Without hesitation, Xavier raised Excalibur and unleashed a vicious slash that tore through the very air.
Vector Nova.
The air split open, a crackling void of energy trailing behind the blade's arc. The attack was fast, clean, and ruthless.
But Haruki didn't even flinch.
With a lazy motion, he lifted his left hand—and the energy vanished on contact.
The man's face was unmoved, staring at Xavier with a look of pure contempt. "That all you've got?"
Xavier's eyes widened, but deep down, he wasn't entirely shocked. He had expected something like this. Haruki was far stronger—on a whole other level. But that didn't mean he was invincible.
No point tiptoeing now, Xavier thought. I'm going all out.
With a grunt, he lunged forward, unleashing a flurry of ethereal slashes. Blue energy waves shot from Excalibur in sweeping arcs, tearing through trees and earth alike.
Haruki weaved through them with inhuman grace, dancing just out of reach.
But then—
A small, condensed sphere of pressurized air zipped past Haruki's face. He barely caught it in his peripheral vision before it detonated against a tree behind him, vaporizing half its trunk and sending splinters flying.
His eyes narrowed.
"Vortex Sphere," Xavier muttered.
Now two orbs—then four—then six.
They launched from Xavier's outstretched palms, moving like bullets. The spheres were not just air—they were microscale vortex singularities, condensed by vector manipulation. Each orb twisted the air molecules inward with overwhelming pressure, creating miniature shock implosions upon contact.
A fusion of two of Xavier's past attacks: the gravitational pull of his Quantum Blackhole and the slicing force of Vector Nova.
Haruki dodged again, the attacks slamming into the environment and carving gouges in the earth. Each blast created small craters and split stone.
But Haruki didn't run.
He struck forward.
In a blink, he was in front of Xavier, blade raised.
Xavier barely had time to raise Excalibur. The two blades collided—steel meeting steel with explosive force. Xavier gritted his teeth, struggling to hold against the crushing weight behind Haruki's strike.
Then—he released Excalibur.
His body blurred. Vector Acceleration.
He reappeared at Haruki's flank, crouched low.
A punch aimed upward.
Haruki didn't move. He smirked, clearly unimpressed.
But the punch never landed.
Instead, Xavier flicked his wrist.
Two fingers pointed upward. A whisper of air condensed on his fingertips—
Vector Bullet.
A hyper-compressed spike of kinetic energy launched like a railgun. Haruki's eyes widened and he twisted just in time, the blast grazing past his side.
"Tch."
In retaliation, Haruki spun midair and kicked Xavier square in the chest, sending him—and Excalibur—flying. Dirt and rock exploded on impact.
Xavier rolled and called the blade back to his hand, halting his momentum.
But he wasn't finished.
He stomped the ground.
A seismic wave pulsed out from his foot—Resonant Rift. The energy raced through the terrain, splitting the ground in a jagged path that surged toward Haruki's feet, unbalancing him.
Xavier followed up with a vertical slash.
As Excalibur's tip kissed the earth, Xavier injected a surge of vector energy into the soil. Tectonic Lance.
Jagged stone spires exploded upward beneath Haruki.
Finally, Haruki responded with force.
His eyes glowed red-hot, palms radiating molten light.
He swept his arm horizontally—Crimson Pulse—and a shockwave of heat followed, igniting the air and vaporizing the stone spikes in a single blast. The explosion turned the forest into a furnace.
Xavier stepped back, squinting through the shimmering heat distortion.
Then—
His boots began to sink.
The ground beneath him glowed red.
Molten.
The temperature surged as the soil turned to magma.
Xavier roared and activated his aura, channeling vector flow through his legs to propel himself upward, barely escaping the liquefied death trap.
But Haruki was already in the sky.
He came down like a beast—fangs bared, blade forward.
Xavier blocked, but Haruki followed up with a brutal backhand that sent him crashing into the ground below. The shock left cracks in the earth.
But when Haruki looked down—
Xavier was already rising.
Bloodied. Bruised. Breathing heavily.
But not broken.
His eyes glowed azure, his cosmic aura returning.
Excalibur lit up like a star reborn in his grip.
"Multi-Direction Echo..."
He pulled his sword back, aura howling around him.
"MAXIMUM OUTPUT!"
A blinding flurry of slashes erupted, hundreds of energy blades ripping upward and outward, tearing the sky apart. Fractures of light split through the clouds, cutting the atmosphere like it was paper.
The world ignited.
The night sky became a second dawn.
Xavier shielded his eyes as his ultimate barrage consumed everything.
When the light faded—
A shadow fell.
Haruki.
He landed hard.
Dust cleared.
And Xavier's jaw dropped.
Haruki stood, untouched. Not even a scratch. He merely brushed dust off his shoulder.
Xavier's heart sank.
He took that head-on... and didn't even flinch...
It was like facing a living wall. A monster wrapped in human skin.
But he couldn't stop now.
He wouldn't.
Haruki's voice cut through the tension like a scalpel. "Those attacks of yours would've seriously injured someone of your caliber. But to me? They're just the desperate swings of a dull knife."
He then stepped forward."Your attempts are futile, kid. Give up, and I promise you a slow, painful death. You're facing a Red Administrator Core user—just like that maid of yours. Your defeat is inevitable."
Xavier's narrowed eyes burned with defiance as he took in Haruki's condition. Though the man remained physically imposing, his clothing was tattered, torn beyond recognition. That alone was enough to rekindle the fire in Xavier's chest. Blood trickled from his brow and down his cheek, sweat stinging his eyes, but he replied with quiet determination:
"Even a sheet of glass breaks if you hit the same spot enough times."
Haruki's eye twitched. The boy's tenacity was infuriating. How could a mere insect still think he could bite a god? Still, Haruki decided to indulge him. Toying with the child before crushing him would make his victory all the sweeter.
Their eyes locked.
Then, in a blur of speed, both disappeared and reappeared mid-air, blades clashing like lightning in a storm. Sparks flew as metal ground against metal. They danced through the battlefield—one seasoned and lethal, the other burning with raw talent and improvisation.
Haruki was shocked.
Despite being only nine, Xavier's swordsmanship was nothing to scoff at. Not perfect, but polished far beyond his years. He was reactive. Adaptive. Every second, his style improved. More than once, their swords met with equal force, Xavier standing his ground against the seasoned killer.
And that infuriated Haruki even more.
Because deep down—he was jealous.
Xavier's talent was undeniable. A true prodigy, born with gifts Haruki had clawed decades to obtain. That envy pushed him harder.
Soon, Haruki's superior combat experience began to dominate. Each strike was more vicious, more precise. Xavier blocked and countered, but the tide was shifting.
One swift parry left Xavier's side open.
Haruki struck.
Steel tore into the boy's shoulder, forcing him to stumble back. Blood splattered the ground.
But Xavier didn't cry out.
He inhaled slowly.
Because behind his fierce, hawk-like eyes, his mind was racing. Even as his body screamed in pain, his brain was busy doing what few could at his age: problem-solving at a level that bordered on scientific genius.
Haruki was too strong. Xavier knew that from the start.
The old ways of using his vector powers—Vector Acceleration, Vector Shield, Vector Teleportation—were predictable now. Haruki had adjusted. That meant Xavier had to evolve. And fast.
He didn't need to win.
He just needed to buy time. Time until Alcmena returned. Like they did with Reginald.
Haruki surged forward, his blade raised again.
But this time, Xavier didn't dodge. He activated Vector Shield.
Only it wasn't like before.
In real-time, Xavier was rewriting how his ability worked. Inside his mind, a complex mathematical matrix unfolded, sequences of equations looping and resolving faster than the human eye could perceive.
Vector Shield, originally a defensive dome that neutralized impact by countering kinetic energy, was now being funneled into something else.
Concentration. Refinement. Redirection.
He compressed the shield—normally a full-body barrier—into a narrow, hyper-dense vector plane that encased the edge of his sword, Excalibur. By redirecting and layering thousands of vector calculations into a single razor-thin line of force, he turned his defensive ability into a singularity edge.
An invisible, atomic-thin blade.
Warped Regokinesis Slash.
As he moved, the air cracked—not from sound, but from the very distortion of space caused by his redirected vector fields.
With one final surge of strength, Xavier unleashed it.
The slash wasn't just an attack. It was a redefinition of space itself.
A shimmering line of light cut through the world.
The entire forest around them—trees, rocks, even the clouds above—was severed as the wave of vectorized energy erupted forth, flattening the land in a titanic burst. A thunderclap of gravitational distortion followed, as if reality itself flinched from the force.
Silence.
Xavier fell to one knee, Excalibur barely keeping him upright. His nose bled violently. His eyes were crimson, veins spiderwebbed across their surface. His hands shook, fingers spasming from the strain.
He wanted to scream. To rest. To collapse.
But he stood.
Barely.
"I can't... use that again..." he thought, wiping the blood with the back of his sleeve. "My body... already wrecked from Reginald... and I'm still fighting the early stages of Core corruption. Using Vector Shield this way—it's... it's breaking me apart."
But he had no choice.
He couldn't win by fighting fair.
Dust clouded the horizon, but through the haze... a silhouette emerged.
Haruki.
Still standing.
But something was different.
A shallow cut traced the side of his neck. Thin. Almost insignificant.
But to Xavier—it was everything.
He grinned.
Because he hurt him.
For the first time in their entire fight, Xavier had landed a real blow.
Haruki reached up and touched the small wound. His fingers came away red. He stared at the blood.
His own blood.
That shallow cut wasn't a threat.
But it was an insult.
His pride—his belief that Xavier was beneath him—was fractured.
His expression twisted.
A quiet rage ignited in his eyes.
The air around him vibrated with power as his aura exploded, forming a scarlet inferno that lashed out like a starving beast. Trees not already flattened were ripped from their roots.
For the first time...
Haruki was taking this fight a bit seriously.
And Xavier—wounded, bleeding, barely standing—was the reason why.