What appeared as a single strike was, in truth, a symphony of destruction that made the world itself convulse.
Bairan was a master swordsman. But the depth of his mastery? That revelation sent shockwaves through reality itself.
In one fluid motion, he had moved and swung three hundred thousand strikes simultaneously. Each blade—Dark Mortal, Stainless, and Illusioned Hefter—carved a hundred thousand paths through air and flesh in the same heartbeat.
All hundred thousand strikes compressed into one razor-thin line so sharp it severed the fabric of existence, if only for a moment so brief that reality never noticed the wound.
This was Bairan's peak—or perhaps just a glimpse of what he once was. Granted that his memory and technique had fled him like smoke through fingers, yet what remained was enough to reshape the world.
Enough to kill an Apex Behemoth in a single breath. Enough to swing three hundred thousand strikes with such precision that each followed its predecessor's path like a shadow.
The technique didn't just fracture every building in Fhugal—it carved them into monuments of destruction. Thousands of sword marks scored every wall, as if countless duels had raged for centuries within each stone.
Every living thing caught in that moment simply ceased to be, atomized by the shockwave before they could even register the blade's passage.
The initial explosion wasn't from steel meeting flesh—it was three hundred thousand strikes compressing into themselves, creating a singularity of violence that tore through space like a hungry beast.
Time itself bent beneath the weight of such focused destruction. The moment the strikes coalesced folded into the moment they tore through the monster, creating a strange temporal echo where cause and effect danced together.
The secondary effects rippled outward like aftershocks of an earthquake. Tremors raced through Fhugal's foundations and beyond, spreading cracks like spider webs across the earth. In the surrounding forest, trees swayed as ancient instincts drove creatures into panicked flight, their primitive minds screaming warnings that predators of a different order now walked the world.
The behemoth's corpse crashed through buildings like toppling dominoes, bringing final destruction to the estate. Then silence—thick and absolute—descended over the graveyard of a battlefield.
Everyone was gone. Erased from existence before their minds could process their final moments.
Even the young soldier who had orchestrated this entire dance with death. Such a waste—he never got to witness the sublime artistry he'd forced from Bairan's blades.
Bairan's shoulders rose and fell in dismissal.
'It's no surprise. Only one person has ever...'
The thought trailed into fragments. Someone had watched him fight at this level before, but their face swam beyond memory's reach, leaving only bitter aftertaste on his tongue.
His gaze swept the devastation. Buildings lay in ruins—some reduced to mountain-sized heaps of rubble, others simply gone as if they'd never existed.
Three massive chunks of stone flesh had become part of the landscape now. The behemoth's body merged with earth and edifice, its strange essence already beginning to transform the estate into something... different. Wild. As if the creature's death was seeding new terrain with alien nature.
The Sword King wandered empty streets that moments ago had buzzed with soldiers' grueling voices. Now not even a single boot or belt buckle remained to mark their passing.
He hawked and spat, the sound harsh in the unnatural quiet.
"Spineless idiots."
***
The battle raging before the government's Unification Complex was a catastrophe given form. Craters gouged the earth like wounds from titanic hammers, while two figures painted streaks of green and red light across the devastated landscape.
They moved beyond sight—the eye could only catch their afterimages, twin comets leaving destruction in their wake.
Reality itself groaned beneath the weight of their clashes. Each impact threatened to crack the world's foundations, sending shockwaves that turned solid matter into memory.
The ornate fountain—once the complex's crowning jewel—disintegrated when Burning Storm's kick connected with Lieutenant Dante. Compressed vile force exploded on impact, reducing carved stone to sand that scattered like a dying breath.
Dante tumbled through the devastation, his body grinding a furrow through the earth as momentum carried him through the complex's wall. His trajectory only stopped when his skull met porcelain—a toilet's jacuzzi cushioning what could have been a fatal collision.
He emerged moments later, water dripping from his face, only to charge back into the fray with renewed fury.
The battle escalated beyond mere combat. Each exchange became heavier, more destructive—not for the Paragons who danced their deadly waltz, but for everything caught in their orbit. The complex walls cracked under ambient pressure. The estate grounds trembled with sympathetic destruction.
Two of Central Plain's known Paragons were tearing each other—and everything else—apart.
Despite bone-deep fatigue, Paragon Raizel matched Lieutenant Dante's every strike with desperate precision. Dante commanded echo with devastating mastery—each sword swing rippled into ten ghostly afterstrikes that carved through air and stone alike.
Terror incarnate moved through Dante's blade. Every cut held enough power to split mountains, and receiving ten such blows simultaneously had pushed Raizel to the edge of despair more times than he cared to count.
The steel never touched his flesh, but the weight of each echoing strike crushed him like avalanches. Burning Storm had wrapped himself in layers of momentum, creating a shield that nullified most physical attacks.
The technique worked, but its potency had diminished. He could thicken the momentum barriers until nothing—not even the crushing weight of Dante's strikes—could penetrate, but that would burn through his essence reserves too quickly.
He needed to match blow for blow, or risk collapse.
Dante, by contrast, moved with the casual energy of someone barely breaking a sweat. Despite Burning Storm's labored breathing and desperate defenses, Raizel knew his opponent was still holding back. The man had been using only his echo ability since the battle began—a fraction of his true arsenal.
Then reality shattered.
A shockwave tore across the landscape with apocalyptic force, its howling wind carrying the promise of annihilation.
Both Paragons braced for impact. They far surpassed ordinary humans or Drifters in resilience, but this was different.
The force struck like an angry god's fist. Both warriors were launched backward—weightless dolls flung apart by invisible hands.
In the split second before his body went sailing, Raizel's eyes found the Unification Complex. His hand traced desperate patterns, coating the building in a wind shield woven from momentum itself.
The barrier saved the structure from collapsing, but couldn't protect its glass. Windows exploded in a symphony of shattering crystal, their destruction painting the air with glittering shards that caught the dying light.