The storm above rumbled as if the heavens themselves were watching. The arena was no longer just a field of battle—it had become a broken wasteland of blood, steel, and collapsing energy. Cracks spread across the ground like veins of destruction. Dust spiraled through the air, mixing with the scent of scorched metal.
Yuji stood still, his expression cold and unreadable. His armor, black and shimmering with a faint crimson sheen, pulsed faintly—alive. Opposite him, Oban clenched his twin weapons—the Fang Mace and the Vampiric Blade—his eyes narrowed with pure intent to kill.
"Yuji," Oban muttered, his voice echoing like thunder. "You've grown stronger since the last time… but strength alone won't save you."
Yuji smirked faintly. "Then test it."
The ground shattered the instant they moved. Oban's Fang Mace swung first, creating a crimson arc that split the air. Yuji tilted slightly, dodging with a movement too clean, too effortless. His armor rippled with light as the mace grazed the surface—only for frost to instantly spread across the weapon's head.
"What—?" Oban's eyes widened as frost began consuming the Fang Mace, freezing even the energy that powered it.
Yuji's armor shimmered faintly. "You didn't notice, did you? My armor… anything that touches it—alive or not—turns still. I call it Stealth Frost. Even energy obeys it."
Oban gritted his teeth and swung the Vampiric Blade with his other hand. It screeched through the air, dripping with cursed blood. Yuji caught the blade between two armored fingers, and a surge of frost devoured it too. The weapon cracked like glass.
Oban jumped back, landing on a broken pillar, his breathing heavy. "Tch… You think that's enough to stop me?"
Yuji raised his arm, his eyes glowing faintly violet. "No. I'm just getting started."
With a wave of his hand, frost erupted from beneath his feet, spreading across the entire battlefield. The ground turned into a frozen wasteland, gleaming under the storm light. The frost climbed the ruins, swallowing everything it touched.
Oban's crimson aura burst forth, melting the ice around him. "So this is your new ability?"
"Not just that." Yuji's voice was calm, too calm for a man standing before death. "It's more than frost. It's stillness itself. Every molecule that touches my armor loses motion, loses life. You can't bleed if your blood doesn't move."
Oban growled and dashed forward, his aura flaring like wildfire. His fists collided with Yuji's armor again and again, each hit followed by an explosion of ice and blood mist. The world trembled under their clash.
Yuji barely moved—his steps precise, his gaze locked. Every punch Oban threw was met with calm deflection. When Yuji countered, his strike didn't explode with fire or light—it was a silent, crushing force. The air itself froze mid-motion.
Oban felt his arm lock up. His blood had stopped moving in one limb.
He snarled and cut it off with his Vampiric Blade, blood spilling into the air and reattaching itself as a new limb, sculpted by cursed energy. "You think freezing me will stop me? My blood doesn't belong to this body anymore!"
Yuji narrowed his eyes. "Then I'll freeze your soul next."
The frost glowed brighter, and suddenly the world turned silent—too silent. The battlefield became a void where sound couldn't exist. Oban's eyes widened as his breathing vanished, his heartbeat stopped echoing, and his aura began flickering.
He could feel the temperature drop to the point where even cursed energy struggled to move.
"Impossible…" Oban muttered, feeling his body tremble. "You're turning the battlefield into—"
"—A still world," Yuji finished. "No motion. No sound. No escape."
Oban gritted his teeth and slammed his palm into the ground. The Fang Mace dissolved, its blood essence forming hundreds of crimson spears around him. They launched all at once, shattering through the ice field. Yuji's figure blurred, weaving between them like a phantom. His armor reflected each strike with deadly precision, and each weapon that touched him froze midair, suspended like art in time.
Yuji suddenly appeared behind Oban and drove his knee into his spine. The impact cracked the air itself. Oban roared in pain as frost spread across his back, biting deep into flesh and bone.
Yuji's hand extended, and spears of frost materialized in the air. "This ends here."
But Oban turned sharply, his vampiric blade glowing with pulsating crimson veins. "No… it doesn't."
He sliced through the air, and a shockwave of blood-red energy erupted outward, pushing Yuji back for the first time. Oban's aura began to shift, growing darker and denser, almost monstrous.
Yuji landed, sliding backward across the ice. His expression sharpened. "You're changing…"
Oban smiled faintly through the blood dripping from his lips. "I've held back one last phase. My body wasn't ready before. But now…"
The ground split apart as a pillar of red light erupted from beneath him. Blood poured from the air like rain The Vampiric Blade dissolved completely, merging with his flesh. His arms became blades of living blood.
Yuji could feel the shift in the air—the presence of something beyond human.
"This… is Blood Manipulation: Phase Six," Oban declared. "Absolute Biological Disaster."
The world trembled at those words. The red aura expanded outward, burning through the frost field. The air turned thick and heavy. Yuji felt his armor hum as if warning him of what was coming.
In a blink, Oban vanished. Yuji barely saw him move before he appeared right in front of him, slashing downward. Yuji raised his arm, blocking the strike—but instead of freezing, his armor began to corrode, melting on contact.
"What—?" Yuji's eyes widened.
"My blood isn't alive or dead anymore," Oban said, his smile widening. "It exists in every biological state at once—solid, liquid, gas, decay. You can't freeze it because it's all things at once."
Yuji staggered backward as Oban's strikes became faster, sharper, endless. Every move was a storm of blood and energy. Yuji's armor flickered under the constant assault. His own frost field was being devoured, replaced by an ocean of red.
Still, Yuji refused to fall. He moved with purpose—every counterattack like a spear of silence. When his fist connected, it didn't explode—it erased. Frost energy consumed all movement, cutting through time itself.
They clashed again and again—blood versus frost, motion versus stillness.
Oban's hand pierced Yuji's shoulder; frost crept up his arm in retaliation. Both froze and burned, neither yielding an inch. The ground beneath them shattered into fragments of ice and blood.
Yuji clenched his fist, his breath forming mist. "Even if you rot everything you touch… I'll freeze it before it spreads."
Oban's grin widened. "Then let's see whose world remains at the end."
They vanished again, their battle erupting across the ruins in blinding bursts. Frost storms and blood waves collided, forming a nightmarish cyclone around them. The air was filled with silence and screams that never reached the ear.
Yuji pushed forward, channeling all his power. Frost energy surged, coating his armor in divine brilliance. His eyes glowed pure white. "Absolute Stillness!" he roared, unleashing a sphere of frozen time.
The world stopped. Everything—every droplet of blood, every fragment of wind—halted.
But Oban moved. Slowly, painfully, yet deliberately. His body twisted, cells shifting and melting through states, ignoring the laws of motion itself. "You froze the world," he said softly, his tone calm. "But I… am the infection that lives between moments."
Yuji's eyes widened as Oban appeared within the still field, slicing through the air. A wave of blood struck him, shattering the frost sphere. Yuji stumbled backward, coughing as cracks appeared in his armor.
"Your stillness is perfect," Oban said, raising his blade-arm. "But life—real life—is chaos."
He swung once. Yuji barely dodged, the attack grazing his face and slicing through his helmet.
Oban stopped, blood dripping from his arms, his breathing heavy but triumphant. "And chaos always wins."
Yuji wiped the blood from his cheek, his glare unshaken. "Not yet."
Before he could move again, Oban's body began to emit light—red and white intertwined. His power spiked beyond reason. The battlefield cracked open, blood flooding the ground, forming strange sigils beneath his feet.
"This is it," Oban whispered, his lips curling into a sharp, almost insane smile. "The real battle begins now."
Yuji stepped back slightly, his eyes narrowing. "Then come."
Their auras clashed one final time, freezing and rotting everything around
[To Be Continued…]