CHAPTER 505: SHADES VI

The clash ignited like a war between instruments.

Kar’veth’s chains roared in iron chorus, every strike a sovereign decree. They moved with a rhythm older than the Obsidian Thrones themselves, each link etched with law, each binding an echo of endless dominion.

Leon’s Shell Reverb answered with defiance. His body quaked, but his rhythm did not falter. Tripart Echo split the chains’ cadence into thirds, staggering their impact. Absolute Return hurled the weight of Kar’veth’s decree back upon him. Karmic Loop caught the bindings mid-swing, forcing them into recursive recoil. Echo of Origin rewrote the tempo itself, dictating not what was, but what must be.

The battlefield was no longer a stage—it was a symphony hall torn in half, each conductor pulling at the heart of existence with their rhythm.

Chains shattered, reformed, and shattered again in recursive clashes, filling the air with ringing vibrations like cathedral bells struck until they cracked.

Leon staggered forward, blood streaming from his nose, but his eyes shone with a fire none of his team had ever seen. His every step pulsed with the rhythm, the battlefield bending around him.

Kar’veth slammed his fist onto the throne. The chains recoiled, then spiraled into a singular form—a colossal spear woven from a thousand bindings, its point screaming with sovereign weight.

"This is the cadence of ENDINGS!" Kar’veth bellowed. "Let us see if your song survives!"

The spear launched, a blur of black-gold chainlightning.

Leon drew every layer of Shell Pulse into one instant, his voice tearing from his chest.

"Absolute Return!"

The spear struck—then reversed, exploding backward in a blast that rocked the throne and hurled Kar’veth half-upright.

The sovereign’s grin returned, blood searing down the corner of his mouth. His chains convulsed wildly, resonating not just against Leon, but against themselves. The sovereign was shaking—not in fear, but in exhilaration.

"Yes... YES! Push further! The song you lead is on the cusp of truth!"

And Leon felt it.

The shard inside his chest was no longer still. It screamed, vibrating against his heartbeat like glass under strain. The echoes of every layer he had mastered spiraled together, forming a note that was jagged, unstable—yet inevitable.

The Fifth Pulse.

Not harmony. Not balance. But a fracture—a requiem that would break the song itself.

Leon’s knees buckled. His team called out, but their voices were muffled, drowned by the overwhelming resonance. His body felt as if it would split apart, his core tearing under the impossible tempo.

Still, he raised his arm.

Still, he pressed forward.

Kar’veth’s chains surged again, the sovereign crying out like a mad conductor driving an orchestra to its final movement.

"Break it, conductor! Or be broken!"

And in that moment—Leon’s Shell Reverb shattered into silence.

A silence so absolute it crushed sound itself.

The Fifth Pulse stirred.

The battlefield buckled under the clash of domains.

Kar’veth’s throne cracked as his chains writhed like a storm of serpents, colliding with Leon’s pulses mid-air. Every strike wasn’t just iron against resonance—it was law against law, reality grinding on itself. The air wailed, shuddering as though the Tower itself hated the overlap.

Leon’s Shell Pulse hammered out again, not a single echo but a cadence—each beat weaving the earlier ones tighter, folding time and impact into an inevitability. Chains that should’ve struck veered, stuttered, or looped back into each other, rattling against their own weight.

Naval staggered forward, blood on his lips, but a grin across his face. "He’s—he’s breaking it..."

Kar’veth’s smile had vanished. His features hardened into something crueler, colder, his voice shaking with both wrath and curiosity.

"You dare match sovereignty with resonance? A shard-bearer playing conductor of storms?"

The throne split open, birthing more chains—dozens, hundreds, each glowing with inscriptions older than the Tower itself. They weren’t just weapons anymore. They dragged fragments of worlds behind them—shards of frozen skies, molten seas, screaming echoes of fallen cities. Each link was an anchor to history’s ruin.

Roselia gasped, nearly collapsing as she recognized it. "Those are—"

"World Shackles," Liliana finished, her voice trembling. "He’s pulling laws straight from the broken domains!"

Kar’veth thrust both hands down. The World Shackles fell like a rain of collapsed realities.

Leon’s Shell Pulse screamed inside him, straining. Absolute Return bled into Karmic Loop, every echo dragging more power through his frame. But he knew—this wasn’t something he could just reflect. The Sovereign was calling the Tower itself against him.

His team braced. Naval raised waves high enough to carve ridges into the stone, Milim’s aura flared like a miniature star, Roselia spread her sigils across the ground to shield them all, and Roman dug himself from the rubble, already charging again with broken ribs but blazing fists.

But Leon... Leon closed his eyes for a heartbeat.

Shell Reverb at ninety-three percent. Echo of Origin. Fifth Pulse: Fracture Requiem.

The shard in his chest burned, searing through marrow, whispering—break him, break him, break him.

When Leon opened his eyes again, they weren’t just his. The world rippled in triplicate—three beats of reality for every one heartbeat.

He raised his hand, his voice steady but low, like a verdict.

"Fracture Requiem."

The world... cracked.

Not just the battlefield. Not just the throne. The tempo itself splintered. Shackles froze mid-air, their momentum stuttering like broken strings on an instrument. Some reversed into themselves, others shattered under the weight of echoes that hadn’t yet happened but already had.

Kar’veth staggered, eyes widening—not in fear, but in recognition.

"...You reached it. The Fifth Pulse."

Leon’s voice echoed with something older than himself. "No chains bind the conductor."

The battlefield was his now.

The throne groaned. For the first time, Kar’veth leaned forward—just a fraction, but enough to ripple dread through the battlefield. His laughter died into silence, replaced by something sharper. A predator’s attention.

The rain of chains stopped. They hung in the air, swaying like pendulums suspended between beats of Leon’s pulse. The battlefield, the domain, the very air itself seemed to wait.

Leon’s chest rose and fell, the Shell Reverb inside him no longer thrashing, but humming. His body burned, veins straining, yet for the first time the rhythm bent outward—not inward. Not tearing him apart, but conducting the world.

Naval staggered back into position, one knee on the ground, eyes locked on Leon. "...He did it." His voice was hoarse, half disbelief, half awe.

Milim tilted her head, her lips curving into a dangerous grin. "Hah. About time." She surged forward, her wings trailing light, and this time when her fist collided with a cluster of chains, they didn’t just break—they harmonized with Leon’s pulse, shattering in flawless rhythm like glass struck at its frequency.

Roselia gasped softly, feeling her own barrier stabilize, the crushing pressure on her soul easing. The golden sigils brightened again, no longer cracking but flowing with new strength as if Leon’s resonance wove through them.

Liliana’s staff glowed like a star. Her voice was steady now, clear. "Leon... you’re not just echoing anymore. You’re conducting."

Roman emerged from the rubble, blood trickling from his temple. He clenched his gauntlets, smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth despite the pain. "Finally. The bastard’s on the back foot."

Kar’veth’s throne cracked. The Sovereign’s grin had vanished entirely now, his gaze sharp with recognition. His voice rumbled low, reverent and venomous all at once.

"The Fifth Pulse..." He stood, chains rattling like an ocean tide retreating before a storm. "So the shard dared to awaken that within you." His arms spread wide, domain surging with renewed force, shaking stone and sky alike. "Good. Then you are no longer sparks in the dark. You are fire—and fire must be extinguished."

The air buckled. Dozens, hundreds, then thousands of chains erupted at once, blotting out what little light remained. Each one burned with his dominion, every link forged from command and ruin.

But Leon’s pulse answered. His heartbeat struck like a war drum, each thrum bending the tide. The Shell Reverb within him screamed, not in pain, but in triumph—resonating with a rhythm older than chains, older than thrones.

The Fifth Pulse stirred.

Kar’veth’s chains descended like the wrath of a god. Leon’s eyes burned crimson as he whispered the words that rose unbidden from the shard and his soul alike:

"Shell Pulse: Fracture Requiem."

The battlefield cracked.