K tightened his jaw as Vince stepped forward, every inch of the battlefield groaning beneath the Taishin Master's unstable but thunderous aura.

The ground cracked in spirals where his feet landed, each step a declaration:

He was still here.

Still standing.

Still willing to break the world before letting his students fall.

But K cold strategist, battlefield genius, predator of weakness was not shouting now.

He wasn't sneering.

He wasn't mocking.

His thoughts churned fast and sharp

(I know I can't beat Vince the Wandering Fist…

Not when he's whole. Not when he's at full power. He didn't earn that title through luck, he earned it through dominance.)

His fingers twitched once.

A bead of void energy spiraled around his wrist like ink dragged by gravity.

Vince stopped a dozen meters away, breathing hard, blood dripping from his fingertips.

But he still smiled

that maddening, reckless, fearless smile.

"Done thinking, boy?" Vince said.

K's eyes narrowed.

Then

something flickered behind them.

Calculation.

A shifting of gears.

A new angle found.

(Wait… he is injured. Deeply. Fatally. He's barely holding himself together using the remnants of the Taishin Gate…)

K's breath steadied.

(That resurrection technique whatever he used cost him everything.

His power has drawn back. His body is broken. His cultivation is bleeding out with every movement…)

A slow smile crept onto K's face, cold as winter steel.

(Right now…His strength is only comparable to an Eclipse Vanguard at best.)

His hand closed into a fist.

(I can kill him.)

A ripple of void exploded under his feet

and K vanished.

Vince inhaled sharply

pivoting

barely raising his remaining arm

K appeared at his flank like a knife of black lightning, snarling,

"DIE"

Vince blocked with the stump of his right arm, Taishin energy flaring so violently the air detonated between them.

The collision shook the battlefield.

Wind ripped outward.

Dust exploded into a vortex.

Khael shielded Ceyla with his body as the shockwave slammed past.

Matthew barely conscious fell to one knee, Sae snarling protectively beside him.

Juno stood trembling, gripping his side, anger burning through the pain.

Ryn clutched Mari's shoulder, glaring through the haze.

The two forces clashed again

and again

and again

each strike carving trenches through the stone.

Vince ducked a sweeping void arc that sliced a mountain ridge in half.

K stepped in, twisting, his voice a venomous whisper:

"You're slower, old man.

Your gate can't save you now."

Vince grinned through blood.

"Maybe."

He swung.

A single Taishin-infused punch.

Barely fueled.

Barely stable.

But aimed with perfect mastery.

K blocked

and the shock numbed his entire arm.

He skidded back a full meter.

K clicked his tongue.

"...Tch."

Vince laughed breathy, ragged, but real.

"Still hurts, doesn't it?"

K's eyes twitched in irritation.

Vince planted his feet again, though his legs trembled violently beneath him.

"Let me guess," Vince said, wiping blood off his chin with the back of his hand,

"you're thinking I'm weaker.

Thinking you can kill me now."

K said nothing.

He didn't need to.

His silence confirmed everything.

Vince shrugged.

"Good. Then stop running your mouth and prove it."

K's jaw clenched.

Void surged beneath his feet

"VOID STEP"

He teleported behind Vince, void-claws materializing around his fingers.

Vince spun, fist igniting with spiraling Taishin force

"TAISHIN—"

They struck simultaneously.

A blast of white and black swallowed everything.

Cracks tore across the battlefield like lightning veins.

Rocks lifted from the ground and shattered midair.

Trees vaporized into dust.

The sky itself distorted.

When the shockwave cleared

Both men remained standing.

Barely.

Vince's chest was bleeding heavily.

His bandages glowed too dim.

His breathing was shallow.

K wiped more blood from his mouth…

but then smiled.

A cold, calculated smile.

"Your pulse is weakening. Your gate is collapsing again."

Vince tilted his head.

"So what?"

K's eyes hardened.

"It means… I can drag you into hell myself."

He lifted his hand

void spiraling into an execution strike.

Everyone's hearts stopped.

Juno gasped.

"MASTER VINCE—!"

But Vince didn't flinch.

He simply smirked, even as blood dripped from his jaw.

"You can try. But let me give you a warning… tactician."

Taishin energy flared one final time behind him

not bright, not full

but sharp.

Wild.

Unrestrained.

"A dying man fights hardest. And a master… never dies quietly."

K roared

and the next blow fell.

K was thrown

hurled like a ragdoll skidding across the jagged earth until his back smashed into a shattered boulder.

Stone cracked.

Dust burst upward.

He coughed blood, eyes wide with disbelief.

"Impossible…

Impossible… IMPOSSIBLE!"

His voice broke into a shrill, feral shriek part shock, part humiliation, part pure rage.

Master Vince, trembling, dropped to one knee.

His hand clutched his chest palm pressed over the tearing pulse of his collapsing Taishin Gate.

Every breath was a knife, but he still forced himself to stay upright.

K slammed his fists into the ground, void crackling and distorting the air around him as a tantrum of murderous fury erupted.

"HOW….HOW DID AN INJURED RELIC LIKE YOU…"

He didn't finish.

Because the space behind him

went silent.

Not quiet

silent.

Like sound itself retreated.

A presence unfolded like a nightmare blooming.

And then

He appeared.

A man stepping out of thin air, as if the void parted to welcome his arrival.

Pink, wolf-cut hair.

A lazy grin that didn't reach the eyes.

Eyes that were not eyes at all orange, red, and black swirling like a storm of stitched souls each layer watching from a different depth of reality.

The temperature dropped.

Not physically.

Spiritually.

K froze.

His fury snapped into a rigid, trembling obedience.

"M-Master Lucere…"

The grin widened not kindly.

Lucere tilted his head just enough to make the world feel tilted too.

"K.." he said softly,

a silk-threaded voice over blades,

"you've done enough."

The battlefield stilled.

Everyone looked at the newcomer.

Juno's breath caught.

Ceyla, barely conscious, whispered,

"Who… is that…?"

Mari and Ryn felt their knees weaken.

Ryn's heart dropped into his stomach

because he knew that aura.

He had felt it once, long ago,

in the shadows of K's training grounds.

But Khael

Khael went cold.

Not from the aura.

Not from the killing intent.

Not from recognition.

From dread.

(Nonononono…

No. No. NO.

He shouldn't be here—

NOT NOW—)

Khael's claws trembled.

His breath shook.

Because he wasn't just seeing Lucere…

He was remembering him.

From another world.

Another life.

From the pages of the manga he read as Shigeo Smith on Earth.

Kaen Eclipse.

The reveal that broke the fandom.

Lucere

the childhood friend of Master Isen.

The loyal disciple of Yuna, the First Dragon Knight.

The man whose grief shattered his sanity.

The man who would burn ten thousand worlds to revive his master.

The man obsessed with one goal:

"The Ten Shards.

The Ten Fragments of the Dragon of Emotion."

In the manga

He already had

four.

And here, in this very battlefield,

lay the fifth:

The Shard of Flesh.

Inside Khael.

Lucere smiled wider when his swirling eyes met Khael's violet ones.

"Khael Corzedar…" he murmured, tasting the name like a prophecy.

Khael's heart lurched.

Lucere's gaze pierced straight through the Dragonion armor,

straight into the Shard pulsing in his chest.

"You have something I want." Lucere said.

Still smiling.

Still calm.

But every living creature felt it

the hunger

the fixation

the trembling obsession just beneath his tone.

Ryn swallowed hard.

He whispered, voice cracking,

"Khael… This is him. This is….The Hollow Nine's leader…"

Khael didn't look away.

He couldn't.

Lucere spoke again, voice like a prayer to a corpse

"The Fifth Fragment of the Dragon of Emotion. The Shard of Flesh."

His grin thinned

and his true desire cut through the air like a blade.

"Give it to me.

Yuna… must awaken."

Khael's blood froze.

Because in the manga

in every timeline

in every prophecy

Lucere was unstoppable.

A calamity.

A puppeteer.

A devourer of fates.

The one villain

no protagonist ever defeated.

And now he was here.

For the Shard inside Khael.

And Khael knew

This arc

just became a nightmare

To be continue

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