Nier watched from above as two people were engaging in heated combat.

  His occultist eyes are already locked onto the two of them, as he analyzes them from above.

  "...Ohhh, isn't this interesting?"

  Nier said, with both hands in his pockets, as he hovered above the two, they went at each other's throats.

  BOOOOOOM!

  A loud explosion echoed.

  As Darius began to run away from Meld's attack, high above the isnd, in the sky, the clouds began to darken. And then another explosion went off as lightning suddenly rained down from above, falling on top of him.

  "AHHH!!"

  He screamed in pain as the electric current flowed through his body, burning his flesh and weakening him as the fight between him and Meld prolonged.

  Darius fell to the ground, barely catching his own weight as he was left kneeling and panting for air.

  'Dammit, what the hell is up with this kid? I can't even nd a single attack on him. What is even worse, before this battle even started, he was bluntly keeping his distance as if he knew I specialized in close-quarter combat.'

  'And whenever I do try to get close, he would close the distance between us again by somehow conjuring random shit out of nowhere. Last time, a giant snake-like Flux attacked me from underground, causing me to retreat, and then I somehow tripped. Another time, a rge hole appeared beneath me, and now lightning bolts are shooting from the sky. What the hell is this brat's power even supposed to be?'

  He said with a frustrated look as he saw the slowly approaching Meld, who was just walking up towards him.

  "Cocky little girl, fine... Let's see how you like it when you are the one on the receiving end."

  In that moment, from below, just under Meld's feet, a massive earth spike erupted from below; its purpose was to injure Meld. It came flying out at supersonic speed; however, in that moment, a hole, seemingly out of nowhere, appeared below Meld as he dropped in, completely dodging the spike that would have crippled him or had him at death's door. Then, in the next moment, a hole appeared underneath Darius, this time way rger.

  As he began to plummet down to the point, he nded far below the isnd, and to make sure, Meld then closed the hole back in pce as the hole just disappeared, filling itself back up as if it had never been dug up by something in the first pce as Darius was being crushed by the immense weight of the isnd's underground embrace.

  Realistically, he should have been crushed.

  But that was not the case as the future began to change again.

  And in that moment, Meld began to jump back as a pair of giant golem hands manifested beneath him, and like a fly, they tried to squash him between their palms, but Meld already saw this and jumped back with all his might.

  But Darius wasn't letting up as hundreds of earth-like arms erupted from the ground as they all tried to squish or catch Meld.

  "SHIT...SHIT!!...

  Meld said, as he tried to dodge them all, one tried to squash him, but another one of Darius's golem arms miraculously got in the way as the two collided, crushing each other.

  Several more got in his way, but on all of them, a barrage of C4 manifested on each, as a detonator suddenly manifested in Meld's hand. With zero regard for colteral, he then pressed the red button, and in that moment all the explosions went off.

  As arms all began to break or burn away from the bst, falling to the ground, however, the future changed again, and Meld saw with clear eyes how he was going to lose all four of his limbs in this instant.

  As the falling rocks in the sky suddenly began to float and sm into each other, they took the form of rotating shard bullets, compressed tightly together.

  And then, going at hypervelocity, it fired toward Meld, six of them at a time from all directions.

  With this much force behind such density, it would have surely ripped him apart.

  But then, he picked a future where all those projectiles miss; however, it cost him a lot of Gaian energy to evade his attack.

  As the rotating stone bullets all missed him one by one.

  CHINK! CHINK! CHINK!!...

  But just then, Darius appeared behind Meld, who looked at him with a surprised look.

  Stone flew to his hand, wrapping around it to form a hardened gauntlet, and then he clenched his fist tightly and said to Meld.

  "Clench your teeth, bitch."

  Darius said as he channeled a rge amount of Gaian energy into his fist and attacked faster than Meld could react, despite seeing the future; even there, in other futures, that attack was almost certain.

  And since Meld uses too much energy as is, he could not dodge this; as such, he covered his face, but that was exactly what Darius wanted.

  As he smiled and said.

  "Good, leave your center wide open."

  With devastating power, he punched Meld right in the stomach with great force, making him spit out blood.

  BANNNG!!

  "AGHHH!!... FWUCKK!"

  Meld cried out as he spat out blood as Darius unched him across the forest. The force of the punch went off like an explosion in his abdomen as a loud sonic boom was heard as Meld flew through multiple trees before skidding and nding in a puddle of his own blood, leaving his arms gone, alongside his right leg. A rge hole was also present in his stomach, with stone shards stabbed in multiple parts of his body.

  Darius, who was still an issue, walked over to Meld, who was gasping for air as he said.

  "You actually manage to hit me."

  "You're a fucking annoying little girl, but it became clear to me that you can see the future, given the way you were able to dodge my attacks almost beforehand at the st moment."

  "How you are warping reality the way you are is still a mystery to me, but it's clear to me you can't constantly use that; you're going to tire out eventually after using it too much. However, the main problem was your future sight, but it's not impossible to work around. I figured if I can just attack you fast enough, even if you can see where I am going to hit you, if you're not as fast, you're basically helpless."

  "Of course this is all just my assumption, but I am confident you have some kind of precog, but it doesn't matter; even if you don't surrender, you are now unable to continue fighting. It was a good battle, little girl, but the fight ends here."

  Darius said to a deeply injured Meld.

  However, the reply he got was not what he was expecting.

  "Unable—do you really think that?"

  Meld said as he began to spit out blood.

  "It's over. Do you even see yourself?"

  However, just then, the world changed in an instant, and Meld, who was basically crippled, was now standing whole again, all his injuries gone.

  Then he looked at the bewildered Darius and said.

  "Sometimes reality can be deceiving."

  "W-What......HOWW!?"

  Although Darius didn't get a direct answer, the truth behind the matter was that Meld chose a future where he was not injured, undoing the events that led up to him even getting injured to begin with.

  As, that took a lot of energy out of him.

  "Dammit, that sure took a lot; at best I can only do that one more time."

  Darius was annoyed as he said, preparing to beat him half to death, but just then a voice came from the front, just above them, as they looked up.

  "Oh, two for the taking, not bad."

  It was Nier.