You Already Won

This man is fast.

Simon clenched his jaw, narrowing his eyes as he spiraled backward through the sky. His movements were tight and practiced, but for the first time in years, his calculated rhythm was being pressured—beaten back.

Being a Star-Veda had always given him the upper hand. His control panel—clean, minimal, responsive—operated on instinct. Thought became action. Tap, drag, deploy. Mini cannons burst into the sky, rotating into position as they locked onto Jonathan's signature. Gleaming swords of starlight materialized in a hex pattern before launching forward like celestial arrows.

But Jonathan was already moving.

His body shimmered midair, lightning coursing through his arms. Black tendrils laced with molten red coiled around him, snapping like serpents. The moment the swords approached, he swung once—

A whip cracked through the air.

It didn't slice the blades—it unraveled them. The starlight dispersed on contact, fraying like memory slipping through a dream. Simon blinked, disoriented. He could feel his rhythm stutter, his next set of commands lagging. The strike hadn't just erased his attack; it had numbed something deeper.

Jonathan grinned. "Having fun yet?"

He raised his arm, channeling red lightning into a dense orb. Black arcs screamed around it, distorting the air like a vortex on the verge of collapse. He hurled it upward with a grunt.

The orb exploded in the sky.

Crimson bolts poured down like rain, wrapped in shrieking black lines that twisted unnaturally. The world below shook—trees evaporated in the cascade, the forest floor fractured in a dozen places, and clouds above parted as if something had split the heavens open.

Caroline shielded her eyes. "Holy shit…"

From below, Tinsurnae and the wyrms stood their ground, watching in awe as Jonathan waged war against the sky itself.

Simon was flung back, his panels flickering as he tried to reorient himself. His coat smoldered, jagged burns tracing across his side. His HUD crackled with warning messages.

Jonathan hovered amidst the carnage. Crimson arcs still danced across his skin, flickering under his cloak. And yet—

He frowned.

Not enough yet.

Not even close.

Simon gritted his teeth as a ring of red-black lightning tore through the air, curving like a predator. It locked onto him with a soundless hiss—then snapped shut.

"Evisceration Halo… yeah that's a cool enough name," Jonathan muttered from above, palm out. The spinning halo constricted like a saw, flaring before exploding in a crackling implosion. The shockwave distorted the sky itself.

Simon twisted midair, barely avoiding the core. His shoulder caught the edge—pain flashed white-hot. But he didn't slow.

"Cute," he spat, blood glistening on his sleeve. He surged forward with three rotating star-tipped blades at his back, launched from Ryun panels orbiting him like satellites. Two mini-orbs spun out and pulsed, unleashing narrow cannonfire beams of pure starlight that lanced through the sky.

Jonathan danced between them. Red mist burst from his skin like cracked glass. The attacks bent around him unnaturally, deflecting wide—then the mist shimmered. For a moment, he vanished.

"Teleportation huh," Simon growled.

Too late.

Jonathan reappeared with a smirk behind him and let loose. The whip cracked out like a serpent. It struck Simon's back—aura ignored, thoughts scrambled. For a moment, he couldn't remember where he was. The air shimmered as Jonathan hurled another crimson orb upward.

It detonated in midair.

The clouds parted like peeled fruit. Molten red bolts screamed downward, cloaked in black arcs of lightning that didn't just burn—they pulled. Pulled air, gravity, focus.

The ground below erupted. Trees vaporized. The earth cracked like an egg under a hammer. Tinsurnae had her Wyrms protect her and the others as chunks of stone and shattered sky rained down.

Still not enough.

Jonathan felt it inside him. A pressure building in his chest—not just metaphorical. Physical. It throbbed beneath his ribs, like something ancient and coiled waiting to strike. This fight was pushing him, dragging it out.

If he waited for it to awaken on its own, someone he cared about might die.

So he wouldn't wait.

Simon—his hair singed, his coat shredded—hovered in place, chest heaving. He looked up at Jonathan with wild eyes. "You… You're holding back."

Jonathan said nothing. His smile said everything.

So Simon changed the game.

"Star Protocol: Call Engagement Fusion."

The air trembled. His body fractured into thousands of threads of starlight, then reformed—sleeker, faster, glowing like a constellation given flesh. His voice warped, more echo than speech.

"Oh shit," Jonathan muttered. "Did you just go Super Saiyan?"

Simon's eyes flared like novas. "Sure. If that's how you want to envision it."

Jonathan laughed, lightning dancing around his fingers. "Bet."

His body convulsed. Red-black lightning spiderwebbed through his veins, leaking from his pores like vapor. His muscles twitched, tore, rebuilt. A scream tried to rise from his throat but he bit it down.

Cracks of energy burst around him as his aura twisted into a storm of pure destruction.

"You ready?" he asked, grin razor-wide.

Simon didn't answer. He raised both palms.

Stars formed around him—six, then twelve, then too many to count. They pulsed with layered color, rotating like runes of death.

"You shouldn't have let me get this far," Simon said coldly. "Your arrogance is going to put you in a grave."

Jonathan chuckled.

"Funny. Considering —"

The stars moved, cutting him off.

——

"What's he waiting for?" Caroline asked, tilting her head.

She'd discarded the tattered shorts and cropped top, now wrapped in a flowing red-and-white robe, cinched at the waist with a loose cord.

Sšurtinaui didn't answer immediately. Her eyes hadn't left the fight once. "North's planning something," she said finally. "I'm not sure what… but it's not random."

Caroline frowned. "Let's hope it's not something stupid."

"Let's hope," Sšurtinaui echoed dryly.

A sudden laugh interrupted them. Tinsurnae.

She was lounging comfortably atop the head of one of her Wyrms, legs kicked up, her hair shimmering in the residual light of the fading battlefield. "Jafar always moves in unpredictable ways," she said lightly. "His methods, though strange, usually bear the best results."

Both Caroline and Sšurtinaui turned slowly toward her.

Tinsurnae blinked, confused by their stares—until it hit her.

"…Why did I say that?"

The words hadn't felt like a guess. They'd come out with certainty. Familiarity.

And more than that… understanding. Not of Jonathan. Of Jafar.

The name felt personal in her mouth, like she'd spoken it a thousand times before.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

A flicker stirred in her chest—no, deeper. Not a memory exactly. Not déjà vu either.

Something older.

She looked back at Jonathan.

And for the first time, she wasn't just watching him fight.

She knew what he was waiting for.

——

Above the land, lightning tangled with starlight.

Jonathan and Simon moved like blurs—two storms colliding. Each strike more violent than the last, every impact echoing like a sonic boom across the valley. They were exchanging more than blows—ideals, history, lives lived under foreign skies.

Then Simon raised his arm, starbeams spiraling forward in a spiraling barrage. Jonathan didn't dodge. Didn't flinch.

Instead—

Black lightning coiled tight around his frame, clinging to his skin like sentient armor. Red runes flickered and raced across its surface like pulsing veins. The beams slammed into him and splashed across the shield in a wash of radiant light—only to be devoured.

The runes flashed brighter.

Each hit absorbed charged a hum beneath his skin. A counterpulse gathering behind his eyes.

He clenched a fist.

Simon hovered, smirking. His starlit body gleamed with rising pressure. Just moments ago, Jonathan had clearly been stronger.

But now?

Now they were equals. Auras flaring in sync. Force against force. Lightning versus constellation.

Simon raised a hand, gathering enough energy to flatten the horizon.

"I'm ending this now," he said softly, more to himself than to Jonathan.

Jonathan stared at him across the distance. The unreadable calm on his face wasn't arrogance. It was… restraint.

Not yet, he thought, feeling the pressure coil inside.

It wasn't just Ryun. It wasn't just lightning.

He knew what he was. Knew what was waiting.

But this wasn't the moment.

Not yet.

——

Tinsurnae's smile faded.

She felt it—a shift, like the snap of a bowstring pulled too tight for too long. The atmosphere turned dense, the air heavy with pressure that wasn't hers or Jonathan's. Something was about to happen.

"Get on," she said quickly, snapping her fingers.

Caroline and Sšurtinaui both turned.

"What?"

"Now," Tinsurnae said, already climbing atop her Wyrm. "We need to move."

Caroline didn't argue. She leapt up in a fluid motion, robe trailing behind her.

Sšurtinaui narrowed her eyes but followed. "What's going on?"

"I'm not one-hundred-percent sure," Tinsurnae admitted. Her hands pulsed with energy, and the Wyrm shifted beneath them. "But I know North's about to do something. And we do not want to be in the radius."

"So… we're evacuating because we trust your gut?" Caroline asked, half-grinning.

Tinsurnae didn't answer.

That alone told them everything.

——

Simon exhaled.

It was time.

The Rukes of Denvel. The town. The people. Everything he'd fought to hold together during this damn tournament of survival—reduced to nothing.

And this man—this walking enigma in front of him—wasn't the cause. Not directly. But it didn't matter.

Simon needed closure. He needed to end this.

With a motion of both arms, gravitational force surged around Jonathan. The air distorted, folding in on itself as three luminous rings snapped into existence and locked into place around his body—like celestial restraints.

Each ring spun at its own speed, layered with orbiting stars that appeared and multiplied by the second. The pressure increased. Jonathan's limbs refused to move. The pull yanked at his aura, at his core.

It was like being crushed by a collapsing galaxy.

Simon hovered above, his expression carved from stone.

"You choose this mate," he said quietly, "I tried to be fair."

He raised a hand, and the rings around Jonathan glowed brighter, the stars spiraling into blinding trails of heat and pressure.

Simon's voice rang like a divine echo.

"Event Zero: Stellar Grave."

The sky split open.

From the heavens above, a singular, condensed lance of starlight roared into existence—thin as a needle, bright as a supernova, and collapsing space itself in its descent.

It wasn't just light.

It was finality.

Jonathan looked up, pinned in place.

The beam crashed down.

And for a moment…

There was nothing.

Only white.

Awwwww…

Yeah.

This is it.

The words came not from his mouth, but from somewhere deeper—some half-buried part of him that recognized what this moment truly was.

As the beam of condensed starlight consumed him, Jonathan didn't scream. He didn't flail. He didn't even resist.

He leaned into it.

The gravitational rings still clung to him, locking him in place, while the torrential downpour of cosmic energy tore through his body. Skin cracked. Bones ached. Muscles tore and rebuilt themselves within milliseconds. The heat was unreal—impossible—but to Jonathan, it felt oddly familiar. Comforting, even.

Like a hot shower after a long, brutal day.

He exhaled slowly, despite the crushing weight. Destruction flooded every sense, yet deep in the eye of it all, he found clarity.

It was coming.

Bubbling inside him.

Gnawing at the walls of his soul like a caged animal desperate for release.

Let it out.

That's what his instincts whispered.

Let it all out.

In just two weeks, Jonathan had seen more blood, madness, and pain than most would in a lifetime. He'd cheated death, rewritten fate, faced monsters, Rankers, and worse—himself.

And he still wasn't there yet. He still couldn't use his blood the way he wanted. Couldn't tap into Sryun the way Tinsurnae did. His instincts were sharper, darker now, like there was something behind his every action waiting for permission to take over.

A chuckle escaped his lips, strained but real.

Then, as if mocking the laws of the universe, Jonathan lifted his hands.

Simon's eyes widened from above. "No… impossible," he breathed.

But it was happening.

Jonathan raised his hands slowly, bringing them to his face—cupping them over his mouth and nose.

Then he looked up through the beam itself, straight into the heavens.

"I'm done holding back," he whispered.

He let go.

A red gleam rippled across his irises.

Then his eyes snapped open—sigils spiraling across them in patterns alien and precise, as if carved by divine geometry. The markings beneath his eyes ignited, glowing like molten scripture.

A pulse detonated outward.

SABOOM.

The sky rippled—warped—as if the very color had been stripped and replaced by a seething, cursed red. The air wept, growing thick and unstable. Trees warped and twisted. Light bent unnaturally.

The stars melted.

The gravitational rings shattered like glass against pressure they were never meant to contain.

Simon stumbled in midair, reeling as the energy around Jonathan twisted everything in proximity—matter, force, even sound.

It was as if the world had turned inside out and decided to mourn.

Jonathan hovered in the center of it, his body outlined by red-black lightning. His hair lifted in a slow halo. Every inch of him hummed with terrifying intent.

Simon looked up—no, stared—his jaw slack, breath caught halfway in his throat.

Jonathan floated, motionless in the chaos.

The cloak still hung off his shoulders like the wings of some ancient predator, rippling in defiance of gravity. Around him, the air itself broke apart—stars and gravitational force no longer obeyed their rules. Instead, they twisted, melted, and turned into—

Blood.

It streamed down in thick rivulets, pouring like a flood from an invisible dam in the sky. A deluge of crimson, painting the land below in pulsing horror. The very laws of Delark warped under it.

Behind Jonathan, his aura manifested in full.

Not a flame. Not a shimmer.

A curtain.

Red and black, unfurling like a living tapestry made of nightmare threads and sacrificial rites. Many eyes blinked within it—some far too large, others small and fast—watching, studying, judging. Between them, sigils drifted like beasts at rest, haloing him in myth and murder.

And then—

A chime.

Metallic. Cold. Final.

It echoed not in Simon's ears but in his interface.

His UI—his system—froze for a single moment. The panels cracked with static, shimmered, then reformed into something else. Something uniform. Something… universal.

The font changed. The layout changed. All indicators now bore the mark of something greater than any game or system Simon had ever seen.

Not just him—everyone who had a system in Delark was now staring at the same message.

A screen appeared before them in bold text:

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

ATTENTION.

A SIGNIFICANT BEING HAS AWAKENED IN YOUR AREA.

A FRACTURED HEIR OF AN ABSOLUTE BEING HAS INITIATED UNRAVELING.

ALL THOSE IN RANGE SHOULD EITHER FLEE IMMEDIATELY…

OR SLAUGHTER THIS ENTITY ON SIGHT.
-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

Simon's blood ran cold.

It wasn't just the alert.

It was the fact that he could now see what had once been hidden.

Above Jonathan's head, where only ??? had hovered before, a title now shimmered with burning clarity.

The Blood Prince.

And under it… a health bar.

Slowly filling. Slowly stabilizing.

Simon didn't move.

Couldn't.

Because across the battlefield, Jonathan lowered his hands from his mouth—fingers stained red with borrowed starlight. His head tilted slightly, the way a beast inspects prey it already knows it owns. The sigils in his eyes rotated, locking in.

And he stared.

Directly.

At him.

Simon felt it then. Not defeat. Not pain.

Dread.

Because Jonathan North wasn't just a threat anymore.

He was an event.

Simon went to retreat—but it was too late.

The gaze had already found him.

The presence had already unwritten him.

The unraveling was already complete.

He opened his mouth to speak—to order, to scream, to deny—but his body beat him to it. The scream was already ripping out of his throat before he knew it was his.

His skin shimmered, stretched, then tore.

Veins bulged with red that wasn't his. His fingernails split. The whites of his eyes bloomed into crimson webbing as his bones cracked like glass under pressure. It started at his hands—melting into viscous strands of blood—and spread fast. Too fast.

His body pulsed.

Then liquefied.

Like everything else that had stood in defiance of the Blood Prince.

He fell forward—not from impact, but as a ripple—spilling into the already soaking ground in a messy bloom of gore and starlight, indistinguishable from the rest of the battlefield. A final thought flickered through what remained of his mind:

I didn't even realize I'd already lost.

Then—

Darkness.

—

Jonathan watched it happen.

His eyes were impassive, unreadable. The spirals of sigils within them didn't blink or tremble. His breathing was steady, unbothered.

He watched the body. The scream. The failure.

Of course he deserved it.

That inferior life form.

Letting it go this far.

Calling himself a leader.

This farce should've ended long ago.

"No! Stop thinking like that!"

Jonathan's thoughts hissed like crackling thunder under his skin. He moved to hover—but his body gave out.

Hovering turned to falling.

He struck the blood-drenched earth like a dropped blade, and the ground reacted.

A geyser of blood exploded upward around him. Not just around him—into him.

It found his mouth.

His ears.

His pores.

Rushing in. Forcing entry. Like it belonged. Like he was a vessel finally opened.

Most would have screamed. Most would have begged.

Jonathan did neither.

He planted a knee.

And endured.

Pain laced his veins. His brain throbbed with pressure. His vision pulsed red, flickering in and out like faulty wiring. He felt it—him—something clawing in the dark corners of his soul. Jafar, yes… but more. The God-King's personality, the true hunger of that divine madness, gnawed at his core.

Whispers of conquest.

Flickers of thrones.

But Jonathan pushed back.

Not yet.

Not here. Not with them so close.

He breathed. In. Out. The taste of blood on both.

His fingers dug into the soil. His eyes squeezed shut—

Then something changed.

A hand.

Soft, but firm, placed on his back.

Then another.

Then another.

Jonathan's eyes opened slowly, blood still trailing down his cheek.

Three figures knelt around him, silent but present.

All with their hands resting on him, letting their aura flow into his.

Not to control him.

Not to save him.

To anchor him.

Their presence calmed the storm. Not by stopping it, but by sharing it.

They reminded him of something important.

He wasn't alone.