The battlefield lay in ruins—Veyron’s twisted manipulation of time had turned the world into a shattered reflection of itself. It was a nightmare of reversed history, an illusion that made reality seem like a fragile dream. For a moment, it almost seemed like Veyron had the upper hand. But Raizo stood unfazed, his presence more solid and unwavering than the very ground beneath him.

  Veyron smiled, a cruel expression on his face. "You still don’t understand, do you? Time bends to my will. You can’t defeat what hasn’t happened yet." He extended his hand, his fingers weaving an intricate pattern in the air. "I will erase your existence, Raizo. You’ll be nothing more than a forgotten memory."

  Raizo’s eyes glowed with a fierce intensity. "You’re wrong, Veyron. Time may bend for you, but there’s one thing you can never control—fate."

  As Veyron began to manipulate time, a crackling energy surged around Raizo, and the world seemed to distort in response. Raizo’s power was beyond anything Veyron had anticipated. With a single, controlled movement, Raizo raised his hand. The earth trembled beneath his feet as a torrent of arcane energy exploded outward. In an instant, the illusion that Veyron had created—the city, the sky, the entire world around them—dissolved like dust in the wind.

  Veyron’s eyes widened, confusion flashing across his face. "No… that’s impossible! How did you—"

  Raizo stepped forward, his voice calm and unyielding. "I don’t need to control time, Veyron. I control the flow of existence itself. You may twist time, but I exist outside its grasp."

  Raizo’s blade flicked upward. The wind howled as his sword sliced through the very fabric of reality. The space around Veyron shattered like glass, and his manipulation of time fractured. Raizo’s energy surged, and with one decisive strike, he pierced the core of Veyron’s being.

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  Veyron’s body convulsed as time itself seemed to reject him. He gasped, struggling to maintain control. "No… not like this…" His voice faltered. But Raizo’s blade glowed with the purest arcane energy, and with a final thrust, the dark magician’s form dissolved into nothingness, swept away by the forces of fate.

  Raizo stood tall, the air around him settling. The battle had been swift, almost effortless. Veyron’s power, formidable as it was, couldn’t compare to Raizo’s absolute mastery of existence. Time might have been Veyron’s weapon, but Raizo was beyond time’s reach. The moment Veyron tried to manipulate reality, he had already sealed his fate.

  With the dust settling, Raizo sheathed his blade and turned. "The dangerous age isn’t over yet. There’s always another threat waiting in the shadows."

  As if on cue, a sudden shift in the atmosphere rippled through the air. A dark presence, far colder than Veyron’s, began to take shape in the distance. The ground shook once more, not from magic, but from sheer force.

  From the shadows emerged a towering figure, clad in black armor etched with crimson runes. His presence sent a chill through the very air around him. He was the embodiment of death and destruction, a being whose power radiated like a black hole, pulling everything toward him. This was Ryuketsu, a being born from the deepest voids of existence, a creature that existed purely to bring annihilation. His eyes burned with an unnatural light, and his voice was like the whisper of a thousand dying souls.

  Raizo’s expression hardened as he faced the new threat. "Ryuketsu," he muttered under his breath. "The time for peace has never been more distant."

  Ryuketsu’s voice echoed like a drumbeat of doom. "Raizo… your strength means nothing in the face of true destruction. I am not bound by time or reality. I am the end that awaits all things."

  Raizo’s hand tightened around his blade. "We’ll see about that."

  With that, the battle began anew—this time, against a force far more ancient and terrifying than anything Raizo had ever faced. Ryuketsu was not a magician. He was the end of all things, a being of pure void, ready to test the very limits of Raizo’s power.

  And Raizo was determined to prove that no force, no matter how dark, could defeat him.