Silence fell in Shibuya and Shinjuku.
A sickening violet glow pulsed across the sky above the ruins of Shibuya and Shunjuku. The city had become a graveyard of fire and steel, fractured by time anomalies and shattered by the abomination's furious attacks. Concrete floated in midair, which was never seen before. Buildings twisted sideways. The very laws of physics were bending.
Lucien knelt was flowing in divine aura.
Before him, the hound-dragon towered over them all—colossal and nightmarish. Its limbs bent like broken timelines, and its breath shimmered with cosmic heat. Its wings stretched wide across the skyline, obsidian and flaming at the edges. Time rippled when it moved. Even reality seemed to blink when its claws twitched.
The monster roared at all of them.
A deep, godless sound that split the sky.
And yet—Lucien was ready to fight.
A shimmer of divine purple energy crackled around him again, like a miniature storm trapped inside his body. The air buzzed. The ground trembled beneath his feet.
Cosmic Power… activated.
A new window of power had opened within him—something godlike but also alien, limitless, gifted not just by a god, but by the force behind gods themselfs.
Lucien exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing onto its target.
"I don't need thirty minutes to kill your ass" he muttered. "I just need to survive them."
He vanished in the sky.
[Invisibility: Use 1 of 5 – 30 seconds active.]
The monster twitched, sensing movement—but it was too late for it to react.
Lucien, invisible, had already leapt into the air, circling behind the monster like a shadow at almost lightspeed. High above the beast's spine, he extended one arm.
Telekinetic pressure burst from him in a devastating shockwave.
KRRAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
The monster was yanked off both of its feet and hurled like a meteor into a crumbling skyscraper behind it. The building exploded when they made contact, glass and steel flying in every direction possible.
Before it could move again, Lucien reappeared right in front of it midair—X-Ray beams igniting from his eyes in two searing lances of 1500°F light. They carved straight through the monster's chest like laser scalpels, slicing bone and obsidian flesh in an instant.
The monster let out a thunderous howl, struggling to rise as Lucien circled above it like a vengeful vessel of a god.
His aura flared again.
[Invulnerability: Use 1 of 3 – 60 seconds.]
The beast lunged towards Lucien, ready to kill—faster then ever this time. Its claws tore open space itself, creating vacuum tunnels that should have ripped Lucien apart like he never existed.
But they didn't.
Lucien met the attack head-on, fists glowing purple with celestial energy, and punched through the spatial claw with a scream. The dimension shattered like glass. The hound-dragon stepped back, stunned with what just happend.
Lucien flew forward towards it, barraging the monster with strikes—each blow empowered by telekinetic bursts and near light-speed movement. Fists cracked ribs and its core. Feet shattered fangs. X-ray beams seared the monster's wings. Its regeneration struggled to keep up with the damage that was being dealt.
10 minutes into the battle.
The sky glowed with fire. Shibuya burned beneath them. There was nothing left.
On the ground, the others could only watch the fight.
Jason wiped blood from his brow, leaning heavily on his broken kinetic weapon. "He's holding his own against that thing…"
"He's not just holding his own," Rylen muttered, eyes wide. "He's winning the fight right now."
Kagetsu clutched the stump where his arm had once been—but the nanites glowed at the base, fusing with new bone and tissue.
Next to him, Emiluna knelt beside Karu's non existing body, her hands glowing with radiant white and lavender light. Her expression was tight with focus.
"He's not gone yet," she whispered. "I can still feel … time around him."
Her new ability—Chronomend—had only just awakened in her suit a couple hours before this. A forbidden healing art that rewound time around living cells, allowing injuries to unhappen… but only if done slowly and precisely.
Karu's heart began to pulse weakly beneath her hands. The hole in his chest closed slowly—millimeter by millimeter.
But the process would take a lot of time.
If she failed to complete it fast enough, the damage would catch up again. He would die.
Back in the sky.
Lucien darted backward just as the monster opened a new mouth—inside its own chest.
From that maw, a blast of compressed singularity energy erupted. A focused void beam to erase Lucien.
Lucien barely dodged the attack
The beam sliced a whole mile through Shibuya, cutting an entire new block into nothingness.
Lucien dropped altitude, skimming rooftops, his body trailing flames from his abnormal speed. His invisibility flared again.
[Invisibility: Use 2 of 5.]
He zipped behind the monster and rammed his whole foot into the back of the creature´s neck. A sonic boom echoed as the beast's head slammed into the pavement.
But it didn't stay down.
The abomination stood up, tail spinning in a circle, forcing Lucien backwards.
It opened multiple eyes across its torso—eyes that saw across time itself.
A claw shot forward towards Lucien.
[Invulnerability: Use 2 of 3.]
Lucien blocked it, but barely. The impact sent him flying into a skyscraper's top floor. He flew through steel and debris but twisted in midair, flipping upright.
Then he smiled.
"Try again, freak."
He blasted himself forward, using telekinesis to accelerate like a railgun slug.
15 minutes. Halfway there. Cosmic Punch charging: 50%.
But something had changed suddenly.
The monster stopped moving.
It stood still, wings folding in.
Then—its body began to shift.
Its mass compressed. Limbs retracted. Scales darkened. The glow of time energy intensified.
It was evolving again. Lucien lost count.
Lucien narrowed his eyes on the monster. "No, no, no, fuck not again—"
A wave of raw gravitational force exploded outward, slamming Lucien out of the air like a ragdoll.
He hit the ground very hard, blood spraying from his mouth. His body rolled across the ground, tearing trenches in the rubble.
From the sky, the newly evolved monster descended towards him.
It was sleeker now, humanoid in shape but covered in black diamond-like plates, with eight wings of voidfire and it had no visible face—only a burning star where its head should be. Its claws were thinner then before but longer. Its aura was suffocating the air around them.
Lucien stood again, he was wobbly on his feet.
His flight time was almost gone. His invisibility was half spent. His invulnerability only had one charge left.
He looked at his hands. They trembled in fear now.
"Fifteen minutes left," he whispered. "Come on Lucien…"
He launched himself forward again.
The next round of battle would be worse then the one he already had.
The evolved monster gains temporal displacement attacks.
Lucien pushes his powers to the limit using X-ray beams, invisibility, and telekinesis in creative ways he never thought he could use them in.
The team begins to lose hope in Lucien.
Emiluna's Chronomend makes progress on Karu´s healing.
Lucien gets critically wounded—he and his powers exhausted.
Shibuya — 16 minutes into the final battle.
Lucien blinked blood from his eyes as the air around him froze—not in temperature, but in time again.
The monster stood before him now in a newfound form. Armored. Sleek. Incomprehensibly faster then before. It had no face at all, only a gravitational sun burning where a head should be. Its eight wings crackled with collapsing dimensions. Reality rippled around its form like broken reflections in water.
Then the monster moved.
So fast that time cracked open.
Lucien barely saw the attack coming. A claw pierced through a ripple in space, raking across his side even though the monster hadn't moved physically.
He spun himself with the hit, using telekinesis to brace midair, then fired a twin X-ray beam from his eyes to attack the monster.
The beams struck the creature's chest, scorching the armor—but not piercing it like it did before.
The monster lifted its arm.
A Dimensional Claw—longer then before, dripping with violet flame—lashed forward.
[Invulnerability: Use 3 of 3 — activated.]
Lucien threw his arms up. The claw passed through him.
His barrier flickered and sparked, absorbing the temporal distortion—but that was his last invulnerability.He could no longer use it.
"You've gotta be kidding me…" Lucien muttered, heart beating faster then ever before.
He dropped altitude and fired another round of X-ray beams, this time aimed at the monster's knees and thighs. The heat gouged lines into the creature's legs, slowing it slightly—but again, its regeneration pulsed instantly, healing even that attack that Lucien threw at it.
He vanished midair.
[Invisibility: Use 3 of 5.]
A second later, he reappeared above the monster's head, slamming down with a telekinetic blow backed by full gravity force.
BOOOOMMM.
The ground cratered. Buildings that were already destroyed fell.
The monster staggered and got wobbly—but only for a second.
Then it howled.
It opened its wings and collapsed the entire space between itself and Lucien. In one impossible blink, they were Eye to Eye, and Lucien didn't even have time to scream or react before he was launched straight through a concrete dome.
Underground.
Lucien coughed up a lot of blood, dragging himself out of the rubble he was thrown.
The impact had shredded his jacket, scorched half his chest, and broken at least two of his ribs. His vision blurred. His timer ticked in his mind.
Cosmic Punch: 70% charged.
He gritted his teeth and stood up again.
"No giving up. Not now, i will win."
He launched himself upward again towards it.
Above.
The team stared in stunned silence.
Jason clenched his jaw. "He's still fighting after all that…"
"Barely tho," Rylen muttered.
Kagetsu flexed his restored arm—reassembled by Emiluna's power. "If that Cosmic Punch doesn't come soon we will all die here…"
Ayumu was silent as always. Her gravity well had run dry. The Captain of Division Two stood behind her, sword broken, eyes unreadable.
Emiluna didn't look up for a second. Her palms pressed against Karu's chest, glowing brighter and brighter.
Chronomend's power was almost at its limit—but it was still working. His heart was almost restored and was beating stronger then before. His lungs finally inflated again. The hole in his abdomen had sealed. All that remained was restoring his neural link and internal systems.
"Almost there Karu," she whispered. "Just stay strong for a little longer."
Her new power hummed inside her suit with unstable time energy—Future Reclaim, the ability to borrow cellular states from moments that never happened and force them into the now. It was killing her from the inside out. But she didn't care right now.
Back in the sky.
Lucien dashed around the monster in erratic bursts, each movement supported by low-level telekinesis that he had left and microflight bursts. He used his fourth invisibility charge.
[Invisibility: Use 4 of 5.]
He reappeared behind the creature, punching directly into its temporal wings with his full-force X-ray beams and a gravity-augmented kick.
He tore through one of its wings.
It exploded in a wave of distorted screams.
But the monster turned around and roared at Lucien, its chest-mouth opening again.
Lucien reacted too late this time.
The voidfire cannon blasted him point-blank.
He was flung across the district like a comet, crashing through ten buildings before skidding across pavement in a shower of stone and flame.
He didn't get up this time.
Ground level.
Lucien groaned in pain, coughing blood onto the concrete that was left in Shibuya.
"Cosmic Punch… 85% loaded."
His body screamed. Muscles torn apart. Internal bleedings everywhere. No more invulnerability. No invisibility left and no regeneration—just one final charge. He rolled onto his knees.
The monster was coming to kill him.
It dropped from the sky like a god of extinction, claws raised high.
Lucien raised his arms—only to get caught mid-motion.
A Dimensional Claw slashed down and caught his foot.
His body spasmed. Time tore around leg.
And with a wet, supernatural snap, his pinky toe vanished like it had never existed.
The pain hit a second later like a lightning bolt to his brain.
He screamed and roared in agony.
Dropped to both of his knees.
Bleeding, shaking, powerless.
The monster stood before him now, merciless and tall, its claws dripping with warped light, eyes of infinity staring down.
Behind Lucien, the others screamed, begging him too stand up—but he couldn´t move anymore.
Emiluna cried her eyes out, her hands glowing white as she slammed the last of her energy into Karu's chest.
A pulse exploded from her palms.
Karu's eyes finally snapped open.
He gasped for air, coughing violently as light returned to him. But he couldn't move just yet. His body wasn't ready to fight for now.
"One minute," Emiluna whispered. "One more minute and you'll be whole self."
Back at ground zero.
Lucien breathed in shallow gasps.
His arms trembled in pain and fear.
His knees burned like hell.
He had no strength left inside him.
But something inside him stirred.
A whisper.
"Get up, Lucien. You were made for more than this."
The ground cracked under his fists as he pushed himself upwards.
Not all the way—just enough to sit on one knee, then the other followed.
Blood dripping from his nose, his eye swollen shut.
He stared up at the monster.
His body was broken and defeated.
His energy drained.
But behind his chest…
Something burned.
The timer finally stopped ticking.
A soft hum rang out.
The wind shifted.
And from his right hand…
A cosmic flame ignited.
Purple, gold, white—colors unseen by mortals danced around his clenched fist.
The aura of divine stars.
The weight of a dying universe.
Cosmic Punch: 100% loaded.
Lucien's head lifted slowly.
He looked the monster in the eye.
"You lose."
His fist glowed brighter than the sun.