?????°???°?????

  Orion moved first.

  There was no provocation, no warning. The newly transformed body surged forward like a living mass of shadow and muscle, the ground splitting beneath his feet.

  The creature’s hand turned into a blade. The black blade passed through the space where Victor’s neck had been a moment earlier, tearing through the air. Victor twisted his body and responded in the same motion.

  The punch landed cleanly.

  The impact was perfect, fist clenched, full rotation, force fully focused. Orion’s face warped for a brief instant before snapping back into place.

  And then Victor felt it.

  Pain exploded across his face.

  The sound came late. A dry, deep crack echoed inside his own body. Victor was thrown backward, rolling across the snow.

  Orion hadn’t moved back at all.

  Victor forced himself up, teeth clenched.

  ‘It’s like that skill that reflects the fifth hit. But this shouldn’t work now, it wasn’t the fifth strike, and he isn’t even a clone.’

  Orion advanced again.

  Victor barely dodged, feeling the wind of the blade slice his skin. He tried to counterattack with a kick, instinctive, straight to the stomach.

  Pain tore through his body instantly, launching Victor backward as he slammed into the ground.

  “Victor! Are you okay?” Serena rushed toward him with what little strength she had left.

  “I’m fine. Focus on controlling your skill so you don’t hurt yourself. I’ll handle this.”

  Orion did not advance right away.

  The dark, deformed body slowly stabilized, bones still creaking beneath blackened skin, as if the body itself was finishing its acceptance of that form. The mass of shadow pulsed at a steady rhythm, dense, alive.

  From his head, red horns grew, and his teeth took on the same color.

  Then he spoke.

  “Are you sure about that, Victor?”

  His voice wasn’t monstrous. It was deeper, heavier, but clear. Articulated. There was thought behind it. Intention.

  Victor remained on guard.

  Orion tilted his head, studying him like a broken tool.

  “I thought you’d understand faster.” A crooked smile formed on his distorted face. “I’m not like the others.”

  He slowly opened his black hand, fingers stretching unnaturally before returning to normal.

  “Nightwalker. That’s the name. An existence that denies the physical body. Blows, impact, brute force… all of that loses meaning.” His eyes narrowed. “And in my case, it goes further. Any physical damage you try to deal… is returned to you. Because of my unique skill, [Black Coffin].”

  For a moment, Orion seemed genuinely intrigued, his gaze traveling over Victor from head to toe.

  “A Metamorph.” He spat the word. “I hated your race from the moment I learned it existed. Monsters born complete. Monsters who never have to beg for power.”

  Victor didn’t answer.

  Orion continued.

  “Right now, I am the most incompatible species for a Metamorph to fight.”

  His gaze drifted away for a brief second, as if facing a memory too old to be comfortable.

  “I swallowed something. Long before all of this. A fragment.” He let out a low laugh. “From the same place.”

  Orion’s eyes returned to Serena.

  “From the same origin as the collar I put on her.” His voice hardened. “I don’t know what that place is. Or who can create something capable of turning humans into monsters.”

  He clenched his fist tightly.

  “But maybe…” he lifted his gaze to Victor, “this was always our fate.”

  The shadow around his body thickened.

  “It’s over. I’m never becoming human again. So I’ll make sure my final moments are used to kill you… and that girl. After that, if I don’t die, I’ll hunt down the one who destroyed my life.”

  The smile returned, slow, cruel.

  °??──────??°

  Orion attacked without warning. His shadowy body exploded forward, the distance devoured in an instant. Victor reacted, twisting his body and leaping aside at the exact moment a black blade tore through the space where his torso would have been.

  He didn’t counterattack.

  Victor turned and ran.

  Snow burst beneath his feet as he sprinted straight ahead. He wanted to draw Orion away from Serena, as far as possible.

  Behind him, the air tore apart.

  Orion propelled his body like a projectile, muscles and shadow compressing before exploding forward. The ground collapsed under the force of his jump. He closed dozens of meters in the blink of an eye.

  Victor felt it before he saw it.

  He twisted his torso, leaned his body, and let the attack pass by mere centimeters. The blade sliced through the air and detonated the ground behind him.

  Trees began to fall, crushed by the trail of destruction left by the two of them.

  ‘I’m starting to get the hang of enhancing myself with mana. But even so, he keeps up without any trouble. How do you defeat something you can’t even hit?’

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Orion caught up to Victor mid-sprint, his shadowed arm stretching like a living spear. Victor twisted at the last moment, feeling the impact graze his ribs as he countered with a straight punch.

  Feeling the reflected damage as he was hurled backward, Victor recovered and kept running.

  ‘The problem isn’t just the reflection, it’s how he nullifies physical damage. Even so, whatever I do just comes back to me.’

  He turned, firing a compressed beam of fire. The explosion struck Orion square in the chest.

  There was no reflection.

  But the damage wasn’t what Victor expected either.

  Orion advanced.

  Victor was struck in the abdomen.

  The impact launched him backward like a projectile, tearing through the air until he collided with the side of a mountain. The rock exploded at the point of impact, fragments flying like shrapnel.

  Before he could recover, Orion was already there.

  The ground split beneath his feet as he descended with a vertical strike. Victor rolled aside, feeling the mountain tremble as the attack carved a deep fissure into the stone.

  Victor switched to using more skills instead of physical attacks, and they truly weren’t being reflected.

  “Condense your attack. What really matters is how dense your mana is and where you focus it.”

  Viola’s voice echoed in his mind.

  ‘Density…’

  With no other reference but her words, Victor crossed his fingers, compressing his mana until it formed a small sphere of fire. The glow flickered between deep red and unstable bluish tones.

  Unlike before, he poured in even more mana than usual.

  He pointed his finger at Orion’s face at point-blank range.

  The beam pierced through him like a solid impact, hurling him into the mountain behind.

  The explosion followed immediately.

  The mountain wasn’t destroyed at once, it trembled, as if hesitating between existing and collapsing. A deep sound echoed from within, and then the entire peak was torn apart from the inside out, tons of rock blasted away like shrapnel.

  Orion’s regeneration didn’t give him the advantage for long.

  Within moments, the two were face to face again, trading blows at a speed that made the air scream. Punches, kicks, elbows, each impact generated shockwaves that crushed the stone around them.

  ‘Faster.’

  Victor thought as he poured mana into every fiber of his body. His muscles contracted beyond their natural limits, his senses expanding.

  The world slowed down.

  Fragments of rock suspended in the air seemed to float. Cracks spread in slow motion. Even the sound felt delayed.

  But Orion kept up.

  Victor lunged forward with a straight punch to the torso.

  The impact was perfect, strong, clean.

  And it came back.

  Pain exploded at the exact same spot in Victor’s own chest, as if he had struck himself with full force.

  Without hesitation, Victor activated a skill, detonating his [Fire Manipulation] directly into Orion.

  They continued.

  Every physical blow Victor landed was instantly returned, forcing him to alternate between direct attacks, skills, and last-second changes in trajectory. Orion smiled faintly, comfortable in the chaos.

  The two shot through the mountains, tearing through entire layers of stone as if they were thin glass. Tunnels were carved by force, peaks collapsed behind them, and the land had no time to react before being destroyed again.

  Between one exchange of blows and the next, the mountain finally gave way.

  A colossal roar echoed as the entire structure collapsed, massive blocks of stone hurled in all directions, raising a dense cloud of dust and smoke that swallowed everything.

  When the sound faded…

  There was no mountain left.

  The land that once rose in peaks was now completely flattened, as if something had passed over it and crushed everything without mercy.

  Victor emerged from the smoke first, gasping.

  His chest rose and fell with difficulty, his breathing heavy. The clothing on his upper body was gone, reduced to nothing by the violence of the impacts and constant reflection. His body bore marks, not only from Orion’s blows, but from his own attacks turned against him.

  Orion appeared soon after.

  Upright posture. Steady breathing.

  He looked… far too fine.

  The dust hadn’t fully settled when Orion spoke.

  He walked through the wreckage as if the devastated field were nothing more than ordinary ground. Fragments of rock were swallowed by the shadow around him.

  “Curious. I should be the hero of this story.” His voice was far too calm for the scene. “You should be the villain.”

  Victor lifted his gaze, body still tense, mana pulsing in the air as it leaked out.

  Orion slowly opened his arms, as if presenting the destroyed world around them.

  “You want to protect someone who made so many innocents suffer. Isn’t that right?” Orion laughed softly. “Heroes make sacrifices for the greater good. Villains sacrifice the greater good for an ideal.”

  Something stirred in Victor’s chest. He let out a muffled laugh.

  “Heroes? Villains? Seriously, you’re really irritating.”

  Victor always kept himself calm, or in a gray area, whether in tone or expression. But now Orion realized he was finally showing his true feelings.

  “To be honest, I didn’t like you the first time I saw you either. This whole situation is a pain in the ass… Aaaah, damn it! You piss me off!”

  The ground cracked beneath his feet as he charged.

  There was no technique. No calculation.

  The fight resumed in a brutal form.

  Victor attacked like a wounded animal, punches, kicks, shoulder strikes, direct blows mixed with skills fired at point-blank range. Every physical hit reflected back tore into his own body, but he didn’t stop.

  “That’s it! Show me who you really are, no more lies between us!” Orion shouted as he was struck.

  Victor pushed his mana flow even further.

  His reasoning speed accelerated to the limit, thoughts fragmenting into overlapping instants. He saw trajectories, anticipated movements, forced his body beyond what it should endure.

  Even so, Orion kept up.

  Victor leapt through the sky, bombarding Orion without pause.

  His mana was being consumed far too quickly.

  In a single moment of carelessness as Victor landed, the shadow stretched.

  A black blade sliced through the air in an arc.

  Victor felt the impact before the pain.

  The cut split his chest from side to side, deep, precise. Blood burst outward as the force hurled him backward.

  He fell.

  His body hit the ground with a dull thud, dust rising around him. Victor lay there on his back, arms spread, his chest rising unevenly as blood streamed across his skin.

  The world felt far too large for someone who, at that moment, could not stand.

  °??──────??°

  The sky was… beautiful.

  Funny to notice that now.

  Lying on my back, I watched snowflakes fall slowly, spinning through the air before disappearing against my warm face. There was no pain. In fact… I felt strange. Light. As if the weight that had been crushing me for days had finally loosened.

  My chest rose and fell with difficulty. Each breath was shallow.

  ? Sir. Your mana is extremely low. The battle against Honda, regenerating your head, and the entire fight against Orion have drained your reserves. You will die. ?

  The voice echoed in my mind, as clear as ever. No emotion. No hesitation.

  Oh, right. For monsters like me, running out of mana is dangerous too. How lovely.

  ? For our survival, I recommend retreat. ?

  I blinked slowly, following a snowflake until it dissolved in the air.

  I smiled faintly. Almost involuntarily.

  “Ah… it’s fine.”

  There was silence. A silence far too heavy.

  The voice of the [Skillful King] changed. Not in tone, but in intent.

  ? Giving up contradicts our existence. We must survive. ?

  I closed my eyes for a moment.

  “I’m not giving up…”

  I opened them again, staring at the gray sky.

  “I’m just tired now.”

  ? That is impossible. You are a Metamorph. ?

  “Yeah… but I’m human too. My head’s a mess.”

  My breathing faltered for a moment, but I continued.

  “These days have been hell. I woke up fighting. I ran, bled, killed, protected… without stopping for even a second.”

  The words came more easily than I expected.

  “I don’t even know who I really am… everything I did was just following an ‘I think this is right.’ But I really tried…”

  The snow kept falling. Silent. Indifferent.

  “This reality isn’t mine… who am I kidding? There’s no way I can live here. Ever since I arrived, I haven’t had a single moment of peace.”

  His presence approached before I even saw him.

  The shadow blocked part of the sky.

  “So now you’re hallucinating. Great.”

  Orion’s voice was calm.

  “You held out that long against a natural predator of your species. Very few would have made it that far.”

  I didn’t turn my head. I didn’t have the strength.

  Heavy footsteps echoed through the surrounding wreckage.

  Then I heard it.

  “Victor!”

  The voice came from afar. Shaking. Desperate.

  ‘Serena…’

  My body didn’t respond. But with effort, I turned my gaze toward her.

  She was exhausted, sweaty, dirty. She really had been through a lot.

  Orion fell silent for a moment. Then he turned his head toward her.

  “Hm.”

  The shadow around him stirred slightly.

  “Impressive,”

  He spoke loudly enough for her to hear.

  “This time… you didn’t run.”

  The snow continued to fall.

  I looked at Serena. For some reason, it was a beautiful sight.

  ?????°???°?????