In the skies high above, far beyond the reach of mortals and even heroes, Carpathia hovered—silent and absolute.
From his vantage point, all below seemed insignificant, ants crawling beneath his shadow. He knew he shouldn't have acted so boldly. His appearance could endanger Itekan, but his rage—and fear, not for himself but for his son—had overtaken his reason. He had waited long enough. The moment Kime had left, Carpathia descended upon Town Rosa, informing Dr. VonShmit of his abrupt departure. He instructed him to reactivate the great barriers surrounding the Dekka Mountains and the towns beneath them.
Even in his fury, he had not left his territory defenseless. He knew what happened to a Legend without land to anchor him.
In mere seconds, he crossed the continent to Tamoru. Now, ruins lay where a once-glorious city had stood. The central temple, a symbol of faith and pride, was shattered. Smoke rose. Stone crumbled.
From beneath the wreckage, Aitken grunted as he clawed his way to the surface, another Apostle beside him doing the same.
"What do you think, Zain?" Aitken asked, watching as the masked Apostle pulled Itekan's unconscious body from the rubble.
"…Deadly," Zain muttered. It was rare to hear him speak at all. That he responded at all made Aitken smirk.
'Even the mute gains wisdom at the sound of Carpathia's name,' he thought. "He wasn't expected, but I believe Broily can stall him for a few seconds."
Zain merely nodded.
Then came the roar. A pulse of raw power shattered the air as Broily—a towering brute over nine feet tall—launched into the sky. Shadow energy, twisted and volatile, coiled around his fists. He swung at Carpathia.
Carpathia raised one hand. Inhuman speed.
BOOM!
The impact released a solar blast so powerful that every mortal within 20 kilometers collapsed from the pressure.
"Huh." Carpathia glanced at his blocking hand, watching it rot and decompose.
"…Unfortunate."
With a blur, he twisted midair and delivered a kick at nearly fifty times the speed of sound. His heel connected with Broily's face.
BOOM!
The brute crashed into the ground, forming a crater hundreds of feet wide. Bloodied. Broken.
Carpathia's hands and feet shimmered and regenerated instantly.
"Who's next?" he asked, voice calm.
"Wait for it," Aitken said.
Broily's body suddenly pulsed, energy flaring violently. SE condensed and refined. His SST stabilized—and then intensified. Within moments, his body resonated at the cusp of Henkei form, brushing and dipping into Legend-tier resonance.
"…Indwelling?" Carpathia muttered.
It made sense. Indwelling—when a dominant, external spiritual energy inhabits a host body—broke through natural limits, exponentially raising one's cultivation temporarily. But the cost was severe. Without perfect compatibility, both host and spirit risked fluctuation or even structural collapse. Worse, once the Indwelling ended, the host was left completely drained.
Still, that wasn't what concerned Carpathia.
The question that gnawed at him was simple: Who had Broily allowed to indwell him?
The answer came quickly.
"CARPATHIA!!!" a voice bellowed, thick with fury.
Carpathia's eyes narrowed. That voice—he recognized it instantly.
"…Val'tora," he spat, filled with cold contempt.
Once ranked 75 among the 165 Demon Kings of Hell, Val'tora had been a subordinate under Noir before Carpathia's defection. Now, he stood as Broily's Indwelling spirit.
"Traitor!!" Val'tora screamed.
The entire region warped as SE surged a thousandfold. Black mist swirled in Val'tora's palms, and Carpathia immediately noticed hundreds more lives vanishing beneath them. That mist—he knew it well. It was a soul-drain technique, a vile art that harvested the life force of those nearby.
Carpathia clenched his fists. He was no saint. Once, he had been the blade of Death himself. Killing had been his craft, and innocent lives were often collateral. But those days ended when she entered his life. That was why he'd remained hidden for all these centuries.
He knew the cost of his appearance here.
He came anyway.
Because Itekan was worth more than his own life.
Nothing would change that.
He would no longer hold back.
His Shadow Energy erupted—violent, raw, visible to all. Twelve flickering stalks of darkness rose above his head, ethereal but unmistakable.
The Shadow Stalks.
In the Shadow Realm, the number of flickers marked one's rank. Most shadows had none. Foot soldiers had one to three. Generals had four to seven. Archshadows wielded eight to nine and answered only to the Regents. The two Regents bore ten flickers.
Only the Shadow King bore twelve.
"Oh no… he's serious," Aitken whispered, as darkness began to spread—an absolute, suffocating force. Light could not pierce it. Movement became nearly impossible. The very presence of Carpathia in his true form brought legends to their knees.
"Shadow Domain: Emperor's Gaze," Carpathia declared.
Below, Broily—now Val'tora—unleashed his own attack. Death energies gathered into a singularity.
"Death Cannon!!" he roared.
The black beam, dense with annihilation, surged toward Carpathia.
Calmly, Carpathia raised one hand.
An endless void opened before it.
The clash was deafening.
The explosion sent ripples through space. Mortals within range bled from every orifice. The earth beneath them shattered.
Aitken and Zain had barely erected their strongest defenses in time. Behind them, the captured Avery Ransthrol stirred, his eyes fluttering open just in time to see the cataclysmic duel.
'That's not a man,' his mind screamed, 'That's a god—no, two gods!'
He passed out again.
Itekan watched helplessly as his father stood against Val'tora, stunned.
His father—unstoppable, unshakable—was facing someone nearly equal in power. For the first time in his life, Itekan whispered a prayer:
Please win.
All of them—Zain, Aitken, even Val'tora—recognized the weight of the moment.
Val'tora launched wave after wave of Death-infused strikes. Carpathia countered each effortlessly—but not without exertion.
'He's grown soft…' Val'tora thought, dodging a spear of compressed shadow, 'Five thousand years playing house... And now I've caught up.'
They clashed again, and again. Mountains were flattened. The sky cracked.
What none of them realized was this:
Legend was never a fair rank.
Two beings could both be called "Legend"—yet the gap between them could span galaxies.
Carpathia wasn't using his full strength.
He couldn't.
Not while the Seals of Nen remained intact—ancient bindings placed by him and others to limit power above Legend on Earth. They preserved balance… at a cost.
But now, one thought stirred in Carpathia's soul:
Maybe it's time to break those damn seals.
Spiritual Energy -- SE
Spritual Sea -- SS
Spiritual Signatures -- SST