“Put away the little toys, will you? If this level belongs on stage, you’re making me lose face—Oz’s face.”

The young man named Oz smiled and flicked the fallen blade back with his boot. He didn’t care that it was a Titleholder-grade weapon. He even curled a finger at the two, a playful hook, like bait waved before hungry fish.

Shock first, then focus. Aphelia still felt the echo of that dazzling strike that had driven the assassin Titleholder out of the Void. She studied Oz’s armor and blade, eyes cool as moonlight. A weapon that could cleave into the Void wouldn’t be a mortal trinket.

The blade looked like a plain greatsword. Its slim scabbard hinted at some other-space device. Oz’s strength was unknown, so Aphelia dared not test him with her senses. She kept her breath still, like frost on a lake.

Chains coiled the sword’s guard, dull as old rust. The blade showed no gleam, no boast. Only a strange emblem broke its quiet. The same emblem marked Oz’s shoulder and breastplate, like a sigil stamped by night.

“Oz, don’t think being a Demonic Knight makes you untouchable.”

The white figure hovering above spoke with a muddied voice, smoke-thick and sexless. It was processed, like Aphelia’s had been.

“Say that again? I couldn’t quite hear you.”

Oz piled exaggerated confusion on his face. He cupped a hand to his ear, theater-staged. The smile at his mouth leaked through like sunlight from a cloud.

“I said—”

The white figure pressed harder, voice hammering down. Oz cut him off with laughter.

“Hahaha!”

The assassin Titleholder’s temper snapped. Both daggers flared red, like coals blown to life. He rushed in faster than a thunderclap, twin blades for Oz’s throat.

The white figure didn’t stop him. He, too, seemed riled and ready to kill. His dragon lance gathered Arcane Power, a storm caged in bone.

“I told you not to bring low-grade tricks to the table. Didn’t your master teach you anything?”

Oz’s blade cut straight, an unadorned slash without flourish. It finished before the daggers reached him, a simple stroke like a falling star. Ordinary in shape, ruthless in result—more effective than any art Aphelia had shown earlier.

The assassin stared, disbelief hollowing his gaze. A long blood-gash opened across his chest. He stumbled back, unsteady as reeds in wind. His daggers lost their power, dead iron gone cold. Aphelia’s breath hitched. The sight startled her like winter thunder.

Time? The thought flashed, then broke. No—his speed outstripped the assassin’s by far. This wasn’t time’s hook at work. Then how did steel die, and blood bloom so sharply?

He hadn’t even slipped into the Void. He hadn’t even parried. Had Oz’s speed reached the edge of the world?

Caution tightened Aphelia’s hands. She didn’t move. His blade aimed at the pair, but the wind could turn. If she twitched, it might point at her.

As if reading her stillness, Oz wiped the blood from his blade with easy grace. He spoke with the polish of a host at a tea table.

“Miss, don’t worry. You aren’t my target. Please be patient. Once I deal with these rude fellows, I think we can—”

Whoosh— The pure-white lance tore across the Void, screaming with Arcane Power. It speared toward Oz like a lightning-bolt honed to a needle.

The charge was complete. Thunder gathered like a storm herd. Elements and Arcane Power braided into blinding Thunder, streaking the sky and diving at Oz. Even at its edge, Aphelia felt the wrecking force, a tidal push against her bones.

That Thunder tasted faintly of a god’s power, a high note on the wind.

It wasn’t just the white figure’s strike. The assassin vanished again, swallowed by the Void. His first reckless rush had been a decoy for this blow, mist over a cliff’s drop.

Oz felt strong—the strength of a high Titleholder, Aphelia guessed. But this strike grazed the realm of a Demigod. Alone, he might not stand.

“…Interesting. You couldn’t let me finish?”

Oz gripped the blade in both hands. Runes etched along the steel flared blood-red, like ink ignited. He roared and met the Thunder head-on, a river crashing into a storm.

They collided. For a heartbeat, the world froze like ice under moonlight. Then power broke open like a dam.

Aphelia raised her Bracer Gauntlets. She layered shields of thick Arcane Power, glass panes against a hailstorm. She braced for impact, snow-sure and steady.

Minutes passed. No shock arrived. Confusion pricked her skin. She eased her arms aside and glanced at the clash.

The sight widened her eyes like lantern light in a cavern.

Oz stood at the center, wrapped in chains upon chains. They moved like living serpents, weaving through air. The plain blade shed its cover, revealing a crimson body. Runes carved along the blade pulsed like embers.

At the battle’s heart, a pitch-black dot hung there, stark as a star that had inverted. It drank the world. Silent, hungry, beast-like. Every burst of force barely traveled a meter before the dot tugged it back and erased it, like foam swallowed by undertow.

It was darkness that could devour light. Aphelia felt nothing from it—no emotion, no soul-scent. At first she mistook it for the Plague of Beasts. But the dot had no will, no hate, only pure, endless hunger.

“Remarkable. I actually had to use this.”

Oz watched the white figure’s wavering stance. That shield had been meant to meet everything. The black dot had shaken him instead, a new eclipse in his sky.

Oz thrust his blade through the dot and into empty air to the side. The sword slid in and ripped back. Blood sprayed from the Void, blooming like roses in rain. The assassin clutched his arm and hid behind the white figure, a shadow ducking behind a wall.

“Dodged the vitals. Mm. Not bad. Still weak.”

Oz taunted freely. Chains spilled from the guard like a nest of vipers, striking at the pair. Each link carried the dot’s chill. The two recoiled, step by step, like tide pushed off the shore.

The shield couldn’t cover them everywhere. Cut one chain and two grew back, hydra-quick. They probed every angle, hunting gaps, herding the duo into a corner with no path left.

“W-we’re sorry, Lord Oz. We were too arrogant. Please, spare us…!”

Cracks showed in the white figure’s composure. Black crept from the punctures in his pure armor, a rot eating snow. His spirit buckled. He begged without dignity, voice thin as smoke in rain.

“Sure. Hand over the shield. It was never yours.”

Oz spoke lightly, but the chains never stopped. They kept the pair pinned, a net over struggling fish. Even the assassin, master of the Void, got hauled back out, gasping.

Oz watched them like fools in a play. He held every advantage. He wouldn’t accept a simple surrender. If he wished, he could kill them and take the shield at leisure.

“I—I’ll give you the dragon lance too, as compensation…”

“Do I need to repeat who I am? You aren’t candidate knights. You tried to kill a Demonic Knight. Your master won’t save you.”

Pressure mounted. Under Oz’s words like hammer blows, the white figure finally decided. He hurled everything—including a ring—into the air and shouted, voice tight.

“What’s inside proves my sincerity!”

The chains caught the offerings with agile grace and ferried them back to Oz’s hand. He examined the ring, eyes calm as night water. Only then did the assault end.

The countless chains receded like a tide at dusk, flowing back into the sword’s guard. The air exhaled. The sky seemed to breathe again.