[Third Person's POV]

[Location: Central Park, New York]

The only thing stopping this clash from being broadcast all over New York, would be the curtain erected by the Zealots, who are even maintaining it from being registered by mortals' satellites, drones, or hidden eyes. To the world outside, Central Park was calm, silent—untouched. Inside, however, the earth was already beginning to split, air quaking beneath the weight of colliding titans.

The Champion of Ares shifted his stance. Gone was the rotting part of the armour, gleaming bronze knitting itself back into shape, as though divine will refused to let weakness linger on his frame. His grip on the ashen shaft of his spear was steady, lethal, and when he levelled the blade at Dominic's face, the air itself trembled around it.

"I will say this the last time, Prince of Hell," the Champion's voice rang like anvils clashing in the depths of a forge, sharp and resonant, carrying the weight of centuries. "Yield. And I will guarantee your death would shift. Lord Ares respects every warrior who bleeds true on the battlefield. If you surrender your head and the stolen divinity here, you will be remembered with honour, not mockery. Fight further, and you shall be reduced to nothing but another corpse beneath the iron tide."

Hahahahahahaha!

Dominic doubled over in maniacal laughter, and almost lost his grip on Muramasa as the sound thundered through the ruined glade of Central Park. The laughter wasn't lighthearted—no mockery of jest. It was jagged, raw, soaked in defiance, like the crackling hymn of a storm that had found its voice.

When Dominic finally straightened, his crimson eyes were burning—slits of molten defiance, not just looking at the Champion, but through him, into the authority that sat on his shoulders.

"Honour? Memory?!" Dominic spat the words, the corners of his lips curling in a grin that was closer to a snarl. "Tell me, Champion—what use is honour to a man in the grave? What good is memory when the worms are the only ones left to sing of it? You think I give a damn about how Ares remembers me?"

The air warped as his voice deepened, not in volume, but in weight. The tremor of Conqueror's Will shivered through the park again—trees splintering, earth groaning, the curtain of suppression woven by the Zealots shuddering as if it might tear under the sheer pressure of his will.

"I have already experienced a death-like state," Dominic's tone dropped to a lethal whisper, his grin sharp enough to cut through the Champion's composure. "Stripped of everything, talent, affinity, even demonic energy. Sealed for 1022 years in a state of sleep," Dominic's words coiled like serpents, hissing into the cracks of the earth, "buried alive in a coffin, while the world moved on without me. And yet—"

His arm snapped up, Muramasa gleaming like a shard of night, black steel whispering for blood.

"—here I stand."

The Champion's bronze-clad boots dug deeper into the shattered stone, pressure answering pressure, aura meeting aura. Sparks of scarlet will and golden divinity collided midair, crackling like storms trapped in glass.

"Then you will fall again," the Champion said, voice steadier than the quake beneath their feet. "This time, no one to preserve you. No coffin to cradle you. Only the silence of unmarked soil."

Dominic's grin widened, manic and sovereign. "Then come take me, War Dog of Ares."

The ground erupted as both vanished in the same heartbeat—speartip screaming forward like lightning, Muramasa sweeping up in a diagonal slash—steel and bronze colliding with a detonation that rattled every bone in the park.

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

...

The Champion held the upper hand due to his rich experience and vast martial discipline, each strike flowing like liquid bronze honed by centuries of war. Pushing Dominic into a state of defensive stance, the Champion's strikes became a relentless tide—each one precise, each one calculated to break not just bone, but spirit. Sparks flew like meteor showers as Muramasa met bronze again and again, arcs of black lightning singing through the air with every impact. The tension of Conqueror's Will pressed against the Champion's divinity like a vice, testing the limits of both body and mind.

Dominic's breath came in controlled bursts, the grin never fading. Observation Grid flared relentlessly, lines slicing across his vision, predicting micro-shifts in the Champion's stance, every twitch of muscle and flicker of intent feeding into the next move. He wasn't just defending—he was studying, probing, shaping the battlefield around him with every exchange.

Armament Core surged along his arm, fusing Muramasa further into his essence. The black sheen thickened, writhing as if it were alive, amplifying the venom that fed on every strike, every ounce of effort he put into this dance of death. Each parry and counter wasn't just survival—it was dominance, every spark and jolt a message to the Champion: I exist, I lead, I devour.

The Champion's crimson eyes narrowed, the first flicker of unease crossing his otherwise unshakable composure. He spun the spear in a blur of golden arcs, each one designed to tear, pierce, and dismantle. Yet every motion he made, Dominic anticipated. A slash here, a step there, the Muramasa moving almost of its own accord, absorbing force, redirecting momentum, slicing the air with predatory precision.

"You fight… differently," the Champion muttered, teeth gritted, the edges of his armour glowing faintly as if straining to maintain cohesion. "Not as a man, not as a demon… what are you?"

Dominic didn't answer immediately. Instead, he let a pulse of Conqueror's Will roll outward—a subtle vibration, felt rather than heard. The Champion staggered just a fraction, his confidence flickering, not enough for the casual observer, but enough for someone trained in the art of war to notice the imperceptible hesitation. The tension between them wasn't just physical—it was metaphysical. Authority against authority, will against divinity.

With a low, predatory grin, Dominic lunged. Muramasa's blade screamed, arcs of black lightning writhing like hungry snakes, coiling around bronze fire as it clashed again and again. Sparks exploded with every contact, tearing at reality itself, the air thick with the stench of ozone and iron. Pavement cracked further, fissures crawling outward, smoke curling from the splintered trees as the ground quaked beneath them.

The Champion roared, a sound that shook more than the bones in Dominic's body—it shook the very essence of the battlefield. His strikes accelerated, flowing faster, more relentless. Each movement was a test, each parry a challenge, and each opening he offered—however tiny—was a trap to catch Dominic off balance.

But Dominic moved with feral grace, Observation Grid threading through the afterimages of attacks, marking trajectories with surgical precision. He danced between strikes, phasing and redirecting, Muramasa slicing tangibly and intangibly at once. The venom coiled along the blade's edge, whispering promises of corruption into the Champion's armour, threading micro-fractures through divine reinforcement.

"You… won't break me," the Champion growled, stepping back only to press forward again, momentum never ceasing. But already, the rhythm of the fight was Dominic's. The battlefield bent to his perception. Even Artemis, observing silently from the shadows, understood that the Prince of Hell was no longer reacting—he was dictating, bending the Champion to the cadence of his will.

A sudden pivot, Muramasa flashing like midnight lightning. The spear met the blade, bronze fire against black venom, and sparks screamed outward, shattering nearby stone. Dominic's grin widened, eyes alight with feral intent. Each strike left a trail of corruption, faint yet undeniable, creeping into the Champion's defences.

The Champion snarled, aura flaring violently, pushing harder. But the creeping effect of the cursed steel, combined with the oppressive authority of Conqueror's Will, was unravelling him—minute by minute, strike by strike. The micro-hesitations were growing, subtle, almost invisible, yet catastrophic over time.

Dominic seized the opportunity. A feint left the Champion overextended, Muramasa snapping into a vicious horizontal arc, slicing through the air where armour met joint. Bronze sizzled, sparks flying, and the faintest trace of venom touched flesh.

The Champion already knew the viciousness of the blade and immediately tore off the surrounding flesh around the wound with such precision that only centuries of battle could teach. Pain flared, but more than pain, it was the creeping awareness—the creeping fear—that made his crimson eyes widen ever so slightly. The Venomfang effect had begun its work; even the most disciplined, divinely forged warrior could not ignore corruption spreading through his veins, unrelenting, insidious, gnawing at regeneration and stability alike.

And so from that moment, he forwent his discipline for rage. This turned the battle in his favour just as fast as it turned against him. The Champion's strikes became wilder, more forceful, which though Dominic with his Observation Grid could see, but his body was too slow to keep up with the acceleration.

Clang—

Puchi~

"DARLING—" Zera's voice tore through the chaos, violet lightning lancing across the park like molten glass. As she saw Dominic's blood flying splatting against the shattered pavement, purple arcs of raw energy surged outward, cracking stone and snapping the tenuous calm the Zealots had woven.

A gaping wound opened, with blood rushing out freely as the Champion retreated with the spear—

"I. TEAR. YOU. APART. FOR. THIS!" Zeraphira's voice echoed as her figure blurred and collided with the Champion's. Seizing him by his throat and slamming him across the park like a tempest unchained. Trees groaned and splintered under the shockwave of her arrival, the air splitting with violet arcs that licked the shattered pavement. The Champion barely managed to twist midair, bronze flames licking at the edges of his armour, deflecting some of her onslaught—but not all. His stern, disciplined visage fractured into sharp disbelief as Zera's raw fury slammed into him with the force of a hurricane.

"My dear, did I ask for your help~"

Zeraphira froze mid-lunge, the violet arcs of her storm halting midair like lightning suspended in time. Her silver eyes, wide and glowing, flickered with an emotion Dominic knew all too well—utter, unrestrained adoration twisted with obsession. The raw, intoxicating pull of his Conqueror's Will pressed against her mind like a tidal wave, and she faltered, caught between the urge to annihilate and the urge to submit.

"Oh? Did I ask for your help, my dear~?" Dominic's voice was soft, honeyed with lethal amusement, curling around the chaos like smoke from a smouldering pyre. The words licked at her consciousness, teasing and tantalising, every syllable dripping with authority and promise. Her violet storm wavered, arcs snapping like nervous, excitable animals, unable to fully release their fury.

Dominic stepped forward, the ground beneath him shivering at the weight of his presence. Muramasa pulsed with malignant anticipation, black lightning crawling along its blade, venom coiling and uncoiling like serpents in wait. He didn't need to glance at Zeraphira to know the effect his will had taken; the slight hesitation in her stance, the infinitesimal retreat of her hands, the way her storm arcs bent away instead of striking—he felt it all.

"You see," he continued, voice teasing yet imbued with that undeniable authority that marked every syllable, "I prefer my battles… intimate. Personal. One-on-one. Don't worry, my dear—there's plenty of time for you to play after I've dealt with this war dog." His grin sharpened, teeth glinting faintly in the fractured moonlight, predatory and playful all at once.

"O-Okay, honey~" Blushing Zeraphira, with butterflies dancing in her stomach, as she hastily withdrew, cheeks flushed and eyes wide. The storm seemed to pulse in tandem with her heartbeat, eager yet restrained, restrained only by the invisible tether Dominic had woven with Conqueror's Will. Even the raw, chaotic energy of Zeraphira—the power that could rival storms themselves—paused, a living testament to the influence he wielded without lifting a hand.

***

Stone me, I can take it!

Leave a review, seriously, it helps.

Comments are almost nonexistent. Please have some compassion.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.