Gudmaro didn't wait. He slammed his palms into the earth, his red aura surging through the tectonic plates. "ERUPTION!"
A geyser of molten stone and white-hot heat exploded directly beneath Lapis's feet. But Lapis didn't move. He didn't even look down. He simply flicked his wrist as if brushing away a fly.
The space around the lava folded like a piece of paper. The eruption hit an invisible "wall" and reappeared directly behind Gudmaro, drenching the virus in his own molten attack.
Gudmaro leaped from the smoke, his armor hissing as the lava slid off his adaptive plating. "So," he rasped, his eyes locking onto the magenta glow. "You finally reached Passive Level 3. You've stopped existing in our space and started creating your own."
'I can feel it,' Gudmaro thought, his internal processors whirring. 'His mana is overflowing, unstable—it's like a star about to go supernova. I just need a few more minutes. If I can survive this onslaught, my second form will be complete.'
Lapis let out a soft, airy chuckle. He reached toward the horizon and closed his hand into a fist. In the distance, a jagged mountain peak groaned and snapped, the space between it and the battlefield simply vanishing.
With a roar of displaced air, the mountain appeared directly above Gudmaro, plummeting with the weight of billions of tons.
Gudmaro roared, his fists glowing as he punched upward, shattering the mountain into a million shards of granite and dust. But as the debris cleared, he realized the mountain was just a curtain.
Lapis was already there, centimeters from his face. The air crackled with magenta static as Lapis delivered a focused strike aimed at Gudmaro's core.
Gudmaro twisted his body in mid-air, the strike grazing his shoulder and erasing a chunk of his celestial armor. But Lapis wasn't finished.
"Going somewhere?" Lapis whispered.
He didn't punch again. He gripped the empty air beneath Gudmaro's feet and pulled. The space beneath the virus collapsed into a miniature gravity well. Gudmaro, caught off balance by the sudden loss of "ground," fell straight toward the abyss.
Lapis hovered above him, his eyes glowing with a terrifying light. He brought his heel down with the force of a falling moon, aiming to crush Gudmaro into the very center of the earth.
Gudmaro slammed his hands into the earth. "ERUPTION!"
A pillar of magma erupted, but Lapis didn't even blink. He simply vanished, the space around him folding into a pinprick. He reappeared ten meters away, not in a fighting stance, but casually laying on the ground, propped up on one elbow as if he were watching a sunset.
Gudmaro charged, his fist glowing with void energy. 'Why is he laying down?' the virus thought, his processors flickering with confusion. 'Is it a trap? A taunt?'
He swung his fist, but Lapis didn't move a muscle. He simply whispered, "Move."
The space beneath Gudmaro didn't just warp; it launched. The virus was sent hurtling backward, traveling miles in a single second. He smashed through skyscrapers and reinforced walls like a railgun slug until he finally crashed into the headquarters of a local Adventurer Guild.
Gudmaro pulled himself from the rubble of the guild hall, his eyes landing on the terrified rankers scrambling for cover. 'Foolish Arcon,' Gudmaro hissed, his red aura reaching out to the nearest humans. 'He gave me distance. I will consume every soul in this building and finally reach my—'
Suddenly, a streak of purple light tore through the ceiling. "Matter Technique: Magenta."
A vortex of energy manifested around Gudmaro, latching onto his armor like gravity chains and yanking him back into the sky before he could touch a single human.
Gudmaro laughed, his voice a metallic rasp. "You forget, Arcon! I have already seen this move! I have adapted!" He flexed his mechanical muscles, the Magenta chains shattering into dust. Because he had already analyzed the technique, its binding power was cut in half.
Lapis appeared in the air above him, his face inches from Gudmaro's. He landed a demonstrating punch that sent a shockwave through the atmosphere, cracking Gudmaro's chest plate.
In a blind rage, Gudmaro swung back, his fist carrying enough force to level the city. "DIE!"
But Lapis didn't even block. His Honored Eyes flashed. He saw the trajectory before Gudmaro's muscles even moved. With a tilt of his head so slight it looked like a glitch in reality, he dodged the strike perfectly.
"You're slow, virus," Lapis whispered, his magenta eyes glowing with a terrifying madness. "Even with all that stolen mana... you're still just a slow, hungry bug."
Lapis hovered in the center of a magenta nebula, his presence making the very atoms of the air vibrate.
"You call me an Arcon as if that is my limit," Lapis said, his voice echoing not just in the air, but inside Gudmaro's head. "I am not an Arcon."
Gudmaro spat out a glob of black void-fluid, his sensors struggling to calculate the sheer volume of mana pouring off the boy. "Then what are you? A ghost? A glitch in the system?"
Lapis tilted his head, a serene, terrifying smile on his face. He looked down at his hands, then out at the stars.
"Throughout this entire multiverse," Lapis whispered, "I alone am the Gifted One."
Below, in the ruins of the city, the citizens and battered adventurers looked up. They saw the magenta sky and the boy standing against the apocalypse. "LAPIS!" they screamed, their voices rising in a desperate chorus. "You can win! Kill that monster! Save us!"
[Scene Shift: The Northern Abyss - The Golden Prison]
Alya slammed her weapons against the shimmering wall of the seal. CLANG. The golden barrier didn't even ripple.
'Alya! Fast!' The Arcon of Life's voice exploded in her mind via telepathy. 'Neweland has fallen. Techyon is unconscious from the eruption. Lapis is the only one left standing between us and erasure!'
"I can't break it!" Alya cried out, her hands bleeding from the recoil. "I don't have the physical strength or the mana density to shatter an Arcon-level seal from the outside! It's too strong!"
'I will send them to you,' the Arcon of Life replied, her voice strained. 'But Neweland is a dry well, and Techyon's mind is dark. You are the only one awake, Alya. Find a way!'
[Scene Shift: The Battlefield]
Gudmaro watched the humans cheering for Lapis, a low, guttural growl vibrating in his chest. He didn't care about their hope. He only cared about the numbers flickering in his vision.
[EVOLUTION STATUS: SECOND FORM — 96.99%]
"Gifted or not," Gudmaro hissed, his armor beginning to peel back to reveal a pulsing, muscular core of pure void. "In three percent, your 'Gift' will become my dinner."