The Extra's Rise

A memory flashed through my mind as I felt my true Domain preparing to manifest—the first time I had broken through to low Immortal-rank while fighting Jack Blazespout in the burning Avalon City. In that moment of triumph and desperation, I had simultaneously unlocked Mythweaver, my third and most complex Gift.

I had been so overwhelmed by the sheer scope of power that Mythweaver represented, so awed by its reality-altering capabilities, that my Domain had been born purely from that single Gift. A mistake born of naivety and inexperience, creating a flawed manifestation that relied on only one aspect of my true nature.

That mistake would not happen again.

"Domain Expansion," I said with quiet certainty, feeling the fundamental forces that defined my existence beginning to align in perfect harmony. "Throne of Eternal Twilight."

Everything about my development had been rooted in balance from the very beginning. Balance between my swordsmanship and spellcasting. Balance between my Purelight and Deepdark affinities. Balance between the three fundamental Aspects that shaped all magical development.

As such, this Domain was born from the perfect synthesis of all three Gifts, creating something that transcended the limitations of any single power source.

Valen's Throne of the Eternal Necropolis began to crack and fracture as my Domain asserted its dominance over the battlefield. His realm of death and shadow found itself invaded by something that existed in the space between all conventional classifications—neither pure light nor absolute darkness, but the perfect balance that connected all extremes.

The obsidian towers of his necropolis remained, but they were now streaked with veins of pearl and silver that pulsed with gentle radiance. The blood-red sky shifted to the deep purple of eternal twilight, where neither day nor night held dominion. His throne of black bone sprouted crystalline growths that caught and reflected light that shouldn't have existed in a realm of the dead.

And at the center of it all, I felt wings unfurling from my back.

But these were not the Wings of Eclipse that I had grown accustomed to manifesting in combat. In my Domain, touching the power that had been gifted to me by Goddess Akasha herself, the feathers weren't black with edges of light.

They were grey.

Pure, perfect grey that represented the ultimate nullification of all opposing forces. The color that existed between all colors, the power that broke every rule this world tried to impose on reality.

A crown materialized upon my head—not the golden circlet of divine authority or the obsidian diadem of shadow mastery, but a simple band of the same impossible grey that seemed to absorb and reflect everything simultaneously.

Grey. The ultimate power that broke everything in this world.

I could only access it within my Domain, and even then, my current strength limited how much of that transcendent force I could safely channel. But that limitation didn't matter.

In my Domain, I was invincible.

Valen's eyes widened in genuine shock as he felt the full weight of my transformation pressing against his consciousness. His necropolis, which had seemed so absolute and overwhelming just moments before, now felt like a child's sand castle being gently dismantled by an incoming tide.

"Impossible," he breathed, his daggers trembling in hands that had never known uncertainty in magical combat. "What are you?"

I didn't answer with words. Instead, I moved.

The grey wings carried me forward with speed that transcended normal teleportation, allowing me to simply exist at Valen's location without bothering with the inconvenience of crossing the space between us. My sword came down in a perfect vertical arc, the First Movement of my Grade 6 art flowing through the blade with devastating precision.

God Flash.

Valen barely managed to cross his daggers in a defensive position before the strike connected, but the impact sent him crashing through three of his own obsidian towers. The structures crumbled to dust around him, their necromantic enchantments unraveling like morning mist before the inexorable advance of grey nullification.

He rolled to his feet with the fluid grace of a master warrior, shadow armor flaring to maximum density as he prepared for sustained combat. But I was already there, having crossed the intervening distance through another effortless application of spatial displacement.

God Flash: Absolute.

This time, my blade carved through his defensive formation like it was made of paper, the enhanced version of my technique carrying enough force to split the very air in its wake. Valen's shadow armor held for perhaps a microsecond before dissolving completely, leaving him vulnerable as my follow-up strike sent him tumbling across the fractured ground.

"You're not even trying," I observed calmly, my voice carrying across the transformed battlefield with casual authority. "Is this really the extent of the world's strongest necromancer?"

Valen snarled, pushing himself upright as dark energy began to coalesce around him in increasingly desperate patterns. Nine-circle spell matrices blazed to life beneath his feet, while spectral reinforcements poured from every shadow in his crumbling domain.

I responded by channeling my own nine-circle method—a technique I had developed during my training in the demon realm after absorbing Bahamut's Dragon Heart. The ancient dragon's magical essence had provided the foundation for understanding how to weave multiple complex spell structures simultaneously, creating magical constructs that rivaled the greatest achievements of archmage-level casters.

Nine circles of perfect grey energy formed around me, each one pulsing with the kind of balanced power that made Valen's necromantic workings look crude by comparison. The spell I was preparing didn't rely on any single magical school or affinity—instead, it drew from the fundamental forces that governed reality itself.

"You want to see improvement?" I asked, raising Nyxthar as the nine-circle array reached completion. "Let me show you what I learned fighting beings that could reshape dimensions."

God Flash: Singularity.

The third and most devastating variation of my Grade 6 art's opening movement combined perfectly with the nine-circle spell matrix, creating an attack that existed at the intersection of physical technique and magical supremacy. Nyxthar became a conduit for forces that operated beyond conventional understanding, its edgeless blade cutting through concepts as easily as matter.

Valen's hastily constructed defenses lasted exactly as long as it took for my strike to reach them. His spell matrices collapsed, his spectral reinforcements were banished to whatever realm they had emerged from, and the man himself was sent flying across his own domain with enough force to crater the ground where he finally came to rest.

Blood ran from the corner of his mouth as he struggled to rise, his legendary-grade daggers now sporting hairline cracks that spoke to damage that should have been impossible to inflict on weapons of that caliber.

"This isn't possible," he gasped, his analytical mind clearly struggling to process what was happening to him. "I'm Mid Radiant-rank. I'm the strongest necromancer in the world. How are you—"

"Because rank is just a number," I interrupted, walking toward him with unhurried steps while my grey wings maintained their lazy rhythm. "Because you've spent decades perfecting techniques within the system's limitations, while I learned to break those limitations entirely."

To demonstrate my point, I shifted to the Second Movement of my Grade 6 art.

Hollow Eclipse.

The technique manifested as a sphere of absolute void that consumed everything within its radius—not destroying it, but simply removing it from existence on a conceptual level. Part of Valen's domain simply ceased to be, leaving behind empty space that even his necromantic power couldn't fill.

"You see?" I continued conversationally as he stared in horror at the gap in reality I had casually created. "Your power operates within the rules. Mine transcends them."

Valen's face went through a series of expressions—shock, disbelief, growing desperation, and finally, grim determination.

"If individual power isn't sufficient," he said through gritted teeth, his voice carrying the weight of absolute resolve, "then I'll use everything at my disposal."

He began channeling massive amounts of mana, his Black Heart artifact pulsing frantically in his chest as it fed him the energy reserves necessary for what he was attempting. The process was brutally inefficient—unsummoning his three legendary undead from their separate battles with Luna and Erebus, then immediately re-summoning them within his domain.

Domain battles separated the combatants from normal spacetime, making it impossible for his summons to simply travel here. Instead, he had to sever their existing manifestations and recreate them entirely, a process that would have drained a normal necromancer's mana reserves completely.

But Valen was no ordinary necromancer, and his Legendary-grade artifact provided him with vast reservoirs of power to draw upon.

Dark energy swirled around him as his three greatest creations began to materialize—the massive Bone Dragon, the spectral Dullahan, and the towering Death Lord. His power signature began to shift as he prepared to channel the combined might of all his contracted undead simultaneously—a technique that would either grant him the strength to challenge my dominance or destroy him in the attempt.

"Interesting," I mused, settling into a comfortable stance while Nyxthar hummed with anticipation. "Let's see what desperation can accomplish against the impossible."

The final phase of our battle was about to begin.