Instead, he retaliated.
Before Valkhara could so much as smirk from the satisfaction of landing her punch, Shotaro's leg shot up—and slammed squarely between her legs.
Thwack.
The sound was… devastating.
Valkhara's breath hitched as she collapsed to her knees, spine arching as her entire body rebelled. A sharp, choked sound escaped her lips—half a groan, half a growl, not quite pain, not quite surprise.
Definitely not pleasure.
Just pure, raw shock.
"Fun fact," Shotaro said, calmly cracking his neck as if he hadn't just committed cultural heresy, "a solid crotch kick can take down a man."
He looked down at her with a perfectly deadpan expression, crimson eyes gleaming with clinical detachment.
"And an even solider one can take down anything despite gender."
Silence stretched between them.
Then Valkhara exhaled a jagged breath, bracing herself against the dirt. "B-Bastard…" she muttered, not quite managing her usual growl. It sounded more like she was laughing through cracked ribs.
One hand flipped him off, slow and deliberate.
"Fuck you."
Shotaro didn't even blink. "Many have," he replied dryly.
She blinked up at him, stunned for just half a second—then let out a full, broken laugh. Damn him. Even as her pride screamed and her thighs throbbed, she couldn't deny it.
The bastard had balls.
And apparently no shame.
Before she could recover enough to retaliate, he stepped closer. His shadow fell across her like a guillotine waiting to drop.
"But enough of this foreplay," he said, his voice dropping just enough to make her nerves buzz. "Are you going to spill the truth, or should I rip it out of your ass?"
His tone didn't rise. Didn't threaten.
It didn't need to.
There was no bluff in his voice. No bark behind the bite.
Just steel. Pure, unshakable certainty.
Valkhara had met many men who pretended to be monsters.
Shotaro Mugyiwara was something worse.
A man who didn't need to pretend.
Her jaw clenched. Her fingers dug into the earth.
Cornered. Caged. Not by force, but by presence alone.
"…Fine."
Her voice was hoarse but steady.
"I was promised to a rival Zorkhan—Khan Ruganda," she said bitterly. "Big, bald, bearded brute. But apparently still functional. Unfortunately for me, thanks to you," she made a vague wave at him, "I'm now a chinaar."
She spat the word like it burned her tongue.
"Damaged goods. Unmarriageable. Instead of being a wife, I'll be tossed to some back-alley warrior or handed off as a living trophy."
She looked up then. Eyes burning, but not with anger.
With resignation.
"And no, I don't blame you. I lost because I was weak."
Shotaro's arms stayed folded, eyes unreadable. "But your dad's the Khan, right? Wouldn't he override that?"
Valkhara scoffed. "He's not just a Khan. He's Katin Khan. And his pride is bigger than the mountains he flattened. If he bends the rules for his daughter, he looks like a hypocrite. A liar. Weak. He'd rather throw me to get fucked by the dogs."
Shotaro's gaze didn't soften. But something behind it shifted.
"…That's messed up."
She gave him a tired shrug. "That's Zorkhani law."
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The mountain wind howled quietly through the trees, like even the world didn't know what to say.
Then, with a quiet breath, Shotaro said, "Alright then."
Valkhara blinked. "Alright, what?"
"We'll stop the marriage."
He said it so casually she thought she'd misheard.
"Excuse me?"
"I'll just beat every warrior in your Zorkhan. One by one. Turn them all into chinaar until they've got no one left but me to listen to. Then I'll crown you Khan."
She stared.
He said it like he was reading a grocery list.
"You already had this figured out the second you heard my problem, didn't you?"
Shotaro shrugged. "I like puzzles."
There was a pause.
Then Valkhara let out a single breath of incredulous laughter. "Maybe brains over brawn isn't as worthless as I thought."
He smirked. "Oh, I've got both. Just saving my brawn for something special."
"But before we do anything…" he rolled his wrists, cracking his knuckles.
"We need to deal with the Penetrator."
She blinked. "The what?"
A scream tore through the air like a banshee mid-orgasm.
"KAAALKIIIIII!!"
Shotaro sighed, rubbing his temples as the distant scream tore through the sky like a divine curse being screamed into existence.
"Speak of the devil," he muttered, the air around him already starting to crackle with static tension.
The clouds twisted above as the heavy thud of armored footsteps shook the earth with rhythmic menace. Trees leaned away instinctively. Birds fled. Reality seemed to recoil.
Then it emerged.
A walking monolith of reinforced obsidian steel, easily thrice the size of a normal man. Every movement of its segmented armor screamed unnatural grace—the Penetrator had returned.
Shotaro narrowed his eyes, crimson irises gleaming like twin blood moons. "When I dropped your ass into nullspace," he said under his breath, unsheathing Alakshmi in one smooth motion, "I knew you'd claw your way back."
He took a step forward, his blade humming with suppressed energy. "But this early? That's just bad manners."
Before Valkhara could even respond, she roared and launched herself forward, fists raised, bloodlust igniting in her veins. Her instincts screamed to crush the threat before it could speak—but they were slower than Shotaro's reaction.
"Back off, dumbass," he growled, intercepting her mid-lunge with one hand and pushing her away with enough force to send her tumbling across the rocky soil.
Valkhara blinked. One second, she had been mid-air, ready to tear into the iron-clad abomination. The next—
She was on her back.
On the ground.
"What the hell—how did I…?" she started to say, but Shotaro had already moved ahead, parrying the first crushing swing of the Penetrator's massive lance. The clang echoed like a cathedral bell struck with divine fury.
No time for answers. Only battle.
Then, just as Valkhara tensed to leap again—
Golden chains of light erupted from the earth, coiling around her limbs like vipers made of mantras.
"What the hell is this now!?" she hissed, straining against the glowing bindings as they pulsed with magical script.
A figure blurred into view—Paliv, the golden-brown-haired, emerald-eyed imperial elf, sliding to a halt beside her. His movements were graceful, barely disturbing the grass beneath his boots.
"Do not rush into battles he tells you not to," Paliv snapped, his voice like silk wrapped around steel. "Especially not against something he had to seal in nullspace."
Valkhara bared her teeth. "Let me go or I'll snap your spine—"
"Twice your size, half your sense," Paliv muttered, tightening the chains with a flick of his fingers. "Sit. Stay. Learn."
Before she could bite back, another figure arrived—lean, sharp-eyed, and shadow-cloaked.
Fa Git, the dark elven boy with eyes like sapphired amethyst and a scowl, dropped from a ledge, surveying the battlefield.
"...What is that thing doing here so early?" He asked, his voice low, almost a whisper of dusk.
Shotaro didn't respond.
He didn't need to.
The wind around him twisted, drawn into the magnetic pressure of the standoff. Alakshmi's edge sparked against the Penetrator's lance again, hurling ripples of force across the field. The katana shrieked with celestial resistance, its blade curving with divine spite as it met unyielding steel.
Paliv's face turned grim. "This wasn't supposed to happen for another month."
"And yet," Fa Git muttered, his fingers ghosting over the hilt of his hidden blade, "the bastard's early."
Before the weight of his words could settle, Shotaro's voice sliced through the charged air—low, sharp, and unnervingly calm.
"He remembers me," he said flatly, his crimson eyes narrowing as he adjusted his grip on Alakshmi.
There was a brief pause, just long enough for a smirk to curl across his lips.
"And judging by the way he's charging at me, he remembers me like I killed his cat."
With that, he lunged.
Alakshmi flared as it met the Penetrator's lance once more—arcane steel ringing against eldritch alloy, the sound reverberating like a funeral bell for gods. Sparks erupted with each collision, cascading around them like falling stars. The sheer pressure of their clash sent cracks spider-webbing through the earth beneath their feet.
Fa Git blinked. "...Woah."
Instinctively, he brought his palms together, fingers curling into a precise mudra. A faint azure glow shimmered at the center of his chest, blooming outward as he activated the Ganesh Chakra—a mystic lens of perception Shotaro had personally helped him awaken.
A halo of concentric rings bloomed behind his eyes as information began to stream into his mind.
"Alright, let's see what this iron freakshow is made of…"
His irises flared with light as data flooded in—heat signatures, kinetic flow, mana traces, and material resonance. His mouth moved before he could stop it.
"That armor isn't just forged—it's grown. Organic metal alloy, maybe jyotirmaya mixed with something cursed. Symbiotic weave in the plates—feeds off ambient magic like a damn parasite."
His voice picked up speed, fascination outweighing fear.
"And that lance? That's not a weapon. That's a mantra conduit—dense runes etched along the shaft, syncing with its heartbeat. It's pulsing with soul frequency—he's not just wielding it. He is it."
Paliv arched an eyebrow from nearby, still holding Valkhara's mantra chains tight. "Less yapping, more strategizing, elf-boy."
"I am strategizing," Fa Git shot back, eyes glowing brighter. "This thing's basically a walking siege engine with a grudge. If Shotaro plans to tank it alone, he's going to need more than sarcasm and shoulder muscles."
Back on the field, Shotaro twisted his blade around the lance's spine, sliding up its length with inhuman precision. His katana let out a keening shriek as he forced it toward the Penetrator's core—only to be met with a sudden, concussive backlash of raw energy that flung him backward across the field like a ragdoll.
He landed hard—but rolled to his feet before the dust could settle, a thin line of blood tracing his jaw.
He landed hard—but rolled to his feet before the dust could settle, a thin line of blood tracing the curve of his jaw.
"Yep," Shotaro muttered, wiping it off with the back of his hand. "Definitely remembers me."
Up on the ridge, Paliv clicked his tongue and called out, "Hey, soot-skin—how does that lance even work?"
Fa Git didn't look up. His Ganesh Chakra was still glowing at full sync, mystic rings pulsing behind his pupils as arcane glyphs flickered across his field of vision. His voice came low and quick, laced with awe and an edge of terror.
"I thought it operated on absolute causality," Fa Git said, still locked onto the spiraling lance. "Y'know—point A stabs point B, simple cause and effect. But I was wrong."
He took a breath.
"This thing doesn't just strike—it rewrites."
Paliv's brow furrowed. "What the hell does that mean?"
Fa Git turned, shadows dancing across his sharp features as the glowing rings behind his eyes rotated faster.
"It creates an impossible timeline."
Paliv blinked. "A what?"
Fa Git gestured toward the Penetrator as the lance began to spin mid-swing. The air around it shimmered unnaturally—bending, doubling, fracturing. Birds stopped flying. Leaves froze mid-fall. The laws of cause and consequence twisted.
"You know modal realism?" Fa Git asked.
Paliv narrowed his eyes. "Elves aren't born with philosophy degrees."
"Okay, fine," Fa Git said, exasperated. "Think of it like this: Every possible version of reality exists—right? Somewhere, somewhen. In one timeline, the lance misses. In another, it hits. But in one, it cuts through your spine, your soul, and even your karma."
"…Comforting."
"Yeah, well, the lance doesn't choose which timeline is true—it creates the one where it always hits," Fa Git continued. "It spins, analyzes all future branches, and then locks in the version where its strike connects—no matter the angle, no matter the defense."
Paliv's eyes widened slightly. "So you're saying…"
"I'm saying the moment it starts spinning, the universe cheats," Fa Git said, his voice grim. "It picks the reality where you're already dead and makes it real."
Below, Shotaro's katana clanged against the spiraling lance, the sound less like metal and more like worlds colliding.
For a fraction of a second, his body flickered—phased, warped—appearing in two positions at once, like two shadows that couldn't agree on where he truly was.
Fa Git's jaw clenched. His voice was almost reverent.
"He's mantra-forcing causality collapse," he whispered, eyes wide. "That's not just a weapon—it's a cosmic edit function."
He turned toward Paliv, who was still watching with narrowed emerald eyes.
"So not only does the lance strike at instantaneous attack speed," Fa Git continued, "it actively generates a timeline where the hit is guaranteed. Doesn't matter if you dodge. Doesn't matter if you block. The moment it spins, it creates a branch reality where the strike connects—and then overlays it onto the main one."
Paliv blinked. "So it… just chooses the winning outcome?"
"No," Fa Git said, shaking his head. "It doesn't choose. It invents. It drills into the architecture of reality and forges an impossible timeline from raw causality. It hijacks every possible world where that hit might land—even the 0.00000001% chance where the angle is right, where the breath is mistimed, where the blade just grazes—and then forces that into actuality."
She frowned. "But if a timeline is infinite… how can it contain another infinite timeline inside it?"
The question hung in the air like a koan.
Down below, in the middle of clashing steel and gravitational collapse, Shotaro still found time to respond.
"Because endlessness has layers," he called out, his tone sharp but casual—like a tutor giving a pop quiz while dueling a god.
His blade twisted with a pulse of mantra as he barely avoided a spiral-thrust aimed at his throat.
"The main reality isn't just infinite—it's dominant. Think of it as a hierarchy of infinities. A larger 'size' of endless. What the lance creates is a subordinate infinite—a nested branch with just enough weight to overwrite the flow of cause and effect temporarily."
He pivoted, sparks erupting from his boots as he skidded backwards across stone, Alakshmi vibrating in his hand.
"The Penetrator's weapon doesn't overpower strength. It exploits structure. It finds the deepest layer of inevitability and sculpts the timeline under the timeline."
Paliv looked dumbfounded.
"…So the lance creates a reality where it always hits… then forcibly pastes that outcome into ours?"
"Exactly," Fa Git nodded, now pacing, his eyes glowing with spiraling glyphs as the Ganesh Chakra churned behind his pupils. Calculations scrolled across his vision faster than thought. "It doesn't just swing. It asserts. Like declaring a sentence in grammar—and forcing the universe to conjugate reality accordingly."
Paliv's gaze flicked back to the battlefield, her voice low. "And Shotaro?"
"Yeah, that's what I want to know," Fa Git said, squinting.
Because what he saw?
Shotaro wasn't thriving. He was surviving.
His blade sang, dancing along the spiral edges of the Penetrator's reality-breaking lance—not missing by inches, but by hairs. It wasn't just reaction. It wasn't just speed.
It was defiance.
Like the laws of probability bent just slightly out of reverence every time he moved.
"He's not supposed to be able to do this," Fa Git muttered, stunned. "Not against a weapon that hijacks outcomes. It's like… he's moving on instinct alone—but instinct tuned to logic."
He swallowed, his voice dropping.
"It's like he was born a miracle."
Paliv was quiet for a beat. "There's so much he never taught us during morning drills."
Fa Git nodded slowly. "So many layers we didn't even see."
Then, from behind them—
"HEY, BRATS!"
Both of them jumped as Valkhara's voice thundered across the ridge like a war drum laced with sarcasm.
Her biceps bulged against the glowing chains binding her to the ground, golden eyes blazing with fury.
"Did ya forget about me or something!?" Valkhara bellowed from behind, the sound of clashing steel no match for her fury. "Or am I just scenery now?!"
Paliv didn't even look back. Her fingers remained steepled in the mudra that sustained the glowing mantra-chains snaking around Valkhara's limbs.
"We're a bit busy not dying, feral one," she said coolly, mantra script pulsing like a heartbeat around her hands.
"I SWEAR TO ALL THE GODS ABOVE AND BELOW—" Valkhara snarled, slamming her heel into the ground hard enough to shake dust loose from nearby rocks, "—IF YOU DON'T UNBIND ME IN TEN SECONDS, I'M GONNA RIP THESE CHAINS APART WITH MY TEETH!"
Fa Git peeked over his shoulder.
"She might actually do it," he muttered.
"She will do it," Paliv replied flatly, rolling her eyes. "Which is exactly why she's tied down like a feral Fayahog during eclipse season."
Valkhara thrashed again, muscles bulging, golden eyes blazing. "UNLEASH ME, COWARDS!"
Fa Git raised an eyebrow. "You do know she likes being called feral, right?"
"She probably named her own fists 'Law' and 'Disorder,'" Paliv snapped. "You think anything we say's gonna stop her?"