The Arena of Epiphany, a battlefield the size of a million worlds, thrummed with a new, terrifying energy.

All of the spectators, mortal and divine, leaned forward, their collective gaze locked on the colossal stage.

Lifeform2748 : "my eyes can't bear it, this is too much.... I will give my life to God Cosmos for allowing me to see this spectacle"

Lifeform6283 : "take my life too"

Lifeform39949 : "why are you forgetting you have 9 lives. And they are given to you by him. So even if you give your life, isn't it just giving back what you have been given"

The chat went silent with this last comment and focused back on the arena.

The names on the screen were a death sentence for the entire round, a matchup so absurdly overpowered it felt like a prank. Nova vs. Mammon.

Adam looked at the pairing, then at Sunny, and smiled bitterly. "Damn," he thought, "I really shouldn't have gone with a random selection."

Sunny himself chuckled, a dry, bitter sound. This was a terrible, wonderful, and utterly inconvenient stroke of luck.

Down in the arena, the very fabric of reality was already beginning to tear apart simply from their presence.

The ground beneath Nova's feet fractured, space itself warping and buckling around her, a visible distortion of power.

On the other side, the light and energy around Mammon seemed to dim, being pulled into the hungry, crackling void that was his very essence.

The newly created arena, a world designed to withstand the clash of demigods, was already collapsing under the passive, ambient pressure by the two of them.

"Sister," Mammon's voice was a smooth, almost nervous purr, "I wish to surrender." He shook his head, a gesture of profound respect.

He was the strongest demigod under Sunny's command. But this was Nova. His elder sister. The first. And he would not, could not, raise a hand against her.

"Mammon, do not be a fool," Nova's voice replied, her tone as cold and unyielding as the void between stars. "We are the creations of Master, God Cosmos. The entire universe is watching. We will show them what that means."

"You are correct, of course, Sister," Mammon said, his sinister grin returning, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "But how can I possibly fight you? This is a terrible matchup. Why don't we just play a simple game? Stone, paper, scissors? The winner gets to progress ahead and losser returns back to Veridia."

"A good joke, little brother," Nova said. "Now, let us begin."

In the next instant, she attacked.

[Time Stop]

Across the arena, everything ceased. The crackling void around Mammon froze. The rupturing space around Nova went still.

The very concept of "now" became an eternal, suffocating prison. Nova, the only being in existence moving within her own bubble of frozen time, began to walk slowly toward her brother, her dragon form a picture of absolute, calm authority.

"If you will not fight," she whispered to his frozen form, "then you will be a disgrace to the Master."

Her words, spoken outside of time, were a poison dagger aimed at the very core of Mammon's being.

She knew him. His greed, his mischief, his power; it all stemmed from a single, burning, all-consuming desire: to be useful to his creator. To be a disgrace was a fate worse than oblivion.

The frozen, silent world around Nova cracked. A single, hairline fracture appeared in the wall of time.

Mammon's body, which should have been locked in a state of absolute stasis, began to tingle.

His will, his absolute, primal need to serve his Master, was fighting against a fundamental law of the universe.

The Time Stop spell, an SS-Grade power that could freeze a galaxy, shattered like glass.

Mammon was free, but he was not safe.

But Nova just raised her hand, and the very space around Mammon began to compress, to fold in on itself. It was her Space Prison, a cage forged from a million layers of warped reality.

But Mammon just smiled, his eyes gleaming with a cold, hungry light. He dissolved. His body, his aura, his very presence vanished, slipping between the layers of Nova's prison and into the one place she could not immediately reach: the Void.

"An impressive trick, brother," Nova rumbled, her patience wearing thin. She held out her hand and poured a vast, seemingly endless river of spatial energy into the arena.

The void itself, usually a calm, separate dimension, began to churn and destabilize under the sheer, overwhelming pressure of her power. The "safe" realm he had fled to became a raging, chaotic ocean.

A moment later, Mammon's form was violently ejected from the void, tumbling through the air. "Quickly, brother," Nova said, her voice a low, dangerous warning. "Fight me. Or you will truly be a disgrace."

Mammon landed, his aristocratic suit unruffled, his expression no longer one of respect or fear. It was an expression of focus.

His bottom line had been crossed. He would not, could not, fail his Master.

He made his first true move. His figure began to grow, his size manipulation talent activated; a prize stolen from the demonic realm.

He grew, his form reaching Nova's own impressive height, and then surpassing it, becoming a towering colossus of dark, malevolent grace. He raised a hand, and his new, ultimate talent ignited.

[Talent Resonance]

He was a being of countless stolen and gifted affinities. He felt the fire of Ifrit, the ice of a long-dead frost giant, the shadow of Humayu, the greed of his own core, the pride of a fallen king—all the elemental and conceptual talents he had collected.

He wove them together as a perfect, terrible symphony of power.

A gigantic hand began to form in the sky above him. It was a swirling, cosmic hand made not of flesh, but of condensed energy, a galaxy of every power he possessed, a vortex of conflicting laws united by a single, greedy will.

It was an attack that, as it formed, caused the very Gods in the high stands to shudder in fear.

Nova looked up at the descending cosmic hand, a force that could have crushed an entire galaxy.

She felt its immense, chaotic power, and for the first time, a genuine smile of approval touched her lips. "Good, brother," she whispered.

She opened her mouth, and a new, different light began to form. It was not the swirling chaos of Mammon's attack.

It was a single, infinitely small, infinitely dense point of pure, white-gold light.

It was the Charged Explosion talent, the cumulated power of every single advancement her draconic children had made for centuries, all stored, all compressed, all waiting.

The demigods in the stands, who had been watching in awe, now felt a new, primal terror. They could feel the power building in that tiny orb—a power that felt… final.

Nova, knowing this attack could annihilate the entire arena held it in check, unleashing only one percent of the stored power.

The small, pinprick of light left her mouth, a silent, beautiful star.

The Gods, the mortals, the entire universe held its breath. The two attacks, one a colossal hand of swirling, chaotic concepts, the other a tiny, perfect star of pure, ordered power, flew towards each other, a clash that have already surpassed the demigod realm.

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