The stomp landed.
Not metaphorically.
Not symbolically.
Lucien drove his heel straight down, crushing Loki's head into the white floor of Nohr.
The impact did not produce sound.
It produced absence.
The white beneath Loki's skull collapsed inward like it had been punched out of existence, fractures racing outward in silent shockwaves. Loki's body spasmed once—then went limp, his consciousness flickering like a dying candle.
Lucien did not remove his foot.
He pressed down harder.
"Stay," he said calmly.
And then—
Something moved.
Not in Nohr.
Not in Paraxis.
Something above.
Something that should not have reached here anymore.
Lucien felt it instantly.
A pressure that did not belong.
A will that was no longer whole.
"…So you finally decided to interfere," Lucien murmured.
The white realm darkened.
No—stained.
Like ink bleeding through paper, black veins crawled across Nohr's infinite white. The throne behind them cracked further, symbols unraveling, laws screaming as something poured power downward.
Loki's body convulsed.
Lucien felt it then—raw, malformed authority being forced into him.
The Creator.
Not the one that once was.
But what remained.
Corroded.
Fractured.
Mad.
The only being that could ever fight Lucien on equal ground.
And now?
Something that had to die.
Lucien lifted his foot.
Loki's chest rose sharply as he gasped, golden cracks sealing, then splitting again as foreign power flooded him.
Loki laughed.
Not mockingly.
Not confidently.
It was a laugh dragged out of him by something else.
"…Ah," he breathed.
"So this is it."
His body changed.
White peeled away from Loki's form like shedding skin.
His body compressed, condensed, rewritten—no longer an abstract vessel of authority, but something terrifyingly solid.
Human.
Tall. Lean. Defined.
Black hair fell loose around a face now sharp with clarity and madness intertwined. His eyes burned—one white, one black—each reflecting a broken infinity.
This form could contain it.
Everything Loki had—law enforcement, narrative denial, infinite amplification—
—all of it was now anchored.
"Do you feel it?" Loki asked, voice steady now.
"This power doesn't tear me apart anymore."
Lucien watched him calmly.
"You're still beneath me."
Loki smiled.
"Then come prove it."
Reality screamed.
Lucien exhaled.
And for the first time—
—he let go.
The void around him did not expand.
It collapsed inward.
Lucien's presence sharpened, his outline blurring as layers of sealed existence peeled back. The air—or what passed for it in Nohr—compressed into something dense enough to shatter concepts.
Forty-five percent.
Not borrowed.
Not amplified.
His.
Lucien vanished.
Loki barely raised his arms before Lucien appeared inside his guard and drove a fist through his abdomen.
Not piercing.
Not crushing.
Erasing.
Loki's body bent backward as space ruptured behind him, white fracturing into endless black fissures.
He spat blood—golden, radiant—and twisted, swinging with power that could erase planes of existence.
Lucien ducked.
Countered.
An elbow shattered Loki's jaw.
A knee obliterated his ribs.
A palm strike slammed him downward so hard the concept of "down" broke.
Lucien was on him again before Loki could process pain.
No pause.
No breath.
No mercy.
Loki tried to speak.
Lucien punched him mid-syllable.
Tried to enforce law.
Lucien shattered the thought before it formed.
Tried to deny pain.
Nothing happened.
Loki screamed.
Not loudly.
Internally.
Because pain was no longer something he could turn off.
Lucien grabbed his arm.
Pulled.
It tore free, not with blood, but with a ripping sound like reality being peeled apart.
Loki howled.
Lucien watched the limb regenerate.
Then tore the other one off.
Again.
And again.
He ripped Loki's legs free at the hip.
Let them regrow.
Crushed his spine.
Let it mend.
Every time Loki tried to adjust, adapt, escalate—
Lucien was already there.
Already correcting him.
Already breaking him again.
"This," Lucien said quietly as he slammed Loki's face into the ground,
"is what happens when borrowed power meets ownership."
Loki coughed.
Then begged.
Not crying.
Not sobbing.
Begging.
"…Stop," he gasped.
"Please."
Lucien lifted him by the head, fingers digging into his skull.
Looked him dead in the eyes.
"No."
He tore Loki apart again.
Loki tried one last thing.
He reached outward—not to Nohr.
Not to Paraxis.
But up.
The corrupted Creator stirred.
Power surged.
Lucien felt it—and smiled.
"You think that thing can save you?" Lucien asked softly.
He slammed Loki down.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Loki's body regenerated slower now.
His screams fractured.
His authority shattered into useless fragments.
"Kill me," Loki begged hoarsely.
"Please. Just end it."
Lucien lifted him one last time.
Held him close.
And whispered—
"No."
The white realm shook as Lucien began again.
Loki's screams echoed endlessly through Nohr,
and Lucien Dreamveil standing over him—
calm, relentless,
and utterly unstoppable.