CHAPTER 226: CHAPTER 226- HOLLOW

The battlefield was no longer earth, it was chaos incarnate. The sky split with veins of lightning, the ground boiled from energy discharges, and the air itself screamed under the clash of two gods in human form.

Julian stood amid the storm, his armor cracked, one arm trembling, his breath ragged but his eyes blazed with unrelenting fury. Sparks crawled over his skin like living veins of thunder. His shadow twisted and stretched around him, alive, breathing with his will.

Across from him, Leo’s body had transformed into something monstrous, his exoskeleton pulsing with gold and black, his form half-human, half-insect, divine and grotesque. His wings cut the sky with every movement, each beat sending shockwaves through the air.

Leo’s voice echoed like thunder, laced with arrogance and rage.

"You can’t defeat me, Julian! I am evolution! I am perfection itself!"

Julian wiped the blood from his lips, a faint grin breaking through the pain.

"Then why," he said, his voice steady despite the chaos, "do you look so desperate?"

Leo snarled and lunged, his claws glowing white-hot, infused with compressed energy. He slashed down with a roar that shook the heavens.

Julian raised his sword, lightning bursting from his body in an explosion of blue and violet. The collision split the battlefield open, mountains of debris hurled into the air.

But this time, Julian didn’t fall back.

He advanced. Step by step. Each swing of his sword grew heavier, faster, his aura now a storm incarnate.

’I just need to win’

He thrust his hand out. "[Gravity Field—Collapse]!"

The air warped, crushing everything toward the center. Leo’s wings shattered mid-beat, the pressure bending his armor inward. He roared and retaliated, unleashing a divine beam from his chest, pure golden energy that split the darkness apart.

Julian clenched his teeth, lightning flooding through his veins. "Overcharge!"

He raised his sword high, absorbing the storm around him. Lightning and gravity fused, his weapon humming with catastrophic power. The world went silent for one terrifying moment.

Then—Julian vanished.

In a blink, he was right before Leo.

A flash of blue tore through the air.

Leo’s eyes widened—he barely raised his claw before the blade cut through it, severing it clean. Another swing—his leg. Then a third—across his chest.

Each strike echoed like thunder.

"You call yourself a god," Julian roared, lightning bursting from his every word, "but I will drag you down to the mud where you belong!"

Leo screamed in fury and agony, summoning his last ounce of energy for one final attack. His body glowed, ready to explode with divine destruction.

Julian’s expression hardened. "Not this time."

He raised his hand, his shadow surged from beneath him, swallowing the light.

"[Shadow Bind]."

The darkness chained Leo midair, locking his movement.

Julian pointed his sword skyward as lightning gathered above, spiraling into a single, colossal bolt.

He brought the sword down.

"[Judgment Flash]!"

The sky descended in light.

A beam of lightning and gravity struck Leo with divine force, ripping through his armor, his wings, his body, until the explosion drowned everything in blinding brilliance.

When the storm finally cleared, the battlefield was nothing but silence and smoke.

Julian stood in the crater, his sword buried in the scorched ground, chest heaving. His clothes were torn, his skin burned, but his eyes still glowed with that fierce, unyielding fire.

Leo lay broken before him, his arrogance gone, his divine form crumbling into dust.

Julian exhaled slowly, whispering,

"Perfection means nothing... if your heart’s already rotten."

The air still trembled with the echo of his last attack. Smoke coiled around him like ghostly serpents as he stopped before the broken body of Leo—what was once divine now looked painfully mortal.

Leo’s exoskeleton was cracked, one wing gone, his face half-hidden beneath blood and soot. Yet his eyes still burned with that same maddening arrogance.

Julian stared down at him, cold and unreadable. Then, without a word, he placed his boot on Leo’s chest and pressed down hard. The ground beneath them cracked.

"Kneel," Julian said, his voice low, deadly calm. "You’ve lost. Bow before me."

Leo let out a strained laugh, even as blood spilled from his mouth. "Bow...? To you?" He coughed, then laugh. "AhahahHahahah"

Julian’s expression didn’t change. He pressed harder, his boot digging into Leo’s ribs. A sickening crack followed.

"I said, kneel."

Leo winced, his breathing ragged, but instead of pleading, he laughed again. It was hollow and crazed, echoing through the ruined field.

Julian’s lightning flickered dangerously around his shoulders. "You’ll answer me," he growled, "or I’ll make you."

Leo spat blood onto the ground, grinning through the pain. "You can crush me... but you’ll never get anything from me." His eyes glimmered with a strange satisfaction, too calm for someone on the verge of death.

Julian narrowed his eyes. Something was wrong.

Then Leo whispered, almost tenderly,

"Watch closely, Julian. This... is what perfection looks like when it ends."

Before Julian could react, Leo’s chest began to glow bright, unstable light seeping from the cracks in his armor. The remaining cores within him pulsed erratically, a chorus of chaotic energy.

"No—!" Julian leapt back, but Leo’s laughter cut through the air, manic and triumphant.

"Let’s see you wear that calm face now!"

The explosion erupted.

A violent, deafening blast tore through the field, consuming everything in searing light. Shockwaves split the ground, hurling Julian backward. The heat scorched his skin even through his armor, debris rained like shrapnel as the landscape disintegrated into smoke and flame.

When the dust finally began to settle, there was nothing left where Leo had, no body, no trace. Just a crater burning with golden embers, and the faint echo of his laughter fading into silence.

Julian stood at the edge of the ruin, panting heavily. His face was shadowed, lightning still dancing faintly along his arms.

He clenched his fists. "Coward," he muttered under his breath, anger flickering beneath his exhaustion. "You’d rather destroy yourself than face defeat."

The wind howled through the empty battlefield. The sky above was torn open, streaked with thunder and smoke. Julian’s eyes glowed dimly in the darkness tired, furious, and yet... deeply hollow.

"Even in death," he murmured bitterly, "you still tried to mocking me."