[The Void Arena – 5 Minutes 50 Seconds Remaining]
The sheer brilliance of Saina's Visual Energy aura forced everyone in the spectator stands to shield their eyes. The air hummed with a frequency so high it made the obsidian stones vibrate.
"What is this pressure?" Kokoi gasped, leaning over the railing, his face illuminated by the neon-rainbow glow of Saina's sunglasses. "This doesn't feel like a Z-rank ability anymore. It feels like she's tapping into a different dimension of mana!"
Siyo gripped his weapons, his eyes wide. "She's not just using light; she's dominating it. Look at the way the void shadows are being physically pushed back!"
Lapis remained silent, his Honoured Eyes spinning rapidly to process the data. She's converting her entire biological mana pool into high-frequency photons, he analyzed. It's a perfect conversion, but the cost...
Nefa let out a low whistle, a rare look of genuine impress on her face. "Our little fan-girl has some serious teeth. That's a Z-Elite tier output, even if it's temporary."
Techyon felt Mana in his chest flare up in response to the light. He looked at Cynthia, who was watching with narrowed eyes, her flames unusually still.
"Her passive ability is very good," Lilia whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the arena. "But it uses mana like crazy. I don't think she can maintain this form for more than ten minutes. If she doesn't finish this now, she's finished."
Saina didn't hear them. Behind her star-shaped Dominator Sunglasses, the world was a grid of targets.
"MILLION LASER!" Saina screamed.
The air behind her back fractured. From her aura, millions of small, crystalline drones forged from pure mana materialized instantly. They fanned out like a swarm of angry hornets, surrounding Gladiator Bahamu from every conceivable angle—up, down, left, right, and even from the blind spots beneath his heavy armor.
"Fire!"
In a single micro-second, millions of concentrated laser beams converged on the Gladiator. The void was erased by a blinding white pillar of energy. The sound wasn't an explosion, but a continuous, high-pitched hiss of the universe being melted.
Bahamu was at the center of a 360-degree execution. The "999 Pro Max" damage wasn't just a claim anymore—it was a reality that turned the arena into a miniature sun.
Gaia watched the neon devastation through narrowed eyes, her golden pupils reflecting the flickering lasers. Her mind raced back fifteen years, to the scorched battlefields where the world almost ended.
This mana frequency... it's too familiar, Gaia thought, her grip tightening on the stone railing.
"Neweland, Ruta," Gaia called out over the roar of the lasers. "Did you notice her aura? The way the light bends into those geometric shapes... it's just like her."
Ruta grunted, his magma-veins pulsing with a dull heat. "Yeah. I was thinking the same thing. But I saw her fall with my own eyes. I thought the Radiant Valkyrie died in the Second Great War. No one could have survived that final explosion."
"The world works in strange cycles," Neweland added, his voice deep and rhythmic like the tide. "Looking at Saina now, I think she is either that woman's daughter or a chosen successor. She carries the same 'Visual Energy' that once blinded the Monarchs."
On the battlefield below, the million lasers converged into a single point of infinite pressure. The sound died away, replaced by an eerie, absolute silence. Then, the world turned white.
BOOM!
An explosion erupted that rivaled a Big Bang. A sphere of pure, prismatic fire expanded outward, threatening to vaporize everything in its path.
"Hold steady!" Gaia commanded. She slammed her hand down, and a massive Obsidian Barrier shimmered into existence, wrapping around the spectator seats. The shockwave slammed into the barrier, shaking the Arcons to their core, but the observers remained safe.
As the light finally began to fade, Fraxy peered over the edge, her hair blown back by the residual heat. "Woah... her attacks are incredibly strong! I've never seen a Z-ranker generate that much thermal energy!"
"Yes," Captain Carod agreed, his internal scanners whirring as they tried to calculate the damage. "But a strike like that needs too much mana. She's burning through her reserves at an exponential rate."
"She might get exhausted in a few minutes," Yoru warned. "If Bahamu is still standing after that, she won't have the strength to dodge his next move."
Nefa, however, leaned back with a confident smirk, watching the dust settle in the arena. "I don't think she'll get exhausted this early. Look at her glasses... they aren't just spending mana. They're recycling the light from the explosion."
As the smoke cleared, the team gasped. In the center of a massive, molten crater, Gladiator Bahamu was still standing. His obsidian armor was glowing red, cracked in a dozen places, but his red visor was brighter than ever.
He had caught the final laser beam with his bare hand.
"You are far better than the first one," Bahamu's voice echoed, sounding like grinding stones. "But..."
As he uttered that single word, the space where he stood folded. He didn't just move; he vanished into the frequency of the void.
In the stands, the Z-rankers gasped, their eyes darting wildly. Even Lapis and Yoru struggled to track the displacement. Only Cynthia , her amber eyes glowing with a white-hot intensity, saw the ripple in the dark mana.
"Where did he go?!" Saina shouted, her Dominator Sunglasses spinning digital calculations across her vision. "I can't find his heat signature!"
"Saina! Behind you!" Cynthia's voice cut through the air like a whip.
Saina didn't turn—she didn't have time. She felt the sudden, freezing chill of the Black Flame pressing against her back. Bahamu had reappeared in her blind spot, his jagged greatsword raised high for a vertical cleave that would have split the arena in two.
But Saina's Visual Energy passive reacted before her brain could.
"ENERGY SPHERE THROW!" she screamed, pivoting on one heel.
Instead of a small projectile, a colossal orb of shimmering, high-density light materialized beside the Gladiator. It was so large it looked like a moon made of neon plasma. The sphere's gravitational pull dragged Bahamu toward its center, trapping the Commander within its glowing shell.
A heartbeat later, the sphere collapsed in on itself and detonated.
BOOM!
The explosion was no longer a Big Bang; it was a Supernova. The entire Void turned a blinding, crystalline white. The heat was so intense it began to melt the obsidian walls of the dungeon. Saina stood in the center of the gale, her clothes tattered and her mana gauge flashing a critical, dying red.
"I... I got him," she panted, her sunglasses flickering as the energy began to fade.
But as the smoke cleared, the victory cry died in her throat. Through the swirling grey ash and cinders, a dark, heavy object was flying toward her at speeds of light.
It was Bahamu's giant greatsword.
Thrown with the desperate strength of a dying god, the blade cut through the air, aimed directly at Saina's chest. She was too exhausted to move. The Dominator Mode was flickering out.