Zibar approached in silence.
"One hundred and ninety-one times, Frey Starlight." His voice was heavy as I struggled to stand.
"What... the hell are you... saying..." I rasped, and he kept speaking in the same flat tone.
"One hundred and ninety-one .. that’s how many times I’ve killed you since this fight began."
He paced toward me, counting as he came.
"I crushed your heart seventy-one times, blew your head apart fifty-four times, and destroyed your lungs sixty-six times," Zibar said, his smile slowly returning.
"For humans, those are instant kills—yet here you are, getting back up again and again."
By the time he finished, my wound had already re-knit, and I was on my feet.
"And I’ll keep getting up as many times as it takes .. until I beat you."
I answered, crossing my blades before me, ready to fight to the last breath.
My body was boiling; every muscle screamed; my swords felt impossibly heavy.
Even so, I was set on continuing.
That resolve reached Zibar, who realized this could drag on far longer at this pace.
"I see... you’ve left me no other choice."
His words struck like lead, echoing in my ears for a while .. because I didn’t grasp what he meant until it was too late.
No choice?
What exactly did he mean? What was he about to do?
Thoughts raced, trying to parse it—and everything changed when he struck.
SLAAAAASH!!!
I heard the cut as clearly as thunder—a savage line that split my chest open.
"Huh...?"
The word barely left my mouth before I coughed blood and collapsed again, crimson pouring out in sheets.
When I lifted my head, I saw Zibar now held a sword.
A strange, wicked blade with a hooked profile, wreathed in searing black fire.
He’d moved so fast I hadn’t even seen the swing .. but that wasn’t the terrifying part.
What truly chilled me was that I couldn’t regenerate the wound.
No matter how I tried, no matter how I focused ..
It refused to heal.
Agony flooded me; dizziness swelled as the blood loss mounted.
"Heal... heal, damn you!!!"
I shouted .. but nothing happened.
The injury stayed. And Zibar laughed, elated.
"Let me teach you something important you’ve overlooked, Frey Starlight."
Standing over me, his grin deepened; he kicked me until I rolled onto my back.
"This ’regeneration’ you rely on and brag about—it isn’t a healing factor. I confirmed that after breaking your body over and over."
"Simply put, your power makes your body adapt to all kinds of physical damage, process it on the spot, and restore you to peak condition. But..."
Zibar paused, a murderous light glinting in his eyes.
"That only works on types of damage your body has already experienced .. and adapted to. Heh-heh-heh..."
Lifting the blade to my face, he showed off the weapon.
"That cursed body of yours is used to taking hits, so my punches stopped mattering. But I’ll wager you’ve never dealt with anything like my sword."
He seized me by the hair and hauled me up, his smile growing more grotesque as he made me understand my situation.
"This is the Cursed Sword of Katarina .. a one-of-a-kind weapon in the entire cosmos, paired with Katarina’s Armor worn by my true body."
"Maybe you’ve adapted to every kind of weapon and strike after a life of getting torn apart .. but you’ve never fought my kind before, Frey Starlight. Do you know what that means?"
He fell silent for a heartbeat, then finished:
"You won’t be regenerating anymore."
SLASH!!!
One blur .. blood sprayed everywhere as Zibar hacked me open with feral delight.
Everything turned red as the demon howled with laughter.
"This is the end, Frey Starlight!!!"
Fisting my face, he held my ruined body up like a trophy ..
Then flung me, burying me under a mountain of rubble.
In those few moments as my vision faded from red to black...
I understood .. I had lost.
...
...
...
The battle between Frey Starlight and Zibar wrought horrifying devastation... and ended in a catastrophic result for Frey.
He fell once more into the pit of despair, his consciousness sinking away.
Deep in the dark, in the void,
an old, quiet fire kindled..
a simple campfire, around which gathered a number of figures alike, yet different.
Each was a version of Frey, but from other times and other paths.
They stood in a ring, staring upward.
There, the present Frey... the one who had just been defeated .. drifted down slowly, floating in the dark.
"So... even our strongest self lost," said the Frey who won the Victoriad,
while Frey the Author let out a long sigh.
"We can’t blame him—his opponent was one of the Ten High Ranks..."
"It was only a copy. Even so, we lost miserably," said the Frey who killed Danzo, while the others sighed in grief.
"Who could’ve predicted the regeneration would stop? That was the finishing blow," said the Frey who underwent the Londor cycles, and everyone nodded.
"Zibar may have been just a copy, but he can still summon Katarina’s Sword. Unlike the physical armor, the sword is a spiritual weapon any of his clones can call at will. We should’ve planned around it ..we should’ve done better," said Frey the Author, only for another version to counter him.
"Pointless to dwell on it now. We lost. We might not even get another chance to fight..."
At that, all of the Freys turned toward a single direction ..
toward a place where darkness pooled, black vapor streaming up into the void.
"We’re out of time... he’s awakened," the copies said in one voice,
as a shape emerged within the dark:
the figure of a strange man seated on a chair drowned in shadow.
He was bound in chains .. but one by one, the chains shattered.
Shadow Adaptation: 4/7
The chains fell away, and for the first time... the man stood.
In the same instant...
all the copies heard the blast of colossal horns ..
a heavy sound that shook the place as the darkness thinned.
"The time has come."