His breathing was heavy when he woke up. His eyes darted around, and he discovered that he was standing right where he had been before he attacked Shadow.

’What the hell happened? Shadow killed me for sure,’ Aren thought. He looked ahead and saw Shadow standing there as well. There was confusion on his face.

"What did you do? I can tell that you’ve been here before," Shadow asked him.

For a being like Shadow, manipulating fate could not make him forget whatever happened, as there could only be one version of him throughout all fate, so he remembered what happened.

"Is this what Karmela meant when she said the power of fate?" Aren muttered to himself in disbelief. He looked up, and a smile formed on his face.

"It seems I’ve gained my true ability, and do you know what else too? You are currently feeding this body with shadow energy and soul energy, which means I can keep going until I defeat you."

Shadow heard the words he said, and rage immediately filled him. He hurled both hands forward. Shadows burst from the floor and rushed at Aren.

Aren gritted his teeth and dashed forward. He moved fast, leaping into the air before the attack got to him. He landed on a tendril, leaped off it, and then shot out shadow tendrils that latched onto the ground close to Shadow.

He pulled himself forward and landed right at the feet of Shadow, then came up with a punch right to the head.

Bam!

His fist landed cleanly, and Shadow was hurled back, but as his body hit the floor, it burst into shadow and then formed behind Aren. His hands formed into a shadow blade and stabbed through Aren, killing him.

Another thread snapped. Aren’s eyes opened, and he was awake again.

Shadow looked at his hand and then at Aren. He was back to where they had started.

"What the hell is this? Time manipulation?" he roared, wanting to know what was happening.

"Why would I tell you where I got it from?" Aren asked.

"I’ll kill you over and over and over and over until you tell me what is happening or release me from this prison you have kept me in."

"I have nothing more to lose at this point, Shadow, so even if I have to spend the whole of reality doing this, I would, and I’ll make sure that you lose."

The Infinite Duel

Shadow didn’t wait this time.

The moment Aren finished speaking, darkness erupted from every surface—walls, floor, ceiling—converging into a singular mass that swallowed Aren whole before he could even raise his arms.

Thread snapped.

Aren’s eyes opened.

He exhaled once, slow and measured, and then he moved.

This time, he didn’t leap over the tendrils. He read their trajectory a half-second before they rose and cut sideways—his own shadow stretching from his feet, latching onto the ceiling above Shadow’s head. He yanked himself upward, flipped, and came down with both feet driving into Shadow’s shoulders.

The impact cracked the ground beneath them.

Shadow snarled and dissolved, reforming three metres back, but Aren had already anticipated the angle. He launched a tendril low and right, dragging himself into Shadow’s blind spot, and swung with his left hand in a hook that clipped Shadow’s jaw clean.

For just a moment—barely a breath—Shadow staggered.

Then his entire body detonated into darkness that sliced through Aren from six directions at once.

Thread snapped.

Aren’s eyes opened, and he was already mid-step.

No exhale this time. No pause.

He crossed the distance between them in an instant, shadow tendrils erupting from both arms in controlled bursts, not to attack—to redirect. One wrapped around an incoming strike and pulled, turning Shadow’s own force sideways. Another anchored to the floor behind Shadow’s heel.

Shadow stumbled—actually stumbled—and Aren was on him.

Left jab to the ribs. Right hook to the temple. A shadow tendril coiled around Shadow’s wrist before he could dissolve, holding the form solid for half a second longer than before.

Shadow roared, and the entire room detonated.

The darkness didn’t just stab this time. It consumed—a black tide that rose from the floor and crashed over Aren with the weight of something absolute.

Thread snapped.

The silence after the last reset was different.

Aren stood in the same spot, same moment, same beginning. But his breathing was even. His hands were steady. The shadow energy pooling in his limbs felt familiar now—like a language he was still learning but had already stopped stumbling over. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Shadow looked at him from across the space, and something shifted in that featureless face. It wasn’t strategy anymore.

It was rage.

Pure, unfiltered, accumulating rage.

"ENOUGH." Shadow’s voice shook the room, darkness bleeding from him in waves he wasn’t even trying to control. "This ends now. I will not be made to dance in circles by something as fragile as you—I will unmake you. I will tear through every thread until there is nothing left to snap back, until the very concept of your continuity dissolves—"

He was moving as he screamed, shadow erupting in every direction, filling the space with the kind of violence that didn’t care about precision—only annihilation.

Aren watched it all come toward him.

And he smiled.

"Why are you already getting riled up?" he said quietly, his voice cutting through the chaos like it was nothing.

The darkness crashed into him.

But the smile didn’t leave his face.

"This is only the beginning."

Aren stood tall, his eyes glowed red and from the shadows behind him. His legion of shadow summons formed from the ground and rose tall, all with eyes that glowed and were ready for a battle.

[Author here, low update has been due to my health and some other things, updates are back up and fully active so hih can look forward to daily Chapters to enjoy as we near the climax of our story, thanks for being here and happy reading]