CHAPTER 45
The sky had not changed in days—still carved by swirling fractures of silver and crimson, still humming with the eerie resonance of powers too ancient for mortal understanding. Yet something felt different. Orion sensed it the moment he opened his eyes atop the shattered plateau: a thin stillness, like the world holding its breath.
Far below, the Godfall Battlefield pulsed with fading energy. Ruins floated, cracked monoliths hovered by threads of collapsing space, and the whispers of dying realms curled like smoke through the wind.
Elara and the others stood behind him, their weapons dimmed, their auras strained from the relentless battles. None spoke. They watched their commander—no, their beacon—wait for the inevitable.
Because the inevitable was coming.
A few moments later, the air rippled.
—BOOM.
A ripple of force tore the clouds apart as a figure descended, wrapped in a mantle of black flame and prismatic light. His presence distorted gravity, bent space, and caused the stone beneath Orion's feet to melt into molten silver.
The Son of the God-King had arrived.
The figure landed lightly, as if the world adjusted itself for him rather than the other way around. His armor shimmered like starlight dipped in shadow, and his gaze burned with arrogance tempered by caution—because unlike the others Orion had fought, this one knew he was facing something unpredictable.
"Elion," Orion muttered, tasting the ancient class of power coiling from the man. "So you finally crawled out from the throne's shadow."
Elion smirked. "Is that what you think? No… I stepped forward because Father ordered me to retrieve what he considers dangerous."
He pointed at Orion.
"You."
The plateau trembled. Orion's wings unfurled—eight vast blades of haloed brilliance and black-flame feathers. A storm of Domain resonance spiraled behind him: Time, Space, Ink, Immortal, Asura, Rivers & Mountains, Black Bamboo… each weaving into the ever-growing tapestry of the Eternal Reversal.
Elion tilted his head. "Your Domains… irregular. Unpredictable. Unworthy to exist."
"And yet," Orion replied, voice a blade carved from stillness, "You fear them."
A heartbeat.
Then—
—BOOOOOOM.
The world erupted.
Elion vanished, reappearing with a strike that exploded through several layers of time. Orion blocked with one hand, but the shockwave still shattered mountains miles away. The plateau buckled under their feet.
Orion answered with a single slash, and space folded like paper.
Elion dodged barely, his cloak singing as the edges disintegrated. "Fascinating. You hide your true strength well."
"You talk too much," Orion said.
They clashed again—light bending, space screaming, shadows fracturing into shards of fading gods.
Below them, Elara and the others were thrown back by the pressure, forced to erect barriers just to stay conscious.
"Master… this is beyond anything we've seen," Kallus whispered.
"No," Elara murmured, eyes fixed on Orion's silhouette within the radiating storm. "This is only the beginning."
High above, Orion shifted forms—mixing his Stage 5 might with the faint, embryonic stirrings of the mythical form he would only fully obtain at Stage 0. For now, the transformation whispered rather than roared: cracks of divine obsidian across his arms, ethereal horns flickering in and out of existence, phantom wings layered over his real ones.
Elion noticed.
"You're resonating with something beyond your Stage. Something old. Something forbidden."
Orion didn't deny it.
Elion's smile warped into something sharp. "Then let me rip it out of you."
He summoned his Domain—Sovereign Dominion, an authority that flattened reality.
The sky caved inward.
Cracks flew across the battlefield.
Orion's feet sank into the collapsing stone as the weight pressed on him like an entire plane trying to bury him alive. His bones creaked. His wings flickered. His breath grew heavy for the first time in the entire arc.
Elion descended step by step, each footfall bending gravity.
"Submit."
Orion spat out blood and straightened.
"No."
And then—he broke the world.
A surge of power burst from him, tearing the Dominion apart as if it were a flawed sketch. A river of black ink erupted behind him, forming mountains that turned upside down, spirals of space bent backwards, and time unwound in rippling waves.
Elion's eyes widened. "What—?!"
Orion stepped forward, unstoppable.
"This arc ends," he said softly, "with your defeat."
He grabbed Elion by the throat—
—and threw him through three timelines at once.
The Son of the God-King crashed into the horizon, shattering reality like glass.
Elara gasped.
Kallus staggered.
The entire battlefield stilled.
Orion hovered above the shattered sky, wings blazing, eyes glowing like twin galaxies.
He wasn't done.
He lifted a hand, drawing all seven Domains into a single spiral.
A technique he had never used.
A technique only he could wield.
"Eternal Reversal — Breaking of the Sovereign Path."
The spiral descended.
Elion screamed.
The world flashed white.
When the light faded, the Son of the God-King lay defeated, armor cracked, aura flickering like a dying spark.
Orion descended slowly, his aura dimming but unbroken.
This arc… was nearly over.
But not yet.
Elion raised his head, blood dripping down his chin. "Father… will not forgive you."
Orion stared down at him.
"Good."