They had been walking since dawn.

  The storm had left its wreckage behind—splintered branches, mud clinging to their boots, the faint smell of ozone still curling through the damp air.

  But the forest itself refused to rest. Birds stayed quiet. Leaves whispered overhead, uneasy with every gust. The sun bled its last light through the canopy, stretching long shadows across the trail.

  Titan moved at the front, silent as stone. His frame cut through the brush without effort, every step deliberate.

  Behind him, Lior, Ayasha, and Cael trudged, their breaths ragged but measured. Carter and Rei kept the rear, Carter’s drone whirring faintly like a restless insect.

  Lior’s legs burned, but he didn’t complain. None of them did. They all felt it—the heaviness in the air, like the forest itself was waiting.

  Ayasha broke the silence first. She quickened her pace until she was beside Titan, her voice low.

  “We’re only ten miles from the rendezvous. Can’t we take a small break?”

  Titan didn’t look back. His tone was calm, almost too calm.

  “They’ve been waiting for our guard to drop,” he said. “Guess it’s time to bring them out of hiding.”

  His gloved hand dipped into a pouch at his side. Lior caught the faint metallic glint as Titan rolled a small sphere between his fingers—smooth, dark, and silent as a heartbeat.

  Titan snapped his arm forward, the sphere vanishing into the trees. Clink.

  A heartbeat later—

  BOOM!

  The blast lit the shadows in white. The muffled detonation shook the undergrowth, sending birds shrieking into the dusk. Light flashed once between the trunks before being swallowed by the dark.

  And then the shadows moved.

  Figures poured from the tree line, dozens of them. Masks glinting, rifles raised, blades strapped to their arms—Potestas agents, closing in from every side.

  Carter’s face paled.

  “Oh, fantastic,” he muttered. “Dinner guests.”

  Titan spun, his voice cutting through the chaos.

  “Positions! Carter, Rei—rear. Ayasha, Cael—left flank. Lior—right flank.”

  The air cracked into motion. Ayasha sprang left with Cael stepping in unison, Lior shifted right, fists clenched.

  Carter’s drone lifted higher, sensors glowing as it whirred into battle mode. Rei calmly pulled a mask over her mouth, her eyes hard.

  And then the forest parted.

  A man walked out of the tree line, untouched by the commotion. His coat swayed faintly, boots crunching on broken branches. A single monocle gleamed over his left eye, catching the last streak of sunset. His hair was swept back with immaculate precision, his gloves pristine even here in the dirt.

  He slipped a silver watch from his coat pocket; the lid clicked open with a sharp snap that split the silence.

  “I do prefer when matters begin precisely on schedule…” His smooth British voice carried across the clearing, calm and cutting.

  “But I suppose we can entertain our guests a touch early.”

  Lior caught a faint gleam from the watch chain—a small knot, the same emblem Trigger wore, except this one… was crimson.

  ───────────────

  THEO “GALLOWS” HEMSLEY

  Potestas | Rank 2 | UK Division

  ───────────────

  “How terribly rude of me not to introduce myself,” he said with a faint, polished smile.

  “I am Theo Hemsley… but you may call me Gallows.”

  He slipped the watch back into his coat pocket, then took hold of his monocle and began to wipe the glass with a crisp handkerchief.

  His gaze swept the group as though they were children lining up for inspection. His voice was smooth, almost polite.

  “Forgive the sudden drop-in. But we’ve been…” He tucked the handkerchief away, set the monocle carefully back in place as he finished speaking, “…quite interested in the boy.”

  His eyes flickered yellow.

  VRYYYYMMMNKKK!

  It was the cry of space itself bending—metallic, piercing.

  And the world seemed to bend with it.

  A violet-silver aura unfurled around him, bending the air in jagged waves. Light seemed to split sideways, then snap back, as if the world had misjudged where he stood. The space around him wavered and doubled for an instant, like vision caught between two mismatched frames.

  A deep violet aura flared across his body, streaked with veins of cold silver. The air rippled faintly, arcs shimmering over his skin like glass bending under invisible weight.

  Around him, the forest warped—shadows stretching wrong, sounds echoing in places they didn’t belong.

  The thrum grew, bending into a distorted whine. Then—

  SHHHWUMP!

  A sphere unfolded around Lior, warping the world in violet light.

  The sphere bloomed around him, translucent yet suffocating, glowing like liquid glass poured into shape. Its walls pulsed once, then began to shrink, warping the light inside so his own reflection fractured into jagged pieces across the surface.

  —NICHE ACTIVATED: HOLLOW DOMAIN—

  A masterwork of spatial distortion. Gallows bends light and pressure to fracture sight itself, making distance, direction, and impact untrustworthy. Inside his Domain, every image can be a mirage; every step may land where it shouldn’t.

  Lior hammered a fist into the wall.

  THWAK!—watching his knuckles blur and split into three false reflections before colliding.

  The surface rippled—WHUMMM!—but held.

  “What the hell is this?!”

  Gallows stepped in effortlessly, as though the barrier were water parting for him alone. His violet-silver aura bled into the sphere, casting warped reflections across Lior’s eyes.

  “Just a space for two,” Gallows said softly.

  His tone was almost kind, but the distortion in the air made it sound like it echoed from ten different mouths.

  “Let’s see what you’re made of, Chosen One.”

  Ayasha cried out.

  “Lior!”

  And surged forward, but a Potestas soldier intercepted her mid-air, steel clashing against her leg.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Cael raised his arms as two more soldiers closed from both sides.

  Inside the field, Lior swung—fast, desperate, every strike crackling with his will. But Gallows slipped between them, steps clean, untouchable. His voice remained calm, detached, almost bored.

  “You’re passionate,” he said, brushing his gloved hand across the inner wall of the sphere, making it buzz with distortion.

  BUZZZZ!

  “But passion doesn’t bend space.”

  His aura fractured, the air hissing as his presence bent the space inside the bubble.

  SSSSHHHHRRRRKKK!

  He shifted his weight with the casual elegance of a duelist, British accent cutting soft and sharp.

  “You look nervous, boy. Don’t be. This will only sting a little.”

  He lashed forward.

  FWSHHHT!

  Lior’s body jerked—his vision twisted—and for the barest instant his eyes flickered yellow.

  SHFFFF!

  He’d started to slip left when his body suddenly pulled the opposite way on its own.

  What the—?

  He found himself just beyond Gallows’ punch, as if his Niche had corrected a fatal mistake before he even understood the danger.

  Gallows tilted his head, the faintest grin touching his mouth.

  “Was that intentional, I wonder… or is there rather more to you than I first supposed?”

  Before Lior could recover, a brutal knee crushed into his gut.

  THUUMPH!

  His breath ripped out of him, blood spraying his lip as he staggered back.

  “All reflexes. No discipline,” Gallows murmured, amused.

  “You fight like a lad clutching matches in a storm.”

  He raised a clenched fist, monocle glinting.

  “Do not mistake me for Trigger; his strength is borrowed and brittle. Mine is the measure of a Rank Two.”

  He moved in for an attack, his moves unpredictable due to the bubble’s distortion.

  Just as the attack was about to land, Lior’s eyes flashed.

  TUNN!

  A concussive force burst from his chest, raw and uneven, like a heart detonating. The air buckled with the impact, shoving Gallows back across the warped floor.

  WHOOM!

  Pulse Break had activated for the second time, rattling his bones. Light tore across the sphere like veins of lightning trying to escape—ZZZHHHKKK!—only to be repelled.

  The bubble shuddered, rippling like glass about to shatter—

  VRRYYNNNGGG!

  Gallows adjusted his gloves, regaining balance without panic. He tilted his head, British cadence curling with intrigue.

  His eyes narrowed, a flicker of surprise breaking his composure. He drew out his handkerchief and gave the monocle’s glass a quick polish.

  “Two Niches… I gave no credence to the whispers when first I heard them. Yet it seems the trouble of toying with you was well spent.”

  His gaze lingered on Lior.

  “Would you be so good as to tell me their names?”

  Lior said nothing.

  Gallows’ mouth curved in a thin, knowing smile as he slipped the monocle back into place.

  “I thought not.”

  His palm shimmered, the air bending unnaturally around his hand… then it struck—

  CRACK!

  THUDD!

  SMASH!

  Lior’s body folded under the impact, pain ripping through his chest and ribs. He collapsed against the warped floor of the bubble, breath ragged, blood dripping from his lip.

  I can’t… hit him. I can’t even touch him…

  Gallows strolled forward, elegant and unhurried, aura shimmering like cracked glass.

  “Pathetic,” he said, clipped and cold. “Passion without mastery is nothing more than noise.”

  His arm rose, fingers curling as the bubble pulsed with his will. The pressure thickened, pressing against Lior’s lungs until every breath scraped like glass.

  His knees buckled, the weight dragging him down. Gallows’ shadow loomed, hand poised for the final strike—

  —and then, with a thunderclap that split the air—

  KRAAASHHH!

  The world erupted.

  The bubble shattered outward in a violent shockwave, shards of light scattering like broken glass.

  Gallows’ body whipped backward, slammed spine-first into a tree trunk with a grunt of surprise.

  Where Lior had fallen, another figure now stood. Broad-shouldered. Scarred. His fist extended, jaw clenched with unshaken resolve.

  Titan.

  “I see your tactics haven’t changed, Gallows.”

  Lior’s vision tunneled. Titan stood before him like a mountain dropped into the world—fixed, immovable.

  For a beat he forgot the soldiers, the trees, the pain. There was only Titan, and the way the ground itself seemed to lean toward him.

  Gallows peeled himself from the bark, brushing dirt from his coat as though nothing had happened. His smile returned, faint and sharp.

  “Tch. You again.”

  He adjusted his monocle, straightened his jacket, gaze cool.

  “You’re always in my way, Titan.”

  Titan didn’t flinch. A smirk touched his mouth, thin and cold.

  “Funny. I was thinking the same thing about you.”

  Titan lowered his fist slightly and glanced back at Lior.

  “Sorry I didn’t come sooner,” he said evenly.

  “I wanted to see how you fared.”

  The battlefield froze. Potestas soldiers hesitated mid-motion. Even Ayasha and Cael stared, wide-eyed.

  Cael whispered, almost disbelieving,

  “Did… did he just blow apart a space bubble?”

  Ayasha shook her head, pale.

  “Who is this guy…?”

  The air itself trembled between them.

  Titan’s eyes flickered. They burned with a heavy yellow flash.

  Dust at his boots stirred, then spiraled upward. In heartbeats it swelled into a dense, earthen haze, brown-gray like weathered stone and dry soil.

  Lior watched in awe, thoughts racing.

  This aura… it feels like the earth is going to rip apart.

  Then—

  KRRRRAUUMMM!

  The sound rumbled from beneath the earth—deep, crushing, like the world’s spine locking into place.

  The air thickened until every breath felt heavy; hairline cracks veined outward as the ground dented beneath crushing pressure. Loose pebbles trembled toward him, pulled by an unseen weight.

  —NICHE ACTIVATED: IRONHOLD—

  Titan seizes absolute gravitational command within arm’s reach. Any body that enters his grasp is drawn and locked in place, its weight multiplied until escape is impossible. Each hold can root, crush, or slam an opponent with anchor-heavy force—turning close combat into certain capture.

  The pressure rolled out in a single, heavy wave. Potestas rifles sagged; boots sank a fraction into the soft earth. Ayasha braced on one hand, teeth set; Cael hunched, glasses sliding as he fought to stay upright.

  So close to Titan, Lior’s chest locked—every breath caught short, as if a palm pressed over his lungs.

  Breathe. Come on.

  Across from him, Gallows’ smile thinned, violet-silver distortions buckling against the weight.

  “Just like old times, hm… Titan?” he called, voice smooth but edged with steel.

  Titan’s eyes didn’t waver. “Maybe this can be the last time.”

  The world seemed to pause—then shatter. Both men moved in the same instant, their auras colliding with a deafening shockwave.

  KRAAASHHH-WHOOOOM!!!

  Gravity ripped outward from Titan as space twisted in Gallows’ wake; Potestas soldiers nearest them were hurled aside like leaves.

  Ayasha and Cael staggered back, arms shielding their faces against the blast. Lior’s feet left the ground—he crashed onto one knee, breath ripped from his chest.

  For a heartbeat the clearing held only swirling dust, warped light, and the echo of that first impact. It wasn’t just a fight—it was the collision of worlds, power so far beyond them it bent the air and rewrote the ground beneath their boots.

  Lior felt it in his bones: whatever measure he’d thought he’d gained, whatever strength he’d clawed for, it vanished here.

  Before these two, he was weightless.

  And as Titan stepped forward into the haze, the forest bowing beneath his gravity, one truth rang louder than the ringing in Lior’s ears—

  This battle would show them how small they still were.

  ?

  End of Chapter 14

  Standing next to giants doesn’t just make you feel small; it shows you the distance you were always meant to climb.

  What comes next isn’t a fight — it’s an awakening.

  The true collision has only just begun.