The attack arrived before the thought could even form.
William didn't see it. He didn't hear it. He didn't even sense the shifting of cosmic energy in the immediate vicinity.
One moment, Andrew's voice echoed throughout the pristine white expanse, uttering the cold, singular command: "Begin." The next— William's left shoulder erupted in a violent shower of crimson blood, severed tendons, and shattered bone.
The sheer force of the impact sent him spinning through the air, crashing hard against the invisible, unyielding boundaries of the simulation chamber. He hit the ground rolling, his mind spiraling into immediate, absolute chaos. He clutching his ruined shoulder, staring blankly at the gaping wound.
He hadn't even realized he was being attacked. There had been no trajectory to dodge. No stance to counter. The absolute, terrifying speed of the Celestial Light Body defied the very framework of human time. Mark hadn't just moved fast; he had inhabited the light itself, striking from an angle that bypassed William's conscious awareness entirely.
Before William could even steady his ragged breathing or force his frantic thoughts into order, a heavy, suffocating coldness washed over the chamber. The ambient light in the room didn't just dim—it died. It felt as though reality itself was being sucked into a vacuum.
Merito moved.
The Candidate of the Eternal Nullified Physique did not sprint, nor did he display the flashy brilliance of Mark. He simply took a slow, deliberate step forward and raised a single, unexceptional finger.
Instantly, the white floor between them vanished. The air vanished. The fundamental concepts of distance, space, and time separating William from his opponent were violently cancelled out of existence.
William's ancient instincts, honed by a decade of isolation, screamed in a primal terror he hadn't felt since his days on Earth. Using his hard-won mastery over the glowing web of reality, he desperately extended his perception, frantically reaching for the luminous threads connecting him to his attackers. With a sharp, jagged exertion of his will, he severed them. He cut every bond, every relationship of force, trying to isolate himself from the oncoming onslaught.
But it wasn't enough. The residual shockwave of Merito's Nullification still reached him.
It didn't tear his flesh. It didn't break his bones. It did something infinitely more horrifying. It briefly, absolute cancelled his perception.
For a terrifying, endless second, William forgot who he was. He forgot where he was. He forgot the face of his family, the concept of his own existence. His mind became a complete, horrifying, hollow blank—a void where nothing existed, not even his own pain. He was a non-entity, drifting in a sea of pure nothingness.
BEEP.
A sharp, synthetic tone sliced through the silence.
Instantly, the oppressive pressure evaporated. The white room snapped back to its pristine, silent state. The terrifying projections of Mark and Merito dissolved into thin air, leaving no trace of their devastating presence.
William collapsed onto his hands and knees. He gasped violently for air that his lungs forgot how to process automatically, his chest heaving as his body fought to re-establish its basic biological functions. His left shoulder was already knitting back together, muscle fibers and bone fragments reforming under the passive influence of his immortal physique, but the psychological agony remained raw. Dark, thick blood dripped heavily onto the spotless white floor, sizzling softly before disappearing as the room automatically cleansed itself.
Outside the translucent barrier of the simulation chamber, the silver-haired woman stood perfectly still. Her long, moonlight-colored hair drifted subtly around her waist, and her multi-colored eyes—shifting slowly from a deep, oceanic blue to a cold, piercing gold—watched the trembling warrior inside.
She turned her gaze toward Andrew, her expression entirely devoid of warmth.
"I am thoroughly disappointed," she stated. Her voice was smooth, melodic, yet it carried an underlying chill that could freeze a star. "I harbored the distinct illusion that the candidate you chose—the one you spoke of with such quiet gravity—would easily dominate his peers. I expected a monster capable of securing a glorious, undisputed placement for my palace when the Great Tribulation arrives. But observing him now... he is simply below the required standard. He is weak."
Andrew didn't look at her. His arms remained crossed over his chest, his weathered face etched with deep, unreadable lines. His old, wise eyes remained fixed entirely on William, who was currently forcing his trembling limbs to support his weight inside the chamber.
A heavy, genuine sigh escaped the old man's lips—a sound filled with a rare, sorrowful weight.
"You look at him with the eyes of a cosmic lord, my lady," Andrew said softly, his voice carrying a quiet but firm defiance. "And in doing so, you tend to forget a crucial truth. You forget that he only began comprehending the vastness of his power ten short years ago. Before I pulled him from the dirt, he was a mortal. A fragile, short-lived being who endured severe, catastrophic psychological trauma."
The woman tilted her head slightly, her gaze narrowing. "Trauma is the forge of strength. It is not an excuse for failure."
"Look at him closely," Andrew continued, his tone tightening with an intensity that made the surrounding air hum. "Look past the aura he has built. Even now, after a decade in this sacred sanctuary, he is entirely incapable of sleep. Do you think it is by choice? His mind is a non-stop battlefield. The ghosts of his past—, the agonizing torment he suffered on Earth—still haunt every single corridor of his subconscious."
The old man stepped closer to the glass, his eyes softening as he watched William wipe the sweat and blood from his brow.
"Every time an attack surprises him, every time he faces an overwhelming force, his focus fractures," Andrew explained, his voice lowering to a somber whisper. "For a few precious, fatal moments, he isn't fighting the projection in front of him. He is reliving the horror of his captivity. He is back in that dark room, feeling helpless. He is not fighting to inherit the cosmos, my lady. Not yet."
The woman remained silent for several long moments, the shifting colors of her eyes slowing down as she absorbed the weight of Andrew's words. The sheer complexity of a mortal mind was something she had long forgotten, but she could recognize the truth in the old man's analysis.
"Then what is he fighting for?" she inquired quietly. "If not for the throne of the universe, what drives him to endure your brutal lessons?"
Andrew's eyes hardened, a grim smile playing on his lips. "He is still fighting for vengeance. He wants to tear down those who broke him. But beneath that anger, lies something far deeper, and far more dangerous. He is fighting the desperate, suffocating terror of ever feeling weak again. He builds platforms, he manipulates atoms, he binds threads... all because he believes that if he stops growing stronger, the world will chain him once more."
The woman looked back at William, her expression slightly more analytical now. "An existence driven by fear is inherently unstable. It has a ceiling. How do you propose to cure a shattered soul, Lord Andrew? We do not have another decade."
The old man smiled bitterly, a distant look in his eyes. "By letting him see the truth. You cannot cure fear by hiding from it. Let him be shocked by the sheer, unfathomable scale of the universe. Let him taste the monstrous, absurd power of those who inhabit the higher realms. True strength cannot be built on a foundation of terror and trauma. He must transcend his past, he must learn to accept what happened to him and move past it, or it will swallow him whole during the tournament."
Inside the chamber, the heavy white doors slid open with a soft, soundless hiss.
William walked out. His steps were uneven, his face entirely pale, and his breathing still shallow. His eyes, usually sharp and calculated, were wide, bloodshot, and frantic. The absolute, unshakeable confidence he had meticulously constructed over the last nine years of mastering the threads of existence had been thoroughly, ruthlessly shattered in a matter of seconds.
He didn't look like a master of reality. He looked like a man who had just peered into the jaws of an inescapable, primordial beast and realized he had no weapons to fight it.
He was completely unaware of the silent, profound exchange that had just occurred between Andrew and the mysterious silver-haired woman. He didn't see the way she observed him, nor did he care about the politics of the palace.
His gaze locked onto the old man with a desperate, burning intensity.
Struggling to keep his trembling voice stable, William approached Andrew. He took a deep, shaky breath, his fists clenching so tightly at his sides that his knuckles turned a ghostly white, and his nails dug deep into his palms.
"I need answers, old man," William spoke, his voice cracking slightly under the immense weight of his frustration and shock. He looked up at the mentor who had guided him through the cosmos, his eyes demanding a truth he wasn't sure he was ready to hear. "How do I close that gap? What is the way to solve this? Tell me how to defeat them."
Andrew looked at him, his expression completely unreadable, his eyes reflecting the deep, turbulent storm brewing inside his student's soul. The final year of preparation had officially begun, and it was clear that the hardest battles William had to fight were not against the candidates, but against the shadows lurking within himself.