Rakna was not having a good time.

 

He groaned out in frustration as he pushed away the rubble of the building he had smashed into and looked up at the Nine-Tailed Scorpion standing on a roof across the street with a frown.

 

‘How did he pull me out of Antanasia?’ He asked himself as he called Sonata into his hand. ‘How did he even track me?’

 

“Wondering how I did it?” Zasha’s voice echoed and he scowled at him. “It’s simple; us Scorpions live for the hunt. There’s nothing we can’t chase. Be it through space or dimensions. I’ve seen your little ability before; are you a Dusk Lion?” The scorpion tilted his head curiously. 

 

“Hm, but you don’t feel like one,” he hummed. “Regardless, Antanasia has a particular effect on the real world to those that are accustomed to sense dimensions. It’s like gravity; that world is so light metaphysically that your sole presence is enough to bend it past the boundary. As such, it’s easy to break as long as a precise strike is aimed at your exact relative position.”

 

Rakna’s eyebrow twitched at the nonchalant breakdown of one of his most complex abilities. He jumped out of the collapsed building and placed himself on the opposite side of the scorpion.

 

At that point, he had already stopped caring about mana expenditure. His Grand Reinforcement was in full action inside his body, albeit weakened due to the lack of Star Energy, but bolstering it with Sonata’s Lifeblood Rage compensated for it quite well.

 

Zasha smiled in amusement. “How cute. Do you think it’s going to make a difference?” He quipped and slightly lowered his core. “Let’s find out,” he uttered and once again, his raw speed was enough to create an afterimage, destroying the building from the impact at the same time.

 

A sonic boom ruptured the air and instantaneously, Rakna felt the world crawl to a halt in his eyes as a very familiar sense of impending doom crept in. If he didn’t do anything… he would die.

 

Using Crystal Sight or Eye of Symphony wasn’t the main issue anymore. Even with them, it would not be enough to dodge what came. He didn’t even have the time to shift into a werewolf either.

 

But thankfully, something else gave him the leeway to survive. Sonata itself reacted in his lieu and shone golden and red. Impossibly fast, a spherical shield formed around him right in time to block exactly nine scorpion tails dripping with poison. The shield immediately cracked and a shockwave spread out from it.

 

“Oh?” Zasha let out a grin as he saw the agitated expression through the golden wall. “What a nice weapon you have there,” he said and pushed a bit more, shattering the shield in its entirety.

 

But that had been enough time for Rakna to prepare himself. “[Overload!]” He cried out and both his body and Allegro began to feed onto his mana and surge with Eion. Web-patterned cracks of glowing blue spread under his skin and his physical ability was forcefully raised.

 

“[Artzpul,]” he followed up and propelled himself away from the range of those nine tails. Then, regardless of witnesses, he unfurled his two pairs of wings without hesitation.

 

The Luquila’s Wings shone with the mana he poured into them and allowed him to dodge Zasha who hadn’t wasted time in chaining his attacks. If the scorpion was surprised by the wings, there was no sign of it as he continued his assault.

 

In the sky of Plateau Zero, an azure blur soared like a coiling snake, closely followed by a hazy air disturbance releasing crushing air pressures. The two forces were too noticeable for the habitants of Zero not to notice; the commotion caused by the sudden electric cataclysm was far from enough to make them ignore that kind of battle.

 

Moreover, once the blurs slowed down enough for most people to see who it was, they had their attention stolen by the impossibly beautiful woman, hovering in the air with two pairs of wings in her back, as if a descended angel.

 

Said woman was currently scrunching her face in disarray. Rakna internally clicked his tongue as several cuts in both his body and Allegro were being stitched back together.

 

“You’re quick,” Zasha commented as he casually crouched in midair with his tails moving about behind him menacingly, an unknown power making him airborne without effort. “Those are some interesting wings you got there. They seem to use space itself to make you fly. But I can see you’re using a lot of mana to keep up with me. How long can you last?”

 

Rakna stayed silent and before either of them did or said anything else, an explosion resounded and made them glance in its direction.

 

“Oh?” The scorpion raised an eyebrow as he eyed a large building, which they had gotten closer to during the fight, collapse in the distance. “The auction house? That makes sense,” he nodded in understanding.

 

“So, that other girl was why you suddenly hurried to take out Bora,” he sighed and shook his head in disappointment. “Honestly, couldn’t you have waited for a little more? We were almost about to let you do whatever you wanted, but you had to move before we could finish our preparations.”

 

“…you talk a lot,” Rakna retorted, not failing to note the ‘we’ in his sentence.

 

“What can I say? Curious things make me chatty,” he joked.

 

“Is that so?” Raising Sonata and continuously pouring mana into his wings, Rakna tensed his whole body, already steaming from the overuse of Eion. “Then, I hope this satisfies you,” he uttered and reached for his face as if he was trying to touch a mask he was not wearing.

 

Zasha scowled at that and then immediately shivered when a crimson light began to coalesce over his opponent’s face. He shot out from his position on reflex and charged at the purple-eyed woman before she could do what she was planning.

 

But, inexplicably, exactly five spots on the left side of his body were suddenly hit by some invisible force. In his charge, he wasn’t expecting such an anomaly and found himself thrown out of the air by his own strength, hearing his opponent call out two names at the same time.

 

“[Valkal,]” Rakna uttered as his Reverse Tails were manifested and then promptly waved his hand to fully summon the crimson wolf mask. “[Mask of Phobos,]” he whispered.

 

The Mask of Phobos had one very specific effect; it manifested the wearer’s full power in the form of an intimidating aura. The keyword here was ‘full power’. No matter if he was weakened by the lack of System; even if some of his skills were sealed, Phobos’ Mask would invoke his power as if that wasn’t the case.

 

However, the same couldn’t be said for others in Plateau Zero. For all intents and purposes, they were drastically weakened and it also meant… that they were that much more susceptible to the full brunt of Rakna’s combined abilities; from magic and soul to his Nirvana and Sin Skills.

 

And as things would have it, there were currently thousands of people on Zero looking at him due to the flashy fight between him and Zasha. Therefore, they all caught a glimpse of the mask and inevitably fell right into its influence.

 

Nearly all of them instantly fainted, their minds overloaded with subconscious terror. And those that didn’t, fell into a trance similar to waking nightmares.

 

“Haha… would you look at that?” Zasha chuckled as he stood back up, dusting himself. In his eyes, he could clearly see what others couldn’t. Currently, Ranka was feeding on the fear, despair, and terror of those that looked at her mask, and turning it into mana. “I guess that’s one way of doing it,” he muttered and then saw the woman’s sword shine with a tri-colored hue.

 

“That’s…” The scorpion widened his eyes a bit and urgently summoned a weapon of his own.

 

“[Crescent of a Falling Star.]”

 

A torrent of clashing energies shot out from Sonata’s blade and Zasha countered back by swinging his own sword, a violet-colored force erupting out of it. It split into nine streams resembling the tails of a scorpion and clashed with the tri-colored attack midway.

 

Zasha frowned as the collision caused an explosion in the air and tracked something invisible with his eyes to his left side. “I said… I can sense it!” He shouted and swung his sword at a rippling area where Ranka emerged from Enthymio.

 

The scorpion saw the azure sword coming his way and was about to parry it when he felt shivers down his spine. Something told him that he shouldn’t do that, and deflected the blow instead. With a tilt of his head as well, he avoided a shapeless wave of sharpness that bisected an entire building behind him as if it was nothing. In fact, the cut was so clean, it didn’t even move out of place.

 

“[10 000 Nights…]” Ranka began to whisper as her sword turned into a pair of daggers, and Zasha barely had the time to notice that the same sharp aura he had just dodged was also cloaking the daggers; both of them. “[…of Severance.]”

 

In the blink of an eye, numerous science-breaking strikes were dealt out and deflected or dodged by the Nine-Tailed Scorpion. For each of them, a limitlessly deep cut would appear on everything in its path.

 

Zasha frowned when one dagger attack made a cut on his cheek and managed to dent his weapon which had until now resisted it. “That’s enough,” he uttered and abruptly accelerated, one of his tails moving for a stab, followed by a kick.

 

Rakna stepped back from the former but had to use one arm to block the latter. And because his body was currently already compromising its structure, his arm was blown off on impact and he had to use his Valkals to push himself away before the same happened to his torso.

 

“That’s a nasty blade you have there. Soul Weapon?” Zasha asked curiously as he swiped the blood on his cheek with his thumb. “Though, I can’t help but feel like those slashes shouldn’t be able to be fired so fast…” He trailed and smiled as he watched his opponent’s arm regrow back in the time he had taken to speak.

 

“The System is not here,” Rakna retorted and let the power of 10 000 Nights of Severance shroud his daggers again along with his Intent. “Cooldowns are not a thing here. As long as I have enough mana, I can fire them at will,” he stated through the Mask of Phobos, waves of negative emotions fueling his mana pool, albeit far less than the initial supply.

 

“I see,” Zasha nodded. “I suppose I played enough,” he cracked his neck. “The Pale Ghoul was right, you’re too dangerous not to take seriously. It was fun, but it ends he--!” He was interrupted by his own shadow, as it swelled up and grew tendrils to restrain his limbs.

 

Immediately after, a soft female voice echoed from above, “[Lance of Bezaliel.]”

 

A massive shadow emerged from behind a building and formed a creature in the form of a fallen angel. It raised a red and black lance and aimed it at Zasha. The scorpion’s eyes widened in shock right before he saw the angel throw the spear.

 

In an instant, a deathly quiet upsurge of shadows swallowed the street and Rakna jumped away from it, landing somewhere safe. When he landed, the angel that had thrown the lance faded out of existence.

 

“You’re late,” the therian grumbled as he took off Phobos’ Mask, terminating the Eion overload at the same time, allowing his body to start healing the damages.

 

A chuckle resounded and Nyx appeared next to him in a burst of shadows. “My apologies,” she said with a joking tone. “I was caught in the traffic.”

 

“Hah,” Rakna let out a hollow laugh as he looked at her handiwork. “Looks like you can use some semblance of spell after all…”

 

“In case you forgot, I’m a Goddess,” she huffed proudly. “That will never change. Even if this place lacks the influence of the ‘World’, my Domain makes up for it. I just have to channel my divinity through my Nirvana Skill and I can invoke a shadow-related cast.”

 

“Bezaliel…” Rakna muttered in understanding. “The ‘Shadow of God’, I see.”

 

While they chatted, they never took their eyes away from the imminent threat currently hidden by the darkness of Nyx’s spell. 

 

Soon enough, a nine-tailed figure walked out of the small crater made by the shadow lance. Zasha’s hat had been blown off, his coat was torn a bit, and one of his glasses’ lenses had broken, showing his deep red pupil glowering at them.

 

“Well, I’ll be damned…” He shook his head. “Hubris is the enemy of all, isn’t it? Or are you just that lucky?” He snorted and grabbed his glasses, tossing them away. 

 

His inhuman eyes locked onto the pair of women. “But… now, we’re talking,” he smirked and tore his coat off as well, revealing a streamlined alloy armor. 

 

“Let’s dance.”