Dirga twisted away — a hair’s breadth from being caved in.
This... this was part of Sasa’s test. A sense lesson, hidden inside a war.
Every flicker. Every shimmer of space. Every false strike. It was about reading intent, not just movement.
"You’re good, kid. What was your name again? Dirga, right?" Eidomos asked, his tone casual — as if they weren’t trying to kill each other.
Instead, he transformed the Crimson Core again.
Two in his hands. Eight floating around him — suspended in a tight orbit, pulsing like orbiting moons.
He launched them all — the floating blades slashing in unpredictable patterns while he closed the distance with his own pair.
Eidomos danced between them — glitching, vanishing, appearing — as if reality itself couldn’t agree on where he was.
When he attacked once, Eidomos dodged.
When he attacked twice in quick succession, Eidomos still dodged.
Even simultaneous strikes from multiple angles... failed.
Nothing broke the Veil.
He stepped back — heart pounding — eyes scanning.
But the moment he retreated—
Eidomos appeared behind him.
The mace slammed into Dirga’s hastily-formed shield — the impact sent him flying like a ragdoll, pain screaming through his ribs. His body skidded across the arena floor.
Blood splattered, staining the cracked tiles.
Mid-flight, Dirga activated both his telekinesis and gravity — halting his momentum in a violent mid-air stop. His bones rattled from the sudden force, but he didn’t stop.
Dirga forced every ounce of his focus into his telekinesis. Power surged, volatile and unrestrained. His mind buzzed with white-hot energy.
He seized the environment — shattered spears, broken stone, metal fragments — and reshaped them. He layered gravity into the structure too, pressing down, anchoring every piece into a collapsing field.
Eidomos laughed — amused, not alarmed.
"Hahaha, amazing, kid."
The Faceless Devil tapped his mace to the ground.
Metal reversed. Gravity dispersed. The field returned to normal.
As if none of it ever happened.
Dirga’s eyes widened.
This wasn’t just dodging. This wasn’t even glitching anymore.
This was reality manipulation.
And this devil lost in the war? What could possibly kill a thing ?
Dirga’s hands clenched into fists.
No more testing. No more hesitation.
He transformed the Crimson Core — this time into a bandage, but longer, heavier. The cloth coiled from his left arm to his right like a steel wrap, glowing with gravity-enhanced runes. It felt like metal wrapped in motion — dense, alive, and ready.
"Oho?" Eidomos tilted his faceless head. "Is it time for an ultimate move?"
His tentacle-like hair began to glow — a neon green that pulsed with unstable power. His mace responded, the steel humming, vibrating — shifting its mass as if it were feeding off Eidomos’s concept.
Dirga surged forward.
His first step cracked the earth beneath him. Stone exploded like a grenade blast — fissures webbing outward from the sheer force of his launch.
Eidomos didn’t move. He just watched.
Dirga’s mind raced — he couldn’t pull Eidomos with gravity this time. The Veil of Void might still distort touch.
He activated all his telekinesis — not on the enemy, but on himself — pulling back, then slamming forward again, stopping on a dime.
He came to a dead halt right in front of Eidomos.
The sheer force of the deceleration surged into his legs, up into his spine, and then—
Pull. Channel. Collapse.
The bandage tightened. Gravity focused to a single point — his clenched fist — the very center of his concept.
Across from him, Eidomos’s mace expanded, bulging with void energy.
"Punch Style: Collapsing One Point."
"Mace Style: Reality Shatter."
It was like a window shattering across dimensions — followed by the detonation of a collapsing sun.
The collision echoed like the crack of a god’s whip — reality itself ringing with the impact of two concepts colliding.
The shockwave rippled across dimensions.
Elsewhere — just outside the eye of the storm — Sasa watched.
Hovering in midair, legs lazily crossed, a ticking clock projected in front of him.
This wasn’t just a fight. It was a trial by concept.
Dirga’s objective had never been to win.
And the timer ticked down.
Sasa sighed through his sharp teeth and scratched the side of his silver-haired head.
"Really now," he muttered. "If they wanted to kill each other, they could’ve at least saved me a pocket dimension."
Below him, the aftermath still raged.
Dirga and Eidomos — locked mid-air, power clashing in a crescendo of collapsing light and void.
"Yeah, okay," Sasa said, voice light but eyes serious. "That’s enough."
With a wave of his hand, his staff appeared — tall and regal, its polished black body ending in a thin silver ring. Ancient symbols pulsed along its surface.
He brought the ring to his lips like a flute and blew.
But the world answered.
Two translucent spheres spiraled into existence — threads of reality woven into bubbles. One enveloped Dirga. The other wrapped around Eidomos.
What could’ve been annihilation became silence.
Sasa exhaled, lowering his staff, the silver ring at its end flickering with residual power.
"Well," he muttered, voice half-amused, half-exhausted, "that’s going to be a nightmare to clean up."
He floated down slowly, gazing at the two suspended figures:
Dirga, glowing with crimson energy, wrapped in the gravity-bound pulse of the Crimson Core.
Eidomos, a glitch in form and essence, static humming around his body like a broken frequency.
"Get me out of here, Sasa."
Sasa’s ears twitched. He turned, eyebrows lifting.
Eidomos wasn’t fully frozen.
"Seriously," the faceless devil grumbled. "You gonna leave me floating in here like a prize fish?"
Sasa sighed and snapped his fingers.
Eidomos’s bubble shattered like mist, and he stepped out — not a scratch on him, his form pulsing with faint static.
"Your patron’s amazing, kid," Eidomos said, looking over at the frozen Dirga with what sounded suspiciously like genuine respect. "Now I get why you picked him. Second patron, huh?"
Sasa’s smile twitched. His red eyes narrowed a fraction.
"Don’t bring that up," he said flatly.
"Relax, relax," Eidomos held up a hand, his glitchy tendrils writhing lazily. "I’m just saying... for you to pull out a soul like me for a test? Something big’s coming, isn’t it?"
Then smirked, eyes gleaming like a trickster’s moon.
"Let’s just say," he murmured, "hell won’t stay quiet much longer."
Eidomos chuckled, soft and warping. "Figured. Alright then. Freeze me back up."
Without waiting for a reply, he turned — a glitching ripple in the air marking his exit.
Sasa flicked his hand again. A dark portal swirled open, and Eidomos stepped through as if walking into a coffin of shadows.
Because that soul fragment — that echo of a faceless devil — was still useful.
And Sasa would need every card he had.