[Timeline: Day 3 of the Tournament – The Invasion]

[Location: The Arena Floor]

THUD.

The sound of Prince Nero's body hitting the dirt was soft, but it echoed like a thunderclap in the minds of everyone present.

For three seconds, there was absolute silence.

The Void Hounds stopped growling. The wind stopped blowing. Even the Demi-Gods fighting in the sky seemed to pause, sensing the sudden, violent shift in the world's destiny.

Then, the scream tore through the arena.

"HIS HIGHNESS!"

It was the Captain of the Imperial Guard. A 6th-Order Paladin stationed at the edge of the VIP box.

He stared at the broken corpse of the Golden Prince, his mind unable to process the treason he had just witnessed.

"KILL HIM!" the Captain shrieked, drawing his blade. "ALL UNITS! EXECUTE THE TERRORIST!"

Simultaneously, near the shattered East Gate, the Twilight Cultists saw their opening. The prince was dead. The Academy's defences were distracted.

"The Prince is down!" a Cultist leader shouted, his robes billowing with corrupt mana.

"Claim the vessel! Kill the Masked Man!"

It was a pincer attack.

From the north, fifty Imperial Knights charged, their armor glowing with the white light of the Empire.

From the south, a swarm of Void Hounds and Cultists surged forward, wreathed in purple shadow.

They fired at once.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

The air was saturated with magic. Fireballs, lightning strikes, holy spears, and void bolts rained down on the single figure standing in the center of the arena. It was enough firepower to level a mountain. It was a bombardment meant to erase Zero from existence.

Yet Zero didn't move. He didn't look at the incoming apocalypse instead he looked at the sword in his hand.

He had summoned it from his inventory the moment he snapped Nero's neck.

[The Pantheon Sword]

It was a massive slab of jagged, ancient grey stone, etched with runes that predated most history.

It hummed with a low, hungry vibration. It was a weapon designed to kill gods, and now it was starving.

"Noisy," Zero whispered.

The bombardment hit.

KRA-KOOOM.

The explosion engulfed the centre of the arena in a sphere of chaotic energy. Dust and fire rose hundreds of feet into the air.

"Target eliminated," the Imperial Captain panted, lowering his glowing sword. "Secure the—"

VW0000M.

The dust didn't settle; instead, what happened next shocked everybody.

The explosion swirling around Zero suddenly stopped expanding. It reversed. The fire, the lightning, the void energy, it was all sucked into a single point.

Into the blade of the Pantheon Sword.

The grey stone of the sword glowed with a terrifying, blinding light. It had eaten the attack. Every ounce of mana, every Newton of force.

Zero stood there, untouched, holding the humming weapon with one hand.

"Hey thanks for the meal," Zero said, his voice distorted and amplified. "However, I'm not hungry, so let me give it back."

He swung the sword.

[Pantheon Art: Full Counter.]

SLASH.

His sword aimed at the world.

A crescent moon of pure, compressed destruction released from the blade.

It was a mixture of Holy Light and Void Darkness, churned into a wave of annihilation.

It hit the Imperial Knights first.

Under such a terrifying force, they simply vanished. The 6th-Order Captain raised his shield, and the shield, along with his arm, his armour, and his body, disintegrated into atoms.

The wave continued. It hit the Cultists. It hit the Void Hounds. It hit the East Gate of the stadium.

CRASH.

The entire eastern quadrant of the Colosseum, thousands of tons of stone, steel, and magic barriers was sheared off.

The stands collapsed into dust. The sky was revealed behind the ruin.

In a single swing, Zero had wiped out half the invading force and remodeled the map.

He lowered the sword. Steam hissed from the blade.

"Is that all?" Zero asked.

The remaining soldiers froze. Their morale shattered. This wasn't a regular mage. This was a monster.

Zero looked at the sky. He felt the pressure of the Demi-Gods above. He felt the gaze of the Emperor watching from across the continent. He knew what was coming.

'They will send everything,' Damien thought. 'The Empire. The Church. The Association. If I want to save my students... if I want to use them to protect the future.."

'I need to be bigger than them.'

'At least for this moment, let me be the main character!'

Laughing inwardly, Damien's eyes quickly narrowed.

He opened his System Interface.

[Current DP: 205,000]

Looking at the number. It was his hoard. His retirement fund. The points he had slaved over for sixteen years.

"System," Damien commanded. "Expend 10,000 DP."

[System Warning: High Expenditure Detected.] [Target?]

"Target: Dual-Core Overdrive," Damien said. "Remove the limiters. Fuse the Dragon and Shadow."

[Acknowledged. Initiating Limitless Mana State.]

[Duration: 5 Minutes.]

THUMP.

Damien's heart stopped. Then, it restarted. But it didn't beat like a human heart. Instead, it beat like a war drum.

DOOM-DOOM.

Gold mana exploded from his left side. Black mana exploded from his right side.

The two opposing forces, usually kept separate to prevent them from destroying his body, slammed together.

Damien screamed. It felt like his veins were being filled with molten lead.

But the power... the power was intoxicating.

His silhouette began to change.

The shadows around him rose up, forming massive, leathery wings that spanned twenty meters.

His skin turned to scales, half blinding gold, half abyssal black. A tail of pure mana thrashed behind him, cracking the stone floor.

His eyes burned. One was a vertical slit of gold. The other was a hollow shadow.

He wasn't human anymore. He was a Shadow Dragon Hybrid.

The pressure he released was no longer that of a mortal. It was heavy. Ancient. It rivalled the aura of that of seventh order, or even eighth or higher.

The Imperial soldiers dropped their weapons. They fell to their knees, not out of surrender, but because their legs refused to hold them up in the presence of a predator.

Zero floated up. He hovered ten meters above the ground, flanked by the terrified silence of the arena.

The cameras were still rolling. The lens zoomed in on his transformed face.

Zero looked directly at the world.

"You call me a terrorist," Zero spoke. His voice was now dual-layered, a human voice overlaid with a draconic growl.

"You call me a villain because I broke your toy prince."

He spread his arms. The golden mana melted the air. The black mana ate the light.

[Domain Expansion: Shadow Dragon Kingdom (Imperfect).]

A zone of absolute destruction expanded around him, vaporizing the remaining rubble.

"Send your armies," Zero challenged, his eyes burning through the screen.

"Send your Golems. Send your Gods."

He gripped the Pantheon Sword, which now looked like a toothpick in his transformed claw.

"You wanted a war?"

Zero smiled beneath the silver mask.

"I am the war."

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