Sam had summoned his [Primordial Clone] right after unleashing the [Eclypse Slash], which was the only reason tyr saw two pairs of eyes instead of only one staring through the mist that covered the platform.
And as that mist slowly settled and revealed the scene that waited for him, tyr stood frozen where he was, his eyes shaking uncontrollably as he stared forward at the two identical figures that looked back at him.
He clenched his teeth as tightly as he could, refusing to let fear take over him even though he could feel it pushing against the edges of his mind.
’I cannot summon my [Magnetic Field],’ tyr thought as he stared at his own freshly severed arm, the limb missing from the elbow down as sparks of broken lightning leaked from the wound. ’I cannot do anything.’
tyr understood, with a painful clarity, that his chances of victory had collapsed from absolute certainty into sothing nearly nonexistent, and he wasn’t delusional enough to pretend otherwise.
Unlike so of the others who fought until their final breath, who kept pushing forward even when every path seed closed, tyr never had that kind of drive in him.
He thought logically. He analyzed situations with cold reasoning.
And right now, the situation he was in was completely unwinnable.
But even so, despite everything telling him to give up, sothing inside him refused to let go.
"I HAVE... TO WIN..." tyr roared through clenched teeth as lightning shook across his voice, the shout erupting from a place deep inside him.
He was no longer running on technique or strategy or calculation.
He was simply powered by the sa thing Sam always relied on: [Determination].
Fwish! Crack!
Lightning burst across his five-ter-tall body, crawling up his torso, his shoulders, his legs, and his chest, crackling so violently that it sounded like his entire form was about to shatter from the intensity alone.
He let out a shout that was half fury and half pain, and the sound echoed across the entire platform.
anwhile, Sam simply looked at his clone.
The clone looked back at him with that sa easy confidence they always shared, nodded once, and smiled.
’Hm,’ Sam thought as he pointed forward at tyr, "Charge it."
Primordial Lightning!
The [Primordial Clone] raised its sword into the air, and the clouds above them imdiately began to stir, darkening with the promise of sothing massive gathering inside them.
"You are..." tyr growled as he lifted his head and stared up at the swirling sky, more lightning cracks spreading across every part of his skin, "A PARASITE..."
Sam slid his foot back, tightening his stance.
’I want to test sothing.’
Fwish!
He dashed forward, closing the distance between himself and tyr in an instant, drawing his sword back and swinging with all the speed he had.
But—
ZAP!
[You have died.]
Ding!
["Determination is Fuel" has activated.]
Sam revived instantly, just like every other ti, and he grinned as he stepped back.
"As I thought," he said calmly.
There was a [Magnetic Field] around tyr as well, which Sam had noticed the very first mont he analyzed his appearance weeks ago.
Sam had suspected from the beginning that the magnetic field would play a role if they ever had to fight in close combat, and now he had confird it.
[You’re getting smarter?]
"..." Sam didn’t respond to the comnt, keeping his eyes locked on tyr.
The only reason Sam managed to hit tyr earlier and cut off his arm was because the [Eclypse Slash] wasn’t a physical attack.
It wasn’t sothing the magnetic field could stop.
But that also ant every physical attack Sam had, like the [Primordial Tendrils], the [Primordial Barrage] bullets, and everything else of that sort, would be blocked before they even touched tyr.
That was exactly why Sam told the [Primordial Clone] to charge [Primordial Lightning].
And as that realization hit him fully, sothing else happened.
BOOM!
A violent explosion of lightning erupted around tyr, and his entire body changed as the energy overwheld him, reshaping him into a form overflowing with raw electricity.
The force of it pushed both Sam and the clone all the way back toward the very edge of the platform, the shockwave so powerful it almost threw them off entirely.
tyr’s sunglasses shattered into pieces, revealing eyes glowing with a pure and dangerous blue aura that leaked out of them like fog made of lightning.
And then...
"I know what you think," tyr said as he lifted his trembling hand toward the sky, "You think that this is just a useless ’final’ attempt of mine to win."
"..." Sam stared at him in silence, still watching as the sky above them boiled with lightning.
[Hatred Bar: 55%]
’Well, at least it’s filling up,’ Sam thought. ’Still not enough.’
tyr continued speaking, even as a massive orb of lightning began to form around him, growing brighter and larger with every passing mont.
"But... I do not want it to end this way," tyr said as he looked down, his voice shaking. "We are not like the others. Reviving... is much more painful for us..."
Crack! Zap!
Sam looked up at the sky again, watching the clouds shake apart as the orb pulsed.
And in the next instant—
EXPLODING LIGHT!
[He’s using an ultimate skill.]
"What?"
"You finally look surprised," tyr said with a trembling laugh. "TOO BAD."
Fwish! Fwish!
The orb expanded violently, growing from Sam’s size to tyr’s size, then to sothing the size of a car, then sothing the size of a dragon, then sothing so large that it overshadowed entire buildings.
It was growing so fast, pulsing with so much power, that Sam knew instinctively that this skill was nothing like anything he had seen before.
"But unfortunately for you," tyr said, though his voice was breaking as the skill drained him, "every single one of us had at least one [Ultimate] skill. And the [King]... has so many of them..."
Sam rembered everything he had learned.
Ultimate skills were so overwhelmingly powerful that they placed a massive strain on their user.
The activation requirents were always unique. And the punishnt for using them always varied.
But the most important part—
Once soone used an [Ultimate] skill, it could never be used again.
This was tyr’s one shot. His final move. And he was using it right now, on Sam.
"You’re insane," Sam muttered as he took one step forward, feeling a cold chill run down his spine. "Fuck..."
ZAP!
Lightning cracked around tyr, shaking violently as the skill consud him.
"Ultimate skills all have punishnts linked to them," tyr said, his grin widening even as his skin cracked, lted, and rotted from the pressure of the power. "So cost a limb... so drain all your strength... so destroy your powers completely..."
"But mine... is death."
So ultimate skills, as Sam knew, had punishnts so severe that they killed the user instantly.
["My Last Stand Before Death" has the sa punishnt, by the way.]
Hearing that, Sam clenched his jaw.
ZAP! ZAP!
At that mont, [Primordial Lightning] fired repeatedly at tyr, each shot powerful enough to vaporize mountains.
But the enormous orb of light blocked everything.
Every bolt disappeared inside it without leaving even a scratch.
"Great," Sam said as he glanced at his clone. "What now?"
Ding!
[You have summoned a "Star of Hatred"]
"Oh."
Sam blinked. He hadn’t expected that.
Maybe it would help. Or maybe it wouldn’t. But at least it was sothing.
[Well... the only option left is to tank it.]
’Seriously?’
[There is no stopping it. No point trying.]
"Today," tyr said, struggling to even form the words as lightning rotted through his organs, "we both die..."
Sam let out a long sigh and sat down on the ground.
"Alright."
The [Primordial Clone] remained standing, fists trembling not with fear but with raw excitent as the grin on its face stretched even wider.
"Y-You do not s-seem sc...ared..." tyr managed as the [Explosion Light] reached its final phase. "H-How...?"
"I’ll tank it," Sam said with a shrug. "If you’re the weakest [Colossal], then your [Ultimate] skill can’t be that strong."
Sam understood completely that this logic was flawed in every possible way.
A skill that literally killed its user was probably among the strongest in existence.
But worrying would not change anything. So there was no point.
"L-Let us... s-see t-then..." tyr whispered as the orb reached its absolute limit. "S-See... [King]... I-I can... do... it..."
The world froze. Ti felt like it stopped as all three of them stared at one another across the platform.
And then—
BOOM!
The orb exploded, unleashing the ultimate skill across the entirety of the [Colossal Space].
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