tighten unconsciously around nothing, his jaw locking as he stared at the space where the arena had once been intact.
Nothing below Sovereign rank could have survived that, he thought grimly. Not even for a mont.
Even resisting it was a miracle. Direct exposure would not have ant death.. it would have ant erasure, a clean deletion from existence itself.
Around the colosseum, the spectators remained utterly confused.
From their perspective, nothing made sense. One mont they had been watching a match strange, intense, but still comprehensible. The next, a blinding white circular do had swallowed the arena whole. No shockwave reached them. No sound battered their ears. No pressure crushed their lungs. The shields had done their job too well.
All they could see was white.
A massive, perfect circle of light where the arena should have been, as though soone had painted over reality itself. No movent. No silhouettes. No hint of what was happening inside. Just a glowing absence that refused to explain itself.
Whispers spread through the stands, anxious, confused, frightened but restrained. They felt no danger. They couldn’t. The shields insulated them not only from harm, but from understanding.
Then, slowly... the light began to fade.
Not all at once. Not dramatically. It thinned, layer by layer, transparency creeping back into existence like breath returning to suffocating lungs. The white glow weakened, dimd, and finally dissolved entirely, leaving the arena visible once more.
What remained stole the breath from every throat that saw it.
The water inside the do was gone.
Not pushed aside. Not displaced. Gone evaporated so completely that not even steam lingered in the air. The arena floor itself no longer resembled anything that could be called a battleground. The central platform had been obliterated, replaced by a massive circular crater, smooth and lted along its edges as if reality itself had been liquefied and scooped away.
It looked less like destruction and more like sothing had been removed.
At the exact center of that devastation stood Razeal.
Naked...
Every shred of clothing had been annihilated in the blast, leaving his body fully exposed to the open arena. But it seems like he didn’t notice. He stood there completely still, chest rising and falling unevenly, eyes wide and unfocused, as his body regenerated itself in real ti.
Monts earlier, there had been nothing but a skeleton suspended in the blast crimson-hued, unnaturally intact, floating where a person should have been. Now muscle wove itself back into place, tendons reforming, skin knitting together with unnatural speed. It was grotesque and srizing all at once, a silent reminder that sothing about him no longer obeyed the rules of mortality.
And also at his feet lay Knox.
The massive examiner was sprawled across the shattered ground, his enormous fra finally still. Blood leaked from his nose, mouth, and ears, dark streams staining the broken land beneath him. His eyes were rolled back, consciousness long gone.
But his chest rose.
Slowly. Steadily.
He was alive.
Razeal stared at him in disbelief.
"What the fuck is this guy made of...?" he muttered hoarsely, his voice barely audible even to himself.
That had not been an attack.
That had been a cataclysm.
The force he had unleashed had been comparable to a stellar event, sothing that should have erased flesh, bone, and soul alike. Even his own body had not survived it.. If not for his unbreakable bones .. Like he had literally watched himself die. Watched his arm tear apart, watched his form disintegrate into nothing, watched existence strip him down to bone.
If not for his vampiric nature... or divine healing skill that he have..
He would have been dead. Like really dead
And that realization sent a shiver down his spine, cold and involuntary. That had been the closest he had ever co to complete annihilation, closer than any battlefield or enemy.
He could feel but feel weird about it..
And not to say otherwise bad feeling.. Like Knox... That bastard had taken that blow straight to the jaw and was still breathing.
Only unconscious.
Razeal swallowed hard.
And then anger.. raw, confused, disbelieving flooded his mind.
"What the fuck just happened?" he demanded inwardly. "System what the fuck was that? How did I hit a billion tis critical? Is that even possible?"
His thoughts raced, tumbling over one another. The numbers didn’t make sense. The probabilities didn’t align. The skill description itself suggested absurdly low chances, anomalies bordering on impossibility.
"That should’ve been one in trillions? Right?" he continued, stunned. "This is a luck-based skill. How the hell did it trigger on the first punch? Don’t tell I suddenly beca lucky."
For a brief, irrational mont, the thought crossed his mind.
Did I awaken sothing?
A chosen fate? Heavenly blessed? Had the universe finally smiled on him?
He was honestly more curious about this then feeling scared that he almost died..
But the system responded imdiately.. Making him co out of his day dream
[No, Host... Your assumption is totally incorrect.]
Razeal’s brow furrowed.
[The billion-tis critical did not occur due to high luck.]
Then?
[It occurred due to extre bad luck.]
Razeal blanked..
"Huh...?"
[For individuals with favorable luck alignnt, a critical event manifests as a beneficial deviation.. a fortunate outco.]
[In your case, the probability collapse skewed catastrophically.]
[That strike was not a blessing.]
[It was an event that should have resulted in your death.]
[The amplification exceeded survivable thresholds.]
[Your survival was not the intended outco.]
[You lived because your existence violates standard mortality paraters..If not for that you.. Should’ve been dead now..]
Silence followed.
"Bad luck...?"
Razeal let out a breath that was half a laugh and half a curse. "Wowww just wooow... Villey..." The words ca out hollow, without heat, as if he’d already known the answer before it was spoken aloud. He stood there for a mont longer, unmoving, then dragged a hand down his face, fingers pressing into his eyes as he exhaled slowly.
Sigh... what was I even expecting?
Of course it was bad luck. Of course it was twisted. Nothing about his existence ever worked in a clean, simple way. If there was a blessing, it ca wrapped in catastrophe. If there was power, it ca with a price sharp enough to cut bone. He lowered his hand, shoulders sagging just a little, the weight of realization settling into him far heavier than the explosion ever had.
Outside the arena, once the blinding light had fully faded and the pressure had finally lifted, the world seed to rember how to breathe again.
risa was the first to move.
Her eyes, wide and frantic, locked onto the center of the ruined arena the instant visibility returned. She saw Razeal.. standing there all fine and alive sothing inside her finally snapped. The strength fled her legs without warning. She stumbled back a step, then another, before simply collapsing onto the ground where she stood.
Her back hit the cold stone, but she barely felt it.
Her chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven breaths, her heart pounding so violently it felt as if it might tear itself free. Tears spilled unchecked from her eyes, streaking down her face as she stared, unblinking, at the figure in the crater below.
"Hah... hahh..." A broken sound escaped her lips, sothing between a laugh and a sob. "He’s alive... he’s alive... That.. Thats’s fine.. Everythings fine.." Her voice trembled, cracking apart as relief flooded her all at once, too sudden and too overwhelming to be controlled. "I thought.." The words died in her throat. She couldn’t even finish them. But she didn’t needed to..
She stayed there, seated on the ground, shaking, doing nothing but staring at Razeal as if afraid that blinking might make him disappear.
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