Facing this world-ending strike, you finally react.
You don't even bother looking at the roaring golden dragon barrelling toward you. You simply raise your head slowly, gazing up at the sky.
In that instant, your pitch black eyes change. In your left eye, chaos energy swirls as if an entire universe is unfolding life within it. In your right eye, primordial violet mist swirls as if it's the source itself, before heaven and earth were formed, endless and unfathomable.
The primordial eyes fully bloom.
At the same time, an indescribably ancient aura awakens within you. And behind you, a hazy vision begins to unfold slowly. A boundless void of chaos with no time, no space, no laws, only endless chaos energy churning and surging.
As this vision appears, the entire world seems to freeze in place. The wind stops, the clouds solidify, and the hundred plus war vessels freeze like insects trapped in amber, not stirring even slightly. The savage sneers and disdain on tens of thousands of Azure Sun disciples' faces freeze in place completely. Even Vane discovers, horrified, that his own spiritual power has stopped flowing entirely.
This entire realm, in this moment, no longer follows its old laws. Instead, another older, far more supreme set of rules has forcibly taken over.
The only thing still able to move is that Sovereign Dragon Fist, fused with every last drop of Julian's fortune. Yet the moment it crosses within a hundred feet of you, something unbelievable happens.
That magnificent five-clawed golden dragon, the vast spiritual power that makes up its body, the imperial law woven into it, begins collapsing and disintegrating at a speed visible to the naked eye, eventually reducing to raw primal energy that scatters into nothingness. Like ice meeting a blazing sun. No, even more absolute than that.
It's a rule of a higher order, one rooted in the very source of life itself. Within your chaos domain, every law and every form of energy that came into being after the beginning of the world is nothing but illusion.
"No. Impossible." The madness and triumph on Julian's face dissolve into endless horror. He watches, helpless, as his strongest strike simply vanishes into thin air, dozens of feet from ever reaching you, not even brushing the edge of your robe.
"Is that your trump card?" You finally settle your gaze on him. That indifferent, emotionless stare drops Julian into a pit of ice. "So-called destiny. So-called rebirth. Truly the most laughable thing I've ever seen."
The words fall, and your figure vanishes from where it stood. No technique used at all. Just the purest movement of body. One that transcends both space and perception.
A muffled thud.
Julian doesn't even manage a reaction before his chest takes a solid, direct punch. Crack. The supreme bone he was once so proud of shatters instantly. The powerful body he bought by burning his fortune proves as fragile as rotten wood before this seemingly plain, unremarkable punch.
He plummets like a meteor from the sky, crashing violently into the Reed estate's arena, kicking up clouds of dust. A mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of shattered organs sprays wildly from Julian's mouth. He struggles, trying to rise, only to find at least half the bones in his body are broken.
Meanwhile, up in the sky, your figure slowly solidifies again at the exact spot you'd been standing.
One punch. Just one. And this so-called chosen one, who burned every last drop of his fortune to surge to late stage Core Formation strength, is now left critically wounded.
The entire world falls into dead silence. In the sky above, tens of thousands of Azure Sun disciples, along with every elder present, including Vane himself, all turn as still as blank statues, entirely incapable of processing what they've just witnessed.
What did they just see? Julian, who burned his very life and fortune, who grew so powerful even the sect master felt a flicker of fear, was defeated with a single punch. That Sovereign Dragon Fist vanishing into thin air. That chaos domain, before which the very laws of heaven and earth submitted. That terrifying speed, too fast even for spiritual senses to track. All of it, every last piece, has completely obliterated everything they thought they knew.
"Monster." On the flagship, one of the Core Formation elders forces those trembling words from his lips.
Fear, like a plague, spreads wildly through the entire Azure Sun army.
Down in the arena, your figure descends slowly, walking step by step to the edge of the crater, looking down from above at the mangled, mudlike shape lying at the bottom.
Julian coughs violently, spasm after spasm, blood spilling out with every gasp. He lifts his head, fixing you with eyes full of venom and confusion, staring straight at you.
"Why? Why? I'm the protagonist. I'm the reborn one, destined for greatness. I should have crushed everything in my path, risen to the very peak. Why would I lose to you, the villain?"
He can't understand it. He carries the memories of his past life. He knew of countless opportunities. He even stole the supreme bone that should have belonged to someone else. His life script was supposed to be one triumphant victory after another, crushing gods and Buddhas alike who stood in his way. So why, ever since meeting you, has everything gone wrong? Every one of his schemes has turned into a joke. Every trump card he held proving weak and useless.
"Protagonist." On your face finally appears a flicker of genuine amusement. The kind reserved for watching a clown perform. "Who told you that you were the protagonist?"
You don't bother explaining further. Your primordial eyes, swirling with chaos and primordial mist, blaze with light.
The next instant, an invisible will spreads over the entire city of Bluestone. In every mind, vivid, unmistakable images begin to surface, unbidden.
A soul adrift in endless darkness, carrying towering resentment and bitter refusal to accept its fate, tearing through time and space, returning to the past.
The scene shifts. Julian, the moment he first met Chloe, that gentle, refined exterior masking a flash of pure greed for the supreme bone hidden inside her.
It shows how he sweet-talked Chloe into scouting the way for him in the Dragon Ascension Secret Realm, using her as a shield through calculated scheme after scheme. How he claimed the entire legacy alone in the sword sovereign's cave, then turned right around and made hollow, earnest promises about their future to Chloe's face. It shows, deep in his mind, how he saw the Reed family, the Azure Sun Sect, and everyone else purely as stepping stones for his own ascent to power. The darkest of intentions.
These scenes, these most closely guarded thoughts, are torn ruthlessly out of the depths of Julian's soul by your primordial eyes, laid bare for everyone to see.
"No, no, that's fake. It's all fake." Julian lets out a heart-wrenching scream. His greatest secret, his identity as a reborn soul, the darkest corner of his heart, all exposed nakedly before everyone present. His last shred of dignity is torn apart entirely, ground beneath your feet, crushed over and over.