The clash grinds on, hours stretching beneath the churn of shadow and sea.
The turtle has abandoned her surging tides for endurance, layers of water and ice hardening into barriers that regenerate as fast as Lin Yu tears them apart.
Every abyssal chain shatters against the immovable shell.
Every bolt of shadow lightning fizzles against the dampening weight of the ocean.
Every strike of his blackened blades leaves only scars that close moments later.
She is not winning, but she is not falling.
The battle becomes a war of attrition—his abyss gnaws, her ocean smothers.
But Lin Yu does not relent.
The abyss deepens once more, coalescing into something more.
A surge gathers at his right side, shadow thickening until it condenses into a colossal palm.
Black fire licks along its edges.
Shadow lightning threads through its veins.
The heavens recoil as he drives it forward, a strike meant to end the deadlock.
Yet before it can descend, the air shatters with light.
A figure manifests in the storm's heart, handsome and terrible, golden hair gleaming like sunlight woven with steel.
Multicoloured energy blooms before Lin Yu's strike, crystalline and prismatic, colliding with the abyssal palm.
Impact explodes outward—an eruption that splits cloud layers, shakes mountains, and drives tremors so deep the gorge itself quakes.
On the ground, the people clutch the earth, terror flooding their eyes as the strongest tremor yet rips through stone and air.
And in that chaos, the turtle seizes her chance.
She vanishes into the roiling clouds, fleeing toward the deep sea that birthed her, leaving the sky to the two figures now facing one another.
The explosion's echo rolls away, leaving only silence above the torn sky.
Lin Yu and the golden-haired knight face one another, the abyss and the prism colliding in their locked gazes.
"How did you find me?" the knight asks, his voice calm but weighted with inevitability.
Lin Yu's mouth curls faintly. "Sorry—trade secret."
A quiet sigh escapes the knight, strands of gold hair stirring in the aftermath of broken winds. "I don't want to do this, but you have to come with me."
"Where?" Lin Yu's tone is steady, though his eyes sharpen.
"The Dark Continent."
The words strike with the gravity of history.
Lin Yu already knows from Isolde what that means.
More than three thousand years ago, the world bled under a void monster's shadow—an invader that devoured realms whole. The natives won, but their victory was pyrrhic. The thirteen gods fell into slumber, the world itself cracked, and the extraordinary cycle chained all progress. The monster was sealed, not slain.
And now, the Dark Continent stands as its prison.
"I think I'll say no," Lin Yu answers, voice cold as the abyss gathering behind him.
The knight's face hardens, eyes glinting like sharpened steel. A dangerous shift passes through the air as his Tier Nine aura unfurls, pressing down like mountains collapsing.
"Are you sure?" His tone cuts like a blade.
"I am sure."
The knight unsheathes his sword in a single smooth motion, its edge glowing with divine radiance. "Then I will have to force you."
The swing is blinding, a golden arc that cleaves the very sky, rending space itself as it rushes forward.
Lin Yu's eyes flash.
The golden line tears through his figure—only for it to dissolve into drifting shadow mist.
His true body steps from the darkness at the knight's right flank, hand raised.
From his palm surges a writhing serpent of shadow, vast as a mountain and burning with abyssal fire, its maw yawning wide to devour the knight whole.
The serpent descends like a calamity, its coiling body blotting out the fractured light of the sky.
A roar of shadow fire and black lightning tears across the heavens as its gaping maw closes on the golden-haired knight.
For a breath, it seems the abyss will consume him whole.
Then brilliance erupts.
Golden radiance bursts from within the serpent's throat, a pillar of light tearing it apart from the inside. Shadow fragments scatter like burning ash as the serpent splits and dissolves into mist.
Through the fading darkness, the knight emerges unscathed, wings of pure light flaring open behind him, each feather a blade of divinity.
With a single beat, he surges forward at lightning speed, his sword trailing arcs of incandescent destruction.
Lin Yu meets the assault not with steel but with shadows—his figure splintering into afterimages, slipping just beyond the golden blade's reach.
The knight strikes again and again, every swing shattering the sky, yet each time Lin Yu bends space into shadow, vanishing, reappearing, countering with spears, blades, and tendrils of abyssal lightning.
But the truth gnaws at him—he already burned more than ten per cent of his origin. Against this man, against those wings and that sword, evasion alone will not win.
To overwhelm, to defeat, he must draw deeper, force more of his true power into the world.
And still, he dodges, weaving the advantage of shadow, striking from angles unseen, the duel between light and darkness splitting the heavens as the gorge below trembles.
The golden knight presses relentlessly, each strike faster than the last, forcing Lin Yu to bend shadows around him like liquid armour.
Every step he takes, every dodge, becomes narrower, more dangerous; the knight's wings flare behind him, each beat sending arcs of light to corral Lin Yu's movements.
Lin Yu's focus narrows, shadow energy pooling in his core as he begins the intricate incantation of a spell so potent it demands absolute concentration.
The air thickens, charged with the mingling essence of all elements, yet bound in his shadow domain, feeding the destructive pattern he weaves.
Time stretches with agonising slowness as he channels the spell, each heartbeat echoing like a drum of doom while the golden knight's advance grows ever closer, his blade a trail of searing light converging on Lin Yu.
Finally, with the last syllable spoken in silence and shadow energy coalesced, Lin Yu raises his palm.
"Shadow Destruction," he intones.
A ball of pure chaotic energy forms, a swirling sphere of fire, water, earth, wind, lightning, and light, all tethered and constrained by shadows, radiating a presence of unimaginable annihilation.
The knight, barreling toward him, senses the overwhelming danger, but his speed leaves him no path to evade.
He reacts instinctively, slowing just enough, extending his wings, and folding them into a radiant shield before his body, absorbing the brunt of the attack.
The shadow sphere slams into him; for a moment, the world seems to pause.
Nothing appears to happen.
But the effect ripples outward. Grey light floods the skies above, strange and suffocating. Mortals on the islands below feel unease as a disquieting pressure radiates from the clash.
Lin Yu vanishes in a blink, appearing above the central tower of Shadow Town as the energy dome flickers in response.
A blinding grey flash erupts, invisible to ordinary eyes but unmistakable to the extraordinary: destruction manifesting in raw form.
For a heartbeat, the vision of the void itself brushes against reality; the air vibrates, leaving those attuned to energy reeling and briefly blinded.
Then a multicoloured explosion tears through the sky, shattering space, spilling glimpses of a world beyond the world.
The continent trembles violently as the seas surge, tsunamis rising toward distant islands.
Alarms blare in every church headquarters as the energy readings spike to near-demigod levels, and every extraordinary being within sight senses the eruption of power capable of reshaping the world.
The clash has begun in a way no one could have foreseen.
The explosion subsides.
In Lin Yu's eyes, the knight becomes visible, but all his armour is gone, his sword shattered, and wounds crisscross his body.
The flesh around the injuries wriggles, trying to heal, but fails as the lingering energy of destruction seeps into every fibre.
Before anyone can react, a majestic aura spreads across the sky.
Tribulation clouds form at the edge of the world barrier, thunder of destruction flashing across them, and a colossal eye manifests within the storm.
Everyone around involuntarily kneels, except the knight and Lin Yu, though even they bow slightly as the will of the world makes itself known.
Lin Yu senses the world's gaze scanning him, probing, searching for an anomaly, before it can notice he is an outsider.
"I am sorry," he says, "but he attacked me first," pointing at the knight. "I was forced to."
The knight feels the weight of the world's will pressing down on him.
Thunder flashes in the tribulation clouds.
"I am only sending him to the Dark Continent to fulfil his responsibility for being born in this world," the knight declares, voice heavy with reverence and fear.
Lin Yu snorts, a wry smile forming on his lips.
"Then why don't you go?"
The knight says, "I will go when my time comes."
Lin Yu scoffs, "When will it come, after you die?"
But before Lin Yu and the knight continue their quarrel, a voice thunders in his mind.
It is the order of the world's will—five years later, he must enter the Dark Continent as punishment.
Lin Yu bows his head to the world's will, and the colossal eye fades into the clouds.
Without a glance at the knight, he descends from his central tower and vanishes inside.
The knight spreads his wings and silently flies away.
Lin Yu gives his command—summon all thirteen bishops.
He sits on the throne, waiting for their arrival.
Meanwhile, the void energy that seeped in through the shattered cracks does not dissolve into the extraordinary particles of the world.
It coils and drifts, flowing outward, spreading quietly across the land.