A year inside the Dimension.
Four years had passed in its twisted flow of time.
The silence was unnatural.
No wind. No echo. Just the faint pulse inside Yuu's chest — steady, slow, and defiant.
He stood amid the ruins of the training arena, every inch of him drenched in blood and dust. His breathing was calm, but shallow. Cracks spread across his mana core like spiderwebs. Deep inside his chest, he felt the strain — a fracture that wasn't visible, but fatal all the same.
One more overload, and it would shatter.
But he didn't care.
Across the arena, the twin monsters regenerated again. The Abyssal Warden's twin blades burned with black flame, and the Titan Gorebeast's tusks had regrown — obsidian and alive with molten veins.
The ground beneath them quaked.
Pressure filled the air until even light began to warp.
Yuu lowered his stance, one hand on the hilt of his blade. His heartbeat echoed like thunder in the silence.
He whispered.
"Let's begin."
---
The Gorebeast moved first.
A roar shook the arena. Its charge tore through the air like an avalanche, tusks splitting the atmosphere.
Yuu didn't dodge. He crouched low — gravity folding around him — and moved.
Gravity Veil. Phantom Step. Sky Sever.
The world blurred.
Boom.
The sound barrier cracked open behind him as he slashed across the Gorebeast's flank. Flesh split. Blood ignited. The beast screamed.
The Warden came from behind — twin blades spinning.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Three strikes in one heartbeat.
He blocked the first. Parried the second.
The third carved through his shoulder — a burst of crimson trailing behind him.
He didn't flinch.
Pain was expected.
He used it.
Twisting midair, he countered — a reverse arc of lightning-infused steel. The blade cut deep into the Warden's ribs. Energy burst outward, shaking the foundation.
Mana bled from the air itself — wild, unstable, like lightning veins cracking across the sky.
His pulse was calm, but his core trembled.
He could feel it weakening.
---
The Gorebeast roared again, stamping down with enough force to tear the ground apart.
The entire platform split open.
Yuu dropped into the darkness below.
The Warden followed, blades spinning like drills.
He kicked off falling debris and clashed with it mid-descent — sparks and blood raining in the dark.
Steel. Bone. Flame.
Every movement echoed with violence.
He took a cut to the leg. A graze across the jaw. A shattered rib from the Warden's knee.
But he struck back — a sweeping Sky Sever cutting upward, slicing off the Warden's arm.
He landed hard, the impact splintering stone.
Crack.
His right leg snapped.
Pain lanced up his body, but his grip didn't falter. He stood on one knee, blade trembling in his hand.
The Gorebeast dropped beside him — an earthquake in flesh.
The collision buried him under a wave of rock and dust.
A claw ripped through the rubble and pierced his back.
Blood poured from his mouth.
Then the Warden came again. Twin blades. No hesitation.
The steel ran straight through his chest.
---
You died – 7
---
The world reset.
No drifting void. No soul floating away.
Just light — bursting from the dimension's heart. His body reformed where it had fallen, torn flesh knitting, bones fusing, veins burning white-hot.
But something was off.
The revival took longer.
And for the first time, the Goddess appeared — not from the sky, but standing right there beside the arena's edge, watching with faint worry in her eyes.
"Your core," she said quietly. "It's cracking."
Yuu exhaled. His breath came out like smoke.
"If it breaks," she continued, "you'll stop being human."
He met her gaze. Calm. Defiant.
"Then let it break."
The Goddess frowned. "There's another way — but it's forbidden. It channels divine flow through mortal veins. It could destroy you."
"Then teach me."
Her eyes softened. "Why do you keep walking forward when even the gods tell you to stop?"
Yuu looked past her — at the monsters waiting for him to rise again.
"Because I decide my limits."
The Goddess stared at him for a long time, then sighed. "Fine. But this path has no return."
"I don't plan on turning back."
---
Divine Flow surged.
Silver threads of mana etched themselves beneath his skin, glowing like veins of light. His body shivered under the pressure, yet held.
His core stabilized — not healed, but reforged through will alone.
The air trembled.
Even the monsters paused, sensing the shift.
The Goddess whispered, "He's forcing divine flow through a cracked core… no one's ever done that."
---
They attacked again.
Yuu stepped forward.
Each motion tore the air apart.
His afterimages stacked behind him — one, then two, then ten, until he seemed to move in multiple directions at once.
Phantom Step expanded.
Gravity Veil hardened.
Sky Sever evolved.
He crossed blades with the Warden — the clash exploded like thunder. Its left arm went flying, blood bursting in a storm of black fire.
The Gorebeast lunged, tusks descending.
Yuu raised one hand.
"Gravity Pulse."
The monster's leap slowed midair — crushed by invisible weight.
He appeared above it in an instant and cut downward, slicing clean through tusk, flesh, and bone.
He landed, knees bent, breathing slow.
One eye shut. Blood streaming from his nose. Ribs broken again.
But he smiled.
Because for the first time, he felt it — the divine rhythm.
The world wasn't moving against him anymore. It was flowing with him.
The two monsters roared and came together for one last strike.
Yuu didn't move to block.
He looked up, toward where the Goddess watched from above.
And nodded.
Blades and tusks pierced through him — clean, silent.
He didn't resist. Didn't scream.
He let it end on his terms.
---
You died – 8
---
Light washed over the arena.
Then silence.
Yuu stood once more at the center of the stone field, body whole again.
The monsters gone.
The Goddess still there — quiet, expression unreadable.
"You let it happen," she said softly.
"I needed to reset before my core collapsed."
"You're changing," she murmured. "Becoming something that shouldn't exist."
Yuu met her eyes. "Then make me something that can."
For a moment, she said nothing.
Then — a small, genuine smile.
"You're the only mortal who ever asked the right question."
"Which was?"
"Why."
She turned away, fading with the light.
"And you'll need that answer soon. Because what's coming… not even gods can stop it."
Yuu looked up at the empty sky of the Dimension.
The cracked world hummed quietly under his feet.
His grip tightened on his blade.
His voice was low, steady.
"Then I'll learn to do what gods can't."
The light pulsed once, and the training dimension reset.
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