Chapter 468: The Heavens Shall Fall (IX)

That was all I had before the domain’s targeting reacquired my position outside the boundary, and Seran adjusted his response.

I looked down through the top of the domain sphere.

The light inside it was absolute.

I couldn’t see Seran through it from above. Couldn’t see the platform… just the upper surface of the sphere, directly below me.

’He knows I’m up here. He’s already repositioning. He’ll expect me to come down at an angle to avoid the full center density.’

’So come down straight.’

I folded both arms in and killed my upward momentum. Pointed the Heavenly Swallowing Sword directly downward.

And dropped.

FWOOOOOOOOOOM!

The blade hit the top of the domain sphere first, stripping a corridor downward exactly the way it had on the way up, carving a narrow tunnel of reduced density through the vertical axis.

The domain’s targeting converged on my descent immediately, light branches reforming from every direction, Seran’s full output directed at the incoming trajectory.

I felt them hit.

THUCK, THUCK!!!1

Four clean impacts on the way down, the domain’s center density exactly as brutal as I’d calculated it would be, each hit carrying the full weight of a rebuilt domain operating at ten times its original output.

My divine energy dropped in chunks rather than increments.

Forty-eight percent.

Forty-four.

Forty-one.

The platform appeared below me through the stripped corridor, and Seran appeared with it, both hands raised, the targeting system feeding him my exact descent trajectory, a full convergence strike already forming between his palms aimed directly at the point where I was going to land.

He had me perfectly read.

Trajectory locked, the impact point calculated, and he had his full output ready.

…What he hadn’t calculated was the Swallowing Sword.

Because the stripped corridor I’d carved on the way down ran directly through the space between us, and the divinity his convergence strike was built from had to travel through that corridor to reach me.

The blade ate it on the way in.

Not all of it, not even most of it… but just enough.

The divine component of his convergence strike degraded as it passed through the stripped air, arriving at my position as physical force without the authority behind it.

KOOM!

It hit me square in the chest on landing.

I went to one knee from the impact, but I was already swinging.

Fwip!

The Heavenly Swallowing Sword came around horizontally at platform level, stripping the domain’s foundation layer at ground level as it swept, and Midnight followed directly behind it, aimed at Seran’s leading leg, catching him exactly at the knee as his full output was still recovering from the convergence strike he’d just thrown.

CRACK!

His leg buckled, and he went down on one knee, practically imitating my current posture.

Both of us on one knee, facing each other inside his domain, three feet apart, both breathing hard, both carrying the accumulated cost of the last however long this match had been running.

His pale green eyes found mine, burning with determination as he gritted his teeth

However, his convergence strike was now gone.

And the reserves that had built the domain the second time were sitting somewhere near empty.

His hands came up slowly for another strike.

They were shaking slighly, causing my eyes to narrow as I felt a strange suction of airborne energy around us.

This could only mean one thing…

’He’s going to throw everything he has left into one more strike.’

’From empty. On shaking hands. Because that’s what six years of genuine capability looks like when it’s been pushed all the way to its edge.’

I let him build it.

Watched the light gather between his palms one fragment at a time, the domain dimming slightly as he pulled from it, the saturation in the air dropping by degrees as he redirected everything into the strike forming between his hands.

The domain weakened as the strike grew.

That was the cost.

He was cannibalizing his own domain to fuel one final output.

Which meant the degradation of my divine energy slowed.

And also meant that… my speed came back.

Just enough.

He threw it.

KROOOOOOM!

I moved sideways, the returned speed making the gap clean, the strike passing through where I’d been kneeling and hitting the platform boundary field with a sound that shook the arena floor.

The domain collapsed.

All at once, the light simply went out; the authority holding the sphere together was exhausted, and shadows flooded back across the platform in a single breath as the rebuilt domain folded inward and disappeared.

Seran was on both knees now, hands flat on the platform, head down, breathing in long, controlled pulls that did most of the structural work of keeping him upright.

The arena was completely silent.

I stood up slowly.

Seran’s head came up.

He watched me walk toward him and gritted his teeth tightly, but suddenly… his face relaxed as his eyes showed a moment of weakness.

I raised an eyebrow at this, but kept approaching.

“W-wait a second…!” he said lightly.

I kept walking.

“D-don’t come closer…!”

BOOOOM!

“GOT YOU, MOTHERFUCKER!!!”

His right index finger stretched toward me, a beam of condensed light energy firing from the tip with everything his nearly empty reserves could still produce, bright and fast and aimed directly at my chest.

Fwip!

The Heavenly Swallowing Sword came up once.

The beam hit the flat of the blade and ceased to exist; the divine component was stripped in the same instant of contact.

The sword went back down.

Seran stared at his own finger, and then back at my sword.

In his mind, he’s probably saying to himself that I only won because of this sword… which is quite true indeed.

But if I could use my fullpower… I’d easily kill him, not to mention that the Authority of Karma is now fully charged!

“…That was my last one,” he mumbled.

“I know.”

“I have nothing left.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you still—”

“Because you’re still kneeling in front of him,” I smiled mockingly.

His mouth opened and closed.

He looked around himself as if only now fully registering that he was on both knees in the center of a competition arena in front of several thousand people, with his last attack dissolved and the man he’d fired it at still walking toward him at the pace of someone on an afternoon stroll.

His face twitched gruesomely.

“…This is humiliating,” he stated.

“Little bit,” I agreed.

“I want you to know,” he said, with as much dignity as a person on both knees with empty reserves could assemble, “that I came into this match with a very reasonable assessment of the situation.”

“Six years.”

“Six years, indeed! No losses. Statistically—”

“Seran.”

“Yes.”

“Stop talking.”

He closed his mouth.

I stopped in front of him.

Looked down at him on both knees, pale green eyes looking up at me with the expression of someone who has accepted the situation and is now simply waiting to find out how it ends.

I looked at his face.

At both cheeks, still carrying the evidence of eight open-handed exchanges.

At the scorched platform around us.

At the collapsed domain that had genuinely pushed me to thirty-eight percent.

Then I looked back at him.

“For what it’s worth,” I smiled lightly, “rebuilding your domain from empty is the most impressive thing I’ve seen at this competition.”

Something flickered in his eyes.

“…Really?” he said.

“Really.”

Seran paused at my words, and his shoulders dropped slightly, the last of the held tension going out of them.

He almost smiled.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

“That’s actually—”

I kicked him.

Clean upward arc, the top of my boot connecting squarely with the underside of his chin, the full force of the motion carrying through without apology.

BOOOOM!

“GWAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”

Seran left the ground.

The impact sent him upward first before the trajectory curved and carried him backward across the full length of the platform at a speed his body had strong opinions about and no ability to influence.

He skipped once off the platform surface halfway across, the contact point leaving a crater, before the remaining momentum carried him the rest of the distance.

CRASH!

He hit the boundary field at the far edge with the sound of something that had been traveling very fast meeting something that was not moving at all.

The field absorbed him.

Deposited him just outside the platform’s edge in the catch zone, where he landed flat on his back with his arms out to his sides and his pale green eyes staring directly upward at the arena’s ceiling.

“THE WINNER IS AESTREAAAA!!”

A second later, the announcer shouted, raising his hand in a wave.

“YEAHHHHH!!!”

“THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT—!”

“DID YOU SEE THAT?! DID YOU SEE THAT KICK?!”

“SIX YEARS UNDEFEATED AND HE GOT KICKED IN THE CHIN!”

“ACADEMY FIFTH PLACE JUST DESTROYED A CELESTIAL DOMINION ELITE!”

From somewhere specifically in the student section, a voice I recognized cutting cleanly through everything else…

“THAT’S MY FRIEND! THAT’S MY ACTUAL FRIEND RIGHT THERE!” Kael, at a volume that suggested he had abandoned all remaining social awareness.

“THE ONE WHO JUST KICKED THAT GUY! WE HAVE BREAKFAST TOGETHER!”

“KAEL SIT DOWN!!!” Tyrian, somewhere beside him.

“I WILL NOT SIT DOWN, TYRIAN!!!”

“YOU ARE EMBARRASSING BOTH OF US!!!”

“I DON’T CARE, HE SAID THANK YOU AND THEN KICKED HIM IN THE CHIN, I NEED EVERYONE TO KNOW THAT I KNOW HIM PERSONALLY!!!!!!”

Fucking hell…

I don’t know this guy anymore.

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