W.A.S. Headquarters, Penultimate Floor.

  Loud noises shook the space as dust rained down.

  "Arr, looks like it's already started," Glock said, glancing from the floor to Sir Zoldrak. "Your march to oblivion, I mean." He smirked.

  Sir Zoldrak's grip tightened on his hammer while veins bulged along his arm. "Why?" he muttered through gritted teeth. "Why are you doing this, Harbinger?!"

  "Hmm, let me see," Glock hummed, holding his chin. "I'd have loved to say I'm just doing it for fun," he replied with a smile.

  "But you're not the type to take that kind of joke lightly," he added and stepped forward.

  "Hmm, why don't we make a deal?!" he suggested. "I'll tell you the reason I'm doing all of this. I'll even reveal everything that happened, is happening, and will happen, if and only if you can defeat me."

  "Huh?" Sir Zoldrak exhaled, skepticism evident in his tone.

  "Fair deal, right?" Glock smiled and clapped his hands. "Now, let's begin. My time is more important than lives."

  "Then I'll make you spew everything out!" Sir Zoldrak growled. He drew a foot backward and tossed one of the nails in his left hand into the air. A light blue glow emanated from his body and cloaked the nail.

  "Arrgh, here we go. Can I ever get tired of this sight?" Glock purred.

  Electric sparks ripped across Sir Zoldrak's arm and surged into his hammer.

  "Gauge: Four Hundred Volts."

  A loud cracking sound followed. Electricity surged across his arms and encircled the hammer. The general swung his hammer forward, ramming it against the floating nail.

  Perception fractured into detail as the charges left the hammer and flowed into the nail, charging it and propelling it forward. The nail shredded the air at a crushing speed, blitzing toward Glock.

  "Woah," Glock whispered, his voice shaky and filled with mock terror. The nail reached him, and he lazily tilted his head, following the nail's path as it struck the wall behind him, shattered the concrete, and penetrated the office beyond, unleashing a rolling shroud of dust.

  Sir Zoldrak heaved and calmed as he stood upright. He stared at the pale brown plumes of smoke obscuring Glock's face. "Was that enough to kill him?" he whispered, his voice almost hopeful.

  But the near-hope was immediately dashed by Glock's response. "Nah, it wasn't," he replied and casually strode out of the haze, using his hand to clear the way. Blood dripped down his right cheek from a shallow cut made by the nail.

  "Tch!" Sir Zoldrak clicked his tongue. ‘I should know better. There's no way he'd go down so easily,’ he grimaced.

  "Gotta give it to you," Glock chimed in, nodding his head in pretended admiration. "You haven't slacked off with age," he praised.

  "Haha," the general chuckled lightly at Glock's statement. "I really can't blame you if you've reached that conclusion," he muttered, his tone strangely light. "After all, you know nothing about me."

  "I don't?" Glock asked, raising a skeptical brow.

  ‘Even though it's hard to admit, I know too well that I've passed my prime,’ Sir Zoldrak thought grimly. His head fell, and he stared at the ground as a recollection sparked.

  A figure stood before him, but its face remained blurred; only the body was visible. ‘Zoldrak, you shouldn't slack off,’ it said calmly, almost jovial.

  Sir Zoldrak's lips twitched, a gentle smile touching his lips. ‘What was that voice? It felt so familiar,’ he wondered.

  The sound of something striking the ground echoed in Sir Zoldrak's ears as he looked up to see Glock advancing toward him. "Are you actually zoning out right now?" Glock demanded, slightly taken aback.

  Sir Zoldrak blinked and dragged himself back to the moment. ‘I'll remember to give a nice long thought after defeating Harbinger,’ he told himself and focused, his stare tightening on his opponent.

  "Hmph! How condescending," Glock scoffed and stilled mid-step. "Normally, anyone would have gotten weaker," he continued, gesturing with his hands. "I mean, age has a way of catching up to all of us."

  "Those will sound better as last words, don't you agree?" Sir Zoldrak cut in coldly and rose.

  "Damn," Glock whispered, shocked.

  "I've got better things to do, so let's get this over with." The general tossed another nail up as it spun in mid-air.

  ‘Gauge!’ Electricity ripped into his hammer again. Then Sir Zoldrak swung the weapon, striking it against the nail's head in a sharp ultrasonic clang.

  ‘Six Hundred Volts!!’

  The nail ripped away in a predatory stride, hurtling toward Glock's face.

  "You've got quite a nice power there if you ask me," Glock murmured, calmly raising his palm to the deathly approach. Then he started.

  "By electrostatic induction, you conduct electrical charges in the air into your body, letting them flow into your hammer."

  Lightning lashed around the nail, teetering on the cusp of collision. However, Glock on the receiving end stood impossibly unfazed and undisturbed.

  He continued. "Then you transfer the charges to your nails, increasing their speed and piercing strength exponentially."

  His other fingers curled while his thumb rose in a thumbs-up. "Totally cool," he praised, then spread out his fingers at the nail's tip.

  "But I'm the one who determines the direction in which it goes," Glock declared. This time, reality thinned to a crawl. Splinters and falling dust particles behind him froze in place.

  Then out of nowhere, a black circular structure materialized behind Glock, taking the shape of a clock with ancient unreadable words replacing the numerals. The clock had just one hand: a jagged arrow intricate with strange markings that made it look very ominous.

  The arrow stood at the third mark, but at the stroke of Glock's middle finger, it began its ascent in an anticlockwise revolution. However, this arrow didn't just move; its movement rewrote causality.

  The nail that had frozen directly in front of Glock's pupil began to rotate and turn in the same direction it was fired from—toward the Sorcerer-general. After turning fully, as a result of the arrow striking the twelfth mark, the clock decayed into dust and disappeared as time snapped back into motion.

  ‘Impossible!’ Sir Zoldrak gasped in shock at the unfathomable sight before him.

  A strong wind tugged on Glock's attire, an effect caused by his own tenzen. A sly smirk remained plastered on his lips. His mouth opened, and he commanded the word.

  "RETRACTION"

  Immediately the sound came to be, the nail was shot away from Glock. The reaction blew a heavy tide against him as he stumbled back. The nail flew at Sir Zoldrak in a baleful tread.

  ‘Using my attack against me?!’ Sir Zoldrak's vision snapped to full awareness as a spark ignited in his pupils.

  His jaws tightened as he clenched his weapon. ‘I'm not weak enough to lose to my own power!’ he raged and swung horizontally, aiming to divert the nail's trajectory.

  Thunder surged through his body and possessed the hammer. Sir Zoldrak's arm muscles bulged as his hammer neared the nail's tip.

  Green sparks flared from the nail while sparks also ripped from the hammer.

  ‘REPULSION!’

  An invincible force spread out from the hammer's face and collided with the nail. The air was instantly fractured as a destructive mix of electricity and repulsive force unleashed, wrecking the floor in sparking explosions.

  The nail's direction circumvented, its tip twisting and spinning away to the left of where Sir Zoldrak stood. It left the space in a blink, and the only proof that it ever existed were the shattered trails of tiles on the ground and smoke oozing from a hollowed wall.

  "Woohoo," Glock whistled, eyes widened in surprise. "Wasn't expecting you to be able to stop that," he shrugged.

  Sir Zoldrak turned back to Glock, pointing his smoking hammer at him. "So, you've got time rewind, huh?" he asked.

  "I kinda wish it was that easy," Glock replied, scratching the back of his neck. But when he saw Sir Zoldrak's dead serious eyes, he sobered up.

  "What a pain that I've to explain this to everyone before they can understand," he grimaced. "You guys should actually try to be like Van Ackerman sometimes! I mean, he doesn't waste time trying to understand how your power works, does he?" he added, his tone a mix of mockery and subtle fear.

  "Pfft!" Sir Zoldrak stifled a laugh but immediately killed it.

  "Huh?" Glock blinked. "I said something funny?" he murmured.

  "Be like Van Ackerman?" Sir Zoldrak echoed. "I haven't heard a more delusional joke in my life."

  "Good grief." Glock shook his head in pity. "I'm not gonna repeat myself again, so hear it well," he began.

  "It's called retraction. By restoring time to a state before an attack was launched, it lets me return an attack back to its sender without nerfing its magnitude."

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  "Hmm. I see," Sir Zoldrak hummed, rubbing his chin. "Then that must mean holding back is no longer needed," he concluded.

  "Wha?" Glock's mouth fell open. "You were holding back?!" he exclaimed, expecting a response, but none came. Instead...

  "Eight Hundred and Fifty Volts!"

  Threads of blue zapped away from Sir Zoldrak's form and lashed the ground, erupting a haze all around him.

  The space fell into silence.

  Glock stared at the shroud, unable to see through its thickness. Then a heartbeat later, the dust vacuumed as Sir Zoldrak burst out in flashes of electricity.

  "There you are. Almost thought you bolted," Glock said, still casually underestimating the situation until he realized something.

  Sir Zoldrak was no longer in front of him.

  Glock's breath hitched as his eyes rolled to the right: the general wasn't there. Left: no. The only place he hadn't checked was above.

  ‘Where did he...’ he started as his gaze snapped up, but mid-thought, knowledge dawned.

  ‘Shit!’ Glock hissed, staring at Sir Zoldrak descending upon him in a blinding glow.

  In a desperate attempt to survive, Glock threw his left arm up. The metal Sir Zoldrak wielded connected with the arm, striking knuckles first.

  Charges cracked out, generating a chain of current that zapped into Glock's hand as electricity spilled into the bowels of his being. His knuckle bones twisted inward, nails roasted, veins ruptured from electrocution as blood spilled out and was fried almost immediately. Then with a single quiet thrust, Sir Zoldrak unleashed a crushing force that erased Glock's arm to bloody guts.

  The hammer's face hit the tiles and fragmented them in a blur of wind and debris.

  ‘GAHH! What power!’ Glock winced and stuttered, teeth gritting in agony.

  But the Sorcerer-general wasn't done. After slowing to a halt, he recoiled and exhaled deeply.

  The air around him crackled as he thrust his hand forward. A stream of wind surged outward, invisible at first, bending dust and debris in its path. Then lightning splintered along the currents, dancing across the gust like liquid silver.

  A wave rushed forward with a sharp whistle, slicing through the air and leaving scorched, singed lines where it passed. Marbles and sand lifted and twirled helplessly, each spark jumping from one to another, forming a crackling lattice of pure energy.

  ‘What's this?’ Glock stared in dismay as his feet lifted off the ground.

  ‘It isn't just wind, and it isn’t just electricity,’ Sir Zoldrak thought. ‘It's a storm given form.’

  “ELECTRO GALE”

  The storm raged forward, unleashing a bite of arcs that ripped across flesh, concrete, and metal, leaving behind only a trail of smoke, scorched earth, and the lingering scent of ozone.

  "Hoarh," Sir Zoldrak exhaled again, his chest thudding as his arms fell. His vision was blurred, a thin whistling sound resounding in his head.

  He straightened and looked into the cloud. "Why don't you come out already? I know that wasn't enough to take you out," he said.

  "Aww, damn. You got me," Glock replied as he stepped into the open. His body had been riddled with holes, hair burnt, eyes bloodshot, blood soaking his face, and the left side of his body a mess of viscera.

  "Gotta blame it on retraction, not me," he muttered, blood trailing off his body to the floor.

  ‘That's right,’ Sir Zoldrak nodded in thought as the moment resurfaced. ‘At the last second before Electro Gale struck, Glock activated retraction. However, due to the velocity of the attack, the time rewind effect was only able to work on part of the gale—the part hurtling toward him.’

  ‘Normally, I was expecting his retraction to activate at the instant the gale was formed,’ Sir Zoldrak wondered. ‘That must mean it isn't automatic,’ he concluded.

  "Good!" He clenched his fist and told himself, ‘I've got a chance.’

  "Man, what a hassle," Glock groaned. "Regression," he whispered and snapped his fingers, then exhaled through gritted teeth.

  Flesh hissed and stitched itself, curling and knitting where it had been burnt. Blackened hair sprouted anew, strand by strand, fumbling upward. His left arm, severed at the shoulder, throbbed and lengthened, veins knitting, muscles pulsing back into place. Even his bloodshot eyes cleared, the red filaments shrinking, replaced by a hard, unyielding focus.

  Glock now stood whole.

  "Huh?! What was that just now?!" Sir Zoldrak demanded. "Y-you regenerated?" he stammered.

  "That's not it," Glock replied, waving the smoke coming at his face away. "Regression simply returns anything to a state it was in a few minutes ago. However, the time I can restore it to shortens with every use. Now I can only go back three minutes. That's why I called it a drag," he grimaced.

  "I see," Sir Zoldrak's brows knitted and he dropped into a stance, hammer gleaming. ‘Meaning that if I keep wounding him, it'll eventually reach a point where he can't use that power anymore,’ he realized.

  "Giving your enemy information about your powers. That's quite bold of you, Harbinger," Sir Zoldrak said.

  "Haha. You think so?" Glock chuckled, scratching the back of his neck.

  Sir Zoldrak's eyes glistened. "I've gotta thank you, though," he said courteously. "Who knew I'd have another chance to fight an interesting battle before I retire?"

  "Don't mention," Glock replied proudly. "It's what we do."

  "Then I believe it's time I ended this battle and made you spill all the secrets you're hiding, don't you agree?" Sir Zoldrak suggested.

  "Well, I don't know about that," Glock shrugged, taking his eyes off his opponent. "But then..." He started, and looked back to Sir Zoldrak who had flung two nails into the air, the external lights that managed to seep in reflecting off their smooth skin.

  Sir Zoldrak twisted and declared:

  ‘Eight Hundred Volts!’

  He clasped the first nail.

  "Arrrgh," Glock yawned aloud, then bent down and watched the nail blitz full throttle micrometers from his eyes.

  He rose back up, quickly noticing the second nail coming toward him. Without sparing it a glance, Glock spun around, allowing the nail to hurtle away. He looked up and sighted the horde of nails floating in the air.

  "THUNDER RAIN!" Sir Zoldrak thrust his hand down. The nails rushed down in a heavy storm, riddling holes in the ground. But Glock effortlessly maneuvered and slipped through them all.

  All the nails fell, and at the end, Glock stood almost unscathed in the middle of the battlefield. "See, I've gotten used to these attacks," Glock hissed, whirling back. "If you want to..."

  "If I want to do what?" Sir Zoldrak cut in. He now crouched before Glock, hammer arching forward, bending wind currents around its face.

  ‘When did he get here?’ Glock's brows raised. He swiftly raised his arms and braced himself for impact.

  "Hnngh!!" Sir Zoldrak growled and slammed the hammer into Glock's arms.

  A wet roar followed as a rushing vortex exploded out and scattered the wall behind Glock to shards. The effect sent him barreling and crashing through the floor and numerous walls until he burst into an office and landed on a chair.

  "Ugh!" Glock groaned, head dropping to the ground as crimson sprayed out of his nose and mouth. "Aww, I love this," he cackled with a bloody grin. He sat up and spotted a transparent glass cup half filled with water on the table beside him.

  He lunged for the cup and emptied its contents into his bowels, then tossed it to the ground as it shattered. He stood and wiped the blood from his cheeks.

  He prowled out of the room, and as he crossed the threshold, a nail shot at his neck.

  Glock rolled his eyes in boredom and grabbed his neck, cracking it. The nail fired through the tiny spacing the crack created.

  "Jeez. I've gotten bored of nails this, nails that," he snickered, shaking his head.

  "Ahh... I see." The reply came sooner than he expected.

  Glock whirled around, immediately seeing Sir Zoldrak standing behind the nail Glock had dodged earlier. The nail hovered before his palm.

  "Then how about this?" Sir Zoldrak said and spread out his fingers, releasing a repulsion effect that sent the nail flying headfirst toward Glock.

  "I've gotta give it to you; your speed is the fastest I've seen after Van Ackerman's," Glock said.

  He raised his hand to chant. "RETRAC—Gah!!"

  Sir Zoldrak didn't let him finish. He fired another nail at Glock's knee. ‘Without retraction, you're useless,’ he thought.

  Glock glanced at the nail sticking deep in his knee and transmitting toxic electric charges through his system. "Ahhh!!" He winced in pain from the intense electrocution.

  "Hey, looks like you forgot about the main attack," Sir Zoldrak reminded.

  "Huh?" Glock's head snapped up and almost immediately, the nail pierced into his chest, through his heart, and ripped out the other side.

  ‘Fuck!’ Glock grunted, his teeth baring, eyes going bloodshot.

  However, Sir Zoldrak had just begun. He opened his left palm, revealing dozens of nails. Lightning struck his arm and covered the nails in writhing electric snakes. Then he hauled them all into the air.

  Sir Zoldrak gazed up and locked a cold glare with Glock. "This is the end for you, Harbinger," he spat, before swinging and striking all of the nails in one sweep.

  Like bullets, the nails sped forward and riddled Glock's body, his organs vibrating from both impact and electricity.

  "Begone!" Sir Zoldrak waved and commanded, as charges lashed out of Glock's body—from the nails in his flesh—and spread out, racing through the air and wall until it reached the first nail that had ripped out of Glock's body, which was still flying forward.

  "ATTRACTION!"

  The pull began as the flying nail hauled forward and dragged Glock behind it, carrying him through flying papers, toilets, doors, furniture, and finally, through a huge metallic door.

  ‘A door?’ Glock smashed through it. The chamber opened into a vast circular void, its curvature so perfect it felt less constructed than summoned. It resembled the inside of a colossal collider, walls sweeping upward and inward until they met in a seamless sphere. There was no floor, nor foundation. Only a gaping hollow at the center, an abyss that swallowed depth and sound alike.

  Faint arcs of lightning traced the inner surface, threading along invisible channels carved into the stone. They moved in steady orbit, circling the sphere, their glow pulsing in cold, electric breaths.

  The hauling nail abruptly stopped above the void, with Glock hovering over it.

  "What's this?" Glock muttered, eyes going wide in a mix of awe and fear.

  The nail slowly turned, its head now pointing into the hole.

  ‘Wait, don't tell me...’ Realization hit Glock. His heart almost stopped.

  "You finally get it, don't you?" The voice echoed.

  "Hah?!" Glock gasped and looked up, immediately spotting the Sorcerer-general floating above him, suit flailing from the electrostatic force from the hole.

  "So all this time..." Glock's voice trembled.

  "That's right," Sir Zoldrak grinned. "All this time, I've been trying to lure you into my own space. I had this collider constructed twenty years ago for situations like this, knowing that I was no longer resilient enough to create and maintain a spatial boundary," he shrugged.

  "Aha... I see," Glock's breath hitched. ‘The general principle is that axes are boundaries that must be created to control the range of a sphere in order to prevent life force reliance,’ he thought. ‘However, even after creating one, its wielder must maintain the boundary, meaning his attention is split between maintenance, zero movement, and effective action. Only a being with the third divine blessing—effective conservation—can successfully take these three consciousnesses on.’

  The nail thrust downward as Glock's body pulled into the hole. He looked at Sir Zoldrak. ‘But this man circumvented and avoided all restraints by creating a physical barrier. This way, he doesn't have to focus on the first consciousness.’

  "Haha," Glock chuckled, darkness closing in on his vision. "This is the first time I'm witnessing it; a sphere with a physical boundary, an orbis..."

  "You really haven't slacked off, Zoldrak." He smiled.

  Seeing that Glock was now buried in the void, Sir Zoldrak stretched his palm into the hole and chanted.

  "Electric Sphere..."

  The sphere buzzed. The air around it warped, trembling in concentric ripples as the inside of the collider ignited.

  A ring of lightning erupted around Glock's body, then it moved.

  A low hum swelled from the walls, low at first, then rising into a vibration that pressed against his bones. The arcs of lightning brightened, their orbit tightening along the curvature.

  "BLUE HALO."

  Then suddenly, Glock was taken.

  The invisible field caught him mid-fall and wrenched him sideways into the void. Instead of falling, his body snapped into motion along the inner wall, dragged into a blistering circular path. The first arc struck his shoulder, and white light devoured his scream.

  A second bolt chased the first, then another. Each revolution came faster than the last. His body blurred into a streak of flesh and sparks, pinned to the spherical path by a force that wouldn't relent. Lightning wrapped around him in tightening bands, searing, carving, refusing to let him drop.

  ‘You’re such a genius, Zoldrak,’ Glock muttered inwardly. His body blurred, reduced to a streak chasing its own afterimage. The sound built into a continuous scream of ionized air. Static charge lifted his hair, then burned it away. His muscles locked as voltage ripped through them in pulses. Blood turned to vapor, bones to char, and flesh to toast.

  The smell of ozone thickened, and in a final blinding flash, the collider flared white, then dimmed back to its original calm.

  Glock was gone, as if he had never been there in the first place.

  "Hmm." Sir Zoldrak stared seriously at the hole, crossing his arms. Then he turned and floated out of the orbis, landing on the scathed ground. He took a step forward, but suddenly froze as a pang of pain raced through his bones.

  "Ugh!" He grunted and spat blood onto the tiles. He clutched his chest, teeth gritting in pain. ‘I pushed my body too far,’ he winced, breathing heavily. ‘I forgot I'm already an old man.’

  However, his gaze hardened, determination burning in his eyes. ‘I can't stop yet,’ he told himself, and placed his hand on the wall, using it as support. He managed to reach the end of the hallway and began circling the corner.

  But suddenly, he noticed something weird. "Huh?" Sir Zoldrak looked down. His legs almost immediately gave out.

  There was a shadow next to his. The shadow writhed and moved, accompanied by approaching footsteps.

  "You're damn strong, Zoldrak."

  "What?" Sir Zoldrak's heart skipped as sweat poured down his face, making him look like he had just taken a shower.

  ‘Impossible!’ Sir Zoldrak wheezed. The voice was too familiar to believe.

  He turned around, head bowed, as if trying not to see what stood behind him. After spinning fully, he raised his eyes and cast them on him.

  The person he had just killed.

  Glock Harbinger.