My Soul card is a Reaper-Chapter 1040: Dreams of the Past: The Triplets fight with Aurelius (Part-1)
Rael moved first.
There was no hesitation, no warning, no polite buildup, because Rael had already learned something in the academy and through every fight that followed. The moment you let a superior enemy settle into rhythm, you were already dead.
His scythe cut through the air with a sharp, black gleam, and death energy surged along its curved blade like smoke wrapped around steel.
Rael’s body leaned forward, boots crushing the earth as he launched himself in a straight line, and the moment he closed the distance, he swung.
"Soul skill: Slice of Death."
A dense arc of black energy tore outward, wide and brutal, screaming through the air like a guillotine meant to erase everything in its path.
The arc raced toward Aurelius with murderous certainty, slicing the wind itself, and the spectators stiffened as the ground trembled under the sheer pressure of it.
Aurelius did not dodge.
He simply raised his right hand and punched.
His fist collided with the death arc like a hammer striking a glass wall, and the attack shattered instantly, breaking into black fragments of energy that scattered and dissolved before they could even reach his skin.
The impact cracked the earth beneath Aurelius’ feet, a circular fracture spreading outward like a spiderweb, but his expression did not change, and his posture remained as relaxed as if he had swatted away an insect.
Rael’s eyes widened slightly, but he didn’t stop.
He spun, his scythe whistling through the air again, using momentum to chain his movement into another strike, and behind him, Eon’s body blurred.
Not because she was fast.
Because time bent for her.
Her eyes sharpened with focus, her grip tightened, and the Hourglass pulsed once, and in that instant, the world around her slowed as if reality itself had been forced to breathe heavier.
She slipped forward with perfect footwork, closing distance from Aurelius’ blind side, and the moment Rael’s second swing forced Aurelius’ gaze to track the scythe, Eon stepped in and thrust the Hourglass forward.
The glass chamber flashed.
A wave of temporal distortion surged outward, invisible but suffocating, and the air around Aurelius rippled as if the world had turned into water.
Aurelius turned his head slightly, eyes shifting toward Eon, and for the first time, his expression showed something close to mild interest.
"You’ve improved," he said calmly.
Eon didn’t respond.
She didn’t waste breath on conversation.
Instead, she twisted her wrist, and the Hourglass released a sharp pulse that aimed to lock Aurelius’ movement for even a fraction of a second, because in a fight against a demigod, a fraction of a second was a kingdom.
Aurelius’ body moved anyway.
It wasn’t that he resisted time. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦
It was that his control over his own existence was so overwhelming that time’s grasp slid off him like rain off polished stone.
He stepped forward, inside the distortion, and his hand shot out, grabbing Eon’s wrist before her second pulse could form.
The spectators gasped because his movement looked unnatural, like he had walked through a frozen painting.
Rael’s heart lurched.
His scythe came down in a brutal downward strike meant to split Aurelius’ arm in half.
Aurelius released Eon instantly, shifting his body at the last possible moment, and the scythe blade smashed into the earth, carving a deep trench that hissed with black death energy. The ground rotted instantly where the blade touched, turning dark and brittle, and smoke rose like something dying.
Before Rael could recover, Aurelius’ fist slammed into Rael’s ribs.
Rael felt the world explode.
The air left his lungs violently, his body lifting off the ground like a ragdoll, and he crashed backward, skidding across the earth until his boots tore up soil and stopped him at the edge of the arena.
His vision blurred for a second.
His ribs screamed.
But he did not let go of his scythe.
Eon’s eyes widened, her breath catching, and for a split moment her control slipped.
That was enough.
Aurelius appeared in front of her like a shadow.
He didn’t strike her face.
He struck her stomach.
A clean, efficient blow.
Eon’s body folded, and she stumbled back, choking on air, her Hourglass shaking in her grip.
The audience fell silent.
Not because they were disappointed.
Because they were terrified.
This was the difference between heirs and a duke who had clawed his way into demigodhood.
Rael forced himself upright, blood tasting metallic in his mouth, and he grinned through the pain like a madman.
"Then I’ll just have to make you move," he muttered, and his scythe pulsed.
His soul energy surged.
The Death Scythe hummed.
"Arcane Wrath."
Black light erupted around the scythe, coating its blade like a living flame, and the air around Rael turned colder. The ground beneath his feet darkened as if the earth itself had begun to rot, and the pressure of his presence spiked enough that even knights at the edge of the arena felt their skin crawl.
Aurelius glanced at the scythe, his eyes narrowing faintly.
"That’s closer," he said.
Rael didn’t wait.
He launched forward again, faster now, his body moving like a shadow dragged by the scythe’s hunger, and he swung in rapid succession, chaining strikes together until the air filled with black crescents of death energy.
Each slice carved into the arena, leaving trails of corrupted earth and rotting stone, and the sound of the attacks was not like wind or magic, but like something being torn apart at the seams.
Aurelius moved through it calmly, his steps minimal, his body shifting with frightening precision as each arc passed close enough to tear his coat, yet none of them touched his skin.
Then Eon moved again.
This time, she didn’t rush.
She inhaled slowly, her eyes narrowing as if she had shut the world out, and the Hourglass pulsed in her hand.
Time Reduction.
The entire arena slowed.
Rael’s movements looked sharper, his swings cleaner, because Eon had reduced the world’s speed to one-tenth, and now their timing aligned perfectly. Aurelius’ movements remained fast, but for the first time, Rael and Eon could actually see his motion clearly enough to react instead of guessing.
Raphael finally stepped in.
He had been silent until now, watching with those cold eyes, calculating, analyzing, as if he were not their brother but a commander evaluating a battlefield.
His Zodiac spirit emerged behind him in a ripple of shifting light, and for a moment it did not take one form, but many.
The air twisted as a horned ram silhouette flickered, then a lion’s mane formed, then the outline of a serpent, then a bull, then a winged creature that looked like a constellation given flesh.
It was as if Raphael’s arcana spirit carried the authority of the heavens themselves, shifting between the twelve signs and the shadow thirteenth, Ophiuchus, like a forbidden star that refused to vanish.
The spectators’ eyes widened.
Even seasoned knights stiffened.
Raphael raised his hand, and a glowing seal appeared in the air, a complex circle of runes that spun like a wheel of fate.
He launched it forward.
The seal shot across the arena like a spear of light and slammed toward Aurelius’ feet, exploding into dozens of smaller seals that spread across the ground like a net.
Aurelius glanced down.
The moment his boot touched the seal field, the runes flared.
Chains of light erupted upward, attempting to bind his ankles, lock his joints, suppress his arcana output, and anchor his very soul to the earth.
For the first time, Aurelius’ expression shifted slightly.
Not fear.
Approval.
"Good," he said quietly, and then he flexed.
The chains shattered.
The seals cracked.
The runes exploded into dust.
The shockwave that followed knocked several spectators backward, forcing knights to dig their boots into the ground to avoid being thrown.
Raphael’s eyes narrowed further, and his Zodiac spirit shifted, its form twisting into a massive shadow serpent that coiled behind him, its eyes glowing like twin moons.
He launched another seal, then another, and then another, each one targeting a different angle, a different weakness, stacking layers of suppression meant to slow Aurelius down even by a hair.
Rael and Eon didn’t speak.
They didn’t even look at Raphael.
But they moved with him.
Like instinct.
Like blood.
Rael’s scythe came down with Arcane Wrath-enhanced strikes, forcing Aurelius to keep his guard up, while Eon slipped through time distortions, her body moving between heartbeats, placing temporal pressure on Aurelius’ blind spots.
Raphael’s seals created momentary windows, tiny cracks in Aurelius’ dominance, and Rael and Eon attacked those cracks immediately, without hesitation, without mercy.
