Gunn moved with speed that defied visual tracking, his form blurring as Master Peak cultivation translated intention into motion too fast for Adept rank perception to follow. One moment he stood at conversational distance, the next his curved blade was already descending toward Raze's exposed throat.

Raze's Combat Reflex screamed warning before his eyes could process the movement, pure instinct triggering Instant Transmission in the heartbeat between life and death. His body blinked sideways, the blade passing through empty air where his neck had been.

Blink.

He materialized five feet away, his breathing ragged as adrenaline flooded his system. That single exchange had revealed something terrifying about this opponent, something his enhanced perception was struggling to articulate through the fog of combat stress.

This man was weaker than Oziel in raw power, his cultivation pressure suggested Master Peak but not the refined quality that the legendary swordsman possessed. Yet danger radiated from him in ways that transcended simple strength, his presence carried weight that made Raze's instincts scream warnings about threats beyond conventional combat capability.

He wasn't even sure Oziel could win against this person despite the apparent power advantage. Something about Gunn's methodical approach and the careful way he moved suggested capabilities that raw strength couldn't overcome.

Gunn followed with another strike, his blade cratering the cobblestones as it smashed downward with force that sent fragments flying. The impact created depression six inches deep, stone shattering under concentrated power.

Boom!

Raze blinked again, his Instant Transmission carrying him through the debris field to a safer distance. But each activation drained mana reserves that were already depleted from fighting the Adept Peak knights, his expanded Adept rank pool providing more resources than he'd possessed at Initiate but Master rank combat consumed energy at rates that couldn't be sustained indefinitely.

Across the street Mariabel noticed the shift in combat dynamics, her attention pulled from her own opponents by the Master rank pressure suddenly dominating the area. Her golden eyes widened as she recognized Raze was facing someone far beyond his capability to handle.

"No," she whispered, then louder as panic overrode tactical awareness. "No!"

Her Authority flared with intensity born from desperation, flames erupting around her with heat that made the two knights engaging her stumble backward. She needed to reach Raze, needed to help before that Master rank cultivator killed him.

But her opponents recovered quickly, pressing their attack with renewed aggression designed to prevent her from disengaging. Their blades forced her into defensive positions that kept her pinned twenty feet away from where she desperately needed to be.

Raze blinked again as Gunn's blade sought his torso, the curved weapon moving through complex patterns that exploited every opening his injuries created. His cracked ribs screamed with each movement, his bleeding thigh making footwork unreliable.

He was running on willpower alone now, his energy reserves critically depleted and his body accumulating damage faster than his enhanced endurance could compensate. Facing Master rank as Adept Low meant he had no more tricks, no reserves of power to call upon when technique and skill proved insufficient.

His Instant Transmission activated one more time, carrying him through an attack that would have bisected him. But this time the technique faltered mid-execution, his mana reserves finally hitting the threshold where complex skills couldn't be maintained.

Blink—

The world lurched sickeningly as the spatial displacement stuttered, depositing him only three feet from his intended destination. The failure left him exposed and off-balance, perfect target for Master rank precision.

Gunn's blade adjusted mid-swing with impossibly refined control, the curved edge redirecting to catch Raze's exposed forearm. The strike was shallow, barely breaking skin as it grazed across his flesh.

Slash.

Blood welled from the cut, droplets falling to shattered cobblestones below. The wound was superficial, barely worth noting amid the collection of more serious injuries Raze had accumulated.

But Gunn stopped advancing immediately.

The Master rank cultivator froze in place, his hooded face tilting slightly as if studying something invisible. His blade remained raised in ready position but his body language shifted from aggressive pursuit to patient observation.

Raze didn't let his guard drop despite the sudden pause, his instincts screaming that something was wrong. The cut on his arm burned with intensity disproportionate to its depth, sensation spreading through surrounding tissue in ways that normal wounds didn't produce.

Gunn took one deliberate step forward, his foot impacting stone with force that sent visible vibration through the ground.

Thud.

The reverberation traveled up through Raze's legs with sensation like electricity coursing through his nervous system. He tried to step backward, trying to create distance from whatever was happening.

His legs didn't respond.

Panic surged as he attempted movement again, sending desperate signals to muscles that had been obeying his commands moments before. His legs remained locked in place, refusing to shift even a fraction of an inch despite his frantic mental commands.

In the next moment Gunn was before him, the Master rank cultivator having closed the remaining distance with speed Raze's frozen body couldn't evade. A fist materialized near his face, drawing back for strike he could see coming but couldn't defend against.

Raze tried to raise his arms to block, and tried to activate any of his movement skills to escape. Nothing responded. His entire body had become an unresponsive cage imprisoning his consciousness, functioning senses trapped in flesh that refused to obey.

The fist crashed into his jaw with force that snapped his head sideways.

Crack!

Pain exploded through his skull as bone fractured, the impact far beyond what his Endurance could absorb without damage. He would have fallen from the strike except his locked legs kept him upright, statue unable to react to the violence being inflicted.

Another punch caught his ribs, the already cracked bones shattering completely under Master rank strength. His body tried to double over from the agony but remained rigidly upright, paralysis preventing even involuntary responses to injury.

Thud thud thud!

The beating continued with methodical precision, Gunn's fists striking with exact force calculated to cause maximum pain without killing. Jaw, ribs, solar plexus, kidney, each impact targeted to disable and torture without ending the assault prematurely.

Blood poured from Raze's mouth as internal injuries accumulated, his vision blurring from the trauma. His consciousness screamed desperately for his body to move, to defend, to do anything except stand motionless while being systematically destroyed.

But nothing responded, no muscle twitched and no skill activated. He was a helpless training dummy for Master rank cultivators demonstrating the absolute gap between their capabilities.

Across the street Mariabel saw the beating begin and her heart stopped.

"No!" she screamed, flames erupting with intensity that made the air shimmer. "Get away from him!"

Her Authority maxed out completely, every reserve of power flooding into manifestation that transformed her into living inferno. The flames consumed her opponents instantly, the two knights barely having time to scream before being reduced to ash.

She ran toward Raze and Gunn with speed desperation provided, her entire focus narrowed to reaching her friend before that monster killed him. Tears streamed down her face as she watched punch after punch land without defense, and watched Raze's body absorb punishment that would kill normal cultivators.

"Stop it!" Mariabel conjured her most powerful technique mid-sprint, the grand fireball that represented her Authority pushed to absolute limits. The sphere of concentrated flame grew to six feet diameter, heat intense enough to melt steel condensing into a projectile designed to obliterate targets on contact.

She launched it toward Gunn with everything she had, the fireball streaking across the distance between them with speed that left scorched air in its wake.

Whoosh!

But before the attack could reach its target, dark energy erupted around Gunn and his motionless victim. A dome manifested with impossible speed, translucent barrier that pulsed with power suggesting Authority manifestation rather than simple defensive technique.

The grand fireball impacted the dome's surface with explosive force, flames spreading across the barrier in a wave of destruction that should have melted anything it touched.

Boom!

The dome didn't even crack, the concentrated fire sliding off its surface like water off glass. The barrier held without visible strain despite attack that could have destroyed buildings.

"No no no!" Mariabel's voice broke as she reached the dome and began hammering against it with her fists. "Let him go! Fight me instead! Take me instead, just let him go!"

Her flames erupted against the barrier repeatedly, each blast powerful enough to kill Expert rank cultivators but the dome absorbed everything without damage. She poured her entire cultivation into sustained assault, fire streaming from her hands in continuous torrent.

But nothing worked, the barrier remained perfectly intact while inside Gunn continued his methodical beating. Mariabel could see everything through the translucent surface, could watch as Raze's face swelled and blood poured from countless wounds.

Tears mixed with sweat as she screamed, her voice raw from desperate pleas that went unanswered. "Please! Stop! He didn't do anything! Please just stop!"

Inside the dome Gunn finally ceased his assault, stepping back from Raze's broken form with professional detachment. The young cultivator remained upright only because his locked body couldn't fall, blood dripping from his injuries to pool at his feet.

"I'll show you a single mercy," Gunn said, his voice carrying no malice or satisfaction, just stating facts. "I'll tell you what you're facing, what's been done to you so you understand your situation completely."

Raze's consciousness swam through agony and confusion, barely processing words through the fog of trauma. His eyes tracked Gunn's movements with the only part of his body still responding to commands.

"I come from a very ancient bloodline," Gunn explained, his tone almost conversational. "Only a few of my kind exist in the entire world, we're called Locke-Vein, descendants of a certain being who learned to seal reality itself."

He gestured to Raze's motionless form. "My bloodline grants a very special Authority, one of the rarest manifestations of power that cultivation can produce. It's called Binding Authority, allows me to permanently seal whatever I understand properly."

Raze's mind struggled to process the implications through pain and shock, fragments of understanding beginning to form about what had happened to him.

"The only requirement," Gunn continued, "is blood from the target, direct contact with their essence that allows my Authority to establish connection between their physical form and my sealing technique."

The cut on Raze's arm, the shallow wound that had seemed insignificant. That was when it had happened, when Gunn had tasted his blood and established the link necessary for whatever this nightmare was.

He remembered now, the way Gunn had looked at the blood with predatory focus, recognition in his posture that spoke to securing necessary components.

"I've sealed your cultivation completely," Gunn said. "Your mana pathways are locked, your skills are inaccessible, your enhanced physical capabilities are suppressed to baseline human levels, you're as helpless as someone who never cultivated at all."

The words landed with crushing finality, explaining why nothing had responded when Raze tried to move or activate his techniques. His entire cultivation base had been sealed away, leaving him trapped in body that was merely flesh and bone without any of the enhancements that made cultivators superhuman.

"I have nothing against you personally," Gunn continued. "But the Twilight Syndicate has faced a significant blow in Westia and that blow can be traced directly to your actions, you're the root cause of everything that's gone wrong for us here."

He began pacing within the dome, his explanation taking on almost lecture-like quality. "First was the Thornwick incident, the village where you and your group killed Viktor Ashborne, one of our Master rank enforcers whose loss significantly compromised our operations in the eastern territories."

"The Syndicate leadership traced that failure back to your interference," Gunn said. "Four young cultivators who shouldn't have been capable of threatening a Master rank opponent somehow managed to eliminate him and expose our distribution network in that region."

Raze's consciousness reeled from the implications, the Syndicate had been tracking them since Thornwick had identified him specifically as the architect of their problems.

"They've ordered me to use the forbidden technique of the Locke-Vein bloodline," Gunn said, his tone suggesting he understood the gravity of what he was describing. "I'm going to seal your soul in the Abyss, trap your consciousness in a dimension outside reality where it will drift for eternity unable to die or escape."

Horror crashed through Raze's awareness, understanding finally crystallizing about what was about to happen. Not death but something far worse, eternal imprisonment in nothingness with full awareness but no sensation or hope of release.

"This is the only way the Syndicate can be appeased," Gunn explained. "Your death would be insufficient punishment for the losses you've caused, they want you to suffer indefinitely as an example to anyone else who might consider interfering with our operations."

He stopped pacing and turned to face Raze directly. "And after I seal you, I'll do the same to all your friends, the girl outside screaming herself hoarse will follow you into the Abyss, as will the alchemist and the experiment and everyone else who participated in your rebellion."

Raze stared blankly at Gunn through his one eye that wasn't swollen shut, his mind struggling to process the absolute hopelessness of his situation. His strength was sealed, his friends couldn't break through the dome, and in moments his soul would be ripped from his body and cast into eternal darkness.

He thought back to everything that had happened since his reincarnation, barely months ago he'd woken in this world with Sophie dying and his determination to save her. Everything since then had been a desperate scramble to protect people and expose corruption that was destroying innocent lives.

Mary's kindness when she'd taken them in, Kael and Mariabel and Aslan joining his cause. Thomas's innocent gratitude for being cured, Anastasia's fierce maternal determination. All of it was about to end because he'd underestimated how far the Syndicate would go to protect their interests.

Sophie, he thought desperately. I promised I'd come back, promised I'd get stronger and protect her properly. I'm sorry I couldn't keep that promise.

Outside the dome Mariabel's attacks were weakening, her cultivation reserves depleted from sustained assault on the barrier. Her flames flickered and died, exhaustion forcing her to her knees as tears continued streaming down her face.

"Please," she whispered through sobs. "Please don't do this, please..."

Her voice broke completely as she watched Gunn begin making preparations inside the dome, dark energy gathering around his hands as he prepared to activate whatever technique would seal Raze's soul.

The Master rank cultivator's eyes closed briefly, concentration evident as he channeled power that made the air inside the dome shimmer. His hands moved through complex gestures that left trails of darkness, symbols manifesting that looked like they were carved from absence itself.

"May the Abyss receive what the world rejects," Gunn intoned, the words carrying the weight of ritual rather than simple spell. "May consciousness endure where flesh cannot follow, may awareness persist in the void eternal."

His hands thrust forward toward Raze's chest, fingers extended like claws aiming for the center of his being where his sealed core resided.

The world paused.

Time seemed to stretch as those fingers traveled the final inches, dark energy condensing into points sharp enough to pierce more than just physical matter. Mariabel's scream outside the dome became elongated wail, sound distorting as reality itself hesitated.

Gunn's fingers touched Raze's chest, his center, the place where his cultivation base resided locked behind the Binding Authority's seals.

Then Raze felt it.

Not pain exactly, though his broken body certainly hurt. This was different, something pulling at him from inside, tugging on aspects of his being that had nothing to do with flesh or blood.

His soul, he realized with terror that transcended physical sensation. That's what's being pulled, that's what he's ripping away from my body.

The world went dull, colors fading as his connection to physical form began unraveling. Sound became distant, touch became meaningless, his remaining senses disconnecting as his consciousness was forcibly separated from the vessel that housed it.

His eyes shut as the pull intensified beyond what his awareness could process, reality itself becoming an abstract concept as his soul was torn free.

Then darkness, complete and absolute.

His body dropped like a puppet with cut strings, collapsing to the dome's floor with the boneless finality of something no longer inhabited. Blood pooled beneath him from his countless injuries, his chest no longer rising with breath.

Outside the dome Mariabel's scream reached a new pitch of anguish, the sound carrying so much raw grief that windows shattered in nearby buildings. She saw Raze fall, saw the unnatural stillness that spoke to something far worse than simple death.

Gunn stood over the fallen body with expression hidden beneath his hood, his hands still extended toward where he'd made contact. Dark energy swirled around his fingers, a visible manifestation of the soul he'd just sealed away.

His work with Raze was complete, the forbidden technique executed successfully. The Syndicate's primary target was neutralized in a way that satisfied their demand for eternal punishment.

The Master rank cultivator's head turned slowly, hooded gaze finding Mariabel where she knelt outside the dome. His next target, another name on the list of those who'd interfered with Syndicate operations.

The dome began to dissolve, dark energy dissipating as Gunn released the barrier and prepared to continue his mission.

Mariabel stared at him through tear-blurred vision, flames beginning to gather around her hands despite her exhaustion. She had nothing left, no reserves of power or strength to draw upon.

But she'd fight anyway, would burn herself out completely if it meant even momentary revenge for what had been done to Raze.

The night had descended into a nightmare, and the worst was yet to come.

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