"Tch—"
A scowl marred Mikoto's delicate features. A single line of blood dripped from the corner of his lips, a vivid crimson. He spat, the blood hitting the charred, molten ground with a hiss, evaporating almost instantly upon contact with the superheated floor.
The metallic taste lingered, thick and putrid on his tongue. His jaw ached, no doubt fractured. His ribs—shattered, splintering into the soft organs beneath. His entire skeletal structure felt as though it had been turned to brittle glass, barely holding itself together. He could feel something wet sloshing around inside him. Blood. Internal bleeding. The damage was extensive. Were it not for his regenerative magic, Selwyn would have ended this fight right there.
A single punch.
That was all it had taken.
From a short distance away, a deep chuckle rumbled through the area, reverberating in the molten air like the growl of a wild animal.
"I quite enjoy that expression." Selwyn spoke, his voice deep and laced with pure delight. "I have longed to see those delicate features twisted in pain."
He savored it. Every broken breath Mikoto took. Every strained movement. Every red droplet that fell from his rosy lips. It was a masterpiece—a sight that no treasure in the world could match.
Mikoto's fingers twitched, his gauntleted hand clenching reflexively into a tight fist. He fought the urge to roll his eyes, though the action was admittedly difficult with blood running down his face.
"Cocky shit stain," he sneered, his voice raspier than he would have liked, but still brimming with venomous hate. "You got a lucky hit in, and now you think you've already won? Delusional much?"
His words were sharp, biting—but his mind was racing.
Selwyn was strong. Too strong.
That transformation—it was beyond the scope of any augmentation ability.
("A transformation… almost like Arcane Ascendance.")
His crimson gaze flickered, analyzing Selwyn's warped, draconic form.
("No... not quite. It's different. My eyes tell me he's more than just 'empowered.' He's embodying something. Acting as an avatar for the Dragon of the End.")
Dragons were not mere beasts. They were fundamentally different from the Gods.
And the Dragon of the End? It was the avatar of the Bringer of Death. The very concept of ruin and finality, given form. Among all dragons, it was undeniably the most powerful. And now its avatar stood before him—fully realized.
His instincts screamed. Run.
That ancient, primal warning, one ingrained into every person's soul—the knowledge that this thing standing before him could not be fought with normal means.
Selwyn wasn't just overwhelmingly stronger. He was a calamity.
("Even if I refine my enhancement spells, it won't be enough.")
Before? Yes. Before, he could have matched Selwyn through sheer augmentation. But now? No amount of reinforcement would close this gap. The required enhancements would tear his own body apart before Selwyn even had the chance.
And he hadn't even factored in his Draconic Resonance.
A slow exhale left his lips.
He had two paths.
Both were terrible.
Either he used Harbinger, exhausting seventy percent of his mana in a single blow—leaving him vulnerable to other forces.
Or.
He fled.
His frown deepened, disgust curling at the edges of his lips.
("Tch. That bastard Aelfric is lurking. He's waiting. Waiting for me to weaken, so he can strike the final blow.")
Either option… would cost him.
("I have to rely on Guinevere and Lyra after this. If I survive.")
Something warm trickled down his cheek.
His vision wavered.
("My Chthonia's overloading—again!?")
A curse left his lips.
Not now.
His eyes—his gift. It was forcibly analyzing everything before him, digging into the core of Selwyn's transformation, processing its nature, breaking it down.
Paradigm Rebirth.
The name of the ability.
The moment Selwyn had muttered it, the pillar of light had engulfed him, and his entire existence had changed.
Chthonia wasn't meant to process things like this.
It was meant to analyze magic.
But this?
Selwyn had surpassed basic magic.
The pain in his skull sharpened, but before he could reel from the weight of it—
A voice cut through the haze.
"The battle is yet to reach its fervor, my friend." Selwyn's voice slithered through the suffocating heat, cutting into Mikoto's thoughts. "Come." Selwyn beckoned, his molten-gold eyes gleaming with something vile, something hungry. "Show me the true you."
Mikoto spat, a mixture of blood and saliva hitting the molten ground with a hiss. He wiped at his vision sluggishly, his gauntlet smearing crimson across his pale, battered features.
Still, despite that, his voice came sharp, brimming with venom.
"Go to hell, bastard."
Selwyn stilled, watching him, golden eyes drinking in every fractured breath, every flicker of pain.
And then—he smiled.
That jagged face smiled.
Selwyn's grin was the kind that savored. The kind that admired a thing not for what it was, but for what it was about to become.
His gaze settled on Mikoto's large, puffy crimson eyes, their natural beauty distorted by swelling and exhaustion, yet still burning with something that refused to die.
Ah, what a sight.
Selwyn's breath hitched, barely perceptible.
That delicate, porcelain skin, now sullied with the most beautiful color—red. That scowl, a perfect blend of defiance and hatred, twisting his soft, doll-like features into something sublime.
"You are like me."
Mikoto stilled. An unnatural feeling creeping up on his body as those words left the monsters lips.
At first, those words sounded random, the kind of drivel that should've been dismissed outright. Yet, the certainty in Selwyn's voice—the way he spoke those four words as if they were absolute truth—made something writhe in the back of Mikoto's skull.
"Huh?" His response was sharp, his scowl deepening. "What nonsense are you spouting now?"
Mikoto couldn't see Selwyn's face clearly, but he didn't need to.
He knew the bastard was grinning.
Selwyn took a slow step forward, his presence dense, suffocating and inescapable.
"You experienced that thrill," he murmured, each syllable tainted with an odd softness.
A pause.
"As your blade carved through my flesh…" His voice dipped, near reverent. "Your lips twisted into the most beautiful smile."
Mikoto's expression contorted—not in rage, not in pain, but in something that could only be described as pure, unfiltered disgust.
The fact that Selwyn had noticed.
The fact that Selwyn had remembered.
That in itself was deeply, deeply unsettling.
A shudder crawled up Mikoto's spine like a centipede made of ice. He had fought too many battles, had taken lives without hesitation. But something about this conversation—this particular exchange—was making him feel profoundly disturbed.
Selwyn had a gift.
He saw too much.
Mikoto scoffed, trying to shove down the unease.
"Don't compare me to you, jackass."
Selwyn tilted his head.
Mikoto's voice sharpened, laced with mockery.
"You're a wild animal. Your only purpose comes from fighting. Other than that, you've got nothing. You're just a slave to base desires."
And then, slowly, ever so slowly, Mikoto's lips curled.
It should have been a nasty smirk. A sharp, condescending sneer meant to belittle the fool standing before him.
But his face…
His face ruined it.
No matter what expression he made—anger, cruelty, mockery—his delicate, finely-sculpted features ensured that it always came off as strikingly beautiful.
It was infuriating.
For both himself and his enemy.
"Comparing me to someone as worthless as you?" Mikoto's voice dripped with venom. "Don't make me laugh."
Selwyn chuckled.
He didn't care.
Not about the insult.
Not about the mockery.
He had seen what he needed to see.
"Do not deny yourself, my friend," Selwyn murmured.
Mikoto's eye twitched.
Selwyn's gaze bored into him.
"I see it. The twisted desire in your eyes. The want to brutalize. The want to kill."
Mikoto sighed, long and exaggerated.
"That's reserved for you 'cause you're so darn special~" he cooed, voice sickly sweet, the sarcastic lilt unmistakable.
The mockery was thick enough to cut with a blade.
And yet…
It slid right off.
Selwyn remained unmoved.
Mikoto's expression darkened.
"You really think I've fallen that far, huh?"
His voice lost its usual sharpness, settling into something colder, quieter.
"I'm scum. I know that much. But at least I have an actual purpose."
His right hand slowly rose, fingers curling against his temple. The icy alloy of his gauntlet clashed against the warmth of his own blood-stained skin.
"The two of us couldn't be more different."
His fingers pressed harder.
A dry, humorless chuckle slipped past his lips.
"Do you have any idea how much it pisses me off that you think I'm like you?"
Selwyn watched.
He didn't reply.
Didn't argue.
Didn't refute.
Because he knew.
Mikoto's words—his anger, his outrage—none of it was directed at Selwyn.
It was directed at himself.
"Then this attack shall be a tribute to you."
Selwyn's body began to rise.
Slowly.
As if invisible hands were lifting him, the movement eerily smooth—almost unnatural. Golden eyes bore into Mikoto, brimming with something inexplicable—an emotion that teetered between admiration, obsession, and something almost… reverent.
He watched.
Watched as Mikoto, rather than preparing for the incoming destruction, buried his face into his hands.
Blood pooled between his fingers.
Thick, warm, sickly, endless.
Rivulets of deep crimson slipped through the cracks of his trembling hands, dripping down his pale cheeks, staining the alloy of his gauntlets in uneven smears. It didn't stop. His breathing came in jagged, irregular gasps, his body wracked with something far more insidious than mere exhaustion.
Selwyn's smile widened.
Because Mikoto wasn't looking at him.
Because Mikoto, at that moment, wasn't even facing the battlefield.
He was drowning in his own mind.
The blood didn't just spill from his eyes—it felt as if it were pouring from his very soul.
A wound that refused to close. A sickness that had no cure.
Mikoto's shoulders shuddered.
You are like me.
Those words wouldn't stop echoing.
Bouncing.
Reverberating.
Burrowing themselves deep into the marrow of his being.
No. I'm not.
He squeezed his skull tighter.
Blood seeped between his fingers faster.
Selwyn, hovering high above, merely raised a single hand.
The motion was slow.
Almost… lazy.
As if the impending devastation was nothing more than a casual afterthought.
Then—
The world darkened.
A dome of abyssal black erupted outward.
It was not mere darkness.
It was the absence of everything.
A creeping void, unraveling reality at the seams as it spread rapidly. The very air recoiled. The battlefield, already ruined beyond recognition, ceased to exist where the abyss passed. Mountains, debris—all devoured. No resistance. No remnants.
There was no dust. No sound. No echo of destruction.
Only erasure.
And it was coming for Mikoto.
Fast.
Hunger incarnate.
But Mikoto did not move.
The abyss inched closer.
Still, Mikoto did not lift his head.
Still, he did not fight.
Because for the first time, perhaps in his entire life, he was truly considering it.
Was he really any different from someone like Selwyn?
Was he really so separate from the monster above?
The memory of his own smile as he carved into Selwyn's flesh surfaced, unbidden.
A slow, excruciating replay of the way his lips had curled, the way his body had thrummed with something visceral, raw, undeniable.
Had that been… thrill?
Had that been enjoyment?
Mikoto's fingers clenched against his scalp so hard his nails nearly punctured skin.
The void rushed forward.
And still—
Still, Mikoto did not lift his head.
The edge of nothingness reached his sabatons.
It slithered up his legs, swallowing him whole.
Cold.
Quiet.
The world disappeared.
Everything was still.
Everything was silent.
It was a silence so complete, so absolute, that it felt like being buried alive beneath eternity.
Time did not exist here.
But even if he were a monster he must not die.
Those two faces of those most important surfaced.
"Arcane Ascendance: ˆ åµ †˙´ ı®ˆ˜©´® øƒ òˆ©˙†"
There was no self. No body. No identity.
Just—
A single eye.
Then another.
Then dozens.
Then hundreds.
Crimson irises pierced the void, their glow stark, furious and ravenous.
They did not blink.
They only watched.
The abyss cracked.
The rupture came without warning.
Shattered.
Like fragile glass meeting the force of an omnipotent will.
A fracture in the nothingness split outward, rippling across the blackened realm with an ear-splitting resonance.
A chorus followed.
A sound not meant for mortal ears.
A sound that did not belong to any single voice.
It was many.
It was a hymn sung by something beyond understanding.
Reality reformed.
And Selwyn…
Stared.
For the first time, he did not smile.
Because before him—
It emerged.
An immense, unholy, divine being of sheer overwhelming terror had materialized within the abyss—not summoned, not created, not manifested, but simply revealed.
As if it had always been there.
Waiting.
𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐨d 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐚 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐠𝐦 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭.
A 𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦 of 𝑏𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛, a seraphic horror, its body composed of an uncountable multitude of luminous, golden rings, each layer rotating in unnatural synchronicity, decorated with thousands upon thousands of unblinking, blood-red eyes, all focused solely upon him.
𝐀𝐥𝐥.
𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠.
𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠.
𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆.
Vast wings—𝑠𝑖𝑥, twelve, perhaps far more than mortal minds could ever count—stretched outward, covering everything, their feathers iridescent with an ever-shifting spectrum of impossible colors. Some glowed like shattered prisms of something divine; others bled, their edges weeping viscous ichor, dripping into the abyss and dissolving into nonexistence.
A 𝑣𝑜𝑖𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 and 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 pulsed from its core. Its very presence—𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑒𝑑, its awareness—felt as if it were 𝑢𝑛𝑟𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑖𝑡𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓.
It 𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑.
𝐀𝐛𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫.
Selwyn's entire body seized, his mind crushed under the impossible weight of its presence.
𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐌𝐢𝐤𝐨𝐭𝐨.
𝐍𝐨.
𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐲, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧.
This was something that had transcended.
𝑵𝒐, 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒔𝒆.
This was something that had always been.
And—
𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐮𝐧𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠.
𝑁𝑜, 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑢𝑛𝑟𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔.
𝐁𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐚 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐞.
The universe could not contain it. The mere presence of the 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛—the Ascendant Form—was twisting the very fabric of existence, destabilizing all that was, all that would be, all that ever could be.
𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 fractured.
𝑆𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑒 bent in ways it should not bend.
𝑳𝒂𝒘𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒈𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔—𝒑𝒉𝒚𝒔𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍, 𝒄𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒂𝒍, 𝒄𝒐𝒔𝒎𝒊𝒄—shattered into raw, incomprehensible chaos.
Then—
𝐀 𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡.
Brighter than the first dawn, brighter than the collapse of dying stars, brighter than 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑒𝑥𝑖𝑠𝑡.
A radiance so pure, so overwhelming, it 𝑠𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 universe 𝑖𝑡𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓.
The grotesque seraphic horror shrank, its writhing wings folding inward, its rings collapsing, its uncountable eyes closing one by one, until the vast, incomprehensible monstrosity became something different.
Something 𝑠𝑚𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑟.
Something 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐞.
The air trembled.
The golden glow solidified into 𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐨𝐫—𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐥𝐲, 𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐧𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥.
𝐌𝐢𝐤𝐨𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐝.
No longer the shattered, fragile boy who had bled . No longer the monster whose form warped reality itself. No longer the raw Ascendant terror that had threatened to erase all things.
𝐇𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐝.
Clad in ethereal white armor, 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡, 𝑤𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑎𝑠 𝑑𝑢𝑠𝑡, 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦.
The sculpted plating gleamed with superior craftsmanship, every gilded. The armor was seamless—a complete suit, flowing from head to toe, neither forged nor sewn. The helmet, sweeping and smooth, bore a golden crest, a sharp and ornamented brow plate. Flowing from his shoulders, a white mantle trailed behind him, its edges curling, yet falling like heavy fabric. From his helmet, winged extensions stretched outward.
Behind the divine frame a large halo sat.
This was Mikoto Yukio fully realized.