NOVPUBThe moment the gong echoed through the obsidian arena, Karnak vanished.
Not blinked. Not teleported.
Just... ceased to exist in the spot he'd stood.
Leon didn't hesitate. His body was already rotating with a full sweep of Shell Pulse — a technique that created a subtle wavefront of pressure detection around his skin.
Something whispered past his right ear.
Leon ducked, twisted, and his staff clashed against empty air — then was nearly ripped from his hands as Karnak reappeared behind him, pressing a palm of impossible force against Leon's spine.
Crack!
Leon shot forward like a missile, slamming into the arena wall, obsidian fracturing behind him. But his body rolled, adjusted mid-flight, and rebounded like a spring — Shell Reverb igniting as he turned the impact into a brutal spear-thrust of his staff aimed straight at Karnak's core.
Karnak was already gone.
Leon didn't even feel the dodge — it was like the Ant had never existed at all.
"He's not just moving fast," Roselia muttered through the party link. "He's erasing his own timeline for fragments of a second. Leon, this isn't normal Void-stepping. It's pure temporal discontinuity."
Leon grit his teeth. Then I'll break the damn timeline.
He planted his staff.
Shell Pulse: Tier II – Tripart Echo.
Three phantom clones burst outward from him, mimicking his actions a half-second apart — built from the echo of past kinetic signatures. They spread out, forming a triangle of pressure across the field.
Karnak reappeared — and this time, Leon met him.
The first clone was shredded, vanishing in a blink as Karnak ripped through it with a vibrating hand. But the echo delay worked: Leon came in just after, staff low, slamming it into Karnak's ankle with enough force to lift the Ant off the ground.
For the first time, Karnak made a sound — a breath that felt like it echoed across dimensions.
The fight turned brutal.
Karnak moved like a splintered film reel — flickering from past to present to nowhere, creating gaps that Leon had to predict not with sight or instinct, but pure combat logic. When would a warrior reappear? How would a ghost think?
Leon bled from a dozen thin cuts — each delivered from angles that should not have existed.
But each time, Shell Reverb soaked the kinetic loss, feeding it back into his frame. Each injury made him sharper. Each near-death made him faster.
And then—
Destruction Core: 12% Output.
Aether Blood Vein Flow: Activated.
Gold Magic Integration: Veil Harmony Cast.
The very air boomed as Leon called on the second half of his power. The golden shimmer surrounded him, Destruction flames lacing his arms, and the pale-blue resonance of Aether coated his staff.
Karnak lunged in again—
This time, Leon met him in-between space.
He didn't just counter — he interrupted the step.
With a full-bodied spiral kick, empowered by Destruction's raw annihilation and Gold Magic's divine timing, Leon struck Karnak in his half-existence.
The Void Stepper reeled. His blindfold shredded. His form flickered.
Leon advanced, step by step, his staff striking like a collapsing universe — every blow a fusion of memory, might, and mastery. Karnak tried to phase, but Leon had learned. Each hit came a half-beat early, with Aether precognition, denying the phase before it could fully activate.
Karnak staggered back.
One final swing — staff overhead, glowing with Shell Reverb's full retention force, golden arcs coiling like serpents.
"Absolute Return."
The strike hit.
And Karnak's form imploded into a contained vacuum of time and space — folded in on itself, gently, like a stilled ripple.
The arena fell silent.
Then the voice echoed.
Victory: Challenger Leon. Rank 42 Defeated.
Leon collapsed to one knee, breath ragged, body shaking from the strain of maintaining all four systems at once.
But he stood.
And he walked back to his team — alive.
The healing salve sizzled faintly as Roselia dabbed it across Leon's shoulder. His skin was already knitting back together thanks to the regenerative properties of Aether Blood, but the sheer strain from sustaining so many high-grade systems at once had left even his enhanced body frayed at the edges.
"Next time," Roselia murmured, "don't wait until you're about to black out to activate Aether Flow."
Leon let out a tired chuckle, reclining against the obsidian wall of their temporary rest chamber. "Was waiting for the moment he phased wrong. Had to bait him in."
Roman leaned against the archway, arms crossed. "You baited him with your lungs collapsing. Subtle."
Liliana handed Leon a flask of Etherwater. "You do realize you're fighting like someone who's already at Tier IX?"
"I have to," Leon said, gulping down the luminous liquid. "The higher I climb, the more this arena demands. These Ants don't just fight with strength — they embody philosophy. Karnak was fighting with time. What the hell's next?"
Naval, quiet until now, spoke while sharpening her blades. "The next Rank Holder is known as Vorrak, the Anvil Thought. He's not fast. Not magical. But he's… unmovable. They say he killed a Void Wyrm by standing still until it impaled itself on his stillness."
Millim blinked. "That's the dumbest way to kill something I've ever heard. I love it."
A knock at the chamber door interrupted them.
An Obsidian Elder stepped through — hunched, yet crackling with power. His body was covered in flowing magma-script tattoos, and his antennae glowed with stored force.
"Leon of Shell Pulse," the Elder said, his voice like stone grinding in molten earth. "You are pushing your technique far beyond its natural ceiling. Before you challenge Vorrak, I bring you the next refinement."
Leon sat up straighter. 𝓃𝓸𝓋𝓹𝓾𝓫.𝒸ℴ𝓶
The Elder held out a black scroll. "You have walked the path of Echo. Now learn the Recoil Script. The Fifth Layer of Shell Reverb: Karmic Loop."
Leon's pulse spiked.
Shell Reverb: Next Layer – Karmic Loop.
Harnesses the total kinetic imprint of all received and delivered force in the current battle. When activated, the user may trigger a burst that replays all physical energy exchanges in reversed sequence for 3 seconds, effectively creating a combat rewind window. Usable once per battle. Costs massive body strain.
Leon took the scroll with reverence, unrolling it and letting the script burn into his mind.
A technique that let him reverse the flow of combat itself?
He smiled through the pain. "Alright. Vorrak, the Anvil Thought. Let's see how still you can stay when I rewind your death."
