Scar's eyes narrowed into a blade-thin glare, reading Rover's stillness like a puzzle he couldn't quite solve. That stillness—too calm, too measured—wasn't the posture of someone caught off guard.
No, it was the composure of someone who had already set the board and was simply watching the pieces fall.
Rover didn't move. Didn't speak. He didn't need to.
"I wonder… how?" Scar muttered under his breath, suspicion curling in his chest like smoke.
Then, finally, Rover moved—a sidestep, nothing more. But with it, winter struck.
With a faint shift in air pressure, frost exploded outward. Ice erupted across the floor, coiling around Scar's legs, swallowing him waist-deep in a heartbeat. Steam hissed where heat met invading cold, rising in pale wisps.
From the far entrance, two figures emerged.
The first was silent but vigilant—Sanhua, poised as ever.
The second moved with commanding grace: Magistrate Jinshi. Every step echoed with quiet authority. She raised her hand, and Resonance flared—elegant, imperial, absolute.
From behind her, the Loong of Spring Thunder, Jué, took form—not a flickering image, but a full, crystalline manifestation. Its body shimmered like storm light trapped in glass.
From Jué's open maw, five smaller Loongs burst forth—spectral arrows of ice and light. They spiraled through the air, locked onto Scar with terrifying precision.
Scar chuckled lowly. "Heh."
"So… you've set a trap for me," he muttered, voice curling into something between a snarl and admiration.
A card ignited in his hand—black and burning with Resonance. He flipped it to his other hand as the frost cracked and groaned beneath him. Without hesitation, he slammed it to the floor.
Scarlet energy erupted outward, vaporizing the ice in a blaze. A shockwave split across the chamber, momentarily scattering the Loongs—but only for a breath.
They realigned midair, their serpentine form piercing through the remaining mist, as they dove again.
Scar didn't flinch, simply cracked his knuckles in anticipation, black cards manifested on his hands, their edges razor sharp.
The first struck—he shattered it.
Then the second—shattered again.
Each destruction was a violent note in a percussive, chaotic symphony. Scar reveled in it, laughter bleeding between the crashes as he twisted and lashed out, his movements wild, precise, unhinged.
"Hehe... Hahahaha!"
But Jinshi remained unmoved.
For every projection he destroyed, more poured forth from Jué's mouth—relentless, cold, unending.
One of them connected, sinking its fangs into Scar's forearm. He hissed, gritting his teeth, but didn't pause to wince.
He looked up—only to find more of the creatures descending.
They latched onto him—clinging like blood-hungry leeches—wrapping around his limbs, his chest, his shoulders.
Yet Scar's grin didn't vanish—it widened into something ecstatic, almost feverish. "Do you really think you can trap me here?" he jeered, his voice tinged with manic delight.
With a provocative smile, he violently swung his arms into a thunderous clap. A ferocious scarlet pulse of Resonance erupted outward, blasting through the smaller projections like paper in a storm.
The shockwave was overwhelming—winds howled, snow and dust surged outward. Rover, Sanhua, and Jinhsi, recoiled slightly as the pulse swept over them in waves of distorted pressure.
"You will not escape," Jinshi declared, voice like steel drawn in winter.
But Scar had already begun his retreat.
A dome—crimson, humming, warping the very space it enclosed—formed around him. He clicked his tongue, mock regret in his voice.
"What a shame I can't stay and play with you a bit longer..." He gave the group a mocking sneer, voice laced with venomous charm. "Till we meet again, dear friends."
Rover moved. Sword drawn, he ran toward the dome, blade gleaming in fractured light.
"You're not going anywhere!" he shouted, lunging forward. His sword arced through the air—and struck the barrier.
Reality fractured as the blade met the dome.
A flash of crimson engulfed Rover, warping the edges of his vision. The world twisted—bent inward like a folding dream.
Suddenly, Rover was no longer in the Grand Library.
He landed hard, skidding across a surface that felt slick yet unstable—like glass that breathed.
Scar's voice echoed through the warped space, thick with cruel delight. "Ah… last time, I couldn't bring you in. But now?"
His laughter rang like broken bells. "Welcome to my Elysium."
Rover rose, blade steady—but what stood before him defied reason.
Floating islands of fractured stone drifted aimlessly through a vast void. The ground shimmered like liquid crystal beneath his feet, reflective yet distorted. A heavy, colorless fog clung to everything, swallowing depth, swallowing sound.
The sky bore no sun, no stars—only a slow-churning twilight of reds and blacks, veiled in a restless, shifting gloom.
Wasting no time, Rover gripped his sword—eyes sharp, breath steady, every nerve on edge. Scar didn't stood still on the initiative either.
With a feral grin, he launched into the air—then crashed down like a thunderclap. Rover dove back just in time.
Boom—the ground beneath him erupted, sending waves skimming across the bris surface of Scar's domain.
Scar's hands flickered—two black cards materialized between his fingers. With a snap of his wrists, he hurled them like obsidian razors.
Rover's blade flashed—a clean, arcing slash that split the air and the cards mid-flight. Sparks burst in the mist like flares igniting the fog.
Then, without missing a beat, Rover spun his sword in a quick flourish—and flung it like a chakram. The steel curved through the air, a golden crescent slicing toward its mark.
Scar raised another card in defense—Clang!
The impact rang out, but before the sound had fully faded, Rover was already in motion—closing the gap, catching his weapon mid-spin, and turning the follow-through into a driving thrust.
The thrust slammed into Scar's defense—a black card reinforced by resonance—but the force behind Rover's strike cracked through it. The blade's tip digging into Scar's chest.
But Scar didn't recoil. He smiled.
That twisted, fever-drenched grin returned—not of a human, but of a predator's, who was relishing in its hunt.
Resonance surged around him, violent and intoxicating.
"Well, since you've entered my Elysium," Scar growled, voice deepening into something other, "I suppose you've offered yourself up… as prey?"
A pulse of dread shivered through the fog.
Rover stepped back instinctively, blade raised. But the change had already begun.
Scar's body arched, convulsing violently. His muscles spasmed, bulging against flesh like something caged clawing its way free. His veins pulsed with light beneath the skin—then ruptured open in flashes of radiant, molten energy.
White fur burst from his arms. His shoulders tore wider. Bones cracked audibly as his legs twisted, feet splitting into clawed digits. Bandages snapped. Blood and resonance hissed as claws slid from his fingers like blades being drawn.
His face contorted—his skull reshaping. A bone-white mask fused over his upper face, like the calcified visage of a wendigo, while the lower half darkened into a jagged gray maw.
Six glowing eyes blinked into existence—staggered across his face in a grotesque, bioluminescent pattern. Yellow sclera. Black pupils, thin and slitted like serpents, tracking everything.
Twin horns spiraled from his head—black, ridged, goat-like, their tips stained white as if dipped in ash. His once-pale hair now flowed behind him in wild strands streaked with violet.
Even his tattered coat writhed and split under the strain, seams tearing as sinewed muscle swelled beneath—a form barely contained by fabric or reason.
Where Scar once stood now loomed a monster—an avatar of chaos and glee, forged in hatred, crowned by discord.
Without warning, he lunged—blade in hand, glowing with a violent, malevolent hue.
Steel shrieked through the air in a savage arc, a strike meant to cleave through both metal and soul—but Rover didn't flinch, instead, met the strike head on with his own.
Clang!
The impact rang out like a war bell, echoing across the fractured plane. Sparks bloomed from the clash, but Rover's blade turned the blow aside with a precise twist—calm, deliberate. What should've shattered bone barely stirred his stance.
Another strike followed. Then another.
Scar lashed out with raw fury.
But Rover moved like water in motion—fluid, poised. Every sidestep was seamless, every counter honed into silence. Where Scar fought with brute madness, Rover responded with refined, unrelenting grace.
Scar snarled, feral and frenzied, then launched skyward. His hulking form tore through the air, blotting out what little light remained in the broken sky.
BOOM!
He crashed down like divine punishment, slamming his blade into the ground. The shockwave thundered outward, a ripple of force that split the stone and sent debris howling through the air.
Cracks split the floor like veins of despair.
But when the dust cleared—Rover wasn't there. He was already moving.
Just beyond the blast radius, he glided like wind drawn into form, ponytail trailing behind him like mist caught in a storm. His eyes and blade, cut through the haze as they reached for Scar.
Scar turned—yet it was too late.
Rover closed the distance in a blink, blade arcing like lightning loosed from the heavens. Their weapons met in a cascade of sparks. The clang echoed like a star being born.
Despite Scar's monstrous strength, it was Rover who pressed forward. Strike after strike, he advanced—precise, relentless.
Scar reeled back, his feet skidding across the fractured earth. With every parry, numbness crept into his limbs—his power undone by grace too clean to grasp.
Scar let out a fractured breath, twisted into a jagged grin. "Now... it's just the two of us," he said, letting his blade rest on his shoulder.
"Stow away that irrational anger of yours." He began to circle, slow, deliberate—predatory. "I just have a friendly reminder for you..."
His voice dropped, soft as poison. "Seeing isn't always believing. Why are you so sure they told you the truth?" His head tilted, monstrous and curious. The grin on his face widened like a wound splitting open. "Don't jump to conclusions so soon."
But Rover didn't answer. He didn't need to. His silence cut cleaner than words as he simply charged.
Scar's grin faltered. He growled, voice fraying at the edges, half-wounded, half-wild. "Why are you so damn stubborn?!"
His blade shuddered with unstable resonance as he screamed: "Why can't you place some of that trust in me?!"
The energy around him spiked, warping the air, his voice turning cold, sharp, desperate, "Or do I have to crush you... just to make you behave for once?"
Rover answered with a surge of Resonance of his own. Power radiated from him in rippling pulses as he met Scar's strike head-on, not just resisting it, but pushing back with force honed by conviction.
"This is the third time," Rover said coldly, his voice calm as tempered steel, "that I've been called out… about the way I observe."
Scar's eyes flickered—something between confusion and suspicion.
Rover stepped in with a brutal upswing, the impact ringing out in the highest-pitched clang yet, causing metals and the air to screech.
Before the sound had even faded, he followed up with three more strikes, each swift and exact, each one carving visible arcs of golden light into the air.
Scar staggered back, growling in pain—shivering and unsteady.
Then—BOOM.
A dust storm ignited around them as golden energy erupted in a radiant explosion. The very ground fractured beneath Scar's feet.
His towering nightmarish form convulsed—then collapsed, shrinking back into his humanoid shape. Both knees hit the ground, hands bracing against the fractured surface as he gasped for breath.
All around him, Elysium flared violently, surging in one final act of defiance—then began to shatter. Shards of his power broke away like splintered glass beneath a hammer, the domain collapsing in a card carpet, unmade by its own failing will.
Still, even in defeat, he couldn't help himself. He laughed. Like a madman marveling at the force that had broken him.
Rover watched the Elysium fall as a rasping, manic sound echoed through the wreckage: "Ha… ha… Hahahahaha!"
To be continued...
***
A/N: Hey everyone! So, I had a little epiphany about the story's pacing, only having intense moments too often—time to add some lighter, playful moments to balance things out. Let me know what kind of "side dish" scenes you'd love—bonding, silly mishaps, or a corny joke or two?
Also, I believe that till the end of Jinhsi's arc, things will be kind of stale as story is like in a real serious mode, and I cannot simply just add a random thing, but I will try to be creative🙏.