Boom.
The earth cracked beneath their feet, not just from the impact—but from intention.
Earl’s form was sheathed in a soft red light, heat spiraling violently as he siphoned energy from the air itself. A single swing of his gunbai carved a furnace-blade through the space between them, warping it—pressing it flat like iron beneath a hamr.
Zephyr barely parried, his scythe scread in his grip.
The shockwave hit him like a wall. He staggered, his body dragging back across the molten arena tiles, boots skidding for traction.
Because at the end of the day—he was still Elpison Grade 1.
And Earl wasn’t, every blow carried the weight of rank. Experience. Supremacy.
Earl didn’t have to think—his body rembered how to kill.
Zephyr’s didn’t. Not yet. But then it began—slow, creeping, unmistakable. A rhythm.
A syncopation.
His breath synced to the beat of the battle. His heart to the tempo of danger.
And then— his eyes pulsed.
Like sothing exhaling inside him.
And the world slowed, no—not slowed. It revealed.
Zephyr didn’t know what side effects his eyes would bear on him, but now he knew.
’They look at like I’m filth, like I’m so stain they forgot how to clean. But they weren’t there, were they?’. The eyes enheightened his emotions that was already there but deeply buried.
’When I chewed through my thigh in the dark! When I scread and no one ca! When Keede broke my fingers one by one and said I should be grateful she rembered my na! Where were they!’.
Earl’s next strike ca down like a solar flare—blinding, burning.
Zephyr didn’t block, he pivoted. Precisely. Elegantly. Like heat dancing across a blade.
The next swing? He sidestepped.
The next after that? He slid past it like smoke.
Every movent cleaner. Wider. Faster.
Because every heartbeat, every fraction of ti—
He was adapting.
’Make them beg’. Zephyr emotions were all over the place, his body was controlled by his instincts and not his thoughts.
Zephyr mind was currently drowning in enheightened mory, the fear when he was in the pit, he wouldn’t see the next day, the hollow in his heart when his dog died. The rotten at still at the tip of his tongue.
Earl’s eyes narrowed as he could see the blank look Zephyr was wearing.
’Make them worship’.
His gunbai ca down again—this ti a horizontal sweep ant to split him in half. The temperature surged—Zephyr’s skin blistered from proximity alone.
But he was already gone.
His afterimage hung behind—lavender trails dancing in the heat haze.
And the one that pained him the most was—
’This world didn’t even give a na. Just left to rot in the corner of a Chapter, a footnote to justify her trauma. All that pain—and not even a grave! That princess.... I will kill her’.
Zephyr moved.
Earl turned—too late.
CLANG.
Gunbai t scythe, a deafening sound that split the platform beneath them.
But this ti—Zephyr didn’t budge.
He pressed forward.
Earl’s grin faltered.
Because he’d looked into Zephyr’s eyes.
They weren’t glowing—they were breathing.
Every pulse dragged on Earl’s thoughts, compressing them, suffocating them. Like each wave of pressure bottled his mind in a vice. It was as if his mind was being compressed into a bottle.
"How—?" Earl spat, staggering back, launching a fla-wreathed kick.
Zephyr caught it.
Not with strength. With space itself—compressed and contorted around his palm.
He didn’t even flinch. But his vision blurred—his brain buckled.
Every direction fed him input. Heat fluctuations. Breath patterns. Pressure shifts. 360° of raw, unfiltered reality.
He trembled—but only for a second, then he adapted. Again.
’Let them talk! Let them whisper about blood hound! They haven’t seen what this dog has beco’.
Earl spun low, dragging molten air behind his swing.
Zephyr didn’t jump.
He slipped—between fras, between angles, as though space bent to let him through.
CRACK.
The hilt of his scythe slamd into the back of Earl’s neck. Earl dropped to a knee.
Steam hissed from his breath. Tiles cracked under his weight.
But Zephyr didn’t follow through.
He couldn’t—not yet.
His mind trembled under the deluge of sensation. All the unfiltered information was too much for his brain to handle, although Earl hasn’t noticed, he would suddenly pause mid strike. His movent lagging all because of the impossible amount of information he was shouldering, from the past to the present.
But the pauses were shrinking and the lags shortening.
His eyes were showing him the truth and it was quickly becoming a burden, he didn’t want to know that his ’mother’ that was killed in the pit wasn’t his real mother. He didn’t want to know that his mother abandoned him just like the rest of the clan and the world.
’Make them crawl! Make them worship! But don’t answer! Why?.
A grin cracked across Zephyr’s face—mad, blood-streaked.
"Because I’ll be too busy burning the world." This ti he scread with a grin so wide, so long it seems his lower jaw was going to fall off as he stared at the sky.
Earl didn’t give him the ti of the day, Earl swung the gunbai—a sweeping, searing arc of authority, ant to decimate anything in its path.
But it passed through Zephyr.
Not a dodge. Not a trick.
His body blurred at the edges, translucent like a reflection in rippling water. He was there—but not there. A ghost between dinsions.
Limbo— Hollow Breath Transition.
Earl’s eyes widened a fraction too late, because Zephyr was already inside his guard.
His hand—open, outstretched—reached for Earl’s heart like it had always belonged there.
But instinct saved him.
Earl twisted back, legs screaming as he propelled himself into the air, avoiding death by a breath’s breadth. But—
Zephyr felt it.
The strain. The stutter.
His vision swam, nerves burning from the effort of holding this unnatural form. Blood leaked from his nose. His fingertips buzzed. His brain couldn’t keep up with the surge of information anymore.
’If I don’t end this now... I’ll lose’. The strain had made him finally co to his senses
So he poured his remaining Aether into his left eye.
Clairvoyance.
And everything went silent.
Earl froze mid-air, mid-thought. His eyes rolled back slightly—mouth parted, breath halted—as if he’d just forgotten how to exist.
Then—Zephyr’s voice whispered from within Earl’s skull, calm and final
"Follow ... and ponder the question of this reality."
And Earl did.
His mind began to unravel, pulled by the gravity of Zephyr’s gaze into a spiral of thought that had no end.
What is air?
Air is molecules
What are molecules?
Particles.
What is a particle?
Mass. Energy.
What is energy?
What is space?
What is this fight?
What is he?
Who is he?
Who am—
Black.
His consciousness snapped. Mind caught in an infinite regress of questions with no exit. As his thoughts collapsed.
And in that still mont of disintegration—Zephyr moved as his hand pierced Earl’s chest like it was paper—flesh parting, ribs bending, heat searing his knuckles that was covered in compressed space. Despite his hand being covered in space he could still feel the heat, testant of the heat Earl had been siphoning.
Zephyr pulled his hand free, letting the body drop. Ash clung to his arm. Blood stead where it touched his burning skin.
He stood over the corpse, his scythe hit the ground softly beside him. His breathing ragged. His eyes dull.
He exhaled, Misty breath escaped his mouth as his eyes throbbed one last ti before they reverted back to his normal red eye.
Then ca the prize for activating the eye for that long, Zephyr gasped as he held his head. It was like soone was hitting his brain with a hamr, he staggered as he fell to his knees gripping his head, holding his white hair tightly.
Then from his eyes ca pain, it was as if his eyes were stabbed by needles, causing large amount of pain to flood his brain, adding more problem to the already stressed brain.
"First position goes to Phoenix wing and the winner of the tournant— Zephyr Demios".
But Zephyr’s mind was no longer in what was happening around him, because he had long since fainted.
rin appeared by his side with such speed that by the ti that they knew sobody had been there, was when Zephyr body disappeared from the podium.
The arena was still smoking but everyone’s mind was on sothing else.
"Was that real".
"Did he as a grade 1 defeat two grade 2 and a grade 3".
"Forgot that, didn’t you hear what he said, he was going to burn the world".
"I always knew he was up to no good. First nearly raping the princess and now threatening everyone bluntly".
"What happened to his eyes".
"He probably dubbed into cursed Arts just like those bastards from Black Omnibus".
"He should be arrested, those eyes if his give the creep".
The Spectators stand was alit with gossip, so suggested he be arrested, others be put under observation. But non spoke in his defense.
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