Her hair whipped behind her, her breathing heavy and ragged.

Her heart pounded so violently that she could feel it shaking her ribs.

She knew better than anyone, her abilities were monstrous. Overpowered, even. Against any normal recruit, her gravity beams alone would've shredded them to pieces before they even realized what killed them. A single hit could rupture internal organs, a few more could crush bones outright.

But against Bruce…

Against him, it was all meaningless.

Every trick, every burst of mana, every refined technique she unleashed, it all just bounced off the impossible wall that was his existence.

And now, the harsh truth hit her like a cold knife.

Her mana reserves were almost gone.

Her steps faltered for a second, her vision blurring at the edges. The deep thrum of power that always echoed in her veins now flickered weakly, barely holding together.

'I'm out of mana…' she realized, biting her lip hard enough to draw blood.

Her chest heaved. Sweat trickled down her temple.

'If he catches up to me right now… then I'm dead.'

....

Meanwhile, Bruce watched her vanish into the distance, her figure shrinking against the horizon.

He slowly raised his palm. It looked empty, smooth, unremarkable. But it wasn't.

Back when Aria was firing her Gravity Beams at him, he had caught one.

With his bare hand.

He could still feel it now, a dense, thrumming pulse resting within his grasp. To anyone else, it would've been impossible to even touch, let alone hold. The beam wasn't made of light or matter, but of warped space compressed by gravitational force, a dense knot of invisible power trying to implode everything around it.

Bruce flexed his fingers slightly. A faint ripple distorted the air around his hand, like heat haze on asphalt. His veins bulged from the sheer resistance pressing back against him. The skin of his palm reddened and cracked slightly, thin streaks of blood crawling down his wrist. Tiny burns etched across his flesh where the beam's pressure had forced microfractures into his tissue.

For a moment, his entire forearm trembled under the weight of distorted gravity, like it was trying to crush itself inward.

Then,

[You've healed!]

[You've adapted to Gravity Beams...!]

A faint golden glow spread through his hand, mending the cracks instantly, the torn flesh closing up as if nothing had happened.

Bruce smiled faintly, rolling the invisible sphere between his fingers like a toy before tossing it aside.

It vanished soundlessly into the air.

"Hmmm…" He exhaled, glancing up at the sky.

He could hear the faint whistling now, those invisible 'boulders' Aria had summoned were plummeting fast. The distortion above was subtle but unmistakable.

'They're falling faster than normal…' he thought, narrowing his eyes. 'The gravity compression amplifies their mass several times over. If they hit me directly, even I'd feel that.'

A small grin curved his lips.

'Sadly, Aria… all your efforts were for nothing. Mere boulders can't stop me.'

In the next instant, he moved.

The ground shattered beneath his feet as a sonic boom erupted, echoing through the plains.

BOOM!

His figure blurred, streaking forward like a black phantom. He bypassed the entire field of falling boulders before they even descended to his level, moving so fast the shockwave of his passage tore chunks of earth into the air.

By the time the sound of the boom faded, he was already there, Right behind her.

Aria froze.

'Damn it!' she cursed inwardly, pupils dilating as the air split apart behind her with a violent crack. The sound barrier shattered like glass, and in that instant, she knew.

Bruce was behind her.

Her heart slammed against her ribs, her body trembling as raw instinct screamed at her to move.

She didn't think, she acted. "Gravity Dome!"

The last trace of mana surged out of her like a bursting dam, wrapping her entire body in a dense, invisible sphere of warped pressure.

SHINGGGGGG!

The air erupted with a sound like two chainsaws colliding, metal scraping against metal, grinding, tearing. Sparks of distorted light flashed briefly as if space itself was being shredded.

Her pulse spiked. Her breath hitched.

She spun around,

And froze.

Bruce stood there, tossing away two disfigured daggers. The blades were twisted beyond recognition, bent like melted wire, their metallic surfaces groaning as they fell to the ground with dull clinks.

He exhaled through his nose, calm as ever. '…Sigh. I was trying to give her a painless death.'

His right hand was bloodied, crimson dripping from his knuckles. The veins along his forearm pulsed unnaturally, but he didn't even flinch.

'Heal'

A faint silver glow spread across his skin. The blood vanished, the wounds sealed, and the muscle fibers beneath strengthened even further than before. His hand clenched once, the air around it popping with pressure.

Aria's lips trembled. She could barely stand now, her mana completely drained, her knees wobbling. Watching him heal so effortlessly made something inside her break.

She knew it was over.

Bruce's eyes softened slightly, not with pity, but something colder. A final resolve.

He stepped forward, his motion fluid and fast, before she could even breathe, his palm struck her chest.

' Let me test one last theory,' he thought.

'Holy Rupture.'

A white radiance bloomed from his hand, seeping into her chest like liquid light. It wasn't destructive, at least not at first. It was beautiful. Gentle. Almost divine.

But inside her body, that same light tore through her system like an unstoppable flood. It healed everything, every wound, every scar, every imperfection in her veins, organs, and cells. It even restored what was meant to stay damaged.

And that was the problem.

By healing her too perfectly, removing every natural flaw, every limitation her body needed to survive, her own biology overloaded. Her heart, now too 'perfect,' beat once, twice, then ruptured under its own impossible rhythm.

White light poured from her eyes, her mouth, her nose, pure and blinding. It was as though she was being purified from the inside out, disintegrated by divine perfection.

Then, silence.

Her body went limp.

She collapsed to the ground softly, without a sound, her expression frozen in faint confusion. She hadn't even realized what had killed her.

Bruce stood there for a long moment, watching her lifeless form. His gaze was calm.

"You all should stop resisting," he murmured quietly, almost to himself. "The end result will always be the same."

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