Nicholas stood with his crystal sword raised overhead, the silver runic script still blazing along its length. But something was changing. The overwhelming energy that had been radiating from his enhanced form began flowing inward, drawn toward the blade like water spiraling down a drain.

"Do you know," Nicholas said, his voice carrying conversational tone despite the lethal tension filling the training ground, "that a mana core's power isn't really a true measure of someone's strength?"

Klaus tilted his head, genuinely curious. The question carried weight that suggested deeper understanding of power dynamics than most practitioners ever achieved.

"Explain."

"Sadly, the Rikxia Empire—an empire that prides itself on incredible swordsmen—forgot the pursuit of the sword and chose instead to chase mana core purification." Nicholas's voice held disappointment that spoke to personal experience with such misplaced priorities. "They measure worth by core color rather than skill with a blade. Purple cores command respect while true masters with red cores get dismissed as weak."

Klaus watched with growing fascination as all the energy surrounding Nicholas—the lightning aura, the runic enhancement, even the residual magical effects lingering in the air—flowed into his sword like tributaries feeding a mighty river. The crystal blade began to change, becoming something that transcended mere enhanced weaponry.

"Most swordsmen stop learning once they achieve high-tier cores," Nicholas continued, his movements slowing to deliberate precision that made each gesture carry weight of ritual significance. "They think raw power can substitute for technique. They're wrong."

Klaus felt something stir within his consciousness—recognition that went deeper than intellectual understanding. This wasn't just enhanced combat technique or magical augmentation. Nicholas was demonstrating something fundamental about the nature of martial arts that Klaus had glimpsed but never fully grasped.

"The path of the sword is infinite," Nicholas said, his voice taking on quality that suggested accumulated wisdom spanning lifetimes. "I once had a master who told me that swordsmanship was a martial art created to pierce the heavens themselves. I didn't understand what he meant until I fully committed to the sword path."

Every time I regressed, all the changes in my body reset, Nicholas thought, his memories spanning lifetimes of accumulated experience. The only thing that never reset was my swordsmanship skill and level. It's true that I learned many other disciplines across those lives—Runic Arts, alchemy, even StarCraft—but I never stopped swinging my sword. Through eight deaths and rebirths, the sword remained constant.

Klaus observed with enhanced perception as Nicholas's transformation reached completion. His body no longer released any energy. His sword had become a void that consumed power rather than projecting it, creating absence that felt more dangerous than any display of force Klaus had witnessed during their confrontation.

The change was profound. Where before Nicholas had blazed with lightning and runic power, now he seemed to exist in perfect stillness that made the air itself hold its breath. Yet Klaus's enhanced senses detected pressure building—not magical energy but something deeper, more fundamental.

"Let me show you," Nicholas said, his red eyes locking onto Klaus with serenity that hadn't been present throughout their entire battle, "the sword path that I follow. Let me show you that a sword can cut through anything."

Nicholas began raising his weapon overhead with movements so slow they seemed frozen in time. Yet somehow, the blade left afterimages in the air—not visual echoes but actual distortions in space where the sword's presence had carved temporary wounds in reality itself.

Each increment of movement created ripples that spread outward like stones dropped in still water. The afterimages hung in the air with persistence that defied normal physics, creating constellation of blade positions that mapped the perfect arc Nicholas was tracing through three-dimensional space.

Klaus felt his enhanced senses register something that made his transformation through the Singularity Principle seem like child's first steps toward understanding. Nicholas was releasing no energy, yet pressure filled the training ground like atmosphere before a devastating storm. This wasn't power in any conventional sense—it was something deeper, more fundamental.

Something that spoke to principles underlying existence itself.

The temperature in the chamber didn't change, yet Klaus felt chill that penetrated his enhanced physiology. The lighting remained constant, yet shadows seemed to deepen around Nicholas's slowly moving form. Reality itself was responding to technique that operated according to laws predating current magical theory.

"This is what happens," Nicholas said, his voice carrying across impossible distances despite speaking at normal volume, "when you spend eight lifetimes perfecting a single principle. When you pursue one path with absolute dedication, refusing to be distracted by easier alternatives."

Klaus recognized truth in those words. His own development had involved accumulating various capabilities—enhanced physiology, arcane energy manipulation, consciousness expansion techniques, reality alteration methods. Each power had been impressive individually, yet Nicholas was demonstrating something that transcended accumulation entirely.

Mastery through focus. Transcendence through limitation willingly accepted.

"Sword Domain," Nicholas said softly.

Reality shattered.

Klaus found himself standing on an endless ocean that stretched to horizons that seemed impossibly distant. The water beneath his feet supported his weight despite its liquid nature, creating surface that felt solid as stone yet rippled with each movement. Above them, a sky the color of polished steel reflected light that had no visible source.

This was Nicholas's sword domain—an illusory realm where his will shaped the laws that governed existence. But the scale was breathtaking. Most sword domains Klaus had heard described were small affairs, creating spaces perhaps twenty feet in diameter where master swordsmen could impose their interpretation of reality. This domain felt infinite, stretching beyond the limits of enhanced perception.

Normally, falling into someone's sword domain required entering its radius deliberately or being trapped through lack of awareness. But Klaus hadn't sensed any boundary at all. He had simply found himself here, which meant Nicholas's domain was vast enough to encompass the entire training ground without Klaus's enhanced perception detecting its limits.

The implications were staggering. Sword domains that large typically required decades of development by masters whose skill transcended normal human capability. Yet Nicholas was Klaus's age, suggesting either impossible talent or experience that exceeded what any single lifetime should provide.

The ocean itself was impossible. Each wave that rolled toward the horizon carried different properties—some reflected images of distant battles, others showed glimpses of techniques that had never been performed, still others revealed mathematical relationships between sword movements that existed only in theoretical perfection.

Klaus felt his body suddenly become impossibly heavy. Gravity within the sword domain had been multiplied at least a hundredfold, creating pressure that would have crushed normal humans instantly. Thanks to his enhanced state, the effect was manageable but noticeable—like wearing armor made from compressed stars.

"This is the world I see," Nicholas said, his voice carrying across the endless ocean with clarity that defied the vast distances involved. "Where every sword technique that has ever existed or ever could exist plays out simultaneously. Where the perfect cut exists as platonic ideal waiting to be discovered."

Klaus understood now why Nicholas had shown such confidence when threatening apostles. Within this domain, surrounded by infinite possibility refined through lifetimes of dedication, Nicholas wasn't just enhanced human with impressive technique. He was force of nature given human form, principle of cutting made manifest.

"Be ready," Nicholas said, beginning his downward slash with the same deliberate slowness he had employed while raising the blade.

But now Klaus could see what that impossible pace achieved—the sword wasn't moving slowly because Nicholas lacked speed, but because he was compressing infinite possibility into single perfect cut. Every potential variation of the technique was being evaluated and discarded, leaving only the one movement that would achieve optimal result.

The air inside the sword domain began to sing—not metaphorically, but with actual harmonics that created sound so pure it hurt to hear. Nicholas's blade pursued its downward motion through space that seemed eager to part before its passage, reality itself stepping aside to accommodate technique that operated according to principles transcending normal physics.

One Slash.

SWOOOM!

Klaus's survival instincts activated without conscious thought. He released a wave of arcane energy from his body while pivoting mid-motion, drawing natural mana from the air to create an ice sword that materialized in his hand with crystalline perfection. He infused the improvised weapon with massive amounts of arcane energy, then began executing technique that had been taught by entity whose knowledge spanned cosmic scales.

Sword Ink of Destruction: First Chapter, Third Stance—Black Mountain Ink

The technique Greed had burned into Klaus's muscle memory across countless training sessions erupted from his enhanced form with power that exceeded anything he had previously achieved. The ice blade became conduit for destruction refined into artistic expression, carrying weight of mountains given form through sword intent, darkness that could carve through light itself.

Klaus swung his enhanced weapon in downward motion that mirrored Nicholas's attack. Where Nicholas's technique embodied infinite refinement through dedicated focus, Klaus's carried cosmic authority learned from entity whose understanding predated current reality.

The two techniques met in collision that transcended normal cause and effect.

The sword domain shattered like glass struck by lightning. Reality reasserted itself with violence that sent shockwaves through dimensions Klaus hadn't known existed. Where their attacks had intersected, a perfect sphere of absolute nothingness opened—not darkness, but complete absence that ate at reality's edges with hunger that spoke to forces operating beyond normal physics.

The black hole expanded for several terrifying seconds before collapsing in on itself with sound like reality screaming. When space finished reconstructing itself around the wound their techniques had carved, Klaus found himself back in the training ground.

The ancient chamber looked like it had been hit by falling stars. Every wall showed cracks that spoke to structural damage that might never fully heal. A perfect line had been carved through stone that should have been able to withstand transcendent power, creating groove that extended from floor to ceiling in demonstration of what true sword technique could accomplish.

Klaus's improvised ice sword had been completely destroyed, not even fragments remaining to mark its existence. His hands, protected by enhanced physiology that should have made injury impossible, showed cuts that spoke to forces that exceeded his defensive capabilities.

Nicholas stood exactly where their confrontation had begun, his crystal sword held in casual grip that suggested the devastating technique had required no particular effort. His expression held satisfaction of teacher whose student had finally grasped fundamental lesson.

Klaus felt warmth on his cheek and raised his hand to find golden blood—the enhanced fluid that now flowed through his transformed circulatory system. A thin line had been carved across his face with precision that spoke to control exceeding anything Klaus had imagined possible.

For several heartbeats, both combatants stood in silence that acknowledged what had just occurred. Klaus had demonstrated power that exceeded normal understanding, yet Nicholas had achieved something that transcended raw capability entirely.

Klaus straightened from his combat stance, settling into casual posture that acknowledged the confrontation's true conclusion. Despite possessing strength that could reshape continents, despite achieving transformation that operated outside normal limitations, despite wielding techniques taught by cosmic entities, Klaus had been touched by mastery that proved dedication could triumph over raw power when refined to sufficient degree.

"It's my loss," Klaus said simply, his voice carrying recognition that went deeper than mere admission of tactical defeat.