The layered voice carried recognition, almost nostalgia despite the situation. The crimson marked face showed no concern, no fear, just mild interest as if observing something academically fascinating rather than immediately lethal.

"The advanced form, anyway. It was what sealed me in the Abyss initially, what that accursed god used to imprison me after I refused to submit to their cosmic order."

The dark sphere continued compressing but the figure remained visible within it, standing calmly as if the ultimate technique of an entire clan was merely inconvenient rather than lethal.

Gunn felt his hope crumble as he processed those words. This thing knew the technique, had experienced something similar before. That shouldn't be possible, the forbidden method was a clan secret developed after centuries of refinement.

Unless this thing was old enough to have encountered the technique's origins.

"But this version is a meager, weak imitation of what the technique's creator could achieve. You're using fragment of power that would require divine rank cultivation to fully resist, but your execution is so inferior it barely qualifies as a threat."

The figure raised one hand, crimson energy gathering around its fingers. Not much, just a slight manifestation compared to what it had displayed earlier. But the quality of that energy transcended anything Gunn had ever encountered.

"The god who sealed me poured their full divine authority into the technique, compressed reality itself into a cage that even my true form couldn't break. What you're using is a shadow of that power, diluted through mortal vessel and weakened by an insufficient cultivation base."

Then it simply pushed outward.

Boom.

The sealing technique shattered, fragments of dark energy dispersing like smoke in wind. The lattice that should have been absolute broke apart, marks dissolving as their connections failed simultaneously.

Gunn's ultimate attack, the forbidden method that had cost him thirty years, broken with a casual gesture from something that didn't even seem to be trying.

The figure laughed, that same maniacal sound that scraped against sanity.

"From where I sit I can see everything you tried to do, every desperate calculation that led you to sacrifice your lifespan. The technique construction, the power flow, the intended result, all of it laid bare before perception that transcends mortal limitation."

The laughter continued for several seconds, echoing through the destroyed street with tones that shouldn't harmonize but somehow did.

"And it wasn't enough. Wasn't even close to enough. You gambled three decades of life on an attack that never had a chance of succeeding, threw away years you'll never recover for nothing but false hope."

The laughter cut off abruptly, multiple voices falling silent as one.

"Your time is up."

Three words, spoken with finality that transcended simple declaration. This wasn't a threat or promise, this was a statement of absolute fact delivered without emotion.

Gunn felt his blood turn to ice at those words. He'd failed, used his ultimate technique and failed, and now there was no escape remaining. His Binding Authority was useless, his combat skills were inadequate, his forbidden technique had accomplished nothing.

He had nothing left.

Run, his mind screamed. If you don't run right now you'll die here. Move, flee, do anything except stand frozen while death approaches.

His legs responded to the desperate command, muscles tensing to launch him away from the figure. He would abandon everything, forget the mission and the Syndicate and his reputation, just survive to see another day.

The world paused again.

Time froze for everyone except the figure, which remained mobile within the stopped moment. It raised one finger casually, pointing at where Gunn stood locked in temporal stasis, one leg extended mid step.

Then it flicked.

Snap.

The gesture was simple, barely qualifying as movement. Just finger snapping forward in casual dismissal, the same motion someone might use to flick away an annoying insect.

Time resumed.

Gunn took one step forward, his body obeying the command to flee that his mind had given before everything stopped. His leg extended, foot coming down on cracked cobblestones as he began what would have been a desperate sprint.

His vision darkened.

Not gradually, not with warning. Just an instant transition from sight to nothing, consciousness cutting off mid thought like a candle being snuffed.

He didn't feel pain, didn't experience the moment of separation. One instant he was thinking about escape, the next he simply wasn't thinking at all.

His head hit the ground before his body, rolling several feet before coming to rest facing away from his corpse. The expression on his face was confused rather than agonized, features frozen in a moment of realization that something had gone wrong without understanding what.

Thud.

The decapitation had been so clean his body remained upright for a moment before toppling backward, blood spraying from the severed neck to paint the destroyed street even more crimson. The arterial spray caught moonlight, droplets glittering as they arced through air.

Splash.

Gunn was dead and would never know how it happened, never understand what force had removed his head between one heartbeat and the next. His final thought had been about running, about surviving to report what he'd encountered.

But survival hadn't been an option from the moment he'd failed to draw blood.

The figure lowered its hand, looking at the corpse with expression mixing satisfaction and disappointment. The crimson eyes tracked the blood spreading across broken cobblestones, watching it pool around rubble.

"Too easy. Far too easy. But then, this fragment was always meant for more significant opponents than you."

It walked forward casually, stepping over Gunn's body without looking down. The blood didn't touch it, somehow flowing around wherever its feet landed as if reality itself was making space.

Thud. Thud.

The figure moved to where Alex still lay groaning in rubble, golden protection slowly repairing his injuries. The boy's divine blessing was working overtime, accelerating healing to keep him alive despite the trauma.

The crimson eyes studied him for a long moment, marked face showing an expression that was hard to read. Not quite contempt, not quite respect, something complicated that suggested mixed feelings about the golden haired champion.

"The gods will send you after me eventually. They always do, always think their champions can succeed where power and wisdom failed."

The figure crouched beside Alex, close enough to touch but making no move to do so. Just observing, examining, committing details to memory.

"You'll grow stronger before that happens. The divine blessing will push you beyond normal limits, accelerate your advancement until you reach heights that take others lifetimes. And you'll think that makes you ready, think that celestial favor guarantees victory."

It stood again, turning away from the injured boy.

"I look forward to that meeting, little chosen. By then this body will have grown strong enough to make killing you satisfying rather than merely easy."

The figure walked back to the center of the destroyed street, then settled down into a sitting position on a pile of rubble. The movement was surprisingly graceful despite the awkwardness of the perch, body finding balance where none should exist.

The crimson marked face showed genuine satisfaction despite the carnage surrounding it.

"Ah," the layered voice said with pleasure that bordered on ecstatic. "The feeling of inhabiting flesh again, of wielding power through mortal vessel. I'd forgotten how intoxicating physicality could be after eons in the void."

It flexed the hands experimentally, watching muscles move beneath skin marked with black patterns. Fingers curled and straightened, testing response time and precision of control.

"The Abyss strips everything away. Sensation, emotion, even basic awareness of existing as a distinct entity. Just endless darkness and hunger and the gradual erosion of everything that makes consciousness worth maintaining."

The hands continued their exploration, touching face and arms and checking responses. Like someone relearning their own body after prolonged absence.

"But now I have this. Limited, temporary, inadequate for my true power, but real. Actual physical form that can interact with the material world, that can feel and move and impose will upon reality."

The figure closed its eyes briefly, seeming to examine something invisible to external observers.

"Surprisingly, this body is weak yet it can contain my power. Not fully, not even close to my true capabilities, but fragment enough to be useful. It has great potential, remarkable capacity for growth that exceeds what its current rank suggests."

The crimson eyes opened again, brighter than before as if the examination had revealed something pleasing.

"Exceptional foundation, cultivation base refined beyond what Adept rank normally achieves. The pathways are pristine, mana circulation is nearly perfect, even the physical vessel shows signs of optimization that shouldn't be possible at this level of advancement."

One hand pressed against the chest, feeling a heartbeat beneath ribs.

"And just by using it I've pushed it forward. This body was now ready to advance to Expert rank, hovering at the threshold. My presence provided the catalyst, the stress of containing power beyond its capacity forcing adaptation that would have taken months of normal cultivation."

The figure stood again, stretching limbs and testing range of motion. Every movement was precise, calculated, as if learning the body's capabilities through experimentation.

"The breakthrough will come naturally once the original consciousness fully awakens. His cultivation base has been tempered by containing my essence, reinforced in ways that normal advancement wouldn't achieve. He'll be stronger than peers at the same rank, more capable than those who advanced through conventional means."

The marked face showed that too wide smile one final time.

"Still too weak to properly channel my strength. Using this much has damaged pathways that aren't reinforced for power of this magnitude. Micro tears in the mana circulation, stress fractures in the meridians, general strain that will require time to heal properly."

The figure began walking in slow circle, examining the destruction it had created while testing the body's responses.

"It will take time to repair, time for the body to adapt to hosting presence beyond its natural capability. But adaptation will occur, evolution forced by necessity. Each time I emerge the vessel will be slightly stronger, slightly more capable of containing what I represent."

The crimson eyes tracked across the destroyed district, noting Alex's unconscious form and Mariabel's distant position where she'd been thrown. The golden haired boy was still breathing, divine blessing keeping him alive despite everything. The girl was harder to see but probably survived as well.

"It will be a while before we meet again, little successor. Until then I'll sleep within you, passenger in your flesh while you grow strong enough to truly wield what I've granted."

The figure's movements were becoming less fluid, slight hesitation creeping into gestures that had been perfectly smooth moments before. The presence was beginning to withdraw, fragment of consciousness preparing to return to dormancy.

"But I know you will grow, know you're a fighter who refuses to surrender regardless of the odds. I've seen fragments of your soul, the determination that drives you forward even when logic demands retreat."

The crimson marked face showed expression mixing curiosity and approval.

"That spirit is what makes you a worthy vessel for what I'm trying to accomplish. That refusal to yield despite overwhelming adversity, that tendency to challenge fate itself rather than accept predetermined outcomes."

The figure's head began to tilt forward, movements becoming stilted as whatever inhabited the body prepared final withdrawal.

"This will be an interesting adventure. I haven't had a purpose beyond rage and survival since my imprisonment. Eons in the Abyss stripped away everything except hatred for those who put me there, left me with nothing but desire for revenge against the cosmic order that caged me."

The voice was growing softer, multiple tones beginning to separate slightly as unified presence fractured.

"Now I have a successor, vessel that carries the bloodline those gods tried to exterminate. Through you I'll have my revenge, through you balance will be restored to a universe that's been tilted wrong for far too long."

The head fell slowly, chin touching chest as the presence receded deeper into dormancy. The crimson glow in the eyes began to fade, bright maddening color diminishing toward something more natural.

"The bloodline they feared most, the lineage they hunted to extinction, hidden within a descendant who doesn't even know what he carries. That irony is delicious, that poetic justice makes this worth the wait."

The black markings across the skin started receding, complex patterns simplifying and then disappearing entirely. The lines dissolved from the extremities inward, fading from fingers and toes before working toward the torso.

"Grow strong, little successor. Become the beast this world needs, the monster who can challenge gods and win. I'll be watching from within, guiding where I can, preparing you for a role you don't yet understand."

The crimson tips in the white hair faded back to pure white, gradient effect reversing until no trace of the transformation remained. Just normal white hair, unusual but not supernatural.

The eyes were last to change, crimson bleeding away to leave familiar blue. The glow faded completely, leaving normal human eyes that showed no awareness of what they'd witnessed.

Within seconds the body appeared normal again, just a young man sitting unconscious amid destruction his inhabited form had created. No markings, no crimson coloring, no visible evidence that anything supernatural had occurred.

Then a sound broke the silence.

Gasp.

Sharp inhale of breath, lungs filling with desperate urgency as if drowning person breaking surface. The body's eyes snapped open, blue rather than crimson, confusion and disorientation immediately evident.

Raze was awake.

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