Ezekiel's smile remained relaxed as he glanced over his shoulder at the battered silver-haired boy.
Ishmael blinked. For a brief moment, the sheer absurdity of his brother's casual demeanor made him forget about the demon entirely.
"How…?"
Ezekiel tilted his head.
"You disappeared."
"Mm."
"For years."
"Also true."
Ishmael stared at him.
"…"
"Good talk."
A soft blue glow ignited within Ezekiel's left eye.
The color was calm. Serene.
Beautiful.
Completely out of place amidst the devastation surrounding them.
Before Ishmael could ask another question, a circular blue sigil unfolded around Ezekiel's arm. The air rippled visibly around his hand as he reached forward and lightly tapped Ishmael's chest.
The effect was immediate.
The massive wounds carved across Ishmael's torso began reversing. Torn flesh rejoined. Bruises faded. Damaged muscles restored themselves. Blood retreated beneath healed skin as though the injuries had never existed.
Within seconds every visible wound vanished.
Only exhaustion remained.
Ishmael stared at his body.
The pain was gone.
The damage was gone.
Yet the emptiness within his Spirit Core remained unchanged. His energy reserves were nearly depleted.
Ezekiel lowered his hand.
"There."
Inside Ishmael's mind, Lunaris sounded genuinely surprised.
'How rare.'
"Time affinity?" Ishmael asked.
"Among other things."
Purple light suddenly flared beneath Ezekiel's feet.
Space folded.
A moment later Ishmael found himself standing beside William, Ana, and Luka.
All three nearly jumped.
They hadn't even seen him move.
Ezekiel's gaze settled on them.
The warmth vanished from his face instantly.
"Guard him."
The pressure behind those words made all three adventurers straighten unconsciously.
Then his eyes hardened.
"With your lives."
Nobody argued.
Nobody even considered it.
Satisfied, Ezekiel turned away.
"Hey Zeke."
Ezekiel stopped.
"Be careful."
For a brief moment, his familiar grin returned.
"Don't worry Qamar. It'll all be over soon."
Then he looked toward Dominic.
"Oh and try not to blink."
The atmosphere shifted immediately.
Dominic had remained silent throughout the entire exchange.
Watching, Calculating.
Now he smiled.
"Interesting."
Black ice spread across the battlefield.
The dead ground froze instantly.
"You're like him, aren't you? You don't seem human either…you smell different."
Ezekiel shrugged.
"You don't smell pleasant either."
The demon laughed.
Demonic mana erupted from his body.
Dark ice surged outward like a tidal wave.
The temperature plummeted.
Frost coated every surface.
William felt his fingers go numb.
Ana's breath became visible.
Luka cursed under his breath.
Meanwhile, Ezekiel stood there with both hands in his pockets.
Unbothered.
Dominic's smile widened.
"This world shouldn't possess someone like you this early on."
"Yeah."
Ezekiel yawned.
"I hear that a lot."
The demon suddenly blurred forward.
The ground exploded beneath him.
| ICE BREAKER |
A fist coated in compressed dark ice appeared directly in front of Ezekiel's face.
The attack should have landed.
It didn't.
Dominic's fist stopped mere inches away from his face.
Stopped by what felt like a barrier, a barrier he couldn't break through.
The demon's eyes widened.
Ezekiel calmly stepped aside.
A crimson spear materialized beside him.
| DESTRUCTION SPEAR |
The attack exploded forward, faster than Dominic could dodge.
BOOOOOOOM!!!
The spear struck him squarely in the chest and detonated violently.
The demon became a black blur.
His body tore through frozen trees before crashing deep into the forest.
The resulting shockwave flattened everything nearby.
Dominic emerged moments later.
Blood dripped from his mouth.
Yet he was smiling.
"Good."
Dark ice surged around him.
Hundreds of razor-sharp spears formed across the sky.
| GLACIAL EXECUTION |
Dozens of ice spears descended.
Ezekiel finally removed one hand from his pocket.
Purple spatial energy swirled around his fingers.
Space folded.
Every spear vanished.
Then wormholes opened directly behind Dominic.
The entire attack returned.
The demon's smile faltered.
His own barrage slammed into him.
Dark ice shattered.
Trees collapsed.
The clearing trembled.
Dominic burst from the debris immediately and slammed both arms into the ground.
Massive glaciers erupted upward.
Towering walls of black ice rose into the sky.
| FROZEN CITADEL |
The battlefield transformed.
Dark mist filled the air.
Gigantic ice structures dominated the clearing.
The temperature dropped even further.
Ezekiel looked around.
"Creative."
Blue temporal energy flowed from his eyes as he used his time affinity. His perception of the world slowed.
Dominic.
The falling debris.
The drifting frost.
As the demon charged, Ezekiel already knew where he would appear.
A claw aimed for his throat, and Ezekiel casually leaned aside.
The attack missed.
Dominic attacked again.
And again.
And again.
Each strike failed.
To everyone watching it looked impossible.
"You're predicting my attacks before I complete them, pesky time affinity."
Dominic's expression darkened.
Ezekiel smiled faintly.
The demon slammed both hands together and the glaciers shattered.
Millions of ice fragments filled the battlefield.
| ABYSSAL FROST STORM |
The fragments accelerated.
Each carried enough force to tear through steel.
The storm consumed everything.
Ezekiel raised his hand, his purple energy condensed as he spoke casually.
| COMPRESS |
The surrounding space compressed violently.
Every ice fragment stopped.
Then folded inward.
CRAAAAACK!!!
The storm collapsed into a single unstable sphere.
Dominic's eyes widened as Ezekiel flicked it forward.
Reality folded inward and the sphere exploded.
BOOOOOOOM!!!
Dominic barely crossed his arms before being swallowed by the blast.
When he emerged he was injured.
Bleeding.
Laughing.
"Excellent."
Demonic mana exploded from his body.
His form began swelling, changing.
Black horns erupted from his forehead.
Additional arms emerged from his sides.
Darkness gathered around him like a living storm.
The pressure multiplied.
William nearly collapsed.
Ana dropped to one knee.
Luka struggled to breathe.
"Demonic form….But he's forcing the transformation," Lunaris said grimly causing Ishmael to narrow his eyes.
Dominic rolled his shoulders. "Let's stop playing." The transformation accelerated.
The sky darkened.
Dark ice spread across everything.
Reality itself seemed to reject his existence.
For the first time, Ezekiel's smile disappeared.
His gaze drifted briefly toward Ishmael. Noticing his worried expression.
His gaze drifted to the blood still staining the battlefield.
Toward the place where his younger brother had nearly died.
Something cold entered his eyes.
Something ancient, Dangerous.
Red energy appeared first.
Pure destruction.
It crackled around his body like liquid catastrophe.
Then blue.
Then purple.
The three energies intertwined.
The world around them distorted.
Trees collapsed.
The ground cracked.
Space bent away from him.
Dominic stopped smiling.
For the first time since entering Gregoria—
He felt fear. Instinctive, pure, and unadulterated
Ezekiel slowly raised a hand. Crimson energy condensed.
| CATASTROPHE BEAM |
A beam of pure destruction erupted forward.
Dominic raised glacier walls in defense.
The beam vaporized them instantly.
The forest exploded.
The demon barely escaped.
Ezekiel swung his arm sending out multiple crimson crescents that erupted outward.
The attacks carved through the landscape.
Dominic tried to erect more walls but they were useless against Ezekiel's unrelenting attacks.
The demon was forced backward repeatedly.
Blue energy gathered around Ezekiel.
Several runed floating spheres with rings appeared around Dominic. Time orbs
Beautiful. Silent. Dangerous.
The demon sensed the threat.
Too late.
The spheres surrounded him.
| TEMPORAL PRISON |
Time froze.
Dominic's body locked in place.
His expression froze.
Even his demonic mana stopped moving.
Several seconds passed.
Cracks appeared.
The demon roared and shattered free.
But the damage had already been done.
Ezekiel stood directly before him and drove a destruction-coated punch into his chest. Launching him backwards for the uptenth time. He landed hard.
CRASHHHH
When he got up, he was bleeding, broken, and feeling humiliated and his Demonic mana exploded outward one final time.
' Impossible, so young yet so strong…and he's part of that race that was thought to be extinct, I need to go back…This information would be valuable'
As he thought to himself, his dark ice consumed the battlefield.
His transformation surged further.
A final gamble. A final attempt at survival.
"WAIT—!"
He never finished.
Dark purple energy cackled around Ezekiel's hand.
Not space. Not time. Not destruction.
Something deeper.
The world reacted immediately. Tensed, like it was watching something fragile.
The space itself trembled, warped.
Dominic's instincts screamed.
Run.
Run now.
Ezekiel's voice was calm.
Cold.
"You almost killed my brother…That is unacceptable."
A blade formed from the energy.
Dark purple. Beautiful and Terrifying.
| BLADE OF NIHILITY |
He muttered coldly, then he swung hard. A huge dark-purple slash burst from the blade.
Silent, Absolute.
Dominic stood frozen from the sheer pressure of the enormous slash.
Every ounce of power he once possessed, None of it mattered.
The attack landed and passed through him and for a moment nothing happened.
Then a thin dark-purple line appeared across his body.
The line widened.
Dominic split cleanly in two.
His eyes widened. Disbelief filled them.
"No…" He uttered in disbelief as he disintegrated into nothingness.
Piece by piece, Layer by layer, until nothing remained.
No corpse. No ash. No remains.
Only absence.
The slash continued onward carving through thousands of trees. Before slicing through the device, maintaining the gate. And destroying it.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
The delayed shockwave arrived and the entire forest shook.
Ash filled the sky and the devastation stretched for kilometers. When the chaos finally settled, silence returned.
The gate was gone.
Dominic was gone.
Only a colossal scar stretching across the landscape remained.
Ezekiel stood at the center of it all.
The void blade dissolved into particles of dark-purple light before disappearing completely.
He stared at the destruction for a moment.
Then glanced toward Ishmael.
His familiar lazy grin returned.
"Hm."
Both hands slipped back into his pockets.
"Looks like I overdid it this time."