Like trying to grip air in a dream.
Dirga clenched his jaw, then summoned the Crimson Core, morphing it into bandages that wrapped tightly around both his arms.
Focus. Survive. Understand.
He needed to figure out Eidomos's concept.
That glitch — that unnatural shift — it wasn't just speed.
It was something else.
This time, Dirga made the move.
He charged.
Eidomos was already waiting — low stance, arms poised. A martial fighter's posture, eerily human.
They met at the center in a blur of movement.
Fist to fist. Blow for blow.
Dirga threw a left jab — missed. A right hook — blocked.
He swept low with gravity-enhanced momentum, but Eidomos wasn't there anymore.
Like a broken tape, the devil flickered — frames skipped — and Dirga's punch passed through a place he'd been a moment ago.
Dirga gritted his teeth.
"He's... slipping through space?"
"No — through time?"
He threw another strike — this one was dead-on. A clean opening in Eidomos's guard.
He swung.
The hit landed — or should've — but the moment it touched, the image glitched again.
The body flickered.
The space warped.
And Dirga's fist passed right through.
A fake?
No. It was real. But phased.
Dirga staggered back, heart thudding in his ears.
He stared at the devil — the creature with no face, no eyes, no mouth.
Yet still smiling.
"Your mind is fast," Eidomos said, calm and quiet.
"But not fast enough."
"You're trying to touch a concept... that bends the axis of reality."
Dirga's fists trembled.
"What the hell are you?"
Eidomos took a step forward, and the very air warped around him — like the world itself resisted his presence.
"I am what happens when identity is erased."
"I am the glitch between frames."
"I am the face that stares back... from the void."
The words didn't just echo — they sank, crawling under Dirga's skin.
This wasn't just power. It was something fundamentally wrong.
A concept that shouldn't exist.
But Dirga, through the ringing in his head and the burning in his arms, caught something crucial.
Eidomos was phasing. Warping. Glitching.
A skill?
A passive effect?
Always active?
He gambled on the last.
If Eidomos had a defensive veil that constantly glitched anything that touched him… then Dirga would have to fight outside the rules of space.
And he had just the thing for it.
Eidomos moved again — in bursts of broken motion, skipping across the arena like corrupted footage. Left. Right. Left.
Dirga could barely track it.
His telekinesis failed.
His gravity couldn't catch up.
Even his instincts lagged a half-beat behind.
Another blow crashed into his jaw — he'd dodged, he swore he had — but the punch still landed, splitting his lip and sending him staggering back.
Blood dripped from his chin.
Another hit. Another miss. Another punch.
It was like fighting a ghost sewn into the seams of time.
But Dirga didn't fold.
He changed tactics.
He injected gravity into his limbs — especially his fists — not as a blast or push, but as anchors.
Pull him in. Pin him down.
If he could anchor Eidomos to this moment, this plane, this reality...
Then maybe — just maybe — he could hit him.
He centered the gravity around his next strike.
A single jab.
Nothing fancy.
Just full commitment.
His fist collapsed space around it — dragging everything toward the punch like a black hole wrapped in skin and bone.
Eidomos stepped in to intercept.
And this time — he didn't glitch.
BOOM.
Dirga's fist smashed directly into his abdomen — the left side, just under the ribcage — and it connected.
Fully. Brutally.
Eidomos reeled, a tremor running down his body like a short circuit.
He felt that.
Dirga couldn't see his expression — there was no face to read — but the reaction was undeniable.
Eidomos phased back across the arena, retreating in the same broken motion as before.
This time… slower.
"What...?"
The voice rang out again — not smooth this time. There was static in it.
Surprise. Disbelief.
Dirga stood tall, panting, blood on his fists, sweat in his eyes.
He'd touched him.
"Ohhh, you're amazing," Eidomos said, his voice sharp with amusement and curiosity.
"That was gravity, wasn't it?"
"So that's your concept…"
He sounded impressed.
No — intrigued.
Like a predator finding a worthy prey.
"Then I suppose you deserve a reward," Eidomos said. "A lesson."
He stepped forward again, slower this time.
"My skill is called Veil of Void."
"As you guessed… it glitches anything that comes in contact with me. A phase into alternate outcomes — threads of other realities, other possibilities. Your punch becomes a miss. Your blade hits empty air. It is absolute."
He paused — voice dropping a note.
"But gravity?"
"Gravity anchors. It ties things to now. It bends space around a point. And against that…"
"My veil is not so absolute."
Eidomos tilted his faceless head, his next words thick with amusement.
"But it won't be that easy, kid. Better entertain me more."
A pulse of dark energy rippled through the arena. In a blink, a weapon appeared in Eidomos's hand — a mace, compact but monstrous. Its black-steel shaft stretched just under a meter, etched with shifting runes that shimmered like stars. At the end, a brutal spiked ball spun lazily… and at its core, embedded within the steel, was a swirling green core — alive and pulsing.
Poison? Soulflame? Dirga didn't know.
But every instinct screamed don't get hit by that thing.
"Come," Eidomos taunted, voice echoing through Dirga's bones. "Let's play for real, Sasa's little patron."
Dirga narrowed his eyes, shifting his stance.
Concept weapon? Maybe.
No time to think.
He transformed the Crimson Core into a sword, the blade pulsing with that familiar crimson glow. Then — a flick of the wrist — debris from the battlefield lifted around him. Stone shards. Dust. Metal fragments. He launched them all like bullets with his telekinesis, aiming not to hurt Eidomos — but to force the Veil of Void to work overtime.
Overheat it. Push it to the brink.
The air screamed as the projectiles flew.
And Eidomos… glitched.
Wild, chaotic bursts of stuttering movement — frame-skip dodges that made it look like he was folding between moments in time. The stones passed through phantoms. Illusions. Echoes.
"Trying to test my limits, Sasa's patron?" Eidomos called, spinning his mace once. "I like that."
He flickered.
Then vanished.
Dirga's instincts screamed — and he moved.
CLANG!
Steel met steel as Dirga's sword caught the mace just in time — the impact sent sparks flying. But even before he could recover, he sensed it.
A second strike. A second mace.
No — not real. But real enough.
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.