The battlefield fell into an unnatural silence.
Not the calm of resolution
but the stillness that comes when the world realizes it has already lost control.
What had once been stone and soil no longer resembled land. Layers of earth had fused into molten glass, shattered and reshaped into broken plates that hovered without direction. Rivers had been erased, their paths sealed inside warped distortions. Heat rolled upward in violent waves, bending the air until distance itself felt unreliable.
Chunks of rock remained frozen mid-fall, trapped inside invisible fractures of space caught between moments that no longer agreed on when now was.
The world wasn't destroyed.
It was confused.
Above it all, Henry stood.
He hovered effortlessly, one foot resting on a translucent cube of space. Its edges were sharp, precise, and absolute as if drawn by a ruler against reality itself. Around him drifted more cubes, dozens of them, arranged in no obvious pattern. Some were small enough to fit in a hand. Others loomed like floating buildings.
They rotated slowly.
Not because Henry told them to.
Because space itself obeyed.
Each cube marked a place where reality had been corrected where distance, mass, and direction had been rewritten and forced to comply.
Below him stood Thalassa.
Steam rolled off her body in thick, furious coils. Her crimson hair clung to her face and shoulders, damp and darkened by heat. Most of her clothes had burned away, leaving scorched remnants that glowed faintly at the edges as magma pulsed beneath her feet.
The ground around her was alive with motion.
Cracks spread outward in branching patterns as molten rock surged beneath the surface, swelling and retreating like a heartbeat. Rivers of magma crawled through the fractures, illuminating the battlefield in a hellish glow.
She stood at the center of it all unmoving.
They stared at one another.
Neither attacked.
Neither needed to.
High above, barely sheltered behind drifting debris and fractured stone, three figures crouched in silence.
The assassins.
Their hands trembled despite their training. Their breaths came shallow, uneven.
"…This is the realm we're trying to reach," one of them whispered, voice hoarse. "The realm after Conjurer."
Another swallowed hard, eyes wide as he watched the air distort around Henry. "Shaper… so this is what it actually means."
They had refined their sparks. Strengthened their control. Learned how to shape elements into weapons.
But this?
This wasn't control.
This was permission.
Henry lifted his hand slightly.
The cubes responded instantly.
Space folded inward with a soundless pressure as a massive cube expanded around Thalassa, snapping shut like a closing coffin.
Thalassa's eyes flashed.
"Magma Technique: Erupting Steam."
The ground beneath her detonated.
White-hot vapor exploded upward as magma surged violently, pressure condensing and releasing in a single catastrophic burst. Inside the cube, heat spiked beyond containment.
The spatial prison didn't shatter.
It held.
But its edges warped, bending inward under the strain as the force inside violently rejected confinement. The cube shot skyward like a launched star, ripping through suspended debris before vanishing into higher distortions.
Henry slid backward through the air, boots touching another floating cube as though stepping onto an invisible stair.
Thalassa didn't chase.
She planted her feet.
The magma beneath her responded immediately.
Not flowing.
Answering.
The ground swelled, then ruptured as a towering arm of molten stone surged upward, shaping itself into a massive spear. It burned white at the tip, heat so intense the air screamed as it passed through.
The spear hurled skyward.
Henry flicked his wrist.
"Space Technique: Cube Box."
A formation of smaller cubes appeared instantly in its path. The magma spear pierced through one then another then three more each cube collapsing as its internal space was overwritten.
Then a larger cube closed around the remaining mass.
It compressed.
Folded.
The magma vanished.
The impact sent a shockwave racing outward, flattening what little remained of the battlefield. Suspended debris was hurled into new trajectories, colliding and shattering inside distorted space.
Still, neither fell.
Still, neither retreated.
They fought like this for minutes.
No wasted movement. No shouting. No hesitation.
Magma surged.
Space erased.
Each exchange was faster than the last, their elements reacting before thought, before intent fully formed. This wasn't combat driven by rage it was instinct, perfected and sharpened until it became reflex.
A deadlock.
The assassins could barely breathe.
"This isn't a fight…" one muttered, sweat dripping from his brow. "It's creation arguing with itself."
Then Henry smiled.
It was small.
Almost apologetic.
"…Sorry," he said quietly.
He spread both arms wide.
Every cube around him froze.
Then.
The air screamed.
Space didn't bend.
It recognized him.
The cubes shattered not breaking, but revealing. Fragments of impossible geometry peeled away, exposing deeper layers beneath reality itself. Angles folded into angles that should not exist. Distances collapsed into meaning.
The world energy hesitated.
As if unsure whether it was allowed to resist.
The assassins felt it instantly.
Their knees buckled.
Their souls recoiled.
"Th–that pressure!"
"No… no way…"
Henry's spark flared.
Not brighter.
Deeper.
Ancient.
Absolute.
The ground trembled as the world acknowledged something it had long tried to forget. Henry smiled faintly.
"Of course my affinity of space," he said calmly. "It's Origin."
For the first time.
Thalassa's eyes widened.
"…So that's it," she breathed. "You weren't just shaping space."
Henry looked down at her, floating amid fractured dimensions.
"I'm returning it."
Shock rippled through her.
She recalled her magma instantly, steam collapsing inward as the pressure across the battlefield shifted. Henry released the spatial distortion encasing the world not gently.
Layers of reality peeled back.
Dimensions brushed against one another.
Planes intersected briefly before snapping apart.
Space screamed.
Then Henry stepped inward.
Not forward.
Not upward.
Inward.
He entered his core world.
There was nothing.
A vast expanse of absolute absence stretched endlessly in every direction. No ground. No sky. No distance.
At the center floated a cord of spatial energy no, five orbs, each pulsing with quiet, undeniable authority.
Beside them stood a humanoid guardian.
Unmoving.
Waiting.
Henry approached and placed his hand against the cord.
Light unfolded.
Symbols arranged themselves into a familiar interface.
Name: Henry Vitruvia
Stage: Shaper (Challenge your fourth trial to increase Rank)
Element: Space
Bloodline: Spatial Body – Divine Lineage (Would you like to know more details?)
Affinity: Origin Rank
Curse: The Unmoving Smile (Spatial Detachment Curse)
Henry stared at the display.
The smile remained.