{Nicholas Anstalionah.}
My blade moved in a blur. I had aimed for his neck, yet all I managed was a sharp, burning line across his chest.
He stepped back in surprise.
"You've gotten faster. Way faster than last time."
I increased my aura. "Yes. And I have gotten wiser as well."
From above, a grand spear of gravity dropped, compressed so tightly that it spiraled like a drill as it fell toward him.
He leaned back and deflected its crushing weight, but the moment his parry shifted, my sword carved across his calf.
He vanished into a silhouette of flames, reforming behind me with a thrust meant to end my life.
I twisted away just in time, collapsing the space between us with a single gesture.
He staggered, dazed by the rippling distortion.
Analyzing it now, my gravity magic seemed to be influencing reality itself.
It allowed something impossible to occur, something that could only exist when every theory of gravity converged into truth.
Of course, most magic could reach such heights as long as one excluded the negating branches.
Those had already been shunned by the world itself, and to wield them you first had to believe in their contradictions.
Sansir stared at me with widening wonder as I formed a black hole.
Yet this time, something shifted inside it.
As it compressed upon itself, erasing space and time, I let its influence spread.
The battlefield warped into a maze of stray beams of darkness and black light, and for a heartbeat it resembled a great forbidden spell.
Then I spoke its name.
"Dark Eclipse!"
The moment the name left my lips, day shifted to night.
The sun seemed to cry out in vain as the spell pulled the world into its shadow.
Sansir looked worried as the destruction spiraled outward.
Mirabel, standing behind us, went rigid.
Her eyes widened, both worried and deeply intrigued.
She had seen my growth before, but this was different.
This was a step toward something monstrous. And she knew it.
I did not care. She was here.
Something like this would be easy for her to fix if it came to that.
I let the attack rampage toward Sansir.
He braced himself and swung down, splitting fire across the field.
The collision felt as if two ages clashed and shattered. His sword snapped under the pressure, and the attack washed over him.
For a moment, I thought my victory was already secured.
Then his voice rang clear. "This is a gift I must refuse."
[Nicholas was more or less rejected, how embarrassing.]
My own attack appeared before my chest and hurled me backward.
I coughed, choking on its force.
Had I not sealed it inside a sphere of water and poured every ounce of power into containing it, that simple gift would have ended me.
So that was his ability. The power to give anything to his opponents.
His Regalia was terrifying, a force that could never be dismissed.
He walked forward, fire swirling around him, matching the wild red of his hair.
"How do you like it? My Prosperity King: Dulhan."
I grit my teeth and raised my blade as his own sword reformed in flame.
"Well then, I suppose it is time to use mine," I said, smiling as blood dripped from my lips.
Mirabel sat up straight, her eyes sharp with anticipation and concern.
Sansir steadied himself, breath held.
They had seen Dark Alter before, and they wanted to witness it in battle again.
But I had abandoned that power. It took too much. It gave too little.
This time, I had chosen another path.
My hands trembled. I tightened my grip to hide it.
The world swayed gently, as if the air itself was tilting.
My vision blurred for the first time.
A soft, slow smear of color that told me I had already overreached.
Sansir rushed me, unwilling to give me the chance to activate it. But my Regalia was vast.
For the memory I had been so graciously gifted was this: a grand field of roses, lavish and lush with life.
And among them all, the most prominent, the most beautiful, the most haunting was the single rose that decayed into a tainted black.
This blade was the end.
[This blade was nothing.]
He reached me. I moved first, swinging with that memory burning through my mind.
In that instant, there was no distance between us.
My blade struck his side and hurled him to the right.
I swung again, and though he was now far away, my blade still tore across his stomach.
My eyes stung as my vision split in two.
The ground beneath me softened like liquid, and I blinked hard to force the world to stay in one piece.
He rose, staring at me in confusion. "Are you erasing space? No. It is more than that… more daring."
He charged again, flames roaring.
My blade cut through them, snuffing them out as if they had never existed.
A sideways strike grazed his cheek, forcing him to halt as the wound appeared without resistance.
"You ignore everything? Even my defense?" he whispered, eyes widening.
I coughed again. Thick blood spilled past my lips as black cracks spread across my skin.
My legs trembled. My stance sagged.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears, drowning out everything else.
Half the arena dipped into shadow. The other half was too bright, painfully bright.
Sansir exhaled slowly.
"I must admit defeat. If not for your condition, I would have lost."
I tried to smile, but my mouth refused to obey. My vision flickered like a dying lamp.
A ringing filled my skull.
The outline of Sansir dissolved. The arena dissolved. The world dissolved.
My Regalia was exacting its price.
For my Regalia was nothing. It was the end. And it took all things from me.
[Nicholas had craved so much to see the greatness of himself, who might grace others.]
When I reached the third wall, I became aware of the vastness that stretched far beyond this world.
For this world, bound by the World System, cannot bind the ones who crafted the trinkets we call Regalia.
Those beings who dwell beyond the veil.
Whose existence is older than language, older than time, older than the creation myths we pretend to understand.
The mighty and great things whose shadows stretch into every miracle we wield.
Regalia are the echoes of those who are sinless.
They are unbound by the World System, unbound by all things that proceed from the world.
They are tears in reality that drip with borrowed sovereignty.
But even as these truths flooded my mind, my awareness thinned.
Each revelation came with a sharper darkness. Each breath felt stolen.
My Regalia would be my best chance at growing further, my best hope of defeating the Golden Authority.
Even if it left me blind and frozen, even if using it too much carved away pieces of my life in exchange.
Because all beings naturally exude aura, and abilities are regulated or negated when forced back by that pressure.
This is spiritual negation, the clash of Inner Worlds.
Your Inner World is beyond physicality.
It is an abstract realm, unreachable unless one reaches the fifth wall.
Sansir held back greatly. He had to.
Still, I must concede that accomplishing even this much against him was an incredible feat.
But my excitement, my pride, my triumph all slipped away with the last of my consciousness.
The world tilted on its side.
My Regalia dissolved into static.
The field of roses turned black.
[Nicholas was beginning to wake; his fateful power had finally allowed him to breathe once more.]
I sank.
I fell.
And the world vanished.
I opened my eyes. We were in our bedroom.
Mirabel was looking down at me.
My head rested in her lap as she smiled gently, her touch careful, as though afraid I might fracture further.
"Maybe you should focus on building your body up first. You should not exhaust yourself so much."
Her voice trembled, and now I understood why. My body felt hollow. My limbs felt cold. Even blinking hurt.
I sighed and sat up, though my body protested in sharp waves that forced spots of darkness across my vision. "I cannot afford to be afraid of death."
She wrapped her arms around me, her embrace warm and trembling. "I am afraid. Let me be afraid for you."
I held back tears in that moment, tears that definitely would not come.
"It is unnecessary for now. Wait until I am a better person."
I pushed her away and stood up, though the room tilted slightly before leveling.
"Now let us get to work. Since I lost that sparring match, I need to grow even stronger."
"Nicholas, you are clawing at strength, gnawing at power, and disregarding sanctity."
"What am I to do, Mirabel? Am I to regress? No. I must fill my mind with only progression."
I looked out the window. I saw the kingdom. I saw the future. I saw my death.
I turned back. "I will not falter to my own self. I will instead falter to those who resist me."
I gave a strained smile. "Is that not enough?"