The nebula thundered with their fury, each collision ringing like a bell. In less than half a minute, their strikes had multiplied into a storm, dozens of blows exchanged in blinding succession. The Conductor's fists rained down.

Lightning clawed out with each swing. But Mythara met them with nothing but his body—parries sharp, precise. Blocks that shrugged aside bolts of lightning as if they were nothing more than summer rain. Sparks hissed across his body, each strike leaving afterimages of light in the fractured air, but still the young dragon stood unflinching.

Daggers of crackling energy burst from beneath the Conductor's cloak, streaking toward him. Mythara barely turned his head, calling out over his shoulder:

"Scythe!"

The Simulacrum obeyed, forging a weapon from nebular light and hurling it to him. Mythara caught it cleanly, spinning the pole in his palms. The Conductor's face twisted into a scowl.

"Stop holding back—use your abilities!"

"Make me," Mythara said, lips curling faintly.

They crashed again. Lightning split across the training field, searing the ground before Shango and forcing him to halt. His grin was gone now, replaced by a hard frown as he watched.

The nebula itself screamed. Lightning ripped into the fabric of space, fracturing the void into jagged tears. Mythara's scythe blurred as it swept aside blade after blade, his movements terrifying in their precision.

From the sidelines, Amaterasu's fists clenched so tight her knuckles turned white. She had seen them fight before, but never like this—never with such murderous rage burning in Watabe's eyes.

"Bloody idiots," Shango muttered, arms folded tight across his chest. "One of 'em isn't walking out."

"Or none of us," Siren hissed, dodging back as a stray arc of lightning screamed too close.

In the distance, space itself began to buckle. Mirage swore under his breath. "Keep this up, and they'll collapse the whole nebula."

The Hoarder, who remained silent behind Amaterasu, didn't move. His eyes stayed fixed on the duel as he spoke, "Maybe that's the only way Watabe learns."

Siren snapped at him, "You'd let them kill each other to prove a point?"

"They won't kill each other." Shango's tone faltered, betraying his doubt. "But Watabe's been off since we awakened. If Mythara doesn't break through to him now, he'll drag us into something far worse."

The silence that followed was heavy, until Manic—of all people—looked up from playing absentmindedly with his constructs.

"What's the problem? Guys fight. They'll be fine."

Bumi barked a laugh. "Finally! Sense at last. Just a wee tavern brawl, aye?" His grin faltered as another thunderclap shook the space and lightning nearly split their group in two.

"You call this a brawl?" Mirage shot back.

"…A wee bit more than a wee tussle," Bumi admitted sheepishly.

From the edges of the nebula, the Wanderer lingered in silence. Hands folded neatly behind his back, calm amid the ruin. The battlefield writhed before him—space splitting, lightning carving holes through his created space. Two of his finest creations tore at each other like rabid gods. His eyes gleamed with patience.

From the edges of the nebula, the Wanderer lingered in silence. Hands folded neatly behind his back, calm amid the ruin.

"The Ego resists," he murmured, voice soft but sharp enough to cut. His smile curved faintly, equal parts pride and cruelty. "Good. It must. Ego is the chain that binds the soul, but it is also the fire that drives it to claw free. To break it is cruel. To let it stand unbroken is worse."

A ripple of his unseen will stirred the nebula, widening the fractures, amplifying each backlash. He had not come to stop them. He had come to sharpen the edges of their destruction. To raise the sense of dread. Tension… there is no snap, no break without tension.

Mythara slashed wide, his scythe tearing through space itself. Watabe twisted aside, eyes narrowing at the widening scar that refused to heal.

"Are you finally taking me seriously?" Watabe spat.

"No," Mythara said flatly.

"Then I'll make you see me."

The Conductor raised his hand, and behind him the nebula convulsed. Lines of light crawled outward in fractal patterns, a lattice of geometry far too intricate for the human eye to follow. This System was a storm written into the bones of creation. Electricity spider-webbed through the void. Stars flared and then dimmed, caught in the pull of the design.

Mythara's smirk faltered. For the first time, his rose-gold eyes narrowed in something dangerously close to respect. The design was… elegant. Not crude like lesser Systems, not stitched together in desperation. This one rivaled his Clockwork Paradox in intricacy.

"Ionic Storm," Watabe declared. His voice was hoarse.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The nebula convulsed. Lightning burst in chains across the fabricated sky. Everybody in the training field felt it—atoms tugged loose, nanites spasming in rebellion. It was more than electricity; it was dissolution itself, unmaking the boundary between flesh and light. Siren doubled over, gasping.

"It's eating us alive," Mirage muttered, his voice brittle. He wrapped himself in a hurried construct of light barriers, but the arcs of lightning still sparked off his person, leaving scorched lines across his cloak.

The Hoarder flinched as sparks erupted along his skin. He reached instinctively to stabilize and heal himself, before he could move on to the others. "If he keeps this up…" His voice cracked. "We'll all come apart before Mythara does."

Even Amaterasu faltered, teeth clenched against the microscopic tearing in her blood.

Watabe strode forward, radiating confidence. And still, Mythara stood—bearing it. His jaw tightened, shoulders braced. His eyes flicked once to the group behind him, seeing their faces twisted in pain. He scoffed, as though shaking off pity, but the weight in his chest said otherwise.

"Ionic Storm? Cute." His tone was mocking, but his expression hardened. The scythe dissolved from his hands. His markings burned to life across his frame, veins of aquamarine light igniting.

"Clockwork Paradox." He whispered.

Behind him unfolded—the Clockwork Paradox. The bones of his System tuned like giant cogs. Those cogs ground against the concept of momentum itself. The nebula slowed. Lightning that had leapt like whips now crawled like syrup, daggers suspended mid-flight, arcs of fury frozen in place.

Mythara charged. Each step shattered the false stillness. He slipped through the daggers as if strolling through reeds, his fist cocked back to shatter Watabe's storm at the source.

And then—Watabe's eyes lit with sparks. Not frozen. Not bound. They moved.

The Paradox should have chained him, cogs grinding reality into stillness. Yet with each step, lightning crawled against the System's gears, refusing to halt. His head turned, slowly, deliberately, defying law. His lips curled into a grin, and sparks lit behind his eyes.

Mythara's pupils shrank. "What—"

He moved through the Paradox. There were only two who had done so before, both of them Dragons.

The Conductor roared, his will tearing through the System's influence.

"You cannot chain me, lizard!" Lightning flared again, unbound, slamming against Mythara's fist. The impact that followed wasn't sound. It was the breaking of law. That impact rippled out like a storm threatening all who watched.

The nebula convulsed, torn between stillness and storm. The others remained statues locked in time, eyes wide and unblinking as their bodies strained against forces they couldn't perceive. Only Amaterasu's pupils shifted, dragging against the frozen weight of Mythara's System.

Her aura flared. A blaze bled from her skin, burning through the gears of the Paradox, cracking the stillness apart with every step. It was not a projection of willpower. It was something purer and more complete. It was a rejection of the very Vaylora used to construct the System.

"Mythara! Watabe!" Her voice shattered the silence like a bell.

She raised her hand, and from her palm erupted a blade of living plasma. With one swing, she carved a glowing wound through the lattice of Watabe's Ionic Storm. The storm buckled, shrieking like metal ripped in two.

A second swing came down on Mythara's clockwork gears. Sparks of Vaylora flew as the System's cogs split apart, shriveling back into nothingness.

Both Systems imploded.

Time crashed back into motion.

"Enough! Do you even see what you're doing?!" Amaterasu shouted.

Watabe staggered, his aura ragged, body trembling from the backlash of his own storm. Sparks still crawled across his skin.

"I have to show him…" he rasped, eyes wild. "I had to prove we can fight monsters like him!"

Amaterasu's voice cracked through the silence not just as a command, but as a plea.

"Are you listening to yourself?!" She felt her chest ache, not from the tearing nanites but from the sight—friends, ready to burn one another alive.

The Conductor showed no signs of stopping, even at Amaterasu's words. The clash began again—Mythara fully committed now, Watabe burning himself ragged. But the clash never landed.

Shango cursed and finally decided to step forward, torn between pulling them apart and letting the storm run its course. In a flicker, Shango slid between them. Effortless as breathing. His hands rose almost lazily, palms catching Mythara's scythe and Watabe's daggers. And then the storm broke. The shockwaves that should have annihilated him instead rippled outward, reversed and hurled back at their owners.

Mythara was flung across the nebula. Watabe reeled, lightning tearing off his body in violent arcs. Shango alone remained unshaken. He didn't strain. He didn't even blink. Where Mythara and Watabe tore through creation to prove themselves, Shango stood in stillness, a wall the storm broke against and fell silent.

"You'll show him? By killing the rest of us in the process?" Shango asked, voice heavy with disappointment.

Watabe staggered, drained. His breath came ragged, while Mythara stood at a distance—steady, unbroken, his smirk faint but undeniable.

"You'd have all been fine," Watabe snapped.

"Would you?" Shango shot back. He pointed at Mythara. "He hasn't even broken a sweat."

Mythara's grin lingered, but inwardly he admitted the truth: they'd advanced far faster than he'd expected. Their mastery of Systems rivaled his own—it was only his body that carried him beyond them.

"Do lizards even sweat?" Watabe muttered, half-broken.

Mythara chuckled.

"Come off it," Shango said. "He hasn't even shed yet. You're not ready. None of us are."

For the first time, doubt flickered in Watabe's eyes. His rage bled into confusion. "…What's wrong with me?"

Amaterasu's voice softened. "We all changed. The Trinity most of all. Your particular change seems to be the most difficult to adjust to. You need time, Watabe. That's all."

But Mythara stepped forward, gaze sharp. "Time won't save you. Perspective will."

Mythara stepped closer, shadows of rose-gold fire flickering in his eyes. His smirk carried no warmth.

"See if you can block an actual punch from me."

Watabe blinked, confusion threading into his fury. "What are you—"

"Think fast."

The words barely left Mythara's lips before his body blurred. The nebula cracked under the momentum as he reeled back. His fist shot forward at a speed no eye could follow, weight and will layered into a strike meant to break more than bone.

Watabe barely had time to raise his guard. The blow crashed into his face like a meteor, rattling through the nebula in waves that shook the Tiny Tots to their knees. Watabe was sent hurtling through the void in a jagged arc.

Amaterasu's voice tore after him. "Kenji!! What the hell was that?!"

But Mythara only flexed his hand, rolling his knuckles with a scoff. "Payback. And perspective. If he can't take one punch from me, he'll never survive the fists waiting beyond us."

The others stared in silence.

"…If he's not dead," Shango muttered.e's fine," Mythara said, though he wasn't entirely sure.

From the shadows, Wanderer's voice finally returned, low and razor-sharp:

"Good. The ego bends. Soon—it will break."

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.