Veil of Aether

Wukong stared up at the figure barreling toward him, parasol in hand, and a Kaleidoscope field swirling behind him.

Something was wrong.

There was no pressure. Kei Y’s approach felt like a breeze so faint it couldn’t even disturb a dandelion. A harmless presence.

Wukong’s instincts screamed anyway.

His staff shot forward like a spear, elongating in a flash. The strike pierced clean through Kei Y’s torso, carrying enough force to pulverize organs and spine alike. It should have ended the fight instantly.

But there was no impact.

His staff kept extending into empty air.

Wukong blinked once.

Kei Y was gone.

“Whisper…” a quiet voice breathed by his ear.

Wukong’s eyes snapped sideways.

Kei Y was already there.

The parasol slammed into Wukong’s ribs with a force that stole his breath and sent him sliding across the arena floor, stone grinding and cracking beneath his heels.

He skidded to a halt, confusion flickering beneath the rising adrenaline.

He had hit him. He was sure of it. His staff had gone straight through Kei Y’s chest.

Yet the Kei Y he struck dissolved like mist—like a whisper of air that never existed at all.

Wukong wiped the dust from his chin.

In a flash, Wukong appeared in front of Kei Y, his staff already swinging down in a brutal arc.

But the body beneath it dissolved again.

Like striking a gust of air.

Wukong didn’t hesitate this time. He spun the staff in a rapid horizontal sweep.

Clang.

Metal crashed against the parasol which was unexpectedly solid.

The shock ran up Wukong’s arms so fiercely that his grip trembled for a moment. He took a single step back, eyes narrowing at the weapon.

What is this thing? It looks fragile. Unassuming. But it hits harder than my own staff… and yet feels like I’m striking the wind itself.

Kei Y did not give him time to make sense of it.

He advanced immediately.

Their weapons collided again and again in a blur. Wukong’s raw strength and superior technique pushed the exchange in his favor, forcing Kei Y back step by step.

But Kei Y’s Spark dominated every clash.

Unbreakable. Paradoxical. Wrong.

And worse—Kei Y wouldn’t stay still.

The fluttering green rune strokes from the Kaleidoscope field circled beneath his feet, each one lighting up the instant his toes brushed the ground. They detonated in controlled bursts, compressed gusts of directional force. Each pulse launched him in a new angle—forward, sideways, above—like the battlefield itself was lending him momentum.

The moment Wukong adjusted to one form, the Kei Y he struck vanished. Another appeared at his flank. Then above him. Then from behind.

Then… from below.

That one rattled Wukong the most.

Kei Y slipped through it like liquid.

That unsettled him.

Even with the advantage in raw force and martial refinement, Wukong found himself reacting more than attacking, eyes darting to keep Kei Y’s entire form in view before committing to each strike.

One fraction of a second.

One blind angle.

One body part slipping past his perception.

That was all it took for Kei Y to disappear again.

Wukong kept his eyes locked on Kei Y. His skin hardened again and his body shifted into stone, muscles gaining the crushing weight of a mountain. He struck forward with full conviction, every instinct telling him the target in front of him was real.

A voice spoke behind him.

“Still too slow.”

Wukong’s heart lurched. His senses clashed with the evidence before him. The Kei Y in front of him had to be fake. It had to be. He forced a violent correction in mid-strike, redirecting the attack behind him. The motion twisted his stone-laden meridians at sharp angles. Pain flared. He ignored all of it.

He completed the spin and slammed his staff down in a crushing arc.

The Kei Y behind him vanished like a breath of air.

And in the same moment, the Kei Y he first attacked, the one he had dismissed as an illusion, moved.

The parasol’s wings fluttered once.

Wind stilled.

The strike landed with a force that shocked even Wukong, cracking the stone plating across his ribs. The blast sent him stumbling a full step backward. His hardened skin groaned under the pressure, fractures rapidly spreading.

He looked at Kei Y in disbelief.

The boy stood exactly where he should not be. Real. Smiling. Calm. The same harmless presence as before.

Wukong stared, his mind trying to catch up.

He had turned his back on the wrong one.

He had reacted to the wrong presence.

He had been tricked not by speed, nor strength, but by perception itself.

Kei Y simply watched Wukong stumble, the prince spinning in place with eyes darting in every direction.

“Hehehe. Whispering Breeze really is fun,” Kei Y said, tapping his parasol lightly against the ground.

“So you’re just going to keep scrambling my senses?” Wukong snapped, voice rising with genuine frustration. “Are you ever going to fight me head-on?”

Kei Y tilted his head.

“If you were me,” he asked calmly, “would you?”

Wukong hesitated.

“I hate that you have a point.”

Kei Y smiled.

Wukong wasn’t the type to fear tricks or illusions. He was the type who crushed them with raw dominance. But Kei Y wasn’t giving him anything to crush. Every time Wukong reacted, it turned out he’d been striking a shadow of wind, not the real threat.

Kei Y had crippled his biggest resource too.

Wukong’s clones.

Normally his greatest flexibility in battle.

Now completely useless.

His eyes narrowed at Kei Y.

“You made my clones pointless.”

“Not my fault they're a headache to deal with. Just one of you requires so much effort.” Kei Y replied.

Wukong clicked his tongue.

Right now, he was range-locked. His clones only functioned within a specific perimeter around him. Kei Y had manipulated him into dispersing them too far. The instant they left his radius, they dissipated into dust.

He was alone.

Kei Y had stripped him down to one thing:

A single stone-fisted Crown Prince

with no tricks to hide behind.

Wukong tightened his grip on his staff.

Being quick to act, Wukong snapped two fingers together.

A pulse of aether shot outward.

[Immobilize]

Kei Y’s body locked instantly. His momentum halted, the fluttering wind-runes beneath his feet stuttering out as if someone had cut their strings.

His eyes flicked toward Wukong, but his body refused to respond.

Good.

Wukong took a moment to confirm it. Kei Y didn’t blur, didn’t vanish, didn’t dissolve into wind. He remained exactly where he was. Finally.

He exhaled once, steadying himself.

Now he had a window.

Wukong drew in a slow breath, channeling his cultivation technique and physical technique at the same time, combining them. Stone aether surged through his meridians, hardening them. His skin darkened first, then textured, then reshaped as stone spread across his limbs.

Earthly Transformation: Stone Monkey Form.

Stone armor enveloped his entire body. The stone refined itself as it spread — flowing, layered, combed — until it resembled strands of dense, tightly woven fur. Each piece aligned with the natural direction of muscle and motion, sculpting him not into a man wearing armor, but into a creature carved entirely from living stone.

The more the stone refined itself, the more Wukong’s appearance shifted.

His silhouette changed.

Shoulders broadened.

Arms lengthened slightly.

A mane of stone “fur” rippled behind him.

By the time the transformation locked into place, the distinction between armor and flesh was impossible to see.

He looked like a stone monkey carved by the earth itself.

Power rolled off him in waves — pure, condensed weight.

This was his strongest form available to him at this stage of his cultivation. A synthesis of technique, and stone aether.

Wukong cracked his neck, the sound like boulders grinding.

He lifted his staff with one hand, the stone plates along his arm shifting like living muscle.

“Now,” he said quietly, eyes locked on Kei Y’s immobilized form, “let’s see you slip past this.”

But to Wukong’s surprise, Kei Y looked completely unbothered in that frozen state.

He didn’t strain. He didn’t panic. He didn’t resist.

He just remained there, stiff as a statue, looking almost bored — as if he would be yawning if his jaw weren’t locked.

Wukong frowned.

The immobilization technique wasn’t weak. It wasn’t something you could simply shrug off. Yet Kei Y’s expression made it feel like Wukong had paused a broom instead of a person.

Then the skill released.

The hold on Kei Y snapped apart like brittle string, and he rolled his shoulders as if he’d stood still for too long.

He looked at Wukong’s transformed body — the Stone Monkey Form radiating enough pressure to warp the air — and Kei Y’s eyes widened slightly.

He had expected something impressive from the mythical figure, but the reality was far beyond the stories. The presence Wukong emitted now was ancient, crushing, and alive. Kei Y felt it pressing on his skin like the weight of a continent.

Still, he didn’t show that.

Instead, he complained.

“Hey,” Kei Y said, tone annoyed as if Wukong had interrupted him studying in a library, “I was trying to examine the daoist runes of your technique.”

Wukong blinked.

“What?”

“I was studying them,” Kei Y repeated, tapping his parasol against the ground in annoyance. “You know, the structure, the way the runes interlock when you cast. Then you go and start transforming, and now everything changed. Very inconsiderate of you.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Wukong genuinely didn’t know how to respond.

He had just activated his strongest transformation — only for Kei Y to act like he’d interrupted him.

Kei Y sighed dramatically.

“You could’ve warned me first. Now I have to start the analysis all over again. Rude.”

Wukong’s stone brow twitched.

“You got any more tricks?” Wukong asked, his tone split between irritation and anticipation. “Anything you need to prepare before we start again?”

In his Stone Monkey Form, every aspect of him had risen sharply. Strength. Density. Control. His mass had increased enormously, yet his movement had not suffered for it. If anything, he moved with the natural agility of a monkey, fluid and precise, while each motion carried the weight of a mountain.

Kei Y studied him, eyes narrowing slightly.

“I’ve got a bit more,” Kei Y said, gauging the pressure rolling off his opponent.

Wukong snorted. “What, you going to turn into a monkey too?”

The joke ended there.

Wukong vanished.

He reappeared directly in front of Kei Y, stone fist already driving forward with terrifying speed. The ground cracked beneath his foot as he committed fully to the strike.

But the instant his foot touched down, the spot Kei Y had been idly tapping with his parasol ignited.

Runes flared.

A bolt of verdant green lightning slammed down from above, striking Wukong squarely. The impact rattled even his reinforced stone form, electricity crawling violently across his body as Kei Y leapt backward, creating distance in the same breath.

“Actually,” Kei Y said calmly, landing several meters away, “I can turn into a monkey too.”

Wukong shook his head sharply, dispersing the lingering stun. He looked up just in time to feel the pressure shift.

Kei Y exhaled.

Cold fog poured from his mouth, the breath thick and heavy. Wind surged around him, spiraling faster and faster until it carried the dense pressure of a forming storm. The air itself seemed to compress, humming with restrained force.

Wukong’s eyes narrowed.

Kei Y’s silhouette began to change.

His auburn-brown hair lengthened a few inches, curling and thickening as it transformed into fellhorn sheep wool.

One half of his body took on a silver sheen.

From that side, a storm-carved fellhorn horn arced backward, smooth and sharp as if shaped by relentless winds. Blue force lines traced down that half of his body, lightning flickering faintly beneath the skin as stormwind energy radiated outward.

The other half shifted into icy blue.

Jagged icicle-like fellhorn horns grew from that side of his head, frost crystallizing along their edges. Pale, glacial aether seeped from his limbs, cold enough to frost the ground beneath his feet. The air around that side of his body grew brittle, carrying the oppressive chill of deep winter.

Two creatures.

Two forces.

One body.

Wukong stared.

“…You’re kidding,” he muttered.

Kei Y straightened, the storm and frost balancing unnaturally well across his frame. The parasol rested lightly in his hand.

“Stormbringer Fellhorn,” Kei Y said, nodding toward the silver side. “Frost Tyrant Fellhorn,” he added, gesturing to the icy half.

His eyes lifted back to Wukong.

In a blink, both fighters vanished.

A violent crash echoed across the arena as Wukong’s fist collided squarely with the horns on Kei Y’s head.

For a heartbeat, the world froze.

Both were pushed back a few steps from the force of the impact.

Then the stillness shattered.

They launched into each other again, a rapid, frenzied collision that shook the air itself. It was the kind of exchange where the word violent barely scratched the surface.

Wukong’s strikes flowed with instinctive precision. Every pivot, every kick, every knuckle of every punch linked together smoothly, dismantling Kei Y’s offense while driving his own attacks forward. But something was wrong. Every time his fists hit Kei Y, the impact felt muted—like striking dense wool instead of flesh or bone. The feedback was soft, deceptive, almost insulting.

What unsettled him more was the drastic jump in Kei Y’s strength. Wukong wasn’t just dealing with what he could see. Whispering Breeze was still active, slipping pieces of Kei Y out of perception, and the hybrid Fellhorn physiology had amplified Kei Y’s physical technique to absurd levels.

That meant Wukong was doing three things at once:

deflecting what he saw, compensating for what he didn’t, and bracing for the attacks that slipped through anyway.

And every type of strike carried a different consequence.

When Kei Y hit with the storm-infused side, wind force exploded on contact, cutting and shoving Wukong back with razor gusts and momentary paralysis.

When the frost-aligned side connected, a glacial shock tore through Wukong’s stone skin, freezing patches of his form and slowing the flow of his aether.

And the parasol strikes?

Those were even worse.

Each swing carried a weight that felt completely wrong—like the weapon was lighter than air one moment and heavier the next. It bit into his defenses, bending the landscape of the fight around its momentum.

Kei Y was just as frustrated.

Everything about Wukong had sharpened to a ridiculous degree. His strength, his speed, his instincts—they had all skyrocketed the moment the Stone Monkey Form activated. Kei Y had to track every shift in Wukong’s posture while compensating for the overwhelming pressure pressing down on him. One careless misread, and he would be crushed.

If not for the sturdiness of his horns, Kei Y was certain his head would have been kicked clean off during one of the earlier exchanges.

The two continued to collide, feeling out each other’s new limits. Every exchange sharpened their understanding. Every clash revealed another layer of power they had not accounted for.

In their focus on each other, they momentarily forgot about the massive tomoe carved into the ground beneath them.

It began to stir.

The center pulsed, a deep vibration echoing through the arena like a warning heartbeat.

The moment they sensed it, both fighters reacted at the same time.

Their fists and weapons collided in mid-air, shockwaves breaking outward, but even while clashing with each other, both aimed a portion of their strength toward the tornado.

Wukong swung a roundhouse kick at Kei Y, the power compressed into the arc of his heel. At the same time, he directed his force outward, sending thick stone slabs tearing from the ground and hurling them into the swirling tornado.

Kei Y braced with one arm, glacial force coating it in a thick crystalline layer as he blocked the kick. The impact rattled his bones, frost splintering under the strain. With his other arm, he swung his parasol in a wide arc. The wings of the Spark fluttered sharply, releasing a terrifying gale. The wind struck downward at Wukong with enough force to crater the ground.

At the same time, a ring of pulsewind force spun along the parasol’s tip and shot forward, aimed at the same spot Wukong had targeted inside the tornado.

Their duel and their coordinated assault on the tornado happened in the same instant.

But the target of both attacks scoffed.

The giant tomoe erupted.

Black shapes burst out between the two fighters. Countless crows formed from the swirling symbol, bursting upward with explosive force. They collided with both Kei Y and Wukong, their razor beaks and soul-soaked claws tearing through stone plating and wool.

The sudden eruption forced the two apart.

Clash.

Wukong’s stone slabs reached the tornado first, slamming into an invisible sphere with the sound of boulders shattering underwater. Kei Y’s pulsewind followed a heartbeat later, spiraling in and detonating against the same barrier.

Neither attack made it past.

A dome of soul pressure in the tornado, thick and oppressive. Their combined force struck it but could not pierce it.

The crows screamed overhead, circling as the tomoe continued to swell and twist.

Eventually, a new tomoe unfurled from the first.

The symbol expanded outward, splitting into a second shape that snapped into place beside the original. Two massive tomoes now turned in unison.

The moment the second tomoe appeared, both Wukong and Kei Y felt their perception lurch.

Reality slipped.

Their internal rhythm broke.

Depth, distance, and timing warped in subtle but disorienting ways.

Kei Y clicked his tongue.

She really does have this skillset.

He tried to anchor his senses, forcing his perception back into alignment despite the distortion clawing at the edges of his awareness.

Wukong was less subtle. He stumbled half a step, stone fur bristling as his pupils constricted.

“What is this…” he growled under his breath.

Izanami’s voice drifted out from within the swirling tornado, smooth and almost bored.

“You two were fighting for so long I nearly forgot I was part of this battle.”

A dozen crows shrieked overhead as they dove.

“Lady, if you set me on fire,” Kei Y yelled while slipping through the incoming swarm, “I am ripping your eyes out.”

More crows materialized in rapid bursts, attacking from every angle. Kei Y twisted through the frenzy, Whispering Breeze flickering on and off as he shifted unpredictably. Wukong, with his larger frame and heavier form, took the brunt of the assault, stone plates cracking with each impact.

And Kei Y took advantage of it.

While crows hammered against Wukong’s defenses, the shifting distortions in the air masked Kei Y’s movements. His Kaleidoscope field pulsed once, and from its spiraling ring of color, dozens of black rune strokes peeled away.

They slithered silently across the battlefield.

Wukong, focused entirely on the crows tearing at his stone plating, never noticed them. The distortions from the dual tomoe pulled his sense of depth apart, stretching some angles and compressing others. That small lapse was all Kei Y needed.

The runes crawled up Wukong’s limbs, clinging to the stone fur like thin, living shadows. Each one slipped between the fine layers of his Stone Monkey Form and anchored itself in the cracks without disturbing the surface. They settled as if they belonged there.

Taking advantage of the disorientation caused by the second tomoe, Izanami launched her next attack.

The crows dove in synchronized spirals, ripping at stone and wool. Izanami lifted her sacred jewel. Its surface glowed with cold brilliance before releasing volleys of condensed soul pressure that streaked across the battlefield.

Each volley detonated on impact, carving craters into the arena floor.

Wukong and Kei Y were placed in a difficult position. Every movement invited a new threat. If they swatted down the crows, a blast of soul pressure struck them from the blind angle created by the tomoe distortions. If they braced to defend against a soul pressure volley, the crows dove through whatever gap opened in their stance.

The attacks came in rhythms that did not match either of their perceptions. One moment felt too long, the next too short. Distance folded strangely, so an attack that looked far away arrived instantly while an attack that looked close took a breath too long to land.

Kei Y slipped through the chaos with Whispering Breeze, but each time he vanished, two more crows dove from a skewed angle. Even he could not keep perfect track of every distortion Izanami created.

Wukong took the heaviest hits. His Stone Monkey Form absorbed the brunt of each soul pressure crater, yet even living stone groaned under repeated spiritual impact. Cracks formed across his arms and shoulders. Each time they sealed with a surge of earth aether, another volley landed and forced the cycle to repeat.

Neither fighter could ignore Izanami now. Her control over rhythm, perception, and spiritual pressure pushed both of them into a defensive struggle they had never anticipated.

But Izanami herself felt a twinge of surprise.

When Izanami had been blasted upward earlier, she stabilized herself inside the tornado. A sphere of soul pressure wrapped around her like an armored cocoon, deflecting the glacial spikes that Kei Y had hidden in the tornado. From within that rotating prison of wind, she had watched the two boys fight.

And what she saw forced her to reassess them.

They were far stronger than she originally believed.

Kei Y’s shifting rhythm and impossible angles.

Wukong’s overwhelming force and unbroken momentum.

The way both adapted mid-exchange with a sharpness that felt… inconvenient.

From her vantage point, it became obvious that neither of them would fall to simple soul pressure barrages. Their foundations were too sturdy. Their instincts too refined. Their Will stats too high to buckle under ordinary coercion.

So she changed her approach.

She would target their perception instead.

She summoned the second tomoe, letting it unfurl across the battlefield like a spinning sigil of distortion. The effect washed over the two at once — depth bending, timing slipping, rhythm breaking.

But it wasn’t as overwhelming as she had planned.

Instead of staggering or freezing, both Kei Y and Wukong resisted the distortion. Their Will pushed back, dulling the tomoe’s influence and keeping their awareness partially intact.

Still, the attempt wasn’t wasted.

Even a diluted effect created gaps.

Tiny slips in their internal tempo.

Moments where distance or duration felt off by a fraction.

And that was enough for her.

From within her soul barrier, Izanami tightened her grip on the sacred jewel, eyes narrowing with cool intent.

If brute force wouldn’t break their flow, she would dismantle their perception piece by piece.

Kei Y’s HP ticked downward with each passing second.

Crows tearing at his limbs.

Soul pressure volleys cratering the earth around him.

The distorted rhythm of the second tomoe warping his footing every few breaths.

If this kept up, he was going to get overwhelmed.

He flicked his wrist.

The parasol snapped open.

Wind blossomed outward in a smooth arc, forming a curved shield as countless cherry blossom motifs locked together, creating a shimmering barrier. The next volley of soul blasts slammed into it harmlessly, buying him a moment to breathe.

Wukong glanced over mid-swing as crows hammered into his stone armor.

“Hey. Make one of those for me too.”

“No thanks.”

Kei Y didn’t even look at him.

Wukong clicked his tongue. “Rude.”

The petals etched along the parasol’s surface shifted.

Then they rotated.

In perfect synchronicity, dozens of spiraling frostbane arrows formed along the inner rim of the parasol. Each arrow sharpened itself as glacial and wind runes strokes wove together, their spiraling motion compressing force into drill-like thrusts.

A pulse of killing intent rippled outward.

Shinma Edgecraft: Armorbreak Crescendo.

The arrows detonated forward in a spiraling volley, each one spinning violently as it streaked toward Izanami. The force behind them was enough to twist the air into narrow corridors, like miniature cyclones tracking their targets.

Izanami felt the flare of power and moved to dismiss it.

The first arrow pierced straight through her soul barrier.

Her eyes widened.

The second arrow dug deeper, fracturing two layers of spiritual reinforcement.

The third nearly reached her shoulder.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Her voice rang out, equal parts disbelief and outrage.

No one, especially not a Recruit, was supposed to punch through her barrier that easily. Her sacred jewel flared immediately as she reinforced the dome, but the next volley was already spiraling toward her like cold, merciless drills.

Seeing her barrier begin to fracture, Izanami didn’t hesitate.

She summoned her treasured sword with a flash, she shot forward, cutting through the distance in a single glide. One slash carved through the spiraling petals of Kei Y’s defense, scattering them like torn paper.

Her blade met the parasol a heartbeat later.

Clang.

The impact jarred her arm far more than she expected.

Her brows tightened.

This thing… it wasn’t just sturdy.

It was wrongly sturdy — a contradiction in material form.

Something that looked fragile but felt harder than divine metal.

Cutting through it would take time she didn’t have.

So she made a decision.

Izanami vaulted upward, twisting her body in mid-air, sword tip angled down to strike from Kei Y’s blind side. She descended in a clean arc, momentum perfect—

And sliced through nothing.

“…When did he—?”

Her boots hit the ground.

Her eyes widened.

Kei Y was gone.

Not only him — the entire handle of the parasol vanished with him.

The only thing left floating where he stood was the canopy portion, suspended mid-air for the briefest fraction of a second before drifting down like a discarded shell.

“Uh… Blind Priestess…” Wukong’s voice cracked as he called up to Izanami.

“What?!” she snapped, irritation sharp—

until she saw where he was pointing.

A single rune on the ground beneath her feet began to glow.

A cold, glacial blue.

Her eyes widened.

“Shi—”

The rune erupted.

The center spiraled violently as massive frostbane spikes burst upward in a twisting helix. They didn’t just shoot straight — they spiraled, extending outward in a pattern meant to engulf everything nearby.

Not only Izanami.

But Wukong as well.

Both reacted instantly.

Izanami cut the first wave with her blade, each spike shattering into icy dust.

Wukong smashed the rest with brute force, stone fists cracking through the frost.

But even so—

It took more effort than either of them expected.

Wukong landed beside her, chest heaving.

“How much aether does this guy have…?”

His disbelief wasn’t exaggerated.

Their battle had gone on far too long already. In that time Kei Y had:

• trapped them in a colossal tornado,

• summoned elemental vipers that kept reforming,

• disrupted his clones into uselessness,

• activated two entirely different transformations,

• and now—

  thrown rune traps powerful enough to threaten both him and Izanami simultaneously.

He barely had enough left to keep the Stone Monkey Form active.

Even Izanami, who initially dismissed him, could no longer deny the truth. Watching Kei Y fight felt like watching a bottomless aether well.

As the two shared a silent moment of exhausted disbelief—

“Far more than you can imagine, actually…”

Kei Y’s voice drifted down from above.

Both of them snapped their heads upward.

Kei Y hovered in the air, suspended by the fluttering green wind-rune strokes spiraling beneath his feet. In his hand, he held—

The handle of the parasol.

Except it wasn’t a handle anymore.

It was a hiltless sword, long and narrow, with a thin slit running through the center.

Wukong and Izanami spoke simultaneously.

“That parasol was also a sheath?” they both blurted out.

And yes—

it absolutely was.

Kei Y’s Spark had always acted like a parasol, but the weapon hidden inside was something far more dangerous than anything he had created before. This was a new iteration of Gale Fang—streamlined, reforged, and empowered by principles he had only recently begun to grasp.

The parasol canopy he had been using earlier had served only as a housing, constructed from intertwined wind and frost rune strokes. The creation runes inside the canopy existed purely to stabilize structure.

But once Kei Y unsheathed Gale Fang.

Only pure creation runes remained.

Creation runes that served one function:

To weaponize.

And with their true purpose unbound, the effect was immediate.

The moment the blade left the sheath, the full depth of creation’s appetite awakened. The sword drank ambient aether with frightening efficiency. Wukong felt the drain first—his Stone Monkey Form groaned as the surrounding support aether thinned.

Izanami felt it second—her soul barrier flickered for a split second as creation siphoned through the air.

Even the participants outside the tornado paused, senses snapping to the sudden vacuum forming around Kei Y.

But Kei Y… didn’t care.

Because by the time the ambient aether ran dry—

the match would already be finished.

High above them, Kei Y tightened his grip on the hiltless blade.

Zephyr Wind Force gathered along the slit in the center, spiraling inward like a tightening cyclone. The pressure built rapidly, the runes along Gale Fang lighting up as compressed wind aligned perfectly within the channel.

Then he swung.

A cascade of wind blades erupted downward—sharp.

Each one carried the force of Zephyr Wind, the weight of creation, and the cutting geometry shaped by the blade’s slit.

Wukong and Izanami looked up with wide eyes as the storm of blades descended toward them.

They had no time to breathe—

and Kei Y intended to keep it that way.