The moment Dirga stepped into the room, he knew.
Lucian Marruk stood with the stillness of a beast—coyote-like features sharpened by experience, dark eyes like obsidian, a short cropped beard, and a serpent-like tattoo curling up his neck. Every line on his face, every breath he took, radiated menace.
"I figured you were a contractor," Lucian said, voice low and amused, as if this were a game. "The kids—my little shadows—they killed one once. A low-tier pact. Weak. But you?"
"You smell like one of the numbered."
Dirga didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
He felt it too—the heat behind Lucian’s words. A hum in the air. The scent of devil’s blood. Sulfur. Burnt iron. Dust and smoke.
Lucian Marruk wasn’t just dangerous.
He was another devil’s contractor.
And maybe... Sasa had known all along.
Lucian stepped from behind the desk—and split.
Eight became sixteen.
The office pulsed with presence. Sixteen Lucians now stood in a circle, blades gleaming. Katanas. Spears. War axes. Machetes. Every clone held cold steel—and none hesitated.
"Let’s see what kind of monster our CEO really is," they said in eerie unison. A devil’s chorus.
Dirga’s eyes flicked to the massive glass window behind Lucian’s desk.
His mind surged. Telekinesis bloomed.
The glass exploded in silence, shards twisting mid-air.
Wind roared in from the 12th floor, howling like a summoned beast.
Dirga ran—and pulled two Lucians with him.
Their bodies hurtled alongside his as he dove headfirst into the void.
"Are you insane?" one of the Lucians shouted, weapon raised.
The other slashed with a machete. Another axe followed.
Dirga twisted in the fall, eyes burning gold. Gravity bent.
He yanked the clones inward, disarming them with brute force and telekinetic pressure.
Two necks broken clean. Bodies limp.
They were dead before they even began to fall.
The city screamed around him—twelve floors of distance vanishing beneath his feet. The street was a blur.
Dirga clenched his jaw. His mind burned.
He pressed the two bodies down like anchors, slowing his descent.
Calculated. Timed. Executed.
He slammed the two corpses into the concrete and launched himself skyward. A sonic boom of psychic backlash cracked the air.
The bodies burst like meat bags on asphalt.
Dirga landed hard—knees buckling, heart pounding.
Smoke coiled from the cracks where he stood. His hoodie torn, his fists bloody, his eyes gleaming like twin stars collapsing inward.
Above, the remaining Lucians stood at the broken window.
"Come down then," he growled. "Let’s finish this."
Even before Dirga could catch his breath—
the next wave arrived.
Five Lucians burst through the doorway like hounds loosed from a leash. Steel gleamed. Eyes burned. No words—just intent.
"Shit," Dirga muttered.
Two down. Fourteen to go.
He didn’t have time. Not for speeches. Not for hesitation.
These five had to die—fast.
Ten meters. That was his zone.
And then he whispered—
"Punch Style: Collapsing One Point."
The space around him twisted.
Three of the five Lucians were ripped forward by the sheer force of Dirga’s skill — dragged like puppets into the black hole of his intent.
One had jammed a spear into the concrete, anchoring himself with brutal strength. He caught another Lucian mid-fall, saving them both. Smart. Dangerous. Tactical.
He propelled forward like a warhead.
A single punch, delivered at the exact intersection of gravity, velocity, and timing.
Space cracked. The street bent.
The three Lucians folded like paper.
Their bodies shattered under the pressure. One of their skulls dented like a crushed can. Another vomited blood before his spine broke.
Even the two who’d resisted flinched.
This wasn’t human. This was celestial.
Dirga stumbled back, gasping.
His muscles screamed. His lungs burned. His fists trembled.
That punch was powerful... but costly.
Too many conditions. Too many moving parts.
A finishing move. Not a habit.
He scanned the broken floor. A sword lay nearby — bloodied steel glinting in the moonlight.
It snapped into his hand.
Lucian #6 didn’t have time to scream.
Dirga drove the blade through his chest in a clean arc.
He turned—sliced toward Lucian #7.
This one was different. Spear in hand. Eyes cold. Posture perfect.
The blade met resistance.
Sparks flew. The Lucian deflected the sword and kicked Dirga back a step. Then, with a twist, he pulled his spear free from the ground.
Telekinesis pulled the sword again from the right.
His real fist came from the left.
Lucian #7 blocked the blade. But he couldn’t block everything.
Dirga’s punch collided with his jaw — just as gravity surged.
The man was yanked forward, straight into Dirga’s waiting embrace.
Blood sprayed across the wall like paint on canvas.
His vision blurred at the edges. The smell of iron coated his lungs. His heart thundered in his ears like war drums.
But there was no time.
A flicker of movement.
He dropped low just in time as a knife whistled past his ear, slicing a line of red across his cheek.
They were already here.
The sound of boots against blood-slicked concrete echoed like war drums.
Dirga didn’t need to look — he felt them.
The door creaked open.
Six more Lucians stepped into the battlefield.
A grim smile tugged at Lucian 8’s mouth. "Damn, Mr. CEO... What the hell happened here? You already killed seven of me?"
He scanned the devastation — shattered floor tiles, twisted metal, and limbs bent at impossible angles.
It looked like a bomb had gone off.
A slow breath left Dirga’s lungs.
Six more now. Thirteen total.
Three still unaccounted for.
And in that lull — that brief stillness between storms — clarity struck.
An epiphany of combat.
For so long, Dirga had treated the center of his gravity as fixed — locked to the black circle etched over his chest. A symbolic singularity. A theoretical anchor. But what if...
What if he was the black hole?
What if every part of him was a center?
His fist. His foot. His spine. His eyes.
A thousand singularities waiting to bend the world.
A new tactic began to form.
A higher level of control.
And his telekinesis... That was the other piece.
It had always been raw — singular. One object, one pull, one thread. But now?
Now, he’d need to split his mind.
Control multiple threads. Bend vectors. Sync impacts. Think like a devil.
Dirga’s breath slowed.
He took a noted in his head:
Lucian 8 – throwing knives, wild but precise.
Lucian 9 – twin-headed axe, brute strength.
Lucian 10 – poleaxe, long reach.
Lucian 11 – naginata, sweeping arcs.
Lucian 12 – spiked mace, blunt trauma.
Lucian 13 – curved sword, elegance and speed.