Timeless Assassin

(Dream World, Leo's POV)

"So, you want to see the peak of my powers, eh?" The Timeless Assassin asked as he rubbed his chin with a faint chuckle, his gray eyes narrowing with a mixture of amusement and patience.

"I'll show it to you, but I don't think you will be able to comprehend what I reveal just yet..."

"Only when you step into the realm of a Monarch and start learning about the laws governing the universe will you be able to understand the true extent of what I showed you today." He warned, as with a snap of his fingers, he summoned an apple in his hand, its skin a flawless red that shimmered faintly under the shifting dreamlight.

Without any delay, he then bent over and placed it gently on the soft grass at their feet, as he pointed towards it with a gentle smile.

"This is a real apple, child," he explained, so that Leo would not misunderstand him later.

"It is not an illusion, nor a projection, nor a trick of your eyes. Its weight, its scent, its taste, all of it is real. So tell me, do you believe you can pick it up if you try?"

Leo crouched slowly, his eyes narrowing as he studied the fruit with more caution than he would a blade aimed at his throat.

He allowed [Absolute Vision] to check the apple's shape, tracing its curves, confirming the way its shadow stretched across the grass, the way the faint sweet aroma tickled his senses, that it was indeed real.

"Yeah I can grab it," he said with confidence. "At least I should be able to, unless you actively block me."

The Timeless Assassin raised his hands in an innocent gesture, his smile widening faintly.

"Go ahead then. I will not block you."

He encouraged as Leo leaned forward, his hand stretching out carefully, as he tried to grab the apple.

But then, an impossibility struck.

Though he could see the apple as clearly as the lines of his own palm, though he could smell its sweetness growing sharper as his body drew closer, though its shadow still touched the blades of grass between his fingers—his skin met nothing.

His hand closed around nothing but plain air.

The apple remained in sight, perfect and solid before him, yet somehow it was untouchable.

Leo froze, stunned. His brow furrowed as he pulled back, staring harder and activating [Absolute Vision] to its limit.

The fruit glowed with undeniable reality, every detail mapped by his senses. He could see it, he could smell it, he could believe in it. But he could not touch it.

"What—" he muttered under his breath, as his instincts screamed that this was not an illusion but something deeper, something utterly beyond him.

The Timeless Assassin chuckled softly, his expression calm, as if watching a child struggling to understand the shape of the sky.

"Try again, son. Take it, if you can."

He said, as Leo's jaw clenched as he reached once more, faster this time, his hand shooting out like a striking snake.

For a fraction of a second his palm seemed to graze its surface, the dreamlight bending around his touch—yet again it slipped through, the apple vanishing the moment he made contact, only to reappear whole a breath later in the same spot, untouched, as though mocking him.

Frustration simmered inside him as his left eye twitched. "It's there," he whispered. "It's real. I can feel the air shift around it, I can see its shape, so why can't I grab it?"

The Timeless Assassin lowered himself to a squat beside the fruit, his fingers brushing the stem casually as if to remind Leo that it was real, just as he had said, as he smiled and explained—

"Because it no longer belongs to your present."

*Grab*

After saying those words, he picked up the apple with ease, turning it over in his hand before tossing it lightly in the air and catching it again, each movement deliberate, each angle cruelly simple.

"I destroyed its past, child. The moment before you touch it, it ceases to exist.

The instant after you touch it, it ceases to exist.

What remains is only the fragment of the moment you think you see—an apple suspended in now, but absent from every thread of before and after.

That is why you cannot take it. You are reaching from a line of time that no longer holds it."

Leo's lips parted, but no words came out.

His heart thudded heavily in his chest as he realized that this was not a matter of speed or illusion, but of law itself.

It was not a trick of sight, but a refusal of time.

The Timeless Assassin held the apple up to Leo's face, then crushed it slowly in his fist. Except it did not break. Juice did not run.

Instead, the fruit dissolved like sand pouring through his fingers, crumbling into fragments of nothing that vanished before they reached the ground.

"This is the peak of my art. To decide what is permitted to exist across the stream of time, and what is not."

He stood again, dusting his palms, his gaze steady and kind as if he had not just shattered Leo's understanding of reality.

"You see the apple. You believe in the apple. Yet you will never hold the apple, because I have cut it out of the places where your hands belong."

Leo's fists clenched unconsciously, his pulse pounding in his ears as he whispered, "This power… it's not something anyone can fight."

The Timeless Assassin tilted his head and smiled faintly. "That is the point, child. No-one can fight what does not exist for them. A battle against me is not a contest of strength, nor of speed, nor of perception. It is a battle against inevitability. And inevitability does not lose."

Leo felt his throat dry as he realized what kind of man stood before him. It was not the sharpness of his blade, nor the swiftness of his step, that had earned him the title of Timeless Assassin.

It was this incomprehensible mastery over the river of time, this ability to edit the very script of existence that did.

Even though he could not comprehend it, the sheer feeling of it left him stunned.

For the first time in a long while, Leo felt truly powerless, like he still had a long long way to go, before he could even glimpse at what the pinnacle of power truly looked like.

*Tap*

The Timeless Assassin placed a hand gently on his shoulder, the warmth of his palm grounding him. "Do not be disheartened. You will not understand this power now. You are not meant to. But the day you step beyond the realm of Monarch, and the threads of time begin to bend faintly under your will, you will remember this moment, and then you will finally understand what I showed you today."

He stepped back, the air around him bending faintly as though the world itself made space for his presence.

"Until then, focus on building a solid foundation, and always try fighting opponents that are a tier above your current strength.

For if you can take them on, those at the same realm will never bother you."

He advised, as Leo lowered his gaze, excitement running through his veins, as he realized that maybe someday, at the end of his journey, he too could achieve a mastery over time akin to the Timeless Assassin.