Chapter 54: Fighting in the new feature

Chapter 54: Chapter 54: Fighting in the new feature

Morgan just kept running without turning back. Even on an ordinary day he knew the truth with the cold certainty of a man who had already measured the distance between his own strength and the man ahead of him. He could not beat Guner. Not like this, with only his First and Fifth Wave as his arsenal. And what was worse? Guner was not alone. He had those two menaces of his: Falco and Nene. The fight waiting for him could never be fair.

He took a high leap, scythe already half-formed in his grip, and in the space between one heartbeat and the next the world tore open.

There was no transition. No tunnel of light. No warning. One blink and the trees of the outside world vanished. He was in a completely new world, one that was clearly not on Earth. Morgan landed hard on cold stone that rang like struck iron under his boots. After landing he spun, eyes wide, and the reality he had known was simply gone.

A vast arena stretched out before him—circular, white, and impossibly clean. Two floating platforms hovered high above, empty and silent. The walls rose in seamless black stone etched with faint, shifting runes that pulsed with a low, deliberate light. And at the far end of the arena stood Guner.

The man looked exactly as Morgan had been told, and somehow larger. Twin gigantic pistols rested easy in his hands, barrels already angled downward in lazy readiness. A cigar burned between his teeth, the tip glowing a dull orange against the dim light. Smoke curled upward and vanished.

*This is bad...*

A translucent window unfolded in the air before Morgan’s eyes.

**[New Feature Unlocked]**

**[Battle Arena Activated]**

The system’s voice was calm, clinical, almost polite as it scrolled the rules across Morgan’s vision. Isolation field. No external interference. Full power permitted. Lethal force authorized. Exit condition: one combatant unable to continue or dead. Morgan read every line twice. His frown deepened with each word.

"This has to be a joke," he muttered. His mood was already rotting from the inside out. He understood that this system, at that moment, was no longer in his favor.

Guner’s voice rolled across the arena, low and rough as gravel under a boot.

"Heard you joined the Calamities’ High Scepter Core." He took a slow drag on the cigar. "Why?"

Morgan straightened. The scythe finished forming in his right hand with a soft metallic whisper—black blade, long curved edge, the weight of it familiar and comforting. He met Guner’s eyes across the distance.

"Because I believe in Sir Vandal’s dream."

Guner laughed, but it came out short and ugly.

"Bullshit."

Morgan blinked. "What?"

"I said fucking self-righteous bullshit." Guner’s pistols lifted a fraction. "Do you think our cause is false?"

"The motive behind it is bullshit," Guner continued, voice rising. "Just a pack of delusional motherfuckers playing at revolution while the rest of the world burns the same way it always has."

"I don’t get the—"

A bullet screamed past Morgan’s left ear, close enough that the shockwave tugged at his hair. He jerked his head aside on pure reflex. The round punched into the far wall and detonated in a bloom of blue-white mana that left a smoking crater the size of a man’s torso.

"You’re all the fucking same!" Guner roared. His mana spiked, visible now as a shimmering heat-haze around his body. The cigar flared brighter. "Every last one of you who talks about dreams and virtue and changing the world. You’re just the next generation of the same rotting disease."

Morgan’s hands tightened on the scythe until his knuckles whitened. His eyes narrowed. He did not answer. Instead he shot forward.

"Binding Calamity."

The technique unfolded the way it always did—threads of black-red energy erupting from Morgan’s body in a sudden lattice, seeking to lock, to restrict, to crush. The air itself seemed to thicken as the bindings raced across the arena floor toward Guner like living chains.

But Guner did not dodge. He simply raised both pistols and fired.

The first shot shattered the leading threads. The second punched through the denser secondary layer. The third and fourth arrived almost simultaneously, forcing Morgan to abandon the full deployment and twist sideways. One round still clipped his left shoulder, spinning him half around. Pain flared hot and immediate. Blood soaked through the fabric of his coat in a widening circle.

Morgan landed, skidded, and launched again.

He was fast. Faster than most. But Guner’s bullets were faster.

**PIU. PIU. PIU.**

Each shot was a precise, almost surgical strike. Morgan weaved between them, scythe flashing in tight arcs to deflect the ones he could not avoid. Sparks cascaded every time steel met mana-hardened lead. The arena floor cracked under the pressure of their movement. Dust rose in thin veils.

But all that time Guner never stopped talking.

"You think Vandal was some kind of saint?" Another volley. Morgan dove left, rolled, came up with the scythe already swinging. A crescent of Binding Calamity energy followed the blade’s path, seeking Guner’s legs. Guner simply stepped over it as if it were a puddle. "That man grew up in the same shit I did. Same slums. But even then he always considered himself above all else. Some saint, my ass!"

Morgan’s eyes flickered. Guner was getting the better of him.

Guner kept firing, kept moving, kept speaking as if the bullets and the words were the same weapon.

"I watched him do as he pleased. He called himself pure? If so, why is he a Calamity now, huh? A filthy revolutionary who believes he’s still better than everyone."

With that, a bullet took Morgan in the thigh. He staggered, cursed, and forced Binding Calamity into a defensive web that finally caught three incoming rounds and crushed them mid-air. But that effort cost him. His mana was rapidly decreasing. Sweat stung his eyes. His breathing had gone ragged already.

Guner’s expression did not change. The cigar was almost gone now, burned down to a stub that glowed against his teeth.

"I never believed in virtue after the so-called virtuous turned into a Calamity," Guner said. "Virtue is just the word the strong use when they want to justify their wicked deeds. Vandal knew that, and yet he built the Calamities’ Core to do his bidding, all the while portraying virtue and the betterment of all that shit."

Morgan charged again, refusing to let the words settle. He closed the distance in a blur, scythe raised high. Binding chains erupted from every joint of the weapon, forming a forest of barbed tendrils that sought to wrap Guner’s arms, his throat, his guns. But Guner was too experienced. His left pistol jammed against a sudden coil of energy. His right hand still free, he fired point-blank into Morgan’s midsection. The round punched through coat, shirt, and flesh. Morgan felt the impact like a hammer blow to the heart. He flew backward, hit the ground hard, and slid ten meters before the friction of the arena stone finally stopped him.

Blood filled his mouth. He spat it out and forced himself to one knee.

Guner walked forward slowly, pistols still raised.

"You’re better than most of the fools who followed him," Guner admitted. "I’ll give you that. But you’re still walking the same path. Still talking about dreams of big shit. Still pretending this ends in something clean."

Morgan’s vision swam. The Binding Calamity technique was fraying under the constant pressure. Every time he tried to reform it, Guner’s bullets found the weak points and tore them apart. The man’s control over pure kinetic force was monstrous. Every shot carried not just velocity but intent—layered mana that disrupted techniques on contact.

Morgan realized that at that moment he needed more power to defeat this man.

He closed his eyes for half a second.

"This world needs to change..." Morgan said, his voice low, almost a whisper. But it carried the certainty of a thousand mountains.

"The system has to cease to exist."

Then he slowly stood, still facing the stone floor of the arena. Blood dripped steadily while his hands hung loosely.

"The wars have to stop."

At that moment, as he spoke, it showed Beare above the sky, landing in a steep forest with Zhou behind her in that backpack.

"Children are dying. Good people are being killed just because they awakened as Calamities—because of a damned system that somehow has already declared their fates. I refuse to be like you, who has accepted the cruel fate given to him by the system on just a useless whim. I will fight the gods, and rewrite this reality if that’s what it takes to make a change.

For I am Liues Morgan, and I refuse to accept being a Calamity!"

In that instant, power from within his core exploded. His green hair bleached in a single pulse, strands lifting as if caught in an invisible wind until every lock shone pure snow. His irises burned away to a deep, luminous blood red. The veins along his neck and arms stood out in stark relief, glowing faintly with the same crimson light. The air around him instantly began to warp.

"Calamities Fifth Wave."

"Ultimate Prime Form."

Those words came out as a mere whisper. But just whispered, and Morgan rose to his feet. The wound in his stomach was still open, still bleeding, but the pain had become distant, secondary. He could feel every technique Guner had used in the last five minutes as if they were written on the inside of his skull. The angle of each shot. The exact mana composition. The way Guner layered kinetic force over pure destructive intent.

**[Technique Successfully Copied]**

Now Morgan could also use the very technique that nearly took his life—seamlessly.

Guner’s eyes narrowed for the first time. The stub of the cigar fell from his mouth and went out against the stone with a soft hiss.

"So that’s what you’ve been holding back."

Morgan did not answer. He simply raised his right hand and instantaneously a white pistol formed in his grip. Without hesitation he fired.

The bullet that left his gun was identical to Guner’s—same velocity, same mana signature, same murderous precision. Guner twisted aside, but the round still grazed his ribs and left a smoking line across his coat. Surprise flashed across the older man’s face.

But Morgan was already moving.

He closed the gap in a heartbeat that should have been impossible. The scythe became secondary. His body itself was the weapon now. He copied Guner’s footwork mid-stride, used the same explosive acceleration the gunman employed when repositioning, and drove a fist into Guner’s solar plexus with the exact force of one of those point-blank shots.

Guner flew backward for the first time.

He recovered in the air, twisted, and emptied both pistols in a continuous stream. Morgan did not dodge every bullet. He simply matched them. Where a round came for his head he raised a hand and produced an identical counter-shot that met it mid-flight and canceled both. Where Guner tried to force him left, Morgan mirrored the pressure and forced him right instead.

The arena became a storm of overlapping gunfire and shattered stone.

Nene and Falco were both on the flying platform above. At first they were shocked, but now that shock slowly changed into fear.

"He really is potentially the strongest Calamity there is. He is already pushing Guner to his limit," said Nene, with a sudden respect for Morgan in her voice.

Falco didn’t even reply. Instead his head stayed tense and focused on the battle. But even though he was focused, Guner and Morgan were both moving and shooting so fast that they became nothing but a blur.

Eventually Guner’s breathing grew heavier. His coat was in tatters. Blood ran from a cut above his left eye. But still he fought. Still he refused to yield ground.

"You think this changes anything?" Guner snarled between shots. "You think copying my techniques makes you different from any of the Calamities out there? You really are just like Vandal. He could do the same when he was young. He could take anything and make it his through words and deception. And look where it got him. Look where it got all of us!"

Morgan’s voice, when it came, was quieter than before, but it carried across the arena as if the stone itself amplified it.

"I’m not Vandal."

He stepped through a hail of bullets that should have reduced him to red mist. One round took him in the shoulder. Another scored his side. But he ignored both. The Ultimate Prime Form was the greatest of all techniques; even injured, the Fifth Wave would burn through the damage, rewriting tissue almost as fast as it was destroyed. But Morgan had to pay a price to use such a technique, and it was only a matter of time before his body failed. Amidst the fight, his snow-white hair streamed behind him. The blood-red eyes stayed fixed on Guner’s face.

"Vandal is a good man," said Morgan. "But I will not call him a saint. I do not know him, and I do not know what you and he have been through when you were kids. But one thing is certain: I will make sure it ends with me, with my friends. No one shall ever awaken as a Calamity again."

"You will be a monster!"

"If that is what it takes."

He raised both hands.

This time the technique that formed was not Binding Calamity and not pure kinetic force. It had transcended that. It was a binding chain with kinetic power mixed in one go. Threads of black-red energy coiled around bullets of pure compressed air. The combination should have been unstable under anyone. But Morgan’s Ultimate Prime Form denied that concept. Because in the palms of his hands, the technique was perfect. Flawless.

"Binding Chain × Mana Kinetic Energy = Hybrid Energy Combustion," said Morgan. He threw the attack at Guner. The hybrid barrage tore across the arena.

Guner blocked what he could. He shot down as many of the coming chains as he could. But still there were too many vectors; the attack was too layered. Even Guner could not shoot it all down. Amidst the barrage, one thread wrapped his left ankle and pulled him off balance. That was when a shot slammed into his ribs. Another bullet cracked against his right knee. He went down hard on one knee, but his pistols stayed raised and still firing.

Morgan stood over him, white hair falling across his blood-red eyes, scythe held loosely at his side.

The Ultimate Prime Form began to flicker. He could not hold it forever. Already the edges of his vision were darkening. The cost was arriving.

Guner looked up at him. For a long moment neither man spoke. The only sound was their breathing and the soft crackle of residual mana dying against the stone.

Then Guner laughed—a low, broken sound that held no humor and no surrender, only a kind of exhausted recognition.

"You really believe it, don’t you?" he said. "That you can break the system. That you can build something that isn’t just another version of the same cage."

Morgan did not look away.

"Yes."

Guner studied him for another three heartbeats. The pistols lowered a fraction. Blood dripped from his chin onto the arena floor.

"Vandal never looked at me the way you’re looking at me right now," Guner said quietly. "He looked at me and the rest of the world like we were nothing but pawns—pawns he could use and rearrange. But you... you look at it like it’s still possible. Like sinners like me can still be saved."

He let both pistols fall to the stone with a pair of heavy metallic clangs.

"I still don’t believe in virtue," Guner said. "Not the way they sell it. Not the pretty version. But I think I might believe in you."

The arena’s runes brightened. The floating platforms above began to descend; above them Falco and Nene were already there, both of them frowning a great deal. The isolation field shimmered and started to thin.

Morgan’s Fifth Wave collapsed all at once. The white drained from his hair in a single wave of color, returning it to green. The red left his eyes. The wounds that the form had been holding at bay roared back into full presence. He dropped to one knee, catching himself on the scythe, breathing hard.

**[Over-exhaustion of mana]**

Guner remained kneeling as well, watching him with an expression that was no longer pure hostility.

"You’re going to change the world, Liues Morgan," Guner said. The words came out rough, almost reluctant, but they were clear. "You’re going to break the system that made men like me and men like Vandal. And when you do... you’re going to build something better than either of us ever could. Because you’re better than Vandal. And for the first time in a very long time, that doesn’t make me want to put a bullet in someone’s head."

"I forfeit my Wave for yours," said Guner in a calm, demure manner. Nene and Falco both shot out toward him.

"Guner, no!! Your Fifth Wave!!" said Nene as she placed her hand on his back to steady him.

"Boss, you sure?" asked Falco with a sudden seriousness that completely did not look like him.

"You could have beaten him!" continued Nene. "You could have used your Fifth Wave as well..."

"He would only copy it and use it against me," said Guner, smiling. "You really do have a dangerous potential, Liues Morgan."

But Morgan was not listening. He just fainted and collapsed on the arena floor.

"We are at your disposal now."

Suddenly Guner felt a *kachan* noise sound in his head.

**[Fifth Wave has been forfeited]**

Then the arena lights flared once more.

Then the world began to fold, returning them back to where they were.

Meanwhile, as Beare landed in the beautiful forest—with its trees completely covering the sky, the trees gigantic, and so was everything around the forest—

"Beautiful," thought Beare as butterflies the size of two-year-old babies flew by in crews.

The East is truly a land of wonders.

"I wish you could see this, Zhou..." said Beare as she began walking. But the more she walked, the dizzier she became, until she could not take it anymore and fell face-flat to the ground. She was on the verge of fainting. She didn’t even notice that right at her neck, a mosquito as big as a man’s thigh was sucking all the blood from her body. The more it sucked, the bigger it became. At this rate, Beare was going to die from blood loss.