He raised Void Fang, and the blade responded to Seraphine's enhancement, becoming more real, more solid, more deadly than it had been before. The weapon practically hummed with power, its reality-cutting properties amplified beyond normal limits.

"Let me show you what happens when people fight together," Satou said. Then he moved.

His enhanced speed made his previous movements look sluggish in comparison. He crossed the distance to Merc Assault in a blink, Void Fang already swinging. The assassin barely managed to block with their nightmare sword, but this time the clash was different.

Void Fang didn't just cut through the nightmare weapon—it erased it. The entire sword simply ceased to exist where the reality-cutting blade touched it. Merc Assault stumbled back, shocked, weaponless.

Satou pressed the attack. His strikes came faster than the assassin could fully track. Each cut from Void Fang carved through Merc Assault's defenses, through their dream-constructs, through the very fabric of the nightmare realm itself.

The assassin tried to create distance, splitting into copies again. Satou used his shadow manipulation—enhanced by Seraphine's buffs—to create tendrils that grabbed all the copies simultaneously, pulling them back together, forcing Merc Assault into a single form.

"Stop running," Satou commanded. "We're ending this. Now."

Merc Assault reformed, their shifting features finally settling into something definite—a middle-aged person with exhausted eyes that had seen too much, done too much, survived too long in isolation. For the first time, Satou saw them as a person rather than just a legendary threat.

Merc Assault sensed the danger and knew he couldn't win. His power was split between his physical body and the dream world—if Satou killed him here, he would lose half of his power permanently. Recognizing defeat, he quickly raised his hands, not in attack but in surrender. "I release the dream magic. You've won."

The realm began stabilizing, the nightmarish elements fading. The path to waking consciousness appeared—a door of light that hadn't existed before.

Satou lowered Void Fang slightly but kept it ready. "Just like that? No final attack? No desperate last stand?"

"What would be the point?" Merc Assault replied, carefully modulating their voice to sound defeated and weary. "You've proven you can defeat me even in my own domain. And I'm..." They paused deliberately, as if the words were difficult to say. "I'm tired of killing people. Tired of being alone. Tired of this existence. Maybe losing to you is the excuse I needed to finally stop."

It was a lie. A calculated manipulation. Merc Assault continued feeding Satou exactly what he would want to hear—words of redemption, exhaustion, surrender. The kind of psychological bait that worked on targets who had compassion, who wanted to believe in the possibility of change.

Satou decided to play along, to make Merc Assault lower their guard completely.

"What will you do now?" Satou asked, his voice carefully neutral.

"Disappear. Retire for real this time. Find some quiet corner of the world and..." Merc Assault trailed off, their performance perfect. "I don't know. Something other than this."

Satou knew what they were saying was all lies. The manipulation was textbook—appeal to compassion, show vulnerability, promise redemption. But he played along, waiting patiently for the perfect moment to strike. His Devouring ability thrummed beneath his consciousness, ready, eager, sensing prey.

Merc Assault turned away, his form beginning to fade naturally as they released the dream magic. "Goodbye, Satou. You're going to change things. I can feel it. The world won't know what hit it."

Now.

As Merc Assault's form faded, reaching the threshold between dream realm and waking, Satou struck. His Devouring ability activated—not automatically this time, but deliberately, consciously, with full intent to consume.

A massive black hole erupted from Merc Assault's position, its gravitational pull impossibly strong, reaching across the dream space to latch onto Merc Assault's departing consciousness.

Merc Assault's fading form suddenly convulsed violently. His eyes went wide with shock and absolute horror as they felt something pulling at their essence, their power, their very being.

"What—" they started, then screamed as the pull intensified. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

He tried to flee, tried to escape into waking, but the black hole's pull was irresistible. Their dream-form began fragmenting against their will, pieces of their essence being ripped away and drawn into the consuming void.

"What are you doing?!" Merc Assault shrieked, panic replacing their earlier calculated composure. "Why can't I get out?! LET ME GO!"

He struggled desperately, throwing every technique they had left at breaking free. Dream manipulation, reality warping, consciousness severing—nothing worked. The black hole consumed everything they threw at it, growing stronger with each failed attempt.

Satou smiled coldly, all pretense of sympathy gone. "Who would believe words coming from a killer?" His voice carried across the collapsing dream realm with absolute finality. "You tried to manipulate me one last time. Bad decision."

"NO! STOP!" Merc Assault's voice was pure terror now. "This is impossible! I am the one in control of this dreamworld ! Not in the dream realm! That's not how any of this works!"

"Apparently it is," Satou replied calmly, watching as more of Merc Assault's essence was pulled into the void.

The assassin made one final, desperate attempt to tear themselves free—pouring every remaining scrap of power into breaking the connection, willing their consciousness to fragment and scatter rather than be consumed whole.

For a moment, it seemed like it might work. Their form began splitting, dividing into pieces too small to hold together.

Then the black hole pulsed once, powerfully, and swallowed everything.

Merc Assault screamed as they were pulled completely into the consuming darkness. The sound cut off abruptly as they disappeared into the void, their essence being torn apart and absorbed.

Satou felt new abilities flooding into his consciousness:

[Nightmare Resistance (Moderate)] [Dream Walking (Minor)] [Sleep Resistance (Enhanced)] [Mental Invasion Resistance (Moderate)] [Consciousness Separation (Locked - Requires Level 100)] [Dream Sense (Moderate)] - upgraded from Basic [Psychological Warfare (Advanced)] [Dream Realm Navigation (Intermediate)] [Mental Fortress (Advanced)]

The dream realm, no longer maintained by its creator, began collapsing. The nightmare chamber dissolved. The twisted landscape faded. Reality reasserted itself with violent finality.

And Satou found himself being pulled toward waking consciousness through the door of light that remained.

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.