MIGHT AS WELL BE OP

The Demon King rose slowly, fragments of frost falling from his form. His grin never faltered, though his calm eyes betrayed the chill that still gripped his blood, the frozen ache within his bones. Yet he ignored it, as though such discomfort was beneath acknowledgment.

His black gaze snapped toward his opponents.

Lucian deactivated the Null Field, the suffocating stillness dissipating at once. Without hesitation, Aaaninja lifted his palm, his smile sharpened with quiet confidence.

Chrono Energy Blast

Time itself gathered at his thoughts, surging into a dense wave of radiant energy that swirled across his hand, each particle carrying the authority of ages. With no pause, he unleashed it, a roaring torrent of temporal force that tore through the battlefield toward the Demon King.

Black flames erupted around the Demon King in response. They devoured the ice clinging to him, melted his wounds into nothingness, and restored his form in an instant. Raising his palm, he mirrored Aaaninja's attack, releasing a chaotic blast of his own.

The two forces collided.

Reality bent at the meeting point, the impact fracturing space itself as if the fabric of existence were too fragile to withstand their clash.

A flare like a false sun ignited, and the heavens roared like thunder as the duel of energies pressed against one another, shockwaves splitting the Mirror Dimension apart in violent echoes.

Both combatants poured more power into their attacks, the blast zone swelling to a cataclysmic scale. But slowly, inexorably, Aaaninja's temporal energy began to overwhelm the Demon King's chaos.

The Demon King's second hand lifted. With a wave, a dome of pure chaos energy encircled him like a shield, pulsing with desperate defiance.

Yet the moment Aaaninja's attack struck it, the barrier tore apart like fragile paper, unable to withstand the weight of time itself. The blast slammed into the Demon King's chest with devastating force.

This time, there was no pain, only weakness. He staggered as vitality drained from him in torrents, his immortal body succumbing to time's unrelenting decree. His skin grew sallow, and among the strands of his black hair, streaks of white bloomed like cracks across stone.

The Demon King was aging.

Gravitational Pull

Anthony's voice cut through the battlefield, calm yet commanding.

Space itself quivered in obedience, as it bent under his will. Everything within range lurched forward, dragged toward him with irresistible force.

Yet the Demon King did not move.

Spatial Push

Chaos energy erupted from his core, surging outward in defiance. The force of his will pressed against Anthony's pull, and for a moment, space and gravity were at war, uncertain of whom to obey.

The Mirror Dimension trembled violently, caught between opposing dominions of mana and chaos.

Watching this struggle, Aaaninja's lips curled into a sharp smirk. He raised his hand, a single finger drawing a precise line through the air. His voice resonated with chilling clarity.

Time Splintering

Reality cracked like fragile glass. From the fracture spilled five luminous threads of gold and white, each stretching infinitely into unseen horizons. They pulsed with possibilities, the countless branches of what could be.

Aaaninja's gaze fell upon one thread. Without hesitation, he pulled it.

The moment he did, the Demon King's Spatial Push collapsed without warning, erased from the chosen path. The pull seized him instantly, dragging him forward with unstoppable force.

Time Splintering was an ability that allowed Aaaninja to split a moment into diverging timelines and choose which would come to pass.

As the Demon King was pulled off-balance, Lucian was already upon him, silent and precise like a blade of inevitability. His katana gleamed as it arced toward the Demon King's skull in a decapitating strike.

But the Demon King was not one to be helpless. Even mid-pull, his body twisted with inhuman agility, slipping past the fatal swing. And in that sliver of stolen time, he countered.

Chaotic fire erupted from his palm, condensed into javelins that streaked forward at blistering speed, aimed to impale Lucian before he could recover.

Lucian did not flinch. He merely waved his hand.

Space froze instantly.

The javelins halted in midair, their flames suspended unnaturally, frozen in place as though trapped in glass.

As the Demon King closed the distance, Anthony shifted seamlessly into another strike.

Space inverted within his palm, twisting inward upon itself until it formed a ravenous vortex. With no hesitation, he slammed it against the Demon King's chest.

But the Demon King only grinned. He mirrored the technique instantly, a vortex blooming within his own hand, which he drove forward to meet Anthony's.

Two singularities, on the brink of colliding. The very air screamed as reality shuddered under their convergence.

Then Aaaninja acted.

Time Slow

Though he knew he could not meaningfully slow down the Demon King's time, but even the barest fracture of delay was enough. For Anthony, that instant was an eternity.

As the Demon King's palm pressed forward, Anthony's strike twisted mid-motion, veering downward instead. His vortex collapsed not upon the Demon King's chest, but into his gut.

The result was cataclysmic.

A world-shattering detonation tore through the battlefield as a spatial tear erupted across the Demon King's abdomen. Reality itself split like fabric beneath giant scissors, ripping him wide open.

Black blood erupted in a torrential spray, but before a single drop could fall, Aaaninja's power froze it in place, suspended in the air like obsidian stars.

The Demon King staggered backwards, his form streaking through the air with explosive force. Agony finally showed upon his face as his insides twisted, collapsing under the weight of spatial ruin. Several of his organs had been erased entirely, devoured by the void.

Lucian did not let the opportunity slip.

With a flick of his hand, the very fire javelins the Demon King had unleashed earlier turned back upon their master. They rocketed forward, a storm of chaotic infernos that detonated in a cataclysmic dome, fire blooming high enough to scrape the heavens.

The Demon King's body was hurled downward, smashing into the earth with devastating impact. Flesh seared beneath the onslaught of his own flames, and the land itself gave way, splitting into a vast ravine beneath his collapse. Blood spilled from his mouth as the inferno consumed him.

Even so, he endured. His cells raged in desperate overdrive, dividing endlessly to mend torn flesh and restore missing tissue. Yet, for the first time, his regeneration lagged. The speed had diminished, faltering under the relentless assault of three enemies who fought as though they were one.

With an unsteady step, he rose from the shattered ground. There wasn't a flicker of fear, nor the faintest crack in his pride. Though the battle slipped further from his grasp, it mattered little.

He knew this body was but a fragment, a pale shadow of his true self. A clone. His power suppressed to less than a hundredth of its reality. If his true body stood here, a single strike would have been enough to annihilate the three before him.

But the Demon King voiced none of this. He wasn't the kind to spout excuses or boast in the face of defeat. His grin remained fixed, sharp and cold, as his black eyes studied the faces of the three children who had dared to oppose him.

Their abilities. Their potential.

No threats. No final words. For him, action had always spoken louder than breath.

Anthony, Aaaninja, and Lucian's gazes bore into him, silent yet unyielding. They needed no reminder. The end had already come.

Absolute Stasis

Anthony's voice cut through reality itself.

The Demon King froze where he stood. But not only him, everything did. The whisper of wind. The ripple of waves. The faintest shift of light. Even the trembling of the Mirror Dimension itself ground to an unearthly stillness.

Only Lucian and Aaaninja remained unfrozen.

They understood immediately that Anthony was the one who had left them untouched.

To lock the Demon King with either time or space was impossible. Even with Aaaninja's Eyes of Genesis amplifying his mastery of time, he had never been able to stop the Demon King. He existed on another plane of existence.

But Anthony had done it.

Aaaninja's lips curved into a rare smile, but he said nothing.

Lucian grinned as he watched, his mind already working on how to copy Anthony's abilities if the Author allowed it.

Anthony appeared before the Demon King in an instant, blue divine flames already burning along his blade. Flames that did not consume flesh alone, but essence. Existence itself.

Just as he had done with Lilithra, he raised his weapon, not to wound, not to bind, but to erase.

A part of him longed to use his new abilities: the Soul Transfer and Soul Imprisonment he had awakened after devouring an entire planet. To seize the Demon King's soul, bind it, and torture it within his grasp.

But he knew better.

The Demon King had lived for eons. A being of his caliber would never allow a fragment of his soul to be taken without setting traps beyond comprehension. To test that possibility was to invite calamity.

Anthony did not gamble with fate.

Better to destroy it.

And so, without ceremony, the blue flames swallowed the clone whole. No screams. No resistance. No remains. The soul-clone of the Demon King was erased from existence, leaving only silence in its wake.