The shadows collapsed inward like a dying star consuming itself, pulling Noah through layers of reality that felt wrong. His stomach lurched as the settlement vanished, replaced by something that looked like someone had taken midnight and stretched it across infinite space. Purple bled into black in patterns that hurt to track, creating horizons that curved in directions his eyes couldn't properly follow.

Arthur stood thirty feet away, completely at ease despite the fight they'd just had outside. His simple clothes were torn, bloodied, but his posture suggested he'd merely been warming up.

Noah's first instinct kicked in immediately.

[VOID BLINK ACTIVATED]

Purple energy flared around his body as he tried to displace himself, to fold space and emerge outside this prison. The skill triggered, void energy responding to his will, but when the displacement should have completed, Noah found himself standing in the exact same spot.

He tried again. Same result. The void responded but had nowhere to take him.

'This isn't a fixed location. It's like my own domain. Not a place you can exit from without the creator's permission.'

The realization settled over him like ice water. Arthur had pulled him into a space he controlled completely, where conventional escape was impossible. The only way out was through the man standing across from him.

"Figured it out already?" Arthur's voice carried across the distorted space. "Smart. Your DOMAIN, is it not? It works the same way, doesn't it? Once someone's inside, they're stuck until you let them go. My soldiers made me aware of this and I remember you retreated there the last time we met,"

Noah's hands clenched into fists. Knight's Grace was already manifested, the void-infused armor plating across his torso and limbs, Void Striders active around his feet. His health and void energy were lower than he'd like after the beating outside, but he had enough to work with.

[Health Points: 2,890/3,520]

[Void Energy: 18,400/24,000]

"Then I'll just have to go through you," Noah said.

Arthur smiled. "That's the idea."

Noah moved first. Void Striders propelled him forward at speeds that turned the distorted landscape into a blur, closing the thirty-foot gap in under a second. His fist came around in a hook aimed at Arthur's jaw, chi flowing through his meridians to enhance the strike.

Arthur's hand came up, caught Noah's wrist mid-punch. Metal coating spread across his palm instantly, the gray surface absorbing the impact. Noah twisted, brought his other fist up in an uppercut. Arthur leaned back six inches, let the strike pass through empty air, then countered with a palm strike to Noah's chest.

The blow drove all air from Noah's lungs despite the armor. Noah blinked backward, created fifteen feet of separation, came back immediately from a different angle. His boot caught Arthur across the ribs. The man grunted, took the hit, grabbed Noah's extended leg.

Arthur yanked hard, pulled Noah off balance, drove his knee into Noah's back as momentum carried him forward.

[-45 HP]

Pain exploded through Noah's spine. He activated Phase Step, his body becoming intangible for two seconds, passing through Arthur's grip. He rematerialized behind Arthur, already throwing a backfist at his kidney.

Arthur spun faster than Noah expected, blocked with his forearm. Shadows erupted from the ground around Noah's feet, formed solid constructs that grabbed his ankles. Noah channeled Entropy Touch through his boots, decay spreading into the shadow material.

The constructs held for three seconds before dissolving. Long enough for Arthur to close distance and deliver a straight punch to Noah's face.

[-38 HP]

Noah's head snapped back. Blood sprayed from his nose. He blinked away reflexively, appeared twenty feet distant, spat blood.

'He's faster than the clone. Stronger too. Everything about him is just... more.'

Arthur examined his knuckles where he'd struck Noah's face. "You're tougher than most. The armor helps, but your regeneration is impressive on its own."

Noah didn't respond. He folded his hand into a gun shape and activated Void Barrage.

[VOID BARRAGE ACTIVATED]

Multiple purple spheres erupted from his fingers, dozens of them, each one carrying concentrated erasure energy. They shot toward Arthur in a spread pattern designed to overwhelm rather than target precisely.

Arthur's shadows formed a wall, rising from the ground to intercept the projectiles. Most of the void spheres hit the barrier and dissolved, swallowed into whatever space existed inside Arthur's darkness.

Three made it through gaps in the coverage. Arthur dodged two, let the third graze his shoulder. The void energy burned through his metal coating, seared flesh beneath. He grimaced, dispelled the damaged section immediately before the decay could spread.

"Close," Arthur acknowledged. "But you'll need more than that."

Lightning erupted from his hands, thick bolts that lanced toward Noah's position. Noah blinked sideways, the electricity passing through where he'd been standing. He came up already moving, Void Striders carrying him in an arc around Arthur's position.

The lightning followed him, bending in ways natural electricity shouldn't, tracking his movement through Arthur's manipulation. Noah activated Phase Step, became intangible, let the bolts pass through him harmlessly.

He rematerialized inside Arthur's guard, fist already swinging. This time he activated Null Strike mid-punch, purple-black energy condensing around his knuckles.

[NULL STRIKE ACTIVATED]

Arthur's eyes widened fractionally. He brought both hands up in an X-block, metal coating spreading thick across his forearms. Noah's fist connected with the barrier.

The impact created a shockwave that rippled outward through the distorted space. Arthur's metal coating held for exactly one second before cracks appeared, spreading like spiderwebs across the gray surface. The erasure energy didn't stop, pushing deeper, making the metal dissolve.

Arthur pushed back hard, created separation before the strike could reach flesh. His metal coating fell away in chunks, revealing bare skin beneath. He looked at his forearms, then at Noah.

"That technique is genuinely dangerous," Arthur said. "In the right hands, it could kill me."

"These are the right hands," Noah replied.

He pressed forward, not giving Arthur time to recover. His fists came in rapid succession, each one enhanced by chi, mixing high kicks with low sweeps, forcing Arthur to defend rather than counter. The man blocked efficiently, his movements economical, but Noah noticed something.

Arthur wasn't using flames anymore. Earlier, outside, he'd combined fire with his other abilities. Now, in this extended fight, the fire was absent.

'Is he conserving? Or...'

Noah didn't finish the thought. He blinked behind Arthur, drove his elbow at the base of his skull. Arthur ducked, came up with an uppercut that caught Noah under the chin.

[-42 HP]

Stars exploded across Noah's vision. Arthur followed with a knee to Noah's midsection. The armor absorbed thirty percent of the force. The rest drove into Noah's stomach, made his organs compress.

[-50 HP]

Noah stumbled backward, breathing hard. Blood ran from his split lip. His regeneration was working but slowly, the accumulated damage taking time to repair.

[Health Points: 2,715/3,520]

Arthur advanced methodically, shadows forming around his hands like claws. Noah blinked sideways, came back with a roundhouse kick. Arthur caught his leg, yanked hard, threw Noah across the space.

Noah hit the ground rolling, came up in a crouch. He needed something different, something Arthur wouldn't expect. The man had seen Void Blink, seen Null Strike, seen Phase Step. He was adapting to Noah's patterns, predicting movements based on previous exchanges.

So Noah needed to change the pattern.

He stood slowly, deliberately, letting his breathing settle. Shadows and lightning danced around Arthur as the man waited, clearly confident in his control of this space.

Noah folded his hand into a gun shape again, activated Void Barrage. But this time, as the purple spheres formed, he channeled dark chi through them. The white and red energy mixed with purple, creating something new.

The bullets shot forward with their usual speed. Then Noah gestured with his other hand, a sharp flinging motion, and they accelerated dramatically. The purple spheres now had faint red and white trails bleeding from their tail ends, dark chi coating each projectile.

Arthur saw the barrage coming, raised a shadow wall reflexively to block them out. The usual defense. The reliable counter.

The first bullet struck the shadow barrier. Instead of dissolving, it detonated.

BOOM!

The explosion tore through Arthur's defense, ripping a hole in the shadow wall. The second bullet followed immediately, widening the gap.

BOOM!

Arthur's eyes went wide. He tried to dodge, activating lightning to regain control and flight, but the remaining bullets adjusted mid-trajectory, chasing him through the distorted space.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Each explosion caught Arthur, tossed him like debris in a storm. His metal coating absorbed some impacts but cracked under sustained bombardment. He tumbled through empty air, trying to stabilize, when Noah was suddenly on him.

Void Striders had carried Noah forward during the explosions, positioning him exactly where Arthur would end up after the last detonation. His fist came around with everything behind it, Null Strike and Chi Fusion combined.

[NULL STRIKE 'N CHI FUSION ACTIVATED]

Purple mixed with red and white around Noah's knuckles, creating a sphere of combined energy that looked like someone had taken void energy and infected it with something alive. His punch drove into Arthur's exposed side, right below the ribs.

But what Noah didn't know was that Arthur had seen the punch and while unable to dodge it, he'd laced his body with shadows. However, that didn't stop the damage, at least not all of it.

The impact was devastating. Arthur's body folded around the blow, his breath leaving in an explosive gasp. The combined energy didn't just hit, it invaded, spreading through his torso like poison through bloodstream. Noah felt ribs crack under his knuckles despite Arthur's seemingly impenetrable defences.

Arthur flew backward, tumbling end over end, crashed into the ground thirty feet away. He lay there for three seconds before pushing himself up on trembling arms.

Blood ran from his mouth. His breathing was ragged. The regeneration that should have kicked in immediately was slow, struggling to repair the damage Noah's entropy-infused strike had caused. Under normal circumstances, the idea of Arthur would have been long unsubscribed because of this skill; Null Strike.

But the shadows had taken the brunt of the assault and only residual void energy, not as explosive as null strike had made contact with Arthur. And in this state, it was only corrosion it caused not erasure.

Noah straightened, watching carefully. Something was wrong with Arthur's healing. The man should have recovered by now, should be standing tall and ready for the next exchange.

'His time's up. I was right about the theory. His copied abilities can only last so long. How long have we been fighting?'

The realization changed everything. Arthur wasn't invincible. His perfect copying had a limitation the clone had shared—duration. Each stolen ability worked flawlessly until time ran out, then the power simply stopped responding.

Fire was already gone. Now healing was failing. How much longer until the others followed?

Noah pressed his advantage immediately. He blinked to Arthur's position, appeared inside his guard before the man could fully stand. His knee came up, caught Arthur in the face, sent him sprawling backward.

Noah didn't let up. He blinked again, appeared where Arthur would land, drove his fist into the man's kidney as momentum carried him past.

Arthur tried to counter, shadows forming around his hands, but Noah phased through the constructs, his body intangible for two crucial seconds. He rematerialized behind Arthur, grabbed him by the shoulders, drove his knee into his spine.

Arthur snarled, lightning erupting from his body in all directions. Noah blinked away before the discharge could catch him, came back from a different angle. His boot caught Arthur across the jaw, whipped his head sideways.

They separated by mutual agreement, both fighters stepping back, reassessing. Arthur's breathing was heavy now, labored. Blood covered his face, his torso, his arms. The metal coating kept flickering, appearing and disappearing as if the ability itself was struggling to maintain coherence.

"You're running out," Noah said quietly.

Arthur smiled despite the blood. "Maybe. But so are you."

[Health Points: 2,715/3,520]

[Void Energy: 15,200/24,000]

It was true. Noah had burned through void energy maintaining his enhanced techniques, using skills in rapid succession without pause. His health was lower than he'd like, regeneration working overtime to keep him functional.

But Arthur was fading faster. That was the key difference.

Arthur raised both hands, shadows and lightning combining between his palms. The energies mixed, creating something that looked like black electricity, crackling and writhing as it built power. The sphere grew larger, more concentrated, pulling in mass from the surrounding space.

Noah checked his void energy reserves, calculated whether he could dodge what was coming. The sphere was growing too large, too fast. Whatever Arthur was building, it would cover too much area for conventional evasion.

He was preparing a counter when Arthur's attention shifted. His eyes went distant for a moment, tracking something Noah couldn't see. Then they focused on a point far in the distance, where the distorted landscape curved into infinity.

There was a light there. Small, like a star in a night sky that shouldn't exist in this shadow space. Noah saw it too, saw Arthur's expression shift from confident to confused.

Why was the star getting closer?

The light grew larger, brighter, traveling toward them at speeds that made no sense. What had been a distant point became visible, became identifiable.

It wasn't a star. It was someone moving, wrapped in blue-white lightning that trailed behind them like a comet's tail. A whining sound reached them a second later, a high-pitched shriek that made the air vibrate.

Arthur's eyes widened. His sphere of black lightning dissipated immediately, forgotten. "Oh no—"

*THROKOOOOOOM!*

The impact happened within a single second. One moment Arthur stood holding his charged attack, the next he was flying backward, tumbling through space like a discarded toy. The force that hit him was absolute, carrying momentum that no human body should generate.

All Noah saw was a flash. Blue-white light that burned afterimages into his vision. When it cleared, Arthur was gone, soaring through the distorted landscape. In his place stood someone.

Someone lean, frail-looking. Dark hair matted and wild, naked except for scraps of cloth that barely qualified as clothing. This person looked skeletal, ribs visible through pale skin, every muscle defined by malnutrition.

But lightning still erupted from them like a storm given human form, crackling across their body in patterns that made the surrounding space bend. The aura radiating off this figure was almost repulsive in its intensity, pressure Noah could feel against his skin from fifteen feet away.

"Lucas?" Noah said quietly.

The figure turned. Pale blue eyes met Noah's, and recognition flickered there despite the gaunt face. "Eclipse."

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