Chapter 126: Fighting The Prime 3 The void broke.
Lucian Prime stepped forward, and the battlefield bent around him. Gravity tilted, shards of broken stars twisting in orbit as if bowing. His aura tore through the void, violet-gold and endless, heavy enough to crush bone just by existing.
Lucian stood opposite, his chest heaving, cloak shredded, blood running down his arms in hot streams. His body screamed at him to stop, but his eyes locked on the monster in front of him. His own face—his own shape—yet something greater, sharper, merciless.
Prime’s voice carried through the collapsing void, layered like echoes through time itself.
"You’re weaker than I thought. Pathetic. Unfit."
Lucian spat blood, grinned faintly. "Guess I’ll disappoint you."
Prime’s eyes narrowed. Then he moved.
The void collapsed with his first step. He didn’t Fold Step—he erased distance. One moment he stood still, the next his palm crashed into Lucian’s chest like a star exploding.
Lucian’s ribs cracked. He flew backward, slamming through floating shards of moonstone, each one breaking apart under his body before he stopped against nothing, coughing blood.
Before he could draw breath, Prime was there again.
A hand snapped across his face. Space twisted with it. The impact tore his jaw sideways, his vision bursting white. He was flung downward into the black sea below. The surface bent under him, gravity reversing, then crushed him back up into the air like a ragdoll.
Lucian gasped, teeth grit, body a furnace of pain. He Fold Stepped away mid-air, reappearing above Prime and slamming both palms forward. Spacetime collapsed into a black sphere—the singularity screaming as it pulled Prime into it.
Prime didn’t resist. He let it take him—then rewound. The singularity unraveled itself, returning to the moment before Lucian cast it. Lucian froze a beat too long.
Prime’s fist drove into his gut. Bones cracked, blood sprayed. He folded, gasping, before Prime hurled him sideways with a flick of his wrist. Lucian’s body smashed through three drifting shards, left tumbling.
"Everything you do," Prime said coldly, voice booming across the broken sky, "I have already mastered."
Lucian struggled to his feet on one floating island, clutching his bleeding side. His vision blurred, but he forced his hand up. Rift Rend tore outward, a jagged wound in space that screamed toward Prime.
Prime raised a finger.
The wound sealed.
Lucian’s eyes widened.
Prime raised his other hand. Time froze. Lucian’s heart skipped a beat, his limbs dragging through molasses as Prime walked forward, every step bending the void tighter. He stopped inches away, leaned close, and whispered in his ear.
"You are nothing but a shadow of me."
Then Prime struck.
The blow wasn’t raw force—it was command. Space buckled, time shattered. Lucian’s body twisted violently, every bone breaking, his form ripped apart and slammed into the void itself. The platform under him shattered into dust. He screamed, voice torn raw.
But he didn’t stop.
Through the pain, through the fire in his veins, he pulled a Fold Step, snapping himself upright on another shard, one knee bent, blood dripping onto the glass ground. His hands shook. His jaw ached.
Still, his lips curled faintly. "If I’m your shadow... then you’re stuck with me."
Prime’s eyes glowed brighter, aura flaring until the void itself cracked. He raised both arms. The battlefield bent, gravity severing in a thousand directions, shards of stars colliding and exploding. The storm of time and space screamed, pulling Lucian into a hurricane of broken law.
Lucian’s body was shredded by the storm—skin torn, muscles ripped. His scream was drowned by the collapse. Prime walked through calmly, untouchable, his cloak dragging behind him like the night itself.
Lucian’s body dangled in the storm, broken, hanging by threads.
"Fall," Prime commanded.
Lucian almost did.
Almost.
But something inside him snapped back. His blood burned, his veins glowing faintly with golden light. His lips moved.
"Not yet."
He pulled both arms wide.
And space obeyed.
The storm bent. The collapsing shards froze mid-motion. Time stuttered. The hurricane snapped inward around him, pulled into his palms until his body shook, bones straining. A black sun of spacetime burned between his hands, screaming with power.
Prime’s eyes flickered, just slightly. "Impossible."
Lucian roared. His voice cut through the void, raw and broken. "This—stays—with me!"
He hurled the sun.
The black mass screamed forward, pulling everything into its orbit. Prime raised his arms to resist, but the collapse dragged even him a step backward, his aura flickering as fragments of stars shattered around him.
Lucian Fold Stepped through his own storm, appearing above Prime mid-collapse. Blood ran from his eyes, his nose, his mouth. His body was tearing itself apart.
But his hands came down.
[Chrono Break—Absolute.]
Time shattered. Prime’s body stuttered, slowed, bent against itself for a single heartbeat. That was all Lucian needed.
He slammed his palm into Prime’s chest.
Space ripped.
A Rift Rend screamed point-blank, Collapse Form devouring through armor, skin, bone. Prime staggered, for the first time truly hurt. Violet-gold blood sprayed into the void, searing hot.
Lucian’s arm cracked from the recoil. His chest split. His body barely held.
Prime roared, voice like a thousand echoes. His hand grabbed Lucian’s throat, squeezing, lifting him into the air. His aura exploded outward, breaking time free of the lock.