Lucy launched out of the tree line like a missile wrapped in lightning.

Every muscle in her body coiled tight as compressed springs, then released all at once. Her boots left scorch marks on the branch she'd kicked off from. Electricity danced across her skin in jagged patterns, bright enough to leave afterimages, crackling with the sound of a thousand sparklers igniting simultaneously. The air around her ionized, creating visible distortion waves that rippled outward from her passage.

"ARTHUR!!!"

Her fist cocked back, lightning condensing around her knuckles until the glow turned blue-white, so bright it would hurt to look at directly. She crossed fifty meters in under a second, trajectory aimed straight at the man standing calmly in the settlement's center.

Arthur didn't move. His hands stayed relaxed at his sides, brown hair catching the wind, expression carrying something between amusement and boredom. He watched Lucy's approach with the casual interest of someone observing a particularly energetic insect.

"ARE YOU THE REAL ONE OR ANOTHER FAKE?!"

Lucy's voice carried across the distance, raw and demanding, while her fist came around in an arc that would have pulverized concrete.

Arthur's hand moved.

Not fast. Not with the blur of enhanced speed. Just moved, rising to catch Lucy's lightning-wrapped fist in his palm like he was catching a thrown ball.

*CRACK—*

The collision created a shockwave that flattened grass in a thirty-foot radius. Dust exploded outward from the impact point. The ground beneath Arthur's feet spiderwebbed with fractures, concentric rings of shattered earth spreading from where he stood.

But he stood. Completely still except for that one raised hand, holding Lucy's full momentum in place like it was nothing.

"Depends," Arthur said, his voice carrying that same casual tone. "Who's asking?"

Lucy's eyes went wide for a fraction of a second before her training kicked in. She twisted mid-air, used Arthur's grip as an anchor point, brought both legs up with lightning crackling across her boots. The kick came at his head from two angles simultaneously, each one carrying enough force to dent a car plating.

Arthur's free hand came up. Caught her right ankle. His left forearm blocked her left kick, the impact creating another shockwave that sent debris flying. Lucy hung there suspended between his grip on her fist and ankle, held in place like a butterfly pinned for examination.

Then she started attacking faster.

Her free leg snapped out. Arthur blocked. She twisted, trying to break his grip on her captured limbs. He held firm. She channeled more lightning, turning her entire body into a conduit, electricity pouring through the contact points between them with enough voltage to kill a normal person three times over.

Arthur's expression didn't change. The lightning washed over him, dispersed through his body like water running off stone, causing no visible damage.

Lucy pulled one hand free through sheer determination, immediately throwing a palm strike at his throat. Arthur tilted his head six inches left. Her hand passed through empty air. She followed with an elbow. He leaned back. Another kick. He stepped aside, finally releasing her, and Lucy hit the ground rolling.

She came up on her feet twenty yards away, breathing hard, lightning still dancing across her skin.

Arthur brushed dust off his simple shirt like he'd been doing nothing more strenuous than gardening. Then his hand moved in a casual swatting motion.

The strike hit Lucy before she could process movement. One moment Arthur was standing stationary. The next, impact force caught her across the torso with enough power to lift her completely off the ground. She flew backward, tumbling through the air, hit the ground hard enough to bounce once, and kept sliding until momentum finally arrested thirty meters from where she'd been standing.

That entire exchange had taken maybe five seconds.

'This isn't the clone,' Noah thought, watching from his position at the forest edge. 'The clone fought methodically. Tested abilities. Learned. This one's just... playing.'

"All units, engage!" Commander Hight's voice cut through the comms.

Two hundred Grey soldiers opened fire simultaneously.

The sound was overwhelming. Beast-core powered blasters created a continuous roar that drowned out everything else. Energy bolts converged on Arthur's position from six different angles, calculated firing solutions designed to leave no gaps, nowhere to dodge, overwhelming volume compensating for any individual miss.

Arthur raised both hands.

Shadows erupted from the ground around him, flowing upward like liquid darkness gaining coherence as it rose. The wall formed in under a second, completely opaque, standing fifteen feet tall and wrapping around Arthur in a protective semicircle.

The energy bolts hit the shadow barrier and simply vanished. Not absorbed. Not deflected. Just ceased to exist the moment they made contact with that darkness, swallowed into whatever space Arthur had created.

"Sophie, Lila—go!" Noah's voice carried across the team channel. "Find the family heads. We'll handle this."

Sophie and Lila broke from their positions immediately, moving low and fast toward the settlement's interior structures. Grey soldiers adjusted their firing patterns to provide covering fire, keeping Arthur's attention forward.

The shadow wall began rising higher.

*GBOOM—*

KROME landed twenty feet in front of the barrier with enough force to crater the ground. The mech stood at its full height, fusion reactor visible through chest vents, weapon systems already tracking targets. Kelvin's voice came through external speakers, amplified and carrying across the battlefield.

"Hey Arthur! Remember me? Of course you don't. You took a friend of mine though. So I'm gonna make sure you don't forget this face!!"

Both shoulder-mounted plasma cannons swiveled forward and fired.

Twin beams of superheated death lanced toward the shadow wall. They hit with explosive force, creating massive blooms of light and heat. For one beautiful moment, it looked like the barrier was buckling, darkness wavering under sustained plasma bombardment.

Then lightning erupted from inside the shadow wall.

Not normal lightning. This was dense, concentrated, moving with purpose rather than following natural electrical pathways. It formed a cage pattern mid-air, interlocking bolts creating a geometric prison, and every plasma beam that touched those lightning bars simply exploded before reaching its target.

The detonations created their own light show, fireballs mixing with electrical discharge, but none of it got through.

Kelvin adjusted his approach. If direct fire wasn't working, then close combat was the answer. KROME's thrusters roared to life, lifting the ten-ton frame off the ground, accelerating forward with thrust that pushed the mech to Mach speeds within two seconds.

The distance closed fast. Shadow wall ahead, growing larger in his viewport, reactor readings climbing as KROME's systems diverted power to the right arm. Kelvin pulled back for a punch that would carry every ounce of momentum he'd built up.

KROME's fist hit something solid.

The shadow wall hadn't moved. Arthur had somehow manifested in front of it, one hand raised, palm open, catching the mech's full-velocity punch like someone catching a baseball.

The force had to go somewhere. Arthur's feet drove into the ground, soil compressing under pressure that should have liquified normal human bone structure. Trenches carved themselves backward from his heels as kinetic energy dispersed through his body into the earth beneath.

But simultaneously, KROME's forward momentum arrested completely. The mech's entire frame shuddered. The rear feet lifted off the ground, pulled up by their own forward velocity having nowhere to go, lifting higher and higher until KROME teetered on its front foot alone like a motorcycle hitting an immovable wall.

Arthur looked up at the mech's chest viewport. Kelvin could see his face clearly through the armor plating.

He was smiling.

Then Arthur's grip shifted. He grabbed KROME's arm properly, twisted his whole body, and simply swung the mech away like discarding trash.

KROME flew sideways. Ten tons of combat machinery spun through empty air, completely airborne, tumbling end over end before crashing into the forest edge with explosive force. Trees shattered. Systems screamed warnings. Kelvin felt his harness compress against his chest, heard something in the mech's frame crack from impact stress.

Seraleth was already moving.

She'd flanked wide during Kelvin's assault, circling around while Arthur's attention focused forward. Now she came in from his left side, gauntlets crackling with energy, moving with that impossible grace her species possessed.

Her fist came at Arthur's head. He turned slightly, caught her wrist, but this time something happened he didn't expect.

The reverb activated.

Seraleth's ability didn't just create force on impact. It created an echo, a secondary shockwave that followed the first by microseconds. Arthur had stopped her fist, but the reverb traveled up his arm anyway, vibrating through bone and tissue with frequencies designed to disrupt neural pathways.

His smile faltered. Just for a moment.

"Interesting," Arthur said.

Then he grabbed her head with his free hand and drove his knee into her face.

The impact was brutal. Seraleth's nose shattered. Blood sprayed from it. Her head snapped back from pure force, but Arthur still held her wrist, wouldn't let her fall away. He pulled her forward, off-balance, and kneed her again, the same spot. Same devastating force.

Seraleth's chi flared instinctively, white energy flooding through her body's meridians, reinforcing bone structure before the third strike could completely break her orbital socket.

Arthur released her wrist, grabbed her forearm instead, and simply threw her. Not the casual discard he'd used on KROME. This was deliberate trajectory, calculated angle. Seraleth flew across the battlefield and crashed through one of the settlement's smaller structures, wood and thatch exploding outward from her passage.

Grey forces continued their barrage. Energy bolts still converging, still trying to overwhelm through volume. Arthur's shadow wall absorbed everything, unwavering, while he stood in front of it like a shield made flesh.

"Is that all?" Arthur's voice carried across the battlefield without him needing to shout. "Lucy Grey sends her forces and this is what arrives? Two hundred soldiers who can't land a single shot?"

Commander Hight's jaw clenched. She adjusted her firing solution, targeting Arthur directly, and poured lightning through her weapon's focusing array.

The bolt that emerged was massive, thick as a person's torso, bright enough to leave everyone's vision spotted. It crossed the distance faster than sound, aimed center mass, unavoidable through conventional dodging.

*VROOOOOOOMM!!!*

Arthur raised his hand again.

The lightning struck his palm and simply stopped. Held in place like he'd caught a physical object, crackling and writhing but going nowhere. Arthur studied it for a moment with that same casual interest he'd shown Lucy.

Then he closed his fist.

The lightning compressed. Grew brighter. More concentrated. Arthur shaped it between his hands like clay, molding raw electrical energy into a spear roughly six feet long, the entire length glowing blue-white and humming with contained power.

He threw it back.

The spear crossed the battlefield in a straight line. Grey soldiers dove aside. Those who couldn't move fast enough raised personal shields, beast-core powered barriers designed to stop Category four attacks.

The lightning spear went through the first barrier like it was paper. Through the second. Through the third. Five soldiers died instantly, holes burned completely through their torsos, cauterized so fast they didn't have time to scream before neural shutdown.

The spear kept going until it embedded itself in a tree trunk fifty meters behind the Grey formation. The wood exploded into splinters, burning from the inside out.

Noah moved.

He'd been running, finding an opening and analyzing, waiting for the right moment. Now he activated Void Blink, reality folding around him as he displaced from the forest edge to directly behind Arthur's shadow wall.

The transition took microseconds. Noah emerged from void space already in motion, Excaliburn manifesting in his right hand mid-appearance. He swung at Arthur's back, the void blade aimed at spine level, an attack designed to sever or erase depending on contact depth.

Arthur spun.

His hand came up, metal suddenly coating his palm and forearm, gray and reflective like polished steel. Excaliburn's edge met that metal coating with a sound like breaking glass.

The void energy didn't erase the metal. Couldn't erase it. Whatever Arthur had manifested wasn't normal matter—it held properties that resisted void manipulation, stayed coherent when it should have dissolved.

'Stacked metal manipulation,' Noah realized. 'He's enhanced it beyond what the original user could do. Made it void-resistant somehow. He's probably infused it with Chi'

Arthur's other hand shot forward, aiming for Noah's throat. Noah blinked backward three feet, created separation, immediately followed up with Void Barrage.

Purple projectiles erupted from his raised hand. Ten, twenty, thirty spheres of concentrated erasure energy, each one carrying enough void power to unmake flesh and bone on contact. They converged on Arthur from multiple angles, calculated to leave no dodging room.

Arthur's shadow wall flowed forward like liquid, wrapping around his body in overlapping layers. The void spheres hit those shadows and vanished, swallowed into whatever space existed inside Arthur's darkness.

Noah adjusted his approach instantly. If ranged wasn't working, he'd force close combat. He blinked forward, appeared inside Arthur's guard, drove a fist at his ribs.

Arthur blocked with his metal-coated forearm. The impact created a shockwave that spread out around them in 20 meters. Noah followed with a knee strike. Arthur caught his leg. Noah activated Phase Step, his body becoming intangible for two seconds, passing through Arthur's grip.

He rematerialized behind Arthur, already swinging Excaliburn at neck level. Arthur ducked under the blade, came up with an uppercut that Noah barely dodged, the fist passing close enough to feel displaced air.

They separated by mutual agreement, both fighters stepping back, reassessing.

'He's not just strong,' Noah thought, breathing controlled despite the exchange. 'He's skilled. Every movement is efficient. No wasted energy. Like he's done this ten thousand times.'

"You've grown," Arthur said, that casual tone returning. "Good. I'd hate for this to be boring."

Diana emerged from the forest edge. Her momentum fields activated immediately, Dead zones spreading around her in overlapping patterns that turned everything to her playground. She moved toward Arthur with deliberate steps, each one calculated and conserving energy.

Arthur noticed her approach. His expression shifted slightly, something approximating actual interest.

"Momentum nullification," he said, observing Diana's advance. "Now that's troublesome."

Diana didn't respond with words. She extended her field, trying to catch Arthur in a Dead zone that would freeze him in place.

Arthur's shadows responded faster. They erupted from the ground behind Diana, forming solid constructs—bladed tentacles that stabbed forward with killing intent.

Diana felt the attack coming through her spatial awareness. She reversed momentum on the shadows themselves, turning their forward thrust into backward recoil. The constructs flew away from her, dispersing back into formless darkness.

But Arthur was already moving. He circled around Diana's field perimeter, testing its range, probing for weaknesses. Diana adjusted her positioning, tried to catch him, but he stayed just outside her effective radius.

'He's learned the limitation,' Diana realized. 'My field has range. He's using mobility to stay clear.'

Grey forces provided supporting fire. Energy bolts streamed past Diana, giving Arthur multiple threats to track simultaneously. He responded by manifesting that lightning cage again, geometric patterns forming mid-air, intercepting projectiles before they could reach him.

Lucy was back. She'd recovered from being thrown, lightning coating her body again, eyes literally glowing blue from channeled power. She charged from Arthur's right flank, moving faster than before, every muscle fiber enhanced by electricity running through her nervous system.

Arthur turned to meet her charge. His hand came up, fingers spread, and lightning erupted from his palm to match hers.

The two electrical streams met mid-air and exploded. Thunder rolled across the battlefield, loud enough to make several Grey soldiers stumble from auditory shock alone. Light flooded everything, bright enough that anyone looking directly at the collision point was temporarily blinded.

Lucy pushed harder. More power. More voltage. Her lightning grew brighter, more concentrated, trying to overwhelm Arthur's through raw output.

Arthur's lightning matched hers effortlessly. Then exceeded it. His stream grew larger, brighter, pushing Lucy's electrical discharge backward toward its source.

Noah saw the moment Lucy would be hit by her own reflected attack. He activated Domain Link's Reciprocal Swap, targeting Lucy's position and swapping her with his own location.

Lucy disappeared from Arthur's sight line and rematerialized where Noah had been standing. Noah appeared in her place, already moving, using the disorientation to close distance.

His fist came at Arthur's face, enhanced by chi, moving fast enough to create sonic displacement. Arthur blocked with that metal-coated forearm again. Noah's knuckles hit the coating and he felt bone compress from impact shock.

But he'd gotten inside Arthur's guard. That was the point.

Noah activated Entropy Touch through the contact point. Decay energy flooded from his fist into Arthur's metallic coating, spreading like black infection, trying to corrode the enhancement from within.

Arthur's eyes widened fractionally. The metal coating began flaking away, dissolving under entropy's influence. He pulled back immediately, severed the affected section by dispelling the metal entirely, letting it fall away as dust.

"Interesting," Arthur said again. This time his tone carried genuine curiosity rather than condescension. "You're forcing me to actually think of what to do,"

Kelvin had recovered KROME from the forest edge. The mech's left arm hung useless, sparking from damage, but everything else still functioned. He activated the resonance cannon, the weapon Diana had installed, power building in the chest-mounted array.

"NOAH! MOVE!"

Noah blinked away immediately. Arthur turned to track the new threat just as Kelvin fired.

The resonance wave hit Arthur center mass. Pure vibrational energy expanding in a sphere, frequencies tuned to shatter crystalline structures and disrupt molecular bonds. The kind of attack that ignored conventional armor, bypassed physical defenses, attacked matter itself on a fundamental level.

Arthur's body rippled. The vibrations traveled through him, trying to tear him apart from the inside.

For one hopeful moment, it looked like the attack was working—his form became less solid, edges blurring.

Then his entire body flooded with lightning.

The electrical discharge spread through his nervous system, his muscles, his bones, every cell simultaneously. The electricity created its own vibration, a counter-frequency that matched and canceled Kelvin's resonance wave through destructive interference.

The attack dissipated. Arthur remained standing, unharmed, though his expression had shifted to something more serious.

"You're making me use multiple abilities simultaneously," Arthur said. "That's genuinely impressive for your generation."

He raised both hands. Lightning sparked from his left palm. Shadows coiled around his right arm. Metal began coating his torso in overlapping plates.

"Let's see how you handle all of them at once."

The battlefield exploded into chaos.

Arthur moved faster than he had before, pushing his enhanced speed to levels that made tracking difficult. He closed on a cluster of Grey soldiers, metal-coated fist driving into the first one's chest with enough force to punch completely through armor and bone. The soldier died instantly.

Arthur used the corpse as a shield, blocking incoming fire while his shadows extended outward in multiple directions. They formed bladed constructs that stabbed through two more soldiers, lifting them off their feet, holding them suspended while lightning traveled down the shadow tendrils and cooked them from the inside.

Commander Hight fired at point-blank range. Her lightning bolt hit Arthur's metallic coating and dispersed, grounded harmlessly through his body into the earth beneath his feet.

Arthur's hand shot out, grabbed Hight's throat, lifted her off the ground. Lightning poured from his grip into her body. Hight screamed, her own electrical abilities fighting against Arthur's, creating a feedback loop that made her entire nervous system spasm.

Seraleth crashed into Arthur from the side. She'd recovered from being thrown, used her enhanced strength to deliver a full-body tackle that would have knocked over a transport vehicle. Arthur released Hight, turned into Seraleth's momentum, caught her around the waist.

His knee came up. Met her descending torso with brutal precision. The reverb activated again, secondary shockwave traveling through Arthur's body, but he just absorbed it, used his healing abilities that made damaged tissue knit back together as fast as it broke.

Arthur lifted Seraleth overhead and slammed her into the ground with enough force to crack stone. She bounced once. He grabbed her ankle before she could roll away, swung her like a club into an approaching group of Grey soldiers. Bodies went flying from the impact.

Noah was already moving. He'd used Shared Awareness to track Arthur's position through Kelvin's sensors, knew exactly where he'd be when Seraleth's assault failed. Now he blinked into position, Excaliburn raised, the void blade coming down at Arthur's exposed back.

Arthur spun. His shadow constructs formed instantly, multiple bladed tentacles shooting toward Noah from ground level. Noah phased through them, his body intangible for two seconds, passing through shadow and steel to rematerialize on Arthur's other side.

The void blade carved toward Arthur's neck. He ducked under it with minimal movement, came up inside Noah's guard, drove his metal-coated fist into Noah's ribs.

[HP: 3,430/3,520]

Pain exploded through Noah's torso. He felt ribs crack despite his enhanced physiology. Arthur's fist carried power that ignored conventional durability.

Noah blinked away before the follow-up could land. He appeared twenty feet back, left hand pressed against his injured side, void energy already working to knit broken bones.

'He's stronger than me. Faster than me. More skilled than me. And he's using abilities from multiple sources simultaneously without any apparent limitation. This might just be the original,"

Diana moved in again, tried to catch Arthur in a Dead zone while he was focused on Noah. Arthur's shadows formed a platform beneath his feet, lifted him off the ground before Diana's field could take effect. He rose ten feet into the air, standing on solidified darkness, and from that elevated position he rained lightning down on Grey soldiers still trying to find firing solutions.

Lucy intercepted the lightning. Her own electrical discharge met Arthur's mid-air, creating another thunderous explosion. She used the cover it provided to close distance, appeared on Arthur's shadow platform through pure speed, threw a lightning-enhanced punch at his jaw.

Arthur caught her fist. Again. Like the fight had reset to its starting position.

"You're persistent," Arthur said. "I'll give you that."

He pulled Lucy off-balance, drove his knee into her solar plexus, felt the impact compress her diaphragm and force all air from her lungs. Lucy gasped, tried to pull away. Arthur held her fist in an iron grip, wouldn't let her create separation.

His other hand came up. Grabbed her throat. Lifted her off the ground so her feet dangled over empty air, nothing but the shadow platform beneath them, a twenty-foot drop to hard earth below.

Lucy's eyes met Arthur's. Her free hand came up, lightning building between her fingers, growing brighter and more concentrated. Power flooded through her body, every available amp channeling into one focused point.

Arthur watched her charge the attack with that same casual interest.

"For a pure blood Grey," he said quietly, his grip not loosening despite the electricity building inches from his face, "you're disappointing. Your brother could have put up a better fight."

Lucy's eyes flashed pure blue. The lightning between her fingers exploded outward, growing and intensifying.

Arthur's smile widened. Genuinely pleased.

"There it is."

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.