Chapter 64: Future Fight
The collision echoed across the heavens.
KRAAAAAA—BOOOOOOOM!!
Daito's fist crashed into Cassian's jaw with enough force to fracture the surrounding atmosphere.
At the exact same instant Monday's knee slammed into Cassian's ribs.
The impact compressed the air into a dense sphere before detonating outward in every direction.
But Cassian...Cassian answered both attacks simultaneously.
His right fist intercepted Daito.
His left elbow caught Monday across the chest.
THOOOOOOM!!
Three bodies were hurled apart.
They streaked through the endless sky like falling stars before gradually slowing, each carving a glowing trail across the heavens.
Finally...they stopped.
Suspended above a broken world.
Far beneath them, Gregor Naught looked less like a city and more like the remains of a forgotten battlefield. Entire districts had vanished beneath the devastation left by their battle. Streets had become canyons. Towers had become rubble. Smoke drifted endlessly through shattered avenues where life had once flourished.
Above that ruined landscape...the three monsters floated in silence.
None of them appeared exhausted, none of them gasped for breath, yet all three understood the same truth.
Their bodies had reached a place where fatigue no longer announced itself through heavy breathing or trembling muscles.
Instead...It settled much deeper.
Inside the soul.
* * *
Cassian slowly raised a hand to his mouth.
His thumb brushed across the corner of his lips. When he looked at his fingertips...They were stained crimson.
Blood.
His own.
For a brief moment...He simply stared at it. Then his eyes lifted toward Daito and Monday. A slow grin spread across his face. Broader than ever before.
Not cruel, not even mocking, but satisfied.
"...This..."
His voice carried effortlessly through the motionless sky.
"...is a fight."
The words hung between them, not as a challenge, but as acknowledgement.
Daito silently lowered his center of gravity.
His battered body protested with every movement, but years of discipline silenced the pain before it could become hesitation.
Across from him, Monday rolled his shoulders.
KRRRK...
Bzzztle.....
His neck cracked softly as faint strands of blue electricity danced across his skin.
Not because he was activating his Savage Power. Because his body no longer knew how to exist without it.
No one spoke after that since there was nothing left to explain, no misunderstandings remained,no hidden cards and no false confidence.
They understood one another completely.
This battle...would not end until one of them lost the ability to stand.
Daito closed his eyes for the briefest instant.
Inside himself...he found it.
The Wall.
Every great fighter spoke about it eventually. Some called it instinct. Others called it death.
Masters simply referred to it as the limit.
It wasn't exhaustion, it wasn't fear, it wasn't even pain.
It was the point where the body quietly whispered...
"This is as far as I can take you."
Daito heard that whisper.
Clearer than ever before.
...We're still not there...
His own thoughts echoed through the mental link. Monday heard them instantly.
Without turning or even looking.
A faint smile appeared across his face.
"At this point..."
He laughed quietly.
"There's no reason to stop you anymore."
Daito understood exactly what he meant.
If they had come this far...then there was no point fearing what lay beyond.
* * *
Across from them...Cassian slowly opened his eyes.
Fully.
For the first time since the battle had begun...
There was no smile, no sarcasm, no amusement, only complete attention.
He wasn't looking at opponents anymore he was looking at equals.
Far below...
Aerin staggered.
Her knees nearly gave out beneath her.
Blood dripped from trembling fingertips onto the ancient ritual circle beneath her feet.
The glowing symbols surrounding the Traditional Blade flickered violently.
One by one...
They began fading.
Tiny fractures spread across the ancient formation.
The ritual was collapsing.
She had nothing left. Every ounce of spiritual energy. Every breath. Every heartbeat. Everything had already been poured into the ceremony.
Yet she refused to let it end.
Her trembling hand reached forward once more.
"...Daito..."
Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
"...Please..."
One final circle slowly formed before her.
Unlike the others, this one shook violently, its edges unstable as if reality itself resisted its existence.
The glowing ring drifted toward the Traditional Blade.
Centimeter by centimeter.
Aerin's vision blurred.
Her body screamed.
Still...
She continued.
The final line connected.
The symbol completed itself.
Perfect.
"...Go."
With the last strength remaining inside her...She drove the completed circle into the Traditional Blade.
THOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!
Silence.
Complete.
Absolute.
Then, everything screamed.
* * *
SHWOOOOOMMM!!
The heavens shattered beneath a pillar of golden light that erupted from Iron Bastion.
Ancient symbols illuminated across the earth like rivers of living fire.
The ground shook. The wind reversed direction. Clouds fled from the explosion as though terrified.
The pressure rolled across Gregor Naught with impossible force.
Monday felt it first.
His eyes widened.
"...There it is..."
Electricity erupted uncontrollably around his body.
His muscles tightened. His veins glowed brighter than before. His transformation had already reached its peak.
Now... something pushed beyond that peak.
His body began shaking violently. Tiny cracks appeared across the blue lightning wrapped around him. Not because his power was growing unstable...
Because his body could no longer contain it.
"This..."
His thoughts echoed shakily.
"This is my limit..."
He knew.
One step further...
And his body would break.
No.
It would shatter.
Every muscle, every nerve and every bone.
He accepted it anyway.
Daito felt something entirely different.
It wasn't strength, it wasn't speed, it wasn't even power.
It was...Overexistence.
His body no longer felt heavier or lighter. It simply felt...more real than everything around him.
His heartbeat disappeared and his breathing vanished. The boundaries separating flesh, spirit, instinct and thought dissolved into one unified existence.
Every cell awakened. Every nerve became perfectly synchronized.His vision expanded beyond ordinary perception. He could see the microscopic vibration of light itself. Hear the silence between sound. Feel the future pressing gently against the present.
"...So..."
His voice barely existed.
"...This is beyond."
His feet remained perfectly still.
Yet somehow...He felt closer to everything in existence.
Cassian stepped forward.
Only once.
The motion alone distorted the sky.
"...Good."
His voice carried neither excitement nor arrogance.
Only certainty.
"...Now..."
His eyes sharpened.
"...Show me."
They moved.
No.
Movement implied distance.
They simply...were gone.
No flash, no sound, no acceleration, only absence.
Time measured the exchange.
0.00000000000000001 seconds.
Inside that impossible fragment...
One million strikes were exchanged.
One million blocks.
One million counters.
One million choices that separated life from death.
Gregor Naught disappeared. Not because the city had been destroyed. Because the fighters no longer occupied the same layer of reality.
They crossed the city countless times within a single instant.
Left.
Right.
Above.
Below.
Buildings exploded without anything touching them. Roads split apart without warning. Windows shattered. Mountains trembled.
KRAAAAAAK!
The air itself detonated.
Their speed had become so absolute...That their shadows remained behind.
* * *
At the center of Gregor Naught...Three figures stood perfectly still.
Daito.
Monday.
Cassian.
Motionless.
Silent like statues.
Yet around those unmoving bodies...
SHKKKROOOOM!!
KRRRAAAAAK!!
BOOOOOOOM!!
A colossal tornado of compressed shockwaves spiraled violently into the heavens, uprooting debris, pulverizing buildings and carving enormous trenches through the ruined city.
The three figures never moved.
Because...They weren't there anymore. They had crossed the final boundary. The line separating possibility...From impossibility.
Sense, reason, reality itself.
All of it...Broken.
And in its place...a new phenomenon was born.
*Future Fight.*
Their bodies remained in the present.
Their battle existed in the future.
Daito's shadow suddenly lunged forward.
Not across the ground...Across tomorrow.
A million strikes rained upon Cassian's future self.
Monday's shadow erupted into blinding streams of blue light, attacking from impossible directions that hadn't yet been conceived.
Cassian's shadow stood against them.
Unshaken.
Unyielding.
It adapted.
Countered.
Evolved.
Every collision echoed backward through time. Each successful strike caused a tiny tremor in the bodies standing motionless in the present.
A finger twitched. A shoulder shifted. A drop of blood rolled down someone's cheek.
The battle being fought there...Determined the injuries suffered here.
Daito's eyes narrowed.
He could finally see it.
Not perfectly only fragments.
But enough.
The future.
Monday gritted his teeth.
Blood slowly escaped the corner of his mouth...
Despite his body never moving.
"...This..."
He whispered.
"...is completely insane..."
Across from them...Cassian smiled once more.
A quiet smile.
One born from genuine admiration.
"...So..."
He exhaled slowly.
"...This is where you've dragged me."
And inside that impossible battlefield beyond time...
The war...Continued.
To Be Continued...