The battlefield blurred.
Wisdom Wokata's breath came in ragged gasps, but his mind was spiraling, deeper and deeper into the abyss.
The voice in his head had always been there—faint whispers, quiet urges—but now it was screaming.
"Kill him. Dissect him. Study him. Understand him. Take his power!"
Saponu stood before him, calm, unreadable. The very sight of him sent a twisted thrill through Wisdom's veins.
How? How could this man control such power so effortlessly? It wasn't just strength—it was mastery.
Wisdom's fingers trembled. His entire life had been dedicated to understanding abilities. He spent years researching, experimenting, dissecting the mysteries of power itself. But Saponu… Saponu was something else. He was beyond logic, beyond science, beyond anything Wisdom had ever studied.
He had to know.
Had to understand.
I had to take it apart, piece by piece.
Had to—
"EXPERIMENT!!!"
The voice howled through his skull, searing into his thoughts like molten fire.
But this wasn't where it started.
It started long ago.
Wisdom had once been a scholar—a genius obsessed with the mechanics of power. While others trained, he studied. While others fought, he analyzed. He didn't just want to use abilities; he wanted to know them, to break them down to their very essence.
Where did they come from?
How did they work?
Why did some possess them and others did not?
The world called it "talent," "gifted bloodlines," "fate."
Wisdom called it incomplete knowledge.
And he despised incomplete knowledge.
So he searched.
He read ancient texts, dissected theories, conducted experiments—some ethical, some... not. He examined powers, pushed them to their limits, tested them on subjects willing and unwilling. He wanted to strip away the mystery, to see the truth beneath the surface.
But the more he learned, the more he realized how little he understood.
Every answer led to another question.
Every breakthrough exposed a flaw in his theories.
Every new power he studied was different from the last.
There was no pattern. No logic.
It drove him mad.
Until he saw Saponu.
The first time Wisdom witnessed Saponu's power, something inside him snapped.
Saponu didn't just use abilities—he ruled them.
He moved through battle like a god, walking among insects, shifting between dimensions, erasing distance, bending the battlefield to his will.
Wisdom watched, mesmerized.
It wasn't strength.
It wasn't talent.
It was perfection.
And it enraged him.
Saponu had everything Wisdom had sought his entire life. The answers were right there, standing before him, wrapped in the body of a man who probably didn't even realize the magnitude of what he possessed.
It wasn't fair.
Wisdom's fists clenched. His teeth ground together.
The whispers started soon after.
At first, they were faint, mere echoes of his own thoughts.
"You must know."
"You must understand."
"You must study him."
But as time passed, the whispers grew stronger.
"Capture him."
"Cut him open."
"Tear him apart."
Then, during the battle, when he saw Saponu's power up close—when he fought against it and failed—
The whispers became screams.
"EXPERIMENT!"
And at that moment, Wisdom lost himself.
The scholar was gone.
The researcher was gone.
The man was gone.
Only the Mortal Clown remained.
Wisdom clutched his head as his vision twisted.
The battlefield stretched and warped, voices overlapping, space distorting. His teleportation flickered uncontrollably, his body shifting from place to place without him even meaning to.
Saponu's gaze sharpened. "You're losing control."
Wisdom grinned.
"I don't care."
WHOOSH!
He vanished—
BAAAM!!!
A fist crashed into Saponu's ribs.
WHOOSH!
BAM! BAM! BAM!
A flurry of chaotic attacks—no pattern, no strategy, only madness.
Saponu blocked, countered, dodged—but even he could see it.
Wisdom wasn't fighting to win.
He was fighting for capture.
To break.
To study.
Saponu's eyes narrowed. "I see now."
WHOOSH!
He dodged a wild punch and grabbed Wisdom by the throat.
CRACK!
He slammed him into the ground.
Wisdom coughed up blood—but laughed.
He looked up, eyes wild, teeth bared.
"Go ahead! Beat me down! Break my body! It doesn't matter!"
His aura twisted, flickering wildly like a candle in the wind.
"Because I'll still chase you, Saponu."
His grin widened, splitting across his face like a broken mask.
"I'll find you. I'll study you. I'll rip your power apart piece by piece!"
The whispers in his head howled in agreement.
Saponu stared at him, unblinking.
Then—
He let go.
Wisdom dropped to the ground, panting.
For the first time, Saponu looked at him with pity.
"You're already dead."
Wisdom froze.
His grin faltered.
For a moment—just a moment—the whispers stopped.
And a terrible silence filled the void.
Silence.
For the first time since the voice had taken root in his mind, there was silence.
Wisdom Wokata stood motionless, his body trembling as the weight of Saponu's words settled over him like a suffocating shroud. The surrounding battlefield faded into nothing—there was no war, no ancestors, no chaos. Only the unbearable quiet in his mind, where the whispers had once clawed at his sanity.
Saponu watched him carefully, his gaze unreadable.
Then—
Wisdom disappeared.
When he reappeared, something was different.
In his right hand, he clutched a long, jagged sword—its obsidian-black blade shimmering with eerie, shifting shadows. The sword's surface looked like a living void, swallowing even the faintest traces of light around it. A thin, dark mist curled from its edges, pulsing with unnatural energy.
This was no ordinary weapon.
This was the Shadow Sword.
A soul item—a weapon born from the very essence of a dead ancestor. And at this moment, its essence had become one with Wisdom's own.
He gripped it tightly, dragging the tip against the ground, leaving cracks of darkness in his wake. A twisted grin stretched across his face, his pupils dilating with feverish excitement.
The voice in his head screamed.
"Yes... YES... That is it! CUT HIM OPEN! TEAR HIM APART!"
Saponu's gaze sharpened.
Before he could react—
Wisdom vanished.
Then—
SLASH!
A black arc tore through the air, slicing at Saponu's throat—but he tilted his head just in time, narrowly avoiding the fatal strike. The force of the slash alone split the ground behind him, sending a shockwave that shattered distant boulders.
Wisdom teleported again—
WHOOSH!
He appeared above Saponu, flipping midair, his sword poised to impale him.
CLAAAANG!
Saponu blocked with his forearm, his energy surging through a defensive barrier—but the Shadow Sword cut through it like paper.
Saponu's eyes widened.
Wisdom grinned. "Your Copyeyes won't save you."
BOOM!
A black explosion erupted from the sword, blasting Saponu backward. He flipped through the air, but before he could regain his footing—
Wisdom was already there.
SWIPE!
The Shadow Sword's edge nearly cleaved Saponu's side open. He twisted just in time, but the blade still grazed him—leaving a gnawing black wound that refused to heal.
Saponu grimaced. This sword—it wasn't just cutting his body. It was cutting his very essence.
"Tsk."
He counterattacked—his fist a blur as he drove it toward Wisdom's face.
But—
Wisdom teleported.
And reappeared behind Saponu.
Saponu spun just in time—
SHLIIIK!
The sword grazed his Copyeyes.
A sharp pain stabbed through Saponu's skull—his vision distorted as one of his Copyeyes cracked.
Wisdom grinned wildly as he saw the damage.
"YES! YES! BREAK HIM! CUT HIM OPEN! TEAR HIM APART!"
His laugh echoed through the battlefield, his mind slipping further into the abyss.
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
Wisdom unleashed a storm of cuts, teleporting with each strike.
Saponu barely managed to deflect some with his arms, but the rest ripped into him, slicing through his flesh and energy defenses alike.
Black shadowy tendrils erupted from the sword, coiling around Wisdom's body, feeding his power. His teleportations became faster, his movements erratic—his fighting style a chaotic mix of skill and madness.
Saponu gritted his teeth.
He had to end this.
But before he could make his move—
WHOOSH!
Wisdom disappeared.
Vanished into the shadows.
His presence was completely erased.
Saponu narrowed his eyes. Where—?
Then—
A whisper brushed against his ear.
"This isn't over."
And then—
Wisdom was gone.