“Master of Mankind, the Emperor of Man,

Beneath your gaze, our path unfolds,

In your name, our destinies behold.

Shield us from chaos, in your glory stand...”

Heinrich’s prayers have entered the second verse. To Balam, it was nothing more than unintelligible whispers of his master, as even his supernatural sense that grants insights from the near future, failed to infer anything. Rather than wasting telepathic thoughts, his attention is spent on deflecting the antimatter projectiles Violetstorm Empress shot through a MEKA-class sniper rifle.

Drowned under the explosion that could destroy cities and flatten mountains, Limitless Heaven’s attention was caught by Heinrich. ‘Senior Grimsong Specter…’ He turned back, facing the praying Clockmaker, shock written all over his face. ‘You have already started the activation sequence of that killer move…’ 

Gaining a deeper understanding of Heinrich's scheme, Limitless Heaven returned his attention back to the Heaven Constellation Chessboard. “Distorted Shadow,” he established an encrypted telepathic channel, “His fragments have begun the activation sequence of a conceptual-class killer move…” he began to elaborate, ignoring the battle between Ageless Despot and Violetstorm Empress.

…

A few moments before Distorted Shadow was sent into Salt Flat Cube World.

The land is very flat, with white being the only color that exists. Although there was no sun, it was as bright as midday, forcing the inhabitants to squint to lessen the blinding brightness. There was no soil, only pale saline minerals as far as the eyes could see, and most importantly, it was an environment that was very disadvantageous towards Darkblade Shadow as his combat style was not designed to fight against this type of enemy.

Boom! An explosion of blackness dislocates a large amount of salt, creating a wave of molten salt like oceans being ravaged by a violent storm. At the center of the explosion, a fugly hound creature with a human-like forearm, covered in bone spurs and claws while producing puss and disease clouds all over its body, laid bare. There’s not a single inch on the creature’s skin that has no wound. Its beast has suffered greatly, the toxic greenish-yellow blood sizzling on the salt, but the lifeforce of the chimera is not to be underestimated. The wounds are visibly closing up despite the corrosive black energy of Darkblade Shadow has infiltrated its system.

Standing up, the beast’s body squirted more black blood and puss, expunging Darkblade Shadow’s hostile energy out of its system. The edge of the creature’s lips curved upwards, mocking the assassin’s effort.

Beyond the crater’s circumference, 7 men encircled the beast, all having the same features and clothing. It could even be said that they are all Darkblade Shadows.

Cough! Two out of the seven Darkblade Shadows coughed contaminated blood. They collapsed and began spasming uncontrollably while their skin began to grow pimples all over their body. The other Darkblade Shadows knew those two were down for good, so no one approached to help them. Instead, they activate dark-path methods to burn those three with black flames before they explode into toxic spores.

“Four of you have fallen now…” The Unclean Beast taunted, his uncanny smile inspires terror and fear. To a Brave-class Epic like Darkblade Shadow, this level of mental attack simply wouldn’t work, but instead, the chimera’s smug smile made him grit his teeth from anger. 

Nevertheless, the antimage assassin had played his poker face, not allowing the chimera to get a read on him.

Darkblade Shadows paused their action not to allow the chimera to recover, but it was to prepare for their next move. At this very moment, the activation sequence of their killer moves has reached the final stage.

“Rank 5 dark-path killer move, [Ecliptic Blade Dance]!”

It was a battlefield killer move, but unlike Limitless Heaven’s that created literal worlds, this was a small-scale one. 

Darkness began to spread from the remaining five Darkblade Shadows. This unnatural blackness is his solution to being unable to use anything as a cover for his techniques. After all, despite his capabilities, he is still an assassin who fights best with surprise attacks and ambushes. 

The unnatural darkness soon enveloped a large portion of the Salt Flat Cube World. Not only does it render the senses of the Unclean Beast haywire, but it also grants Darkblade Shadow the ability to move freely.

The Unclean Beast has been deflecting his attacks through plague-saturation counterattack. It was the only thing that held him back. However, the moment he activated this killer move and trapped the Unclean Beast within, distance has lost its meaning. The fight was pretty much over.

In less than ten seconds, the darkness recedes. What’s left of the chimera is its dismembered corpse.

At the same time, a lump of black pixels manifests not too far from the group of Darkblade Shadows. The dark silhouette began to shed its pixelated black shroud, revealing Distorted Shadow’s figure clad in superheavy power armor, a cannonlance, and a large shield on his hands.

“Rank 5 information-path killer move, [Attribute Selector: Light-path]!” Distorted Shadow whispered, his black armor seemed as if being subjected to a negative color filter. The blacks turned white, and other minor colors turned into the opposite spectrum. He didn’t give any time for Darkblade Shadow to find ways to exit Salt Flat Cube World, so he aimed the cannonlance towards the group of assassins and pulled the trigger.

Naturally, Darkblade Shadow’s movement is faster than most cannon projectiles. As long as the projectile does not exceed the speed of Mach 10,000, the antimage assassin can react properly. And so, the five Darkblade Shadows split up, leaving a plethora of colorful explosions behind him. 

The antimage has spent a lot of his combat resources fighting against the Unclean Beast, which includes his duplicate bodies. Long-term attrition is not a solution, thus his decision to immediately end the fight with the same battlefield killer move.

Four out of the five Darkblade Shadows began to make hand seals, which began the activation sequence of the Ecliptic Blade Dance. The final Darkblade Shadow’s task is to fight Distorted Shadow, not allowing him to disrupt the battlefield killer move. 

Between the two, Darkblade Shadow is obviously the faster one. The sheer kinetic force generated from his movement should have burned his body due to sheer friction, but his dark-path killer move allowed him to somewhat ignore air friction, increasing his speed as well as his damage potential. Due to these factors, he could achieve Mach 8.000 with a single step.

Clank! The familiar sound of metal clanking against each other could be heard from all over Distorted Shadow’s armor, but the pale white armor was seemingly impervious to the antimage’s attack. There were no energy barriers for the antimage’s technique to shred, it was a perfect defense through materiel armor. 

Distorted Shadow’s cannonlance traced along the air, its trajectory seemed to follow Darkblade Shadow, but the antimage movements were too fast. Even when he fires multiple cluster flare grenades that explode in searing light, the supportive Darkblade Shadows simply get away from the blast radius. 

Distorted Shadow cannot deal any meaningful damage to Darkblade Shadow. The opposite is also true, but Darkblade Shadow isn't merely attacking. It goes on for another five minutes, which at this point, Distorted Shadow’s pale white power armor suffered from multiple gaping wounds. It looks as if the ‘turtle’ has its shell almost being dismantled, and the antimage has finished their preparations.

“Rank 5 dark-path killer move, [Ecliptic Blade Dance]!”

The previous scene repeated once more. Unnatural darkness spread amongst the four supportive Darkblade Shadows. Within this darkness, all sensors within the Distorted Shadow’s power armor returned intelligible numbers, which also include the senses of time. Being unable to tell how long time has progressed gives off the illusion as if the sudden darkness stretched for infinity, but also an instant at the same time.

Unbeknownst to Darkblade Shadow, it was what Distorted Shadow had been waiting for. 

For an information-path cultivator, information is its greatest weapon. The Unclean Beast was the apex predator that Limitless Heaven’s alchemist could create, but it still lost like a dog to Darkblade Shadow whose combat style had worse compatibility against it. Nevertheless, the chimera’s greatest gift to Distorted Shadow was, none other than information.

The ‘instant’ he was enveloped by Ecliptic Blade Dance, the techno-magus activated his method.

“Rank 5 information-path killer move, [ALT + F4]!”

It was as if the darkness was a lie. The world suddenly brightened and reverted to its original state. The only difference was Darkblade Shadows experiencing backlash from having their killer move interrupted. 

It needs to be said that all killer moves follow a similar logic: the effect of killer moves is equal to the amount of resources spent. This ‘resource’ could mean stamina, mana, spell catalyst, time to cast it, or for some, their own lifespan or cultivation base. To increase a killer move’s strength beyond the resources that were spent, cultivators develop amplification methods, which increase the complexity of activating it. 

Ecliptic Blade Dance is not only a top-tier battlefield killer move that focuses on trapping foes and grants the user free movement pathing thus granting peak killing power, it is also one that has been optimized over and over again. It was the absolute peak of Darkblade Shadow’s accomplishment, so even if it was interrupted during its activation, the backlash shouldn’t be too intense as this was considered in the design. However, Distorted Shadow’s [ALT + F4] killer move was specifically made to not only disrupt the activation sequence of selected battlefield killer moves but also amplify the backlash.

In essence, it was a counter-type killer move.

Seeing the antimage suffered from never experiencing a fight against a Techno-Magus, Distorted Shadow capitalizes on this brief moment of weakness to gain an advantage. The cannonlance began to shift its parts, releasing the unnecessary heavy plates. Hardlight substances then enveloped the blade, turning it into a brightlance weapon. At the same time, his superheavy armor shed its bulky, useless armor.

What’s left was a man donning a white high-tech skin-tight nanosuit, holding a brightlance.

Swoosh! Before the clanking piece of metals touched the ground, the back of the nanosuit reconstructed itself, producing a mix of metal and hardlight booster-wings. With these mobility assistance devices, Distorted Shadow is no longer bound by his physical limitations.

With a sweep of the brightlance, the hardlight blade extended, decapitating a pair of Darkblade Shadows who were close to each other. The wounds on the antimage’s body were corrupted, it seemed as if it had been cauterized by flashy colorful pixels, which spread towards the rest of his body. By the time Darkblade Shadow has recovered from their backlash, the antimage’s decapitated clone’s body has halfway been consumed by the white pixels.

Darkblade Shadow was beyond surprised. The pixel’s corruption has a unique way of erasing the clones. It was as if their very existence was being deleted, something that he had never encountered before. This meant that having his head decapitated, which shouldn’t be lethal to rank 5 Epics, is now fatal. He couldn’t let the brightlance touch a single strand of his hair, otherwise, the digital virus would consume him.

This quick round of thinking prompted him to escape. He can only request support from other Braves. To achieve that, however, means he’ll have to survive until the others are finished with their own battles. 

Like most assassins, Darkblade Shadow has a plethora of escaping methods under his sleeves. Each Darkblade Shadow produces a black orb and slams it down, which explodes into a black fog that conceals all of his signature. 

As long as a single body survived, he could replenish the fallen bodies in due time. Even if there’s nowhere to hide, he could dig the salt flat and buy some time by hiding underground. 

Sensing the antimage’s intent, Distorted Shadow snorted. “I’ve wasted too much time on you already. Rank 5 information-path killer move, [Mars-pattern Arsenal: Microscale Tachyon Observatory]!”

Colorful pixels began to appear on top of him, downloading a digital object into the third dimension. Soon, a jellyfish-like mechanical construct replaced the colorful pixels. The satellite has a height of four meters, with 80% of it being the mechanical tendrils which are all sorts of sensors. 

With the appearance of the satellite observatory, Darkblade Shadow’s unnatural darkness that no technological tools could make sense is no longer relevant. After all, Distorted Shadow has collected a lot of information regarding Darkblade Shadow’s methods. In a sense, he has figured out his darkness signature, allowing him to be immune to Darkblade Shadow’s stealth method that had been used at least once. Even if they haven’t been used at all, Distorted Shadow has significant data to hypothesize how to counter them.

Holding his brightlance, his other hand danced in the air, typing into a holographic interface that only he could interact with. “Rank 5 information-path killer move, [Mars-pattern Arsenal: Proton Collider]!” Following his instruction, the brightlance on his hand glimmered in pixels, turning it into a stream of data that flowed upward. In tandem, the same warp-in effect manifested on his shoulder, which ended up in a shoulder-mounted heavy particle cannon. 

Darkblade Shadow was fully aware that his life was now in danger. His energy is funneled to surviving, even if that means running with tails behind his legs. 

Distorted Shadow aimed downward, setting the particle cannon into [Focused Array Mode]. Having his senses synchronized with the Microscale Tachyon Observatory allowed him to detect the slightest change in the environment. Even if Darkblade Shadow is constantly altering his stealth method and the Microscale Tachyon Observatory is slowly losing the grip of his position, Distorted Shadow simply slapped down several machine learning algorithms to the targeting solution, predicting the antimage’s possible location.

Then, the bombardment starts. Energy beams erupted from his weapon, tearing through the air and salt with deadly precision. Darkblade Shadow darted and weaved, his movements erratic as he tried to outmaneuver the barrage. There was no explosion, but each shot literally cut through the salt flat like a hot knife through butter. Every near-miss contributes to raising the average temperature of this world. 

This goes on for a while until Distorted Shadow confirms the termination of Darkblade Shadow. At this point, the cube world should be named Molten Salt Cube World, as the Salt Flat has turned into a sea.

Then, an encrypted message from Limitless Heaven altered him.

“He did what?” Distorted Shadow’s brows, if he has one in the first place, would frown. Prompted to act from sheer disbelief, his figure immediately turned into a stream of pixels, disappearing from this world.

…

The skull-shaped machine can also act as a receiver, allowing Distorted Shadow to translocate to this position in an instant. Of course, it was under the condition that Limitless Heaven allows it, otherwise, the coordinate wouldn’t be as accurate.

After translocation, Distorted Shadow glanced at Heinrich, trying to make sense of his silent whispers and energy fluctuation. Naturally, he couldn’t pick up anything, but that does not invalidate Limitless Heaven’s concerns. “Doing it without regard to his own well-being, he never changes.” He pulled back his attention toward Limitless Heaven, “We should pick up the pace to ease his burden.”

“I was about to suggest the same thing, but…” Limitless Heaven pointed out Balam who’s fighting a MEKA with only a golden blade in hand. Although each antimatter projectile was swiftly dealt with a swing of his time sword, beads of sweat can be seen on Ageless Despot’s face. “I doubt he could endure more than this.”

“A techno-magus? The architecture is quite similar to Mars-pattern MEKAs.” Distorted Shadow had time and attention to sync up with the spying machine he left behind, thus the sudden realization. “Found a match. It is a MEKA, furthermore, it’s based on father’s MEKA, Takemikazuchi Mk. 5, but that should be impossible.”

“Balam warned me about a certain figure amongst the Braves. His name is…” Just as Limitless Heaven’s were about to warn him, his words were cut off by the fluctuation of a new arrival on Avalon’s side.

“Great Archmage…” A black-haired man in an elegant purple-black robe whispered. The man glanced at the Archbishop, to which she briefly explained about the current situation.

“Dear wifey, are you here?” The Great Archmage glanced at Balam who was slicing antimatter projectiles with his time blade, confirming the presence of Violetstorm Empress. His eyes then shifted towards Heinrich’s side where Limitless Heaven’s eyes went wide. 

Naturally, Distorted Shadow is currently wearing a nanosuit, so his face is just a helmet, but his body language screams genuine shock. 

“What’s this?” Great Archmage squinted as his iris gleamed in prismatic colors, a sign of activating information-path methods. With a glance, he scanned everyone, but his eyes stayed the longest on the small chessboard in the center of the battlefield. Perhaps gaining unfavorable intel, his brows frowned.

Nevertheless, he was still a Brave, so he felt no fear. He leaped away from the safety of Avalon’s barrier, fully knowing that Limitless Heaven would capture and hold him within his Heaven Constellation Chessboard.

It went as expected. The moment he’s no longer within the safe confinement of Avalon’s shield, he vanishes.

“He always surpassed our expectations. How come the most murderous Magus of Holy Terra becomes one of this world’s heroes?” Limitless Heaven commented, sighing. “Should I send my two bishops first?” He offered to lessen the burden because Distorted Shadow performed best when he already had information about his targets. He won’t be able to function if he just got one-shotted, considering his next opponent is the Great Archmage.

“This is one of the original 7 Magi of Holy Terra we’re talking about. I refuse to believe your bishops could even last 3 moves.” Distorted Shadow shook his head while deactivating both [Attribute Selector: Light-path] and [Class Selector: Fortress Defender]. His figure is slowly back to the humanoid silhouette shrouded by black pixels.

“So you resolve to die?” Limitless Heaven inquired, his hands occupied with carving runes in the air. He also had the same opinion as Distorted Shadow, so he’s strengthening the runes of the Heaven Constellation Chessboard, consolidating unused Cube Worlds to reinforce the ones being used. 

“There must be a deeper scheme going on.” Distorted Shadow whispered. “All the Original 7 Magi of Holy Terra have a statue except for him. Due to father’s concept of immortality, simply having his action figures is outlawed.”

“What are you implying?”

“I… actually don’t know.” Distorted Shadow shook his head, genuinely at loss. “We are but mere projections of the future being called in using father’s karma, our true selves might not even be rank 5 Epics at this point. However, if Father were to dare using that killer move, then his scheme is truly beyond worlds and timelines.” He ceased his idle chatters by jumping towards the Heaven Constellation Chessboard. “Rank 5 ultimate killer move, [Identity Theft: Grimsong Specter]!” 

Before any changes could be observed, he disappeared in a flash of black pixels.

“There goes my Shattered Starfield Cube World…“ Limitless Heaven was lost for words, but he was sure that his Heaven Constellation Chessboard would lose some of its cube worlds, not only the ones that they’d use as their dueling ground.