He vanished in the same instant the Echo lunged for his exposed neck, reappearing directly above it mid-air. His body twisted downward in a controlled spiral.
[Dimensional Claw – Compression Variant]
He sliced downward with all five fingers together, compressing the space tear into a focused singular blade. It raked down through the Echo’s shoulder, slicing deep into its chest with a burst of black sparks and ruptured mana echoes.
The Echo stumbled forward, its entire left arm falling away from its body, severed clean. Black ichor gushed across the marble floor in steaming pools. But it didn’t scream. Didn’t falter. Its empty eyes turned back to him calmly as it raised its remaining hand.
Fold Step.
It flickered forward, slamming its palm into his sternum before he could react. The force blasted him backwards with bone-shattering power, his body smashing into the far mirrored wall hard enough to crack the stone behind it. Glass shards rained across his shoulders as he collapsed onto his knees, coughing blood onto the cold floor.
His vision blurred. His ears rang with silent static.
But he smiled faintly.
Fold Step.
He flickered forward instantly, reappearing inside the Echo’s guard range. Their eyes met—his calm, flickering with faint warmth. The Echo’s empty, black and hollow.
"Good fight," he whispered softly.
His fingers pressed lightly against its chest.
[Temporal Disruption Pulse]
A burst of compressed time-energy exploded into the Echo’s torso, freezing its entire frame mid-motion. Cracks spread across its chest, glowing faint blue-white as its black ichor bled through ruptured mana circuits.
The Echo opened its mouth soundlessly, empty eyes flickering with faint blue sparks. Then its body shattered like thin glass, fragments dissolving into drifting motes of black and silver light.
Silence.
Lucian stood alone in the vast obsidian hall, blood dripping down his torn chest onto the marble floor. He breathed softly, his half-lidded eyes calm despite the trembling pain in his limbs.
[Floor One – Completed.]
[Recovery Interval: Thirty Seconds.]
[Floor Two: Manifestation – Combat Echo.]
[Initiating.]
He closed his eyes as the world flickered around him, reconstructing itself into a new battlefield of shattered stone pillars and drifting violet fog. His blood dripped softly onto his boots, but his expression didn’t change.
Fold Step.
He vanished again, reappearing at the arena’s center as a new Echo rose from the mist—this time wielding a silver spear burning with pale lightning.
Lucian lowered his stance lightly, his half-lidded eyes sharpening to thin blades of calm focus.
"Let’s continue," he whispered softly.
And in that silent, endless tower of his mind, the fight raged on—each clash ringing with thunderclaps of ruptured space and flickering shadows, as Lucian Black walked forward without fear.
Toward Rank D.
Toward something beyond strength.
Toward a future... no one was ready for.