The roar that tore from Kenta's throat was not a sound of rage, but of release. It was the cry of a breaking dam, the final surrender to the power he had fought so hard to control. The two opposing auras of his blades no longer warred around him; they fused, swirling into a vortex of gray, chaotic energy that crackled with the sound of dying stars. This was not the harmony he had trained for. This was a forced annihilation, a synthesis born of absolute desperation.
Nox's mirrored form completed its shift. His own body now radiated a distorted echo of the same gray energy, a pale and imperfect imitation. "A stolen technique is still a technique, boy!" he bellowed, his voice a grating duplicate of Kenta's own silent fury. "And mine carries the weight of a god's authority!"
He lunged, his movements a perfect, horrifying mirror of Kenta's own "Duality's End," becoming a thousand points of simultaneous attack in the starless domain.
Kenta did not move to counter. He stood at the epicenter of the storm, his reverse eclipse eyes seeing not a thousand enemies, but a single, flawed thread in the tapestry of reality that Nox had woven. The frantic calculations, the strain, the fear—it was all gone. Replaced by a cold, infinite clarity. The Dark Aura sustained his body, a perfect engine of destruction, while his mind became a single, focused purpose.
The name of the technique formed in his soul, not as a shout, but as a statement of fact. A truth he had inherited from the legacy of light and dark.
"Twin Serpents' Eclipse Form: First Style — Severing The Unreal."
He did not dash. He did not flicker. He took a single, deliberate step forward.
His crossed katanas swept out in a deceptively simple 'X'. There was no blinding light, no devouring darkness. There was only a whisper—the sound of a razor drawn across the throat of reality itself.
The technique did not travel through the air. It was not energy to be blocked or warped. It was a concept given form: The Cut That Denies Existence.
The thousand mirrored images of Nox, the perfect stolen technique, simply ceased. They did not shatter or fade; they were retroactively edited out of the present, unmade as if they never were.
The gray, mirrored energy surrounding Nox's true form parted like mist before the 'X'. His reality-warping Authority, the very power that made him an LR-Ranker bordering on Beyonder, offered no resistance. It was not overpowered; it was ignored. The technique operated on a layer deeper than warp and weft, targeting the fundamental truth of what is.
Nox's eyes, swirling with arrogant nebulae, widened in a moment of pure, uncomprehending shock. He looked down.
A perfect, clean 'X' was etched into his chest. There was no blood. No gore. The wound was not a physical injury in the conventional sense. It was a void, a permanent scar on the canvas of his very being. The flesh around it was not torn, but absent, replaced by a flat, two-dimensional grayness that seemed to drain the color from the world around it.
He stumbled back, a hand flying to his chest. His potent healing, the same that had sealed the injuries from Duality's End in an instant, flared around the wound. Iridescent light gathered... and then sputtered out, dying as it touched the edges of the gray scar. Nothing happened. The wound remained, stark and immutable.
"Heal," Nox commanded, his voice a strained whisper, pouring more of his vast power into the attempt. The energy gathered and collapsed again, uselessly. A third time, with the full force of his Authority behind it. The result was the same.
Panic, raw and undisguised, finally twisted his features. "What is this? What have you done?!" he shrieked, his voice losing its baritone rumble, cracking with a terror he had not felt in millennia. This was not a wound. It was a condemnation. A permanent mark stating his vulnerability.
Kenta stood before him, the gray aura around him flickering. The immense cost of the Eclipse Form was now crashing down. The Dark Aura could sustain his body, but the toll on his spirit was absolute. His white hair seemed to lose its luster, the piercing light in his pale eyes dimming.
He did not answer Nox's frantic questions. He simply looked at the terrified devil, his expression one of final, exhausted judgment.
"The cut..." Kenta's voice was a dry, hollow rasp, the first words he had spoken since his awakening, "...will not heal. It is the memory of your failure. Carry it. Or die from the shame."
His body, pushed beyond all conceivable limits, finally gave out. The Dark Aura vanished. The reverse eclipse faded from his eyes, returning them to their normal dark brown, clouded with unconsciousness. The legendary katanas clattered to the stone floor beside him as he collapsed, utterly spent, the silence of the ruined chamber broken only by Nox's ragged, panicked breathing and the silent, mocking presence of the unhealing scar.