Black Dragon X [LitRPG • Dark Fantasy]-Chapter 46 - 45 : To Hell....Skyler

The air remains heavy with the pulse of the stone.

Skyler stands, the Eclipse Blade in his hand, his eyes a calm ring of eclipse.

Kanade smiles. The threads breathe around her. One step from her and the rock beneath her foot sinks slightly.

—"Let us see... what kind of sun you now carry."

And she launches forward. The threads surge from every direction, not moving in a straight line but twisting to strike from blind angles.

Skyler does not move immediately. A pulse. He whispers:

"Archive System - Solar Pulse Origin: Helio-Mythic Branch."

The pulse shifts. Any movement outside its rhythm... falters.

The threads approach then their synchronization breaks. Two threads collide with each other. A fraction of a second is enough.

Skyler moves. A slanted arc cuts through the air. The rock behind Kanade splits along a clean line. The edge of the arc grazes her shoulder before veering away.

She parries the strike with two intersecting threads, but her balance wavers. She narrows her eyes.

—"You meddle with perception..."

And she whispers:

"The Loom - Depth XIII: Intent Collapse."

Skyler surges forward, then the drive vanishes. Suddenly, there is no reason to move. The intent settles.

His body freezes half a step in the air. If he were an ordinary fighter... he would have stopped. But the pulse of the stone continues. The rhythm does not break.

He moves despite the void. The Eclipse Arc slices a thread in half.

Kanade steps back half a step. Her smile widens.

—"Good."

And she vanishes from her spot.

Skyler whispers immediately:

"Solar Pulse Origin: The Silent Orbit."

A thin black aura swirls around him. Any approaching attack... is delayed by a tiny fraction of a second before completing.

The threads surge then slow within the orbit. A low strike. A fine crack appears on Kanade’s shoulder. The first blood.

The threads behind her tremble. She laughs softly.

—"So... you delay fate."

She raises her hand slowly.

"Depth XVI : Spatial Amnesia."

Space falters. Left and right lose their meaning. Forward could be backward. The place itself does not move. But the sense of direction is forcibly rearranged.

Every step he thinks is forward... could lead him into a strike. His foot tilts slightly toward the wrong direction before correcting.

But the pulse remains steady within Skyler. It indicates his true position. He opens his eyes fully.

"Solar Pulse Origin: Helio-Void Field."

The field shifts. Everything entering its boundary... slows for a moment before occurring. A thread a centimeter from his neck pauses for a brief instant.

Enough. One strike. The threads are severed. A deeper line of blood appears along Kanade’s side. She stops. She does not fall. She smiles... wider.

"Depth XVII: Self Disassociation."

Skyler’s hand feels as if it is not his own. The movement nearly falters. But memories of battle pass through him an old rhythm, experience not entirely his own.

His grip steadies. He steps forward. The field compresses.

Kanade is close now. Very close. Blood slides slowly down her arm.

He remains unscathed. They stand face to face. The air between them is heavy. A pulse. The eclipse in his eyes spins. The threads behind her tremble.

She smiles, despite the blood.

—"Finally... I found you."

He raises the Eclipse Blade slightly. His voice is calm.

"I haven’t arrived yet."

The rock beneath their feet cracks lightly. Kanade stands before him. Blood trickles lightly from her arm.

Then, she smiles. Not a smile of challenge. But a smile of pure joy.

"This level has never been seen by anyone before."

The threads that had been swirling around her begin to tremble. They tense. Stretching like strings pulled to their limit.

Then, they return. One by one. They enter her body. They do not pierce it. But melt into it.

Each thread that touches her skin transforms into a trace of light, then vanishes beneath the surface. Even the last thread.

She is no longer controlled from the outside. she has become the fabric itself. The air settles. The threads are no longer visible.

But the sensation of them draws closer. Her eyes change. There is no longer a fixed pupil.

Inside each eye, tiny circles move slowly, as if perception itself orbits. Sometimes she looks at him but her focus rests in a completely different direction.

Her hair moves without wind. Her shadow on the ground is filled with tiny black holes, as if parts of it have been erased from existence.

The sound in the space drops suddenly. As if someone lowered the volume of the world. The air grows heavier. Not a physical pressure but the weight of meaning.

She takes a step.

He does not see the movement. He sees her there then closer. She does not move quickly... the step between the two positions is erased.

Missing frames. Only the result.

The dust beneath her feet does not move. As if the distance itself has been deleted.

Geometric lines appear in the air around her. Cognitive circles form, then vanish. Transparent weaving patterns manifest for a moment... then dissipate.

For a single second, her eyes turn completely black. Then the rotation returns within them.

She whispers, and her voice no longer comes only from her mouth but from the void around it:

—"You change the center of perception."

She takes another step and the ground makes no sound.

—"And I... sever it."

She raises her hand. No threads. But the air around her seems cracked. As if glass has shattered in the void.

And from within the cracks fragments form. Not threads. Thin, transparent pieces, like broken glass.

But they do not reflect light, they refract it. One settles in her hand. Sometimes formed of faint light. Sometimes of dense shadow. It alternates between the two.

Her new weapon : The Shard.

She holds it lightly. It does not shine. It makes no sound. But the air around it splits into a thin line.

Skyler does not move. Not a single hair. The eclipse in his eyes rotates slowly. The Eclipse Blade remains steady in his hand. The thin black aura still swirls around him.

A pulse. The field stabilizes.

Kanade appears suddenly before him.

He does not see the movement. He sees the result. The shard passes near his neck but does not cut the flesh. It passes through the aura.

It cuts something invisible it severs the pulse’s order within the aura. The aura dims for a moment, and his neck is exposed.

It does not touch the energy... but severs its connection to the order. Then its trace vanishes.

The eclipse pulse is delayed by a fraction of a second. Then returns. The orbit reconnects what was severed.

His shadow lags by half a second. But his body does not flinch. He does not retreat. He does not blink.

It leaves no mark on his skin but the sensation around him falters.

Kanade smiles wider.

—"Do not cut the body."

She raises the shard before his eyes.

—"I cut the function."

It does not destroy the energy itself... but severs the link that allows it to operate within the rest of the system. As if the heart still beats... but the blood no longer knows where to go.

The shard passes through the echo of his voice in the air, the echo vanishes completely.

His voice no longer carries weight in the space. It no longer rebounds. It disappears and appears behind him.

The shard passes through the air. The field trembles. For a moment, the pulse nearly falters. But the pulse of the stone returns stronger. The orbit corrects the disruption.

Skyler does not turn. His voice comes out calm, cold:

"Try it."

He appears before her suddenly this time. Not with a surge but with a resolved decision. The Eclipse Arc moves with deadly slowness.

The shard collides with it. No sparks. No sound of impact. But a conceptual split as if the concept of "protection" collides with the concept of "cancellation."

The air between them cracks further. The circles in her eyes accelerate. The eclipse in his eyes stabilizes.

They stand facing each other. Very close. The shard at his neck. The Eclipse Blade at her wounded shoulder.

No one retreats.

The air is heavy. The sound is low. And the mountain, witnesses the birth of a confrontation no longer merely a fight. But a clash of two concepts.

The air between them is no longer air. The heat between them rises, and the dust no longer falls to the ground.

Kanade smiles. The shard in her hand gleams for a moment with light... then sinks into shadow.

Skyler remains still. The Eclipse Blade at his shoulder. The pulse reverberates through his bones.

Then, she vanishes.

He does not see the movement. He sees the result.

Kanade appears before him with a short, transparent dagger. A swift thrust toward his eye. The target is not flesh. But perception. The strike touches the aura :

"The Loom Break - Sensory of Sight."

The world goes dark for half a second.

He does not lose his sight... but loses visual priority. The light falters. The eclipse in his eyes wavers. But the pulse continues. The aura reconnects.

Sight returns before balance collapses. The Eclipse Blade rises diagonally cutting the air near her shoulder.

A second wound. Deeper. A drop of blood falls onto the rock.

Kanade does not flinch. Her smile widens. Then, She breaks the shard with her hand. Small fragments scatter.

They surge toward him from multiple angles. They are not lethal but each one that passes near him inflicts a light wound.

His knee loses balance for a moment. His shoulder freezes for a fraction of a second. His breath is cut for a single pulse.

They are not wounds... but sequential function disruption. She moves to exploit the chaos.

But he whispers calmly:

"Solar Pulse Origin: Abyssal Convergence."

The eclipse in his eyes completes. His voice emerges in two layers. A double echo. Black light cracks spread across his arms.

The next strike is no longer energy but a decision. When he moves the outcome is determined before arrival.

For a brief moment the shadow of an old warrior appears behind him.

He does not speak. He does not control. Only... parallels.

Skyler surges forward. The shards shatter.

Kanade raises the Shard Blade. A long, broken sword, composed of sharp tension. It collides with the Eclipse Arc. No sparks. But a conceptual split.

A thin black line cleaves the space between the two weapons, and the sound vanishes for a fraction of a second, as if the air itself has been divided in half.

Skyler’s arm freezes for a moment. But within Abyssal Convergence the strike has already "occurred" in the decision.

What is resolved in the depth... does not require a body to complete. Even if his body freezes for a moment, the path he chose continues on its own.

His arm completes the motion despite the freeze. It surpasses the freeze.

A third wound splits her side. This time more blood. The shard cracks. A small piece scratches her palm.

She does not feel it. The pain is delayed. She laughs softly.

—"Good..."

Then, The Shard Needle appears in her hand. Thin as a needle. It vanishes and appears before his forehead.

She thrusts it a hair’s breadth. The thought that had begun to form is severed. An internal void.

Skyler whispers:

"Solar Pulse Origin: Burial Recall."

The silence of a warrior who died in a solar explosion returns as an internal weight.

A silent pressure drives into Kanade’s chest, as if the memory of a death not her own... has been imposed within her.

Her knees sink half a centimeter, and her breath suddenly grows heavier. The void is no longer empty. But filled with solid silence.

Skyler does not retreat.

The needle shatters between his fingers. He pushes it away. The Eclipse Arc completes a full rotation.

A strike descends from above cleaving the air down to the ground. A rocky explosion erupts behind her.

Kanade steps back this time a full step. Her breath grows slightly heavier. But her smile... does not disappear.

The pulse changes. Deeper. Heavier.

Skyler slowly raises his head.

"Solar Pulse Origin: Solar Archive Throne."

His hair moves like cold flames. The pupils vanish. A complete eclipse. His voice carries an ancient, non-human layer.

The field expands. An old battle... A solar warrior... An opponent resembling a conceptual thread. The conclusion was a single decisive strike.

Not a replication. But the imposition of a pattern. Every similarity brings the outcome closer to its original conclusion.

Memory Overlap begins weaving the resemblance. The more the present moment mirrors that old battle... the closer the ending comes to repeating as it once did.

Not because it is being replayed... but because the pattern itself is imposed upon the present.

The distance she has just retreated is the same distance the old opponent stepped back. The angle of her shoulder aligns without her noticing.

Kanade feels it. For the first time, the circles in her eyes accelerate with genuine concern.

"It imposes the end..." she whispers.

But he advances. Each step weighs upon the ground. The air bends.

She steps back half a step without realizing.

The outcome approaches. The next strike could have ended her. And she knows it. Her smile changes.

It does not vanish. But becomes deeper. Calmer. She raises the final shard. Not a dagger. Nor a sword. A pure, transparent fragment. She whispers, her tone stripped of amusement:

"The Loom Break - Core Break."

She does not attack him. She does not push him. She does not paralyze his body. But she separates all his abilities from one another in the same instant.

There is no longer a center guiding the rest. Everything within him begins operating... independently.

She does not break a sense. She does not break a movement. She does not break a thought.

But,

She shatters Skyler’s total focus. His body bends slightly forward against his will. Each skill is severed from the others in the same moment.

His pupils vanish completely. His grip slackens. The thought guiding the strike is severed before completion.

The pulse of the stone falls silent. His inner voice vanishes entirely. The eclipse in his eyes darkens.

The orbit stops. The air silent. One second.

No perception.

No intention.

No movement.

A complete void. Even the pulse within his ears ceases.

The world does not vanish, he is the one who steps out of it for a moment. And at the heart of that second Kanade moves. The shard rises. The finishing strike begins.

But after seconds. A pulse. Then, A crack. A thin line of light splits the darkness.

Skyler breathes suddenly. Air returns to his chest like a stab. Blurred vision. A distant sound. The echo of battle... fading.

Colors return slowly. The rock. The dust. The blood. His eyes widen. Perception returns all at once.

He tries to move, Something stands before him. A shadow. No. A person.

Kai.

Standing directly in front of him. Closer than he should be. His features are calm. But his eyes... are no longer as they once were.

Silence.

The wind passes between them. The scene narrows. Only the two of them. Kai looks at Skyler’s stone. Then lifts his gaze to him.

Then:

"To hell... Skyler."

The words are not spoken with regret. But as a decision made long before this moment.

Kai’s hand rises. Claws form. Something sharp. Direct.

Skyler does not understand. Not yet. He blinks. Half a second. And then, The strike.

The claw drives straight toward the stone. Impact. A full strike with all its weight. The stone cracks. A deep fissure runs to its core.

White flash. The sound vanishes. The world falls silent.

Skyler’s eyes reflect Kai’s image before him a frozen frame.

Then the seen cut ...