(IC) Chapter 337 - Lightning on the Crown

It began.

The field slammed down, pressure from the sky itself grinding into the obsidian crown of the Sun Pyramid.

The Overseer’s EM domain clawed at him—trying to rip the swords from his hands, to dig into his mind and tear it apart from within.

It was crushing. Overwhelming. Like the whole world wanted him broken.

Was this their true power? The strength of the six tails?

Such a difference from the Wardens—

Yet—

Alonso slid back, feet firm on the stone as his blades flashed free. His gaze stayed cold, and unshaken.

He had expected nothing less.

The Overseer studied him as he studied it, still and silent. Then, two tails rose—the cannon-tipped ones. Yet they did not aim at him.

Strange. What is it—

The first projectiles emerged—slow, almost gentle. Two smooth black spheres, eerily like the Xayen’s Dark Stars, drifting into the air before it.

The Empress’ scepter slipped from its hand and hung in place, untouched, as its left palm opened forward. The spheres began to orbit it, spinning tighter, faster, like a living yin-yang of void.

Then more came. One after another, rising and circling, until a whirling storm of dark orbs spun around its arm like sparks caught in an unseen vortex.

“Show me what makes you stand before us, Outsider,” the voice grated. Not one, but many—alien, metallic, layered like a chorus in unison.

And with the last word, they flew.

Dozens. Scores. Curving mid-flight, breaking sound in sharp cracks. Paths bending to cut him off—right, left, high, low, center, chest, skull.

The fur coat surged around him as he shifted. Orbs ripped through it, puncturing with brutal speed, shredding it into a flaring pelt of holes. For an instant, his form vanished beneath the storm—

And as the coat drifted down, empty, carried by the momentum—

CLANG! CLANG!

Metal rang from the flank.

Alonso’s blades struck, forcing the Overseer to parry with its bladed tails. A third tail whipped low for his waist. Alonso twisted, channeled his pulse, and spun clear mid-motion. His boot lashed out, kicking the Empress’ scepter from its reach—

But the Overseer’s domain seized it mid-air, snapping it back to his side. Futile.

The black staff came next, swung in a crushing arc, weight and field behind it. The blunt sphere end screamed for his skull.

Alonso’s eyes narrowed. Vectors lit his mind constantly, lines snapping into place, feeding off every twitch of the Overseer’s frame, every shift of air and pressure in the field. Past, present, future—all folding into one sharp picture.

The arc was fast, but his body was already shifting back. Clearance—one millimetre beyond reach. His left blade was set to cut in from the right. The Overseer would block. Tail strike next—angled low, sharp edge aiming for his flank. He’d twist, redirect. A short-range pulse would follow…

And just like that—the world responded.

The staff crashed down, a blur of black weight, missing his skull by a hair’s breadth. Wind split across his face as he slid aside, his blade already moving.

CLANG!

Sparks burst—blocked.

The first tail snapped for his ribs. Alonso twisted under, edge scraping along his shirt, the strike kissing leather and leaving smoke.

The second tail stabbed upwards, screaming for his skull. He ducked low, boots grinding obsidian as it cracked beneath the weight.

Pulse! A sphere fired point-blank. He rolled with it, heat scraping past, his shoulder seared as the blast carved a shallow red line across his skin.

He lunged inside—blade flashing, strike cutting for the chest.

Caught. The scepter dragged it off-line, weight and domain twisting the metal away.

The third tail came down heavy, blunt end hammering where he’d been. Stone exploded upward, shards stinging his cheek.

He cut low, blade angling for the knee joint. Another tail intercepted, sparks showering as they collided.

The Overseer pressed harder. Six tails, two staffs, the pressure of an ocean. No pause. No breath. Every strike filled the space before the last had ended.

Alonso’s blades moved faster, sharper. Each dodge timed within a whisper, his body sliding through gaps that weren’t there. One tail grazed his throat close enough to draw a mark. Another slammed stone a heartbeat late, the impact shaking the ground beneath him.

The field roared, dragging at him, trying to pin his blades, stagger his mind, grind his flow to a halt.

But he kept moving. Nano-vibrations locked his blades. Cuts marked his skin, but shallow, light. Each clash fed him more—what it could do, where it pressed, where it broke. Limits carving themselves into his mind, his body, strike by strike.

He sent a thrust—a feint for the sharp tail—head already slipping past the staff’s crushing arc. Mid-motion, he froze—

This…

His mind flared. Nerves fired white-hot. The world slid to crawl. Stone and ash floated like dust in water. Waves lit in colour, every thread screaming in his senses.

Dual Overdrive.

He disengaged, toes pulsing, body snapping back—just as the Overseer burst. Sparks detonated off its frame, staff and tails doubling speed in a flash of power.

The Warden’s skill?

No… different.

Its whole body lit, armored in storm, lightning racing from its core to every limb and weapon, like a god of thunder made flesh. Ground shuddered. Shards of metal rattled skyward, dancing in static like puppets to its will.

The Ajnal technique… Heart of Sparks!?

“Your technique and combat awareness are impressive, Outsider. Few across generations have lived to see us wield this skill. Talents born once in a century, raised in empires, driven to their limit, dissected, refined—fuel for our growth,” it said, almost calm between the arcs of lightning. “I see the surprise in your eyes. You think this belongs to the Ajnal, as they name themselves in this age. But we will gift you a truth. This… is not their skill. It is ours.”

Alonso’s eyes narrowed. Their… skill? Not Xayen’s? Had they stolen it, reshaped it, and claimed it whole—or truly created it, only to sell it as Xayen in the ruins?

Whatever the truth, its mastery stood leagues beyond anything he had witnessed, a form perhaps worthy of the skill’s name itself.

So it’s finally starting to show its true colors.

Alright.

Alonso lowered his weight, blades angled opposite—left high, right low, points crossing the line of his chest. Overdrive burned through his nerves, every fibre lit, the new rhythm of the Third Fusion State pulsing in time with his heartbeat.

The ground split under the Overseer as it finally moved. A thunderclap tore the air.

Its body blurred, lightning armor screaming, tails cutting streaks through the haze.

Impact. Staff met blades—shock rippled down Alonso’s arm, a jolt biting deep, nerves flaring white. His palm numbed, bones near to cracking if not for the torque in his stance. Sparks exploded, arcs crawling over him, skin tingling, half-dead.

A blunt tail hammered from the blind side. He snapped into the twist, shoulder brushing past by a finger’s breadth, stone behind him imploding into shards just from the aftershock.

Two sharp tails scythed down, edges shrieking. He crossed his blades, caught one, redirected the other—but the contact flared another jolt, the vibration burning his wrists. His left hand almost lost grip, only raw instinct locking it down.

The Overseer pressed harder, faster. Every strike carried thunder, each tail a whip of lightning. One blow skimmed his ribs, leaving them burning, flesh scorched raw. Another struck the floor where he’d been, the blast wave sending black stone flying like knives.

Alonso slid inside again, blades carving arcs, slashes sparking off the lightning carapace. The armor turned his edges, flaring with each hit, shocking him back. His muscles spasmed, his chest tightened—but he forced his body forward, his flow ahead of the pain.

The world blurred in bursts of white and black. Lightning and metal. Breath ragged, faster still.

He learned to ride the shock. Each clash, each flare—redirected. Microcapacitors flared under his skin, feeding a thin shell of charge, a Faraday cage wrapped tight around his flesh. The arcs still burned him, left scorched lines where he allowed them, where the pain wouldn’t break the rhythm.

He struck only when the path was clean. No excess, no waste. Every move balanced on the razor edge of control. Understanding of Self made each muscle obey like code. Instinct became memory. Body and blade moved as one. Enemy as Self sharpened the map—its reach, its breaks, its limits—etched deeper with every strike.

The fight roared on. Hundreds of exchanges in heartbeats, milliseconds stretched thin. Stone split, obsidian blasted apart, the very bones of the Sun Pyramid shattering beneath the weight of the collisions.

His right blade drove for its throat, forcing the Overseer to break the staff thrust aimed for his core. That’s when he felt it—

A sudden drag. A force pulling his blade away.

It had overridden his control!

His pulse spiked. Mind flared. His body moved first—rolling with the redirection, weight shifting, left blade catching torque from the push. The extra momentum bought him time, the edge flashing back in a tighter arc, thrust poised to still land before the staff.

But mid-motion—the pull snapped back. Sudden. Brutal. His own strike dragged toward him, blade yanked against his balance.

The staff roared down. Alonso twisted, boot grinding the obsidian plates, shirt ripping as the blunt sphere smashed into his ribs.

BOOM!

Pain ripped through him. Bones rattled like glass in a quake, lungs crushed by the blow, static fire searing across his skin.

He didn’t resist the force. Couldn’t. He rode it.

His body hurled back, weight accelerating with the strike.

Stone shattered beneath him as he skidded, bounced, crashed—stopping only at the very edge of the Sun Pyramid’s crown. Boots dug half off the obsidian, heels hanging over the border.

His back bent toward the open air, the city sprawling below. Thousands of eyes fixed on him.

Faces peered through cracks in stone, through shutters left barely ajar. Pale in the faint rays of dawn, lips parted in silence. Wonder. Fear.

And somewhere among them—hope. Trembling. Desperate. Alive in eyes that clung to that lone back at the edge, the back that bore their fate.

Alonso’s breath tore ragged. His chest throbbed, ribs screaming, arm numb where the current had chewed through. But his eyes still burned.

Blood dripped from his lip, shirt in tatters, skin laced in red marks and seared lines. He straightened, gaze locked on the monster once more.

So it knows that one too.

Also theirs?

He stepped forward. Calm. Deliberate. The Overseer’s domain surged, field twisting—magnetic polarities snapping like storms, strong enough to override his nanovibrations and wrench at the blades in his hands.

The core of the Ajnal. No—older. One of the Xayen empire’s own buried paths, drawn now to its peak.

Storm Domain.

Yet Alonso kept walking. Step after step, momentum pounding through heart and nerve, syncing with the hundreds of thousands of microcapacitors sparking alive inside him.

The field pressed, crushing, trying to bend him. To make him bow.

He didn’t bend.

He didn’t bow.

The world shifted at his wake. Light bent, fractured, trailing after him like a river torn apart.

The Overseer’s domain pulled hard, dragging, seeking to consume him, drown him in its storm.

Alonso stood firm—and swung. Sparks ignited inside him. Not stars. Not planets. Not moons. He had been wrong all along. The path was never towards the smaller. It was towards the greater.

From stars to the worlds they birthed. From worlds to the systems they bound. From systems to the vast order above them all. Galaxies—pulled, held, united by the gravity of his path.

The truth roared through him. His every nerve burned with it. His body shook, not with fear, but with the release of the power he had kept dormant within.

His blades carved through light itself—through every field, every domain stacked against him. The swing shattered the Overseer’s storm, tore it apart, bent it back to nothing.

My body carries the seed of a universe. The void I’ve become fuels galaxies into life. Their pull, their weight, their endless motion—bound to me. To my step. To my every strike.

The ground trembled beneath him, obsidian splitting open in violent cracks as if the Sun Pyramid itself couldn’t hold the weight of what he had become. Above, dawn broke in fractured rays, light bending around him, haloed in shards.

This was no borrowed skill. No stolen trick. This was not theirs to claim.

This was his.

A domain of his own creation.

His path, in its truest form.

He raised his blades high, certainty burning in his gaze.

Come forth—

Path of Shards.