CHAPTER 426: ETHAN VS. GALENO. THEIR FIRST EVER BATTLE

Galeno stepped forward without a word. The air around him turned heavy, dense, like the gravity itself acknowledged his presence. He removed his pajama top with a single motion, revealing tough, scale-lined muscles glimmering faintly like polished obsidian. His eyes glowed with golden, ancient power.

Ethan mirrored him, tossing his own shirt aside as his body radiated controlled might. Aura rolled off him like a rising storm.

They stared at each other for only a moment.

Then the ground erupted.

Galeno stomped once; the arena floor rose like a tidal wave of earth, jagged stone pillars exploding upward to impale anything in their path. Ethan teleported instantly, a blur of motion and time distortion, appearing high above the arena.

Galeno’s gaze snapped upward. His hand rose. Reality responded.

A massive tortoise shell of black diamond materialized behind him, runes carving themselves across its plates. It fired volleys of earth-forged projectiles at supersonic speed, a meteor shower of death.

Ethan’s golden eye lit up.

Time slowed.

Stagnation Field.

The projectiles crawled forward, their speed reduced to a gentle drift. Ethan danced through them, weaving his way down like a shadow passing through raindrops.

But the moment his feet touched the ground, the field shattered.

Galeno charged.

The earth beneath Ethan buckled under the guardian’s speed. His fist connected with Ethan’s ribs, sending a shockwave that cracked the colosseum interior. Ethan launched backward like a fired cannonball, smashing into a stone pillar and shattering it on impact.

He exhaled sharply but grinned.

Galeno didn’t pause. He was already upon him.

Ethan teleported again, but Galeno anticipated it, his palm striking the space Ethan reappeared in. The impact bent the air, sending Ethan skidding across the arena floor.

"You’ve gotten faster," Ethan muttered as he pushed himself up, dust falling from his shoulders.

Galeno simply advanced.

The ground warped with each step.

Ethan charged this time, his fist coated with condensed temporal power, and the moment he swung, time thinned around the strike, creating ripples of distortion. Galeno met the blow with his forearm. The collision detonated a burst of force that cleared dust across the arena in a circular blast.

Galeno wasn’t pushed back.

Instead, he dug into the ground, twisting his stance, and the earth turned fluid beneath Ethan’s feet, pulling him down like quicksand. Ethan struggled to teleport, but Galeno’s domain weighed on him like an entire mountain range pressing down.

Earth locking space.

Earth rejecting distortion.

Ethan’s jaw clenched. His muscles bulged. Time shimmered violently around him.

Sloth Authority. Time Stagnation. Dilation. Compression.

He broke free in an instant, appearing behind Galeno with a burst of warped air and slamming his foot against the guardian’s spine.

Galeno slid forward, cracked stone trailing behind his feet, but still upright.

He turned his head slightly.

Then the arena darkened.

A colossal tortoise phantom formed above him, hundreds of meters tall, eyes like burning suns, aura dense enough to compress the air into visible waves.

Galeno’s voice echoed with command.

"Earth Eternal."

The ground beneath Ethan surged upward, forming a gigantic stone hand that grabbed him mid-movement and slammed him into the arena floor with bone-rattling force. Ethan teleported free again, panting harder now.

"You’re forcing me out of the easy route..." Ethan said, eye burning brighter.

The world around them flickered.

Time accelerated around Ethan alone; his steps became silent blurs, movements sharper than lightning. He struck Galeno repeatedly from every angle, fists, elbows, knees, each blow distorting time and space on contact.

Cracks splintered across Galeno’s shell-like skin, but he endured, refusing to fall.

Galeno raised both hands, and the entire arena shook.

Not just the arena.

The earth far beneath it responded.

A sudden surge of gravity slammed Ethan to one knee, his bones creaking under the force. Galeno enclosed his fist with spirals of molten orange aura, earth heated to pseudo-star temperature, and threw a single punch.

Ethan managed to raise his arm.

The impact lit the world white.

Shockwaves tore the ground apart. Stone atomized. The colosseum shook like it was about to collapse.

Ethan skidded a hundred meters, arm numb, breath ragged.

His eyes narrowed.

He flickered.

Galeno blinked.

Ethan was already beside him.

Their fists collided, time versus earth, creation of motion versus origin of stability, two fundamental forces clashing head-on.

Thunder erupted.

...

The shockwave faded. Dust coiled in spirals. The arena groaned under the pressure of two titans refusing to yield.

Galeno’s fist remained locked against Ethan’s, neither willing to step back. Cracks spread beneath their feet like spiderwebs searching for escape.

Ethan inhaled slowly.

Then everything changed.

The light in his golden eye deepened, expanding outward in concentric rings. The air around him warped, bending like liquid glass under intense heat. A faint icy-blue aura leaked from his skin, shimmering like drifting starlight.

The Mark of Serenity etched itself across his chest and arm like a glowing sigil, ancient power awakened from quiet slumber.

Time bowed.

The world staggered.

Ethan’s voice came out calm, muted, and impossible to resist.

"Dilation... Complete Stasis Field."

The universe itself obeyed.

Stone froze mid-crumble.Galeno’s shadow locked still.Even the dust motes in the air hung unmoving.Sound died completely.Color dulled.

Only Ethan and Galeno remained animated inside a world forced into stillness.

Galeno’s pupils tightened with sharp instinct.He sensed it, the sheer weight of a concept that denied all motion.

Time was no longer slowed.

It was under Ethan’s command.

Ethan twisted, seizing Galeno’s arm and slamming him into the frozen earth before releasing a palm strike that bent the stagnated air like metal being warped by titanic pressure.

Galeno tumbled, his massive frame tearing through paralyzed stone, body carving a roaring path through the arena wall, though the sound came late, ripping into existence only after the field flickered from the strain of his resistance.

He rose at once.

Earth cracked.Power surged.

Ethan appeared at his side, a ghost in dominion over seconds themselves, fingers pointed like a blade.

Galeno blocked.

But time bent around Ethan’s strike, curving the attack’s path mid-motion. His fist slammed into Galeno’s ribs with such precise distortion that force detonated inside his guard.

Galeno grunted, his shell-like defense splitting hairline fractures.

Ethan pressed forward like inevitability.

A flicker.A step.A blur.

Each movement was a sentence being written in reality, one that Galeno was being forced to read in reverse.

Ethan caught Galeno by the throat.

Time around them stopped entirely.

No movement.No resistance.Even gravity deferred.

"Temporal Imprisonment," Ethan whispered.

Galeno’s body hung in the air, not paralyzed, but forcibly removed from the flow of events.

Ethan pulled back his fist, slow by choice, letting Galeno witness every fraction of power gathering there.

The colosseum floor cracked in perfect concentric circles beneath Ethan’s feet as time vibrated around him, spiraling into a singular destructive moment.

Then...

A flash of silver radiance.

The Mark of Serenity pulsed.

Ethan struck.

Time resumed.

Reality screamed.

Galeno was blasted backward by the shockwave, smashing through stone and steel for the second time, entire walls shattering along his path before he crashed into the far side of the arena, leaving a colossal crater in his wake.

The world trembled.

And still...

Galeno stood.

Slow, steady, unbroken.

Blood ran from his mouth, thick and dark; yet his posture did not falter. His golden eyes burned brighter than before, ancient power awakening deeper, heavier.

The earth rumbled in response to his heartbeat.

Ethan exhaled, rolling his shoulders as the blue aura crackled along his skin. His golden eye held newfound depth, a command of time that was no longer subtle, but absolute.

Both warriors stared across the ruined arena at each other.

The battle was far from finished.

And for the first time...

Ethan smiled without restraint.

....