Through the swirling and churning dust, Lucian walked out with a calm, measured step, his body flooded with black Sword Intent as he advanced. The air itself seemed to recoil from him, bending subtly beneath the oppressive weight of his presence. He

'He is matching me without even using his Sword Intent… how protagonist-like,' Lucian thought to himself, a faint curl of amusement tugging at the corner of his lips. Even if Anthony was a walking, overpowered cheat, Lucian simply could not comprehend how Anthony was matching him so effortlessly, without any visible enhancement or augmentation.

'Is this difference really this big?' he wondered inwardly. He was not surprised that Anthony's sword had not shattered upon coming into direct contact with Sword Intent; any ordinary blade would have been reduced to fragments instantly. But Anthony's katana had remained pristine, unmarred by the clash. Lucian understood that much, this was because Anthony's katana possessed the indestructible feature. That alone explained the blade's survival.

'Is he using his infinity to mitigate my Sword Intent against his body?' Lucian speculated, his gaze sharpening. 'No… that wasn't it.' He dismissed the thought almost immediately. 'Anthony doesn't like using his infinity because he knows there's no use for it in situations like this. Well, it doesn't matter,' he concluded inwardly.

A smile slowly spread across his face as his Sword Intent peaked, rising violently toward the sky like a black tide. It coiled around his body in thick, twisting strands, alive and feral, as his battle intent surged alongside his thoughts. His presence grew heavier, denser, until it felt as though the world itself was being pressed down beneath his will. He must bleed today.

With that final thought, Lucian took a single step forward.

The ground groaned in protest under the unbearable strain before shattering outright. Stone cracked, fractured, and exploded upward as Lucian tore forward at a speed faster than any meaningful calculation could ever hope to capture. Distance ceased to matter. In less than a nanosecond, he was already upon Anthony, his katana raised high toward the heavens before tearing downward like a descending comet, black Sword Intent screaming violently in its wake.

Anthony felt the immense weight of Lucian's presence simply from standing near him. It pressed against his body like a collapsing star. He had to admit it, the man's Sword Intent and the control he exerted over it were absurdly refined. It was obvious Lucian had reached very near the summit, standing just shy of the absolute peak.

But to Anthony, even this was still not enough. With an almost insulting calmness, Anthony sheathed his katana.

A single finger rose.

That lone finger met an attack capable of tearing through stars and planets, an attack that could erase entire solar systems from existence without resistance.

With a ruinous crescendo of madness and anarchy, flesh met black Sword Intent. Time itself fractured and shattered upon impact, freezing completely as though it no longer dared to flow. Every color around them drowned out, erased utterly, leaving behind only absolute colorlessness. Silence stretched for the briefest moment in recorded history, a void so profound it felt eternal.

Then, in the very next instant, everything returned.

Time resumed its course. Color flooded violently back into existence. And the moment it did, an apocalypse descended upon the plane.

Reality itself was erased in vast swathes. Entire zones vanished as though they had never existed, terrain within the separate plane annihilated by the outward surge of power that exploded in a blinding flash and terrifying speed. Although the separate plane had been recreated and reinforced by Klaus, he had clearly underestimated the sheer power packed within Lucian's attack. The Sword Intent tore through everything, severing the entire plane cleanly in half.

For a fraction of a second, it seemed as though the plane would collapse once more into nothingness.

But then it snapped back into place, stitching itself together violently, as though reality itself refused to yield completely.

As the smoke cleared and the dust vanished from the battlefield, two figures slowly came into view. One stood wrapped in rampaging black Sword Intent, its presence distorting the space around him. The other stood tall and relaxed, a faint smile on his face, having stopped a catastrophic, world-ending attack with nothing but his finger.

Lucian's eyes narrowed to pinpricks. He could not believe what he had just witnessed. Anthony had stopped his attack, his full, Sword-Intent-laden strike, with nothing but a single finger. He immediately moved to retract his blade, instinct screaming at him to disengage, but Anthony was faster. Anthony's fingers curled firmly around Lucian's blade, his hand and flesh utterly unbothered by the Sword Intent that sought to tear through his skin. With a sharp, effortless tug, he pulled Lucian forward.

Lucian tried to resist, but it was futile.

Anthony's strength was absolutely ridiculous, far beyond anything Lucian had anticipated. He was dragged forward against his will, and the instant his balance broke, Anthony's foot left the ground in searing speed. Before Lucian could even process what was happening, Anthony's knee tore into his jaw like a sledgehammer striking an egg.

Sound itself shattered, as though it dared not echo at that moment. Lucian's head snapped violently to the side, his neck following, then the rest of his body. In the next instant, inertia took hold as his form was launched sideways through air and space alike, streaking across kilometers from a single, devastating knee strike.

Lucian felt his consciousness teeter on the brink of the abyss called darkness. Pain rumbled through his shattered jaw and surged straight into his brain. Even with his Sword Intent protecting him, he still felt it, the raw, overwhelming pain from just one attack.

He could not understand it.

Anthony's speed and strength had eclipsed everything. Absolutely everything he thought he knew.

The next second, Lucian's body collided violently with a concrete wall, tearing straight through it before crashing into another, then another. He burst through a massive glass structure that shattered explosively upon impact, before finally slamming into the asphalt below. The force and momentum carried by a single knee strike were simply… incalculable.

With no effort, Lucian stood.

He climbed out of the sinkhole his body had carved deep into the asphalt. His form was still wrapped in Sword Intent, and because of it, he had not suffered any real damage from the collisions. He felt no disorientation, no weakness, no lingering instability.

His eyes shifted sharply, darting around as he took in his surroundings. Skyscrapers towered above him. Cars lined the streets. Glass, steel, and concrete stretched endlessly in every direction, replacing the battlefield he had known moments ago.

He did not need to be told, their battlefield had changed, it was a city now. The very next second, Lucian felt a presence. His instincts screamed as his eyes snapped to the side.

And there Anthony was.

He stood atop the rooftop of a hundred-story building, staring down at Lucian from above. His white hair danced freely to the rhythm of the wind, and his sky-blue eyes gleamed with quiet confidence and absolute certainty. He did not speak. He did not move. He simply stood there, as though patiently waiting for Lucian to make the first move.

Silence stretched between the two of them, thick and oppressive, as though they had entered an unspoken contest of will, a battle of stares and stillness before the storm that had yet to come.

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