Aji's physical vessel was pierced by the sharp shadow limbs erupting from Shura’s spine. As expected of practitioners of corrupted dark magic, their mutated physiology allowed them to manifest lethal armaments directly from their bodies. Fusing entirely with the abyss, they unlocked permanent demonic transformations that amplified their combat parameters exponentially.

Sensing Aji’s defensive output weakening, Shura wrenched his shadow limbs free from Aji’s chest. Pumping a fresh surge of dark parameters and the absolute power of the Blood Supreme into his strike, Shura discharged a heavy kinetic shockwave.

Caught with depleted parameters, Aji was hurled backward like a broken stone.

His body hurtled across the terrain, smashing through dense clusters of towering trees. The force of his flight carved a massive, kilometer-long trench across the landscape before his battered frame finally came to a halt.

BOOM! BLAAAAM!

Refusing to grant Aji a single second to recover, Shura surged forward at sound-shattering velocity. Enveloped in a dense aura of midnight fog, he closed in on Aji’s landing coordinates. Spotting Aji's form half-buried under pulverized stone and splintered timber, Shura plunged his hand forward, shaping his fingers into a razor-sharp blade aimed directly at Aji’s heart.

The primary weakness of orthodox grandmasters lay in their cardiac core; Shura assumed the same physiological vulnerability applied to Aji Bagaskara, the Thunder Striker. He prepared to harvest Aji's core once and for all.

FLASH!

Shura’s piercing hand was abruptly intercepted—caught firmly between two palms.

It was Aji. Though lying flat upon the shattered earth, Aji had maintained his focus, raising his hands in a lightning-fast defensive block to halt Shura’s execution strike.

"You walked right into the trap, Shura! I am not so easily executed as I was twenty years ago!"

Aji offered a serene, chilling smile. Activating his absolute parameters—harmonizing ambient natural mana with the dormant energy of the Soul Deep artifact—he ignited a blistering wall of spiritual fire around Shura’s arm.

He had intentionally baited Shura into the impalement, enduring the agonizing trauma of the shadow limbs to draw the Demon Lord into a false sense of security.

Aji had engineered the trap using his own physical vessel, enduring unbearable agony. Yet enduring intense pain had long become second nature to him. Two decades prior, he had been paralyzed by naive hope, trusting that Shura could still be reasoned with.

Instead, that mercy had resulted in a devastating ambush, leaving a blade buried deep in his chest before Yonan and Ganada intervened to save him.

Yonan had implanted the Soul Deep artifact deep within his core to preserve his life force. Both comrades had sacrificed their lives to ensure Aji survived—tasking him with carrying forward their legacy to eradicate the darkness and permanently eliminate Shura from existence.

Thus, physical agony meant nothing to Aji. He bore the pain willingly, knowing his sacrifice would allow the restless spirits of his fallen brothers to finally find peace, smiling from the void as their sacred mandate was fulfilled.

ROAR!

A fierce, divine flame surged over Shura’s arm. As Shura attempted to wrench his hand free, Aji locked his grip in an unyielding vise, driving his fingers deep into Shura’s forearm muscles. Fusing his grip with natural mana and the Soul Deep artifact, Aji accelerated the searing burn.

"AAAAARGH!"

Shura shrieked in sudden, blinding agony. Aji understood pain intimately, yet he refused to yield to hesitation any longer. The time for mercy had expired; he had to finish the mandate right here and now. He could not afford to postpone the final resolution.

Twenty years of agonizing waiting had culminated in this exact second. Imprisoned in absolute solitude within an uninhabited dimension, he had spent days conversing with empty shadows and phantom echoes.

The dam holding back his decades of sorrow and restraint finally broke. This long vigil had reached its terminal phase—there would be no second chance.

"Forgive me, Shura. But I must put an end to your path right here. You cannot be allowed to propagate your deceitful ambitions! You bring only ruin to the world, not peace. Open your eyes, Shura!"

Aji’s voice thundered with righteous fury as he intensified the spiritual flames. The raging fire parted the rolling dark miasma surrounding Shura, scorching the Demon Lord's corrupted aura.

Shura fought back desperately, reinforcing his dark barriers to shield his flesh from the searing heat. Yet Aji pressed his advantage, refusing to relent. The celestial parameters of the Blood Supreme and the Soul Deep artifact clashed violently in a micro-scale energetic war, while Aji’s iron grip continued to burn away Shura’s dark defense.

Refusing to accept defeat, Shura unsealed his absolute reserve, pushing the celestial artifact past its structural limits to trigger his ultimate, terrifying resort.

"I will not accept defeat!"

Shura’s roar preceded an internal explosion within his vessel. The Blood Supreme artifact ruptured inside his chest, having fused directly with his cardiac core. The celestial relic shattered into volatile black smoke, flooding every fiber of Shura’s physical frame with supreme demonic parameters.

The divine flames scorching his arm were instantly extinguished by the expanding dark wave. Sensing the catastrophic shift in energy, Aji leaped backward, disengaging swiftly.

Shura had committed to the ultimate, irreversible taboo: total energetic assimilation.

"Ultimate Demon Transform: Blood Supreme Resonance!"

Blown backward by the monumental shockwave, Aji stabilized his footing. Shura had cast away his remaining humanity, completely merging his physical vessel with the Blood Supreme. He knew instantly that Shura could never return to his mortal form as Shura.

He had surrendered his soul to the absolute abyss. A towering column of midnight fog erupted from Shura’s body, expanding rapidly into a colossal energetic vortex. This final transformation yielded staggering parameters—yet absolute power carried an intrinsic structural flaw.

A forced transformation born from absolute surrender to the abyss could not be sustained indefinitely. The violent dissonance between a mortal physical vessel, a demonic transformation, and the volatile parameters of the Blood Supreme would inevitably destabilize Shura's core.

Aji recognized that if he simply survived the initial onslaught and prolonged the engagement, Shura’s physical vessel would eventually collapse under the strain of its own dark parameters. Yet Aji refused to rely solely on attrition.

He was a true grandmaster; right to the marrow of his bones, the spirit of an orthodox champion coursed through his veins. When an opponent grew stronger, a true warrior rose to match that strength head-on. Decades of rigorous training, celestial artifacts, and the fused inheritances of his fallen brothers were not ornamental displays—they had been forged specifically for this exact duel.

He had been born and trained to halt Shura's madness. Though the entity standing before him was no longer the adoptive brother he had loved, but a mutated abomination of the abyss, a true warrior fought with uncompromising valor.

This terminal clash would remain unrecorded by official historical archives. Perhaps no mortal would ever sing songs of this battle. Yet the silent approval of his fallen brothers from the void awaited him, urging him forward to crush the demonic entity.

The dark clouds overhead began to part. The final, terrifying silhouette of Shura’s absolute demon transformation fully manifested.

A colossal, nightmarish serpentine head emerged from the fog, featuring jagged fangs and scales thicker than ocean coral. Spanning massive proportions, the monstrous form sprouted bat-like wings, while a razor-sharp tail lined with venomous spikes lashed violently behind him.

Shura had mutated into a titanic, brown-scaled dragon with glowing crimson eyes, powerful rear limbs, and shorter forelimbs tipped with lethal talons. Exhaling a breath of superheated, dark-infused flame, the dragon gazed down at Aji with absolute murderous intent.

SWOOOSH!

The colossal dragon exhaled a torrent of midnight-black fire, unleashing a high-yield thermal beam that stretched over a kilometer in a straight, devastating line. The blast targeted Aji directly, aiming to incinerate him into absolute ash in a single breath.

Bracing his stance, Aji channeled his absolute parameters to meet the approaching sea of black fire. The intense heat scorched his outer skin, yet he ignored the pain, wrapping his vessel in a dense layer of natural aura.

CRACK! CRACK!

Aji’s protective aura shield fractured under the staggering thermal pressure. Pushing forward against the firestorm, he accelerated directly toward the dragon's massive head. His flesh blistered and melted under the extreme heat, yet his autonomous cellular regeneration continuously replaced the destroyed cells in real time, locking him in a relentless loop of destruction and rebirth.

There were no second chances. This was the absolute end.

Aji closed the distance to Shura’s colossal jaw. Roaring in fury, the dragon intensified the dark firestorm, channeling the full, unreserved parameters of the shattered Blood Supreme artifact directly into its breath attack.

"HIAAAARGH!"

Aji’s physical vessel felt as though it were liquefying under the agonizing thermal load. Drawing his right arm back, he prepared a terminal strike. Concentrating every ounce of his remaining parameters, Aji deliberately shattered the Soul Deep artifact embedded within his chest—the sacred relic gifted by Saint Yonan.

He funneled the concentrated energy of the shattered relic into his final punch. No matter the cost—even if it claimed his life—he would put an end to Shura today.

His fist blazed with multi-layered parameters: natural atmospheric mana channeled from lightning strikes, internal grandmaster output, the absolute parameters of the Soul Deep artifact, the blinding velocity of Ghost Speed, and the master-tier spatial spellcraft inherited from Yonan. All converged into a singular, devastating strike.

This was the exact purpose for which he had been granted a second lease on life. He had reached the terminal finish line of his pilgrimage and his life's mandate.

Vaulting upward, Aji closed in on the colossal dragon’s head.

SWISH!

Executing a fluid mid-air saltation, Aji launched a high-speed rotational kick imbued with the absolute velocity and kinetic damage profile inherited from Saint Ganada.

His heel slammed squarely into the underside of the dragon’s massive jaw.

THUD!

The colossal reptilian head snapped violently upward under the force of the kick, diverting the dragon's fire breath harmlessly into the upper atmosphere.

The terminal window!

Dropping his head downward following the salto, Aji spotted the exact vulnerability he needed: the dragon's scaled chest plates parted momentarily, exposing a massive, pulsating cardiac core glowing with dark energy.

"Ultimate Ghost Speed!"

"Ultimate Nature Magic!"

Enveloped in a brilliant, complex aura of iridescent rainbow light, Aji vanished from ordinary perception, hurtling directly toward the exposed heart of the dragon.

It is time.

"Thunder Destruction Fist!"

Drawing his right arm back, Aji unleashed his terminal punch squarely into the center of the dragon’s chest, driving his fist deep into the pulsating cardiac core.

BLAAAAM! BOOOOOOM!

Far away across the physical plane, a sudden spatial rift tore open near the alliance camp. Two exhausted young women stumbled out onto the scorched earth, greeted by the aftermath of the Mirror World's final cataclysm.

Gayatri and Alicia stared around in stunned silence, their eyes wide as they witnessed the terminal shockwave of Aji and Shura's final duel echoing across the dimensional boundary.