Chapter 192: Zane vs Dren

On the Unknown red planet,

Dren hovered in the air, the Heart of the Deep Forge embedded in his chest pulsing like a second sun. Pale yellow mana poured out of him in waves, thick and violent, distorting the space around his body. The ground beneath his feet cracked just from his presence.

Opposite him, Zane stood calmly.

One hand rested inside his coat pocket.

No aura.

No pressure.

No mana leaking at all.

That contrast alone made Dren’s jaw tighten.

In the next instant, Dren vanished.

He reappeared in front of Zane at blinding speed, the air behind him exploding as he moved. The shockwave carved trenches into the red ground.

His fist slammed into Zane’s abdomen.

The impact echoed like a collapsing mountain.

Zane was launched backward, his body streaking through the air.

Before he could stabilize—

Dren appeared behind him.

A brutal kick sent Zane flying in the opposite direction.

Dren didn’t stop.

He flashed again, this time below Zane, both legs snapping upward in a savage strike.

Zane was hurled straight into the sky.

Higher.

Higher.

He broke past the atmosphere in seconds.

And then—

Dren appeared above him.

His arm rose, mana compressing into a single point.

A crushing overhead punch came down.

Zane was driven back toward the planet like a falling meteor.

The impact shook the world.

A colossal crater bloomed across the red surface, its size visible even from the void of space. Shockwaves rippled outward, flattening everything for kilometers.

Dren landed at the edge of the settling dust, boots touching the ground lightly.

He looked down into the crater and smiled.

“I told you,” he said, voice thick with triumph.

“I would surpass you.”

Mana flared around him again.

“Even I’m surprised by this strength… and this is still nothing. With infinite mana in me I am the strongest being now.”

The dust cloud stirred.

Nothing emerged.

Dren’s smile widened slightly.

“…Did he die?”

Then—

Something moved.

A voice came from within the dust, calm and unhurried.

“Everyone is the strongest,”

“until they meet me.”

Dren’s eyes widened just a little.

The dust exploded outward.

Not from an impact—

But from force.

Zane waved his hand once, casually, and the entire cloud was blown away in an instant.

He stood there.

Unscathed.

Uninjured.

Perfectly fine.

Only his long grey coat bore two small tears.

The white shirt beneath had a single rip across the chest.

Zane glanced down at himself, then looked back up with a neutral smile.

“But I’ll give you credit,” he said calmly.

“You managed to damage my clothes, this is first time this happened since I came here.”

He rolled his shoulders once.

“And by the way—”

“That was a pretty good massage.”

Dren’s expression twisted.

Pure fury burned in his glowing white eyes.

Zane tilted his head slightly, a faint smile forming.

“Let me beat you,” he said calmly,

“with Mira’s technique.”

Dren froze for a fraction of a second.

“…What?”

Zane stepped forward.

“Come on.”

His mana shifted in violent and explosive way yet with precision.

“Ecliptic Pulse Arts.”

Dren’s eyes widened.

Zane had seen it before—during fight in the warehouse while they were fighting masked people . A technique that converted massive amounts of mana into compressed kinetic spheres, detonating outward in controlled, rippling shockwaves.

He had copied the technique .

Not out of necessity, but to humiliate dren thinking that when he will fight with dren he will destroy him with it.

Zane vanished.

He reappeared directly in front of Dren.

He was too close.

Dren’s glowing white eyes widened—

And Zane punched him in the stomach.

“Ecliptic Pulse Arts: Pulse Knuckle.”

For an instant, dren only felt pain.

Then—

Dozens of microscopic white mana spheres detonated milliseconds after contact.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Each finger.

Each joint.

Each point of impact acting as a mana-focus.

The aftershock didn’t just explode outward—

It multiplied.

Dren’s lower half was erased.

It just vanished in bloody mist.

Blood mist sprayed across the air as his body was blown apart, the ground beneath them collapsing inward from the delayed shockwave.

Dren crashed down.

Zane laughed.

“Ahahaha—!”

But the laughter hadn’t even faded—

Mana surged.

Dren’s body regenerated violently, flesh snapping back into existence as the Heart of the Deep Forge pulsed brighter in his chest. His fury twisted the air itself.

He lunged.

A punch came straight at Zane—

Zane dodged.

But it was a decoy.

Dren’s shorter stature wasn’t a weakness. He knew exactly how hard it was to hit a taller opponent. His real strike came from below—

An uppercut—

No.

It was another feint.

His palm snapped upward instead, facing Zane’s face.

A vast mana wave erupted.

The beam tore through the horizon, annihilating a massive mountain in the distance as if it had never existed.

Zane didn’t move.

A thin white mana barrier formed around him, absolute and unmoving. The wave washed past, carving the land apart—

And did nothing to him.

Dren was already moving again.

The two vanished.

Reappeared.

Clashed.

Vanished again.

They fought across continents in heartbeats, their impacts splitting the red ground, shattering mountains, vaporizing plains. The sky warped. The land screamed.

The entire red planet became their battlefield.

They collided again.

The sky split.

Zane appeared above Dren and drove his knee down.

The impact shattered the ground for kilometers, red earth folding inward like molten glass.

Dren shot upward from the crater, laughing wildly.

“You see this?! My power—!”

He swung.

The air screamed.

A crescent of pale-yellow mana tore across the horizon, carving a canyon straight through the planet’s crust. Lava erupted. Mountains collapsed into dust.

Zane slipped past it.

With blinding speed he moved toward dren .

His elbow struck Dren’s ribs.

“Pulse Break.”

Boom—!

A spherical shockwave detonated outward.

The shockwave didn’t just explode.

It peeled the terrain away.

Everything within range—rock, air—was erased into nothing.

Dren was launched like a missile, skipping across the planet’s surface, each impact creating a new crater.

He stopped mid-air.

Mana roared.

His body regenerated faster this time, muscles twisting unnaturally as the Heart pulsed harder.

“Enough!” Dren screamed.

The Heart flared.

The sky darkened.

Mana poured out of him in endless torrents, forming spears, blades, pillars—pure mana given shape.

They rained down.

Continents cracked.

Oceans on the far side of the planet evaporated.

Zane stood still.

He exhaled.

Every incoming construct blocked by rotating field of miniature pulse spheres constantly hovers near the skin, automatically detonating on contact with any foreign mana or object..It acts as both armor and counterstrike.

Zane vanished.

Reappeared behind Dren.

Palm to back.

“Ecliptic Pulse Arts —”

The planet trembled.

“Starburst Palm.”

A massive spherical detonation erupted from Zane’s concentrated palm thrust that channels mana into a single dense point before erupting it outward like a miniature sun, vaporizing dren..

The shockwave wrapped the planet, racing across its surface, flattening mountains, vaporizing seas, ripping the atmosphere apart.

Dren screamed.

His body tore apart completely—arms, legs, torso—reduced to blood mist.

But the Heart dragged him back together again.

Dren hovered, shaking now.

Cracked.

Bloody although healed .

Still smiling.

“Hah… hah…! You see?! I can’t die!”

Zane adjusted his torn coat.

Neutral and calm.

“You’re right,” he said.

Then he stepped forward with a sinister smile .

“And that’s not the problem.”

The red planet groaned.

As if it knew—

This fight had gone far beyond what it could endure.

And the fight had only just begun.

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