The arena's central platform, still scorched and glowing from Ninten's catastrophic clash with Shan, was rapidly reconstructed by the automated repair matrix of the Hidden Maliqun Country. Hexagonal steel tiles flipped and locked into place, forming a fresh, metallic battleground bathed in the stadium's harsh overhead spotlights. The atmosphere, however, remained charged with intense, crackling tension. The crowd of thousands roared in anticipation, their voices shaking the transparent containment dome as the official tournament display flashed the roster for the next match of Phase Two.
**MATCHUP: THUNDER VS. LEOMORD**
On Team Thunder's bench, the mood was focused. Ninten lay stretched out on a recovery bench, wrapped in healing wraps and snoring faintly, his Sakti completely exhausted after his dual-profile fusion. Gic rested his arms against the railing, his eyes fixed on the entrance tunnel across the field. Mark adjusted his cybernetic visor, analyzing the combat data of their opponent, while Fi and Dent stood silently, their expressions grave.
Thunder stood at the edge of the staging ramp. His tall, broad frame exuded an air of absolute calm. Unlike Ninten's erratic, unpredictable energy, Thunder's aura was steady and deep, like a dormant storm waiting for the single spark that would ignite the sky. He wore his dark combat attire, the metallic trims humming faintly with an ambient electromagnetic charge that gently lifted the stray strands of his dark hair.
"Leomord isn't like Shan," Mark cautioned, his voice low as the visor projected holographic tactical wireframes of Team Bishop's next fighter. "Shan was an assassin who relied on speed, spatial deception, and shadow stealth. Leomord is a heavy-armored vanguard knight. His physical defense is staggering, and his Astragar Abha is rooted in defensive density rather than offensive corruption. Furthermore, he doesn't fight alone."
"The beast," Fi murmured, nodding toward the far end of the arena. "The armored Triceratops."
Thunder didn't turn around. He simply adjusted the metallic gauntlets on his forearms, a brief, calm smile touching his lips. "An armored knight and a creature covered in dark Abha. Sounds like a solid wall. But no matter how heavy the wall is, electricity always finds the path of least resistance."
With a single step, Thunder stepped onto the metallic platform. The moment his boot made contact with the floor, a soft blue static ring expanded ten meters around him, crackling across the metal tiles like living ivy. As the Qadirun Maliqun of Magnetics, Thunder, Lightning, and Electricity, his body was a natural conductor for the fundamental forces of physics and energy.
From the opposite tunnel, heavy, rhythmic thuds shook the bedrock of the entire citadel.
*THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.*
Out from the shadowy archway emerged Leomord. He was clad in massive, midnight-black plate armor that gleamed with an oily, dark sheen. In his right hand, he wielded a massive, broad-bladed Knight's Sword, its edges shimmering with a dense, suffocating layer of pitch-black Astrager Abha. Beside him stomped his companion—a colossal, eight-ton armored Triceratops. The beast's three massive horns were capped with spiked iron, and its thick, reptilian hide was encased in layered steel plates that burned with the same dark, corrupted Abha aura.
Leomord raised his knight's sword, pointing the tip directly at Thunder's heart. His voice boomed through his visor, heavy and devoid of emotion. "Qadirun Maliqun of Magnetics, Thunder, Lightning, and Electricity... I am Leomord of the Iron Vanguard. Prepare yourself."
Thunder raised his right hand, his fingers twitching slightly as twin currents of blue static sparked between his knuckles. "Whenever you're ready, Knight."
*BZZZZZZT!*
The arena's automated siren shrieked through the stadium speakers, signaling the immediate start of the match.
"BEGIN!"
---
### SECTION 1: THE CLINICAL STRIKER
Before the sound of the siren could even finish reverberating through the dome, Leomord moved. Despite his immense armor, the knight moved with surprising forward thrust, driven by his beast. The armored Triceratops let out a bloodcurdling, guttural roar that shook the glass barrier, lowering its massive horned head and charging straight toward Thunder like an unstoppable iron battering ram.
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*
The floor tiles buckled under the Triceratops's crushing weight. Leomord rode atop the beast's armored shoulders, his Knight's Sword drawn back, ready to deliver a cleaving strike wrapped in Astrager Abha.
"Charge straight ahead... classic vanguard tactic," Thunder observed coolly.
He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't even shift into a defensive stance. Tapping into his **Lightning-Merged Reflexes**, Thunder's perception of time expanded exponentially. The charging beast, the flying sparks, and the arc of Leomord's sword appeared to slow down to a sluggish crawl. Thunder's neural pathways fired at the speed of electrical signals, allowing him to process every micro-movement of his opponent before it even manifested.
*SWOOSH!*
Thunder vanished from his position, leaving behind a sharp crackle of ionized air.
The Triceratops's horned snout smashed into empty space, pulverizing the floor tiles. Before Leomord could adjust his sightline, Thunder re-materialized directly at the beast's flank, hovering inches above the ground.
"Polarity Shift: North," Thunder murmured softly, extending his hand toward the heavy steel plates protecting the Triceratops's left shoulder.
*VRRRRRR-BANG!*
A powerful magnetic charge flashed from Thunder's palm, instantly polarizing the metal armor on the beast's left side with a positive magnetic field. Simultaneously, Thunder targeted the metallic floor plates fifty meters to the right, polarizing them with an intense negative charge.
The laws of magnetism asserted themselves instantly and violently.
"Gah!" Leomord grunted as the massive, eight-ton Triceratops was yanked sideways against its will, its heavy iron armor magnetically dragged across the arena floor toward the negative pole. The beast lost its footing entirely, skidding sideways across the slick metal floor with a deafening screech of grinding steel.
"His positioning is completely shattered!" Mark called out from the bench, his eyes wide. "Thunder didn't even attack the beast directly—he manipulated the magnetic field of its own armor to completely break its momentum!"
Leomord reacted with seasoned martial discipline. As his mount skidded sideways, he leapt from its back, executing a heavy mid-air vault. Channeling his Astrager Abha, he slammed his Knight's Sword into the floor plates to anchor himself, creating a twenty-meter wave of dark, corrupted shockwaves that surged toward Thunder.
*BOOM!*
Thunder didn't retreat. He stepped directly into the path of the dark shockwave, his eyes sharp, clinical, and completely unfazed.
"Thunderbolt Stun: Chain Pulse!"
Thunder snapped his fingers. A blinding beam of sky-blue lightning shot from his hand, striking the center of Leomord's dark shockwave. Instead of clashing in a conventional explosion, the electrical current split into dozens of micro-arcs that traveled directly along the dark Abha energy strands, using the corruption itself as a conductor.
*BZ-BZ-BZ-BZ-BZ-BZZZT!*
The lightning struck Leomord's iron armor instantly. The raw electrical voltage bypassed his outer plate defense, delivering a continuous, hard stun directly into his nervous system.
"Argh!" Leomord's muscles locked up instantly as thousands of volts of hard-stun electricity surged through his armor. His knight's sword faltered, dropping an inch as his limbs went rigid under the unrelenting shock.
Thunder moved like a surgical blade. With effortless fluidity, he closed the distance in a fraction of a millisecond, appearing directly inside Leomord's guard.
*PA-PA-PA-PAK!*
Thunder delivered a precise series of three open-palm strikes across Leomord's chest piece, shoulder joints, and helmet. Each strike was infused with concentrated magnetic charges and high-frequency electrical pulses that rattled Leomord's internal organs while implanting localized magnetic trackers into his heavy armor plates.
"Back," Thunder said calmly, delivering a final, sharp palm thrust to Leomord's breastplate.
*BOOM!*
Leomord was blasted backward, crashing heavily onto the back of his recovering Triceratops. The knight panted behind his visor, his body numb from the hard stuns, his armor singing with residual static electricity.
In the spectator stands, the crowd roared in amazement. Thunder was fighting with absolute mastery—not relying on raw destructive force, but dictating every frame, every position, and every breath of the combat tempo. He was a master striker, completely controlling the flow of battle.
---
### SECTION 2: THE NEBULA'S PRIDE
Leomord pushed himself up from the beast's back, shaking off the residual numbness in his hands. His eyes behind his visor burned with fierce, unyielding determination.
"You are indeed a master of the storm, Qadirun Maliqun," Leomord bellowed, his voice echoing with heavy resonance. "Your reflexes are beyond human comprehension, and your control over magnetism makes a warrior's own armor his greatest prison. But an iron knight of the Vanguard does not fall to mere paralysis!"
Leomord raised his Knight's Sword high into the air. Beside him, the Triceratops let out a deep, vibrating bellow, its eyes glowing with a dark, terrifying purple light.
*WOOOOOOOSH!*
The dark Astrager Abha surrounding both Leomord and his pet suddenly erupted upward like a geyser of pitch-black fire. The dark aura didn't just coat their armor—it began to dense and solidify, forming an absolute, impenetrable layer of spatial Abha armor that completely shielded them from magnetic interference. The metal plates of Leomord's armor were completely insulated by the suffocating dark energy, rendering Thunder's magnetic field manipulation useless against his person.
"Abha Insulation Field!" Mark warned from the bench. "Thunder can't manipulate the magnetic charge of his armor anymore! The Astrager Abha is completely dampening all external electromagnetic waves!"
"He's going all out," Fi said, leaning forward.
"ROAR!"
The Triceratops charged once more, but this time, it was surrounded by a swirling vortex of distorted space. Leomord stood atop the beast, his Knight's Sword gathering an immense, terrifying amount of dark spatial energy that caused the air around the blade to warp and twist violently.
Thunder stood his ground, his eyes narrowing slightly as he felt his magnetic link to Leomord's armor sever. "Insulating your armor with spatial Abha... clever. But speed and precision remain on my side."
*SWOOSH!*
Thunder shifted his weight, preparing to dodge sideways using his Lightning-Merged Reflexes once again.
However, Leomord had anticipated the evade. The moment Thunder began his movement, Leomord activated his ultimate spatial technique—a legendary space-type attack designed specifically to lock down high-speed targets.
"NEBULA'S PIERCING JUGGLES OF PRIDE!" Leomord roared.
*CRACK!*
The spatial fabric of the entire arena was suddenly sliced open. Nine massive, cosmic spatial fissures materialized in a circular formation around Thunder, locking him into a localized, gravimetric singularity. The spatial pressure squeezed inward from all nine directions simultaneously, freezing Thunder's lightning-fast movements in mid-frame!
"What?!" Thunder's eyes widened slightly as he felt his body pinned by the intense, crushing spatial gravity. His lightning reflexes were intact, but his physical limbs were trapped inside the warped space!
Before Thunder could burst out by overloading his Sakti, Leomord and his Triceratops burst through the spatial rift.
*SLASH!*
Leomord swung his Knight's Sword in a brutal, sweeping diagonal stroke. The dark, spatial-infused blade cleaved directly across Thunder's chest, slicing through his reinforced combat vest and tearing a deep, bloody gash across his torso!
"GAAAH!" Thunder gasped as fresh crimson blood sprayed across the metallic floor.
Leomord didn't halt his momentum for a single microsecond. Leveraging the spatial gravity of *Nebula's Piercing Juggles of Pride*, he executed a devastating airborne combo juggle. The Triceratops struck Thunder with its heavy, Abha-coated horns, launching the immobilized fighter ten meters into the air, where Leomord met him with a relentless sequence of heavy thrusts and spatial slashes.
*SLASH! STRIKE! CRASH!*
"Thunder!" Dent screamed from the bench, his hands slamming into the containment wall.
High in the air, Leomord gathered every drop of his remaining Astrager Abha into the point of his Knight's Sword. The blade glowed with a blinding, terrifying black-and-purple cosmic light.
"FALL, QADIRUN MALIQUN!" Leomord roared, driving the blade downward with catastrophic force.
*THWACK—CRASH!*
The Knight's Sword impaled Thunder straight through his shoulder, driving his body violently downward out of the air. Thunder slammed into the center of the arena floor with bone-shattering force, creating a massive crater that sent fractured steel plates flying in every direction.
*BOOM!*
The spatial pressure dissipated, leaving a silent, smoking crater in the middle of the ring. Thunder lay flat on his back at the bottom of the crater, his chest carved open, his shoulder impaled, and blood pooling rapidly around his still body. His Sakti signature flickered weakly before completely flatlining on the stadium's diagnostic displays.
Leomord landed heavily on his feet beside his panting Triceratops, his Knight's Sword dripping with blood. He sheathed his blade, resting his gauntleted hand on the hilt as he breathed heavily.
"It is over," Leomord announced quietly toward the sky displays. "A formidable opponent... but space conquers speed."
The spectator stands went completely silent. The automated referee droids hovered over the crater, preparing to begin the countdown for a knock-out victory for Team Bishop.
---
### SECTION 3: THE AWAKENING OF THE PURPLE CUTTER
Down on Team Thunder's bench, the atmosphere was dead silent. Dent had his eyes shut tightly, while Gic clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white.
However, Mark didn't panic. His cybernetic visor was zoomed in on Thunder's motionless body at the bottom of the crater, analyzing his vital signatures.
"Wait..." Mark whispered, his voice trembling slightly.
"Mark? What is it?" Fi asked, turning to the analyst.
"Look at his Sakti output..." Mark pointed a shaking finger at his holographic console. "His normal lightning Sakti... it didn't just drop to zero. It's being overwritten."
"Overwritten?" Dent asked, blinking in confusion.
"I've seen this before..." Mark said, his eyes filled with a mixture of awe and genuine terror. "Back during our team's internal ranking match... when Thunder took a fatal strike from my heavy railcannon. He collapsed just like this. His heart stopped for three seconds. And then..."
Suddenly, a strange, terrifying phenomenon began inside the smoking crater.
*W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W!*
The ambient atmospheric sound inside the entire stadium didn't just quiet down—it was completely erased. A suffocating, utterly unstoppable pressure descended upon the arena, so dense that even the heavy containment barriers around the spectator stands began to crack under the sheer weight of the aura.
Leomord froze. His Triceratops let out a whimpering growl, backing away slowly as its armored legs trembled uncontrollably.
"What is... this feeling?!" Leomord gasped, turning back toward the crater. "His Sakti was completely gone!"
At the bottom of the crater, Thunder's body remained motionlessly flat on the ground. But from deep within his chest—from a primordial, bounded core that had been locked away behind his conscious control—a strange, raw, and utterly unstoppable **Destruction Sakti** began to flow.
It wasn't the clean, controlled blue electricity Thunder usually used. This was an ancient, violent, and unyielding force.
*SWOOSH—GLOW!*
The deep, bloody gash across Thunder's chest and the terrifying puncture wound on his shoulder began to glow with a deep, eerie violet hue. In less than a single heartbeat, the Destruction Sakti completely erased all of Thunder's physical wounds, knitting his flesh, muscle, and bone back together at a molecular level as if time itself had been reversed!
Slowly, effortlessly, Thunder rose to his feet.
He didn't open his eyes right away. His dark hair drifted upward, defying gravity, as waves of dense, pitch-black and vivid purple lightning began to crackle and dance violently across his skin. The air around him didn't just ionize—it atomized, turning the floating dust particles into glowing violet sparks.
Mark leaned forward over the bench railing, his voice echoing with deep reverence. "When Thunder takes fatal damage... his conscious restraint completely snaps. The primordial Destruction Sakti sealed within his bloodline forcefully awakens to preserve his existence. It erases his injuries and manifests his absolute strongest technique..."
"What technique?" Gic asked, staring in absolute awe at the transformation.
"The technique he named himself..." Mark whispered. "**The Lightning Cutter.**"
Thunder opened his eyes. They were no longer human. Both irises had turned into burning, pure purple suns that emitted long streaks of violet electrical light from the corners of his eyes.
He slowly raised his right arm.
*CRACKLE-BOOM!*
The boundless, violent Destruction Sakti surged into his right forearm and palm. The purple lightning didn't just scatter—it condensed, compressed, and solidified with terrifying density, shaping itself around his right hand into a long, razor-sharp, crystalline sword made entirely of pure, high-frequency purple lightning. The sheer heat and sound emanating from the purple lightning sword sounded like thousands of birds screaming in unison, tearing through the quiet vacuum of the arena.
Leomord's instincts screamed at him in absolute panic—a primal terror he had never felt in his entire life as a hardened knight.
"ABSOLUTE SHIELD! ASTRAGER FULL COVERAGE!" Leomord screamed at the top of his lungs, pulling his Triceratops in front of him. Both knight and beast poured 100% of their remaining Astrager Abha and physical defense into constructing an absolute, multi-layered spatial shield in front of them, thick enough to survive a direct nuclear payload.
Thunder didn't speak. He didn't make a sound.
*SNAP!*
Thunder flew forward.
He didn't run. He didn't leap. He became a singular, blinding line of purple light that snapped straight through reality itself.
*FLASH!*
In less than one-ten-thousandth of a second, the purple streak passed directly through the multi-layered spatial Abha shield, through the armored eight-ton Triceratops, and straight through Leomord's heavy iron plate armor.
The entire arena flickered in pitch-black shadow for a single microsecond as the spatial dimension itself was cleanly severed by the purple cutter.
When the light returned...
Thunder was nowhere to be seen. He had completely, utterly vanished from the arena stage, leaving behind only a thin, lingering line of purple static hanging suspended in mid-air.
Behind the line of static, Leomord and his Triceratops stood completely frozen in place. The massive spatial shield, the thick steel armor, and the creature's hide remained still for a single second... before a clean, razor-sharp purple line glowed across the entire structure.
The crowd held its collective breath in total, terrifying silence. Where had Thunder gone? And what had just happened to the invincible iron knight?
**TO BE CONTINUED...**