My Charity System made me too OP

The air in the Rank 15 arena felt… warped.

Not heavier. Not darker. Just off.

Every step Leon took echoed too long, as though time itself hesitated to let go. The audience—Obsidian Ants, Elder Monks, and even a few watching from distant scrying mirrors—sat in reverent silence. This floor wasn't about brute force. It was a place of precision, of skill that unraveled moments like silk threads.

The announcer's voice didn't boom this time. It whispered—an eerie hush that brushed across the soul.

"Rank 15 Champion… Yel'Zura the Chronofract."

Across the obsidian battlefield stood a slender figure, cloaked in silver-dappled armor. Yel'Zura didn't move. Her presence alone bent the light around her, and the second hand of time seemed to tick slower in her wake.

Leon stepped forward, his newly honed Shell Reverb and Origin Pulse humming gently beneath his skin. He could feel the combat tempo around her—and it was wrong. Her heartbeat ran backward for a breath. Then forward. Then stuttered.

She bowed her head once. "I hope you're not in a hurry."

And time fractured.

Leon blinked—and her blade was already at his throat.

He jerked sideways, barely redirecting the blow with a Karmic Loop pulse, catching the shimmer of her attack a fraction before it hit. Sparks flew, not from impact, but potential—possibility cut apart.

"She cuts moments," he realized aloud.

Yel'Zura tilted her head. "Correct. I strike not flesh, but what could be."

Leon's aura flared. Golden mana laced with Abyss threads surged around him as he lunged, staff spinning. Aether bolts crackled around the edges, wrapped in fractal spirals of Origin Pulse.

But her footwork was like stuttered film—frame-skip precision. Every time he got close, she wasn't there anymore. A heartbeat late. A step ahead.

He stilled.

Closed his eyes.

And broke his own rhythm.

One movement. Then another. Then an intentional stutter. A trip, almost. His heartbeat skipped.

Yel'Zura lunged at that moment—and found herself out of sync.

Leon's hand surged forward, striking her blade at an angle no combatant would ever use—because it made no sense. It shouldn't have worked.

But it did.

Crack!

Shell Pulse: Refraction pulsed through him—fracturing both her stance and her temporal cloak. Sparks of distorted time magic exploded between them.

Yel'Zura stumbled.

Leon didn't waste the chance.

Destruction magic lit the arena with black flame.

Golden glyphs danced on his staff.

Aether blood seethed through his veins like molten silver.

Leon surged forward with a spear of compressed fate—his Destiny-brand technique—piercing not her armor, but the very window she existed in.

"Destruction Break: Null Interval!"

The blow hit.

Time twisted—recoiled—and shattered.

Yel'Zura was flung across the arena, tumbling through glitched moments of herself in different poses—frozen, attacking, fading, crying. She hit the wall, gasping, her blade flickering and vanishing into mist.

She rose, limping forward, the time-warp around her shattered.

Then she smiled. "You unraveled the moment. Well done."

She dropped to one knee.

The voice returned:

"Victory: Challenger Leon. Rank 15 Defeated."

Leon sat in silence afterward, Roselia gently cleaning his burned shoulder.

"You bent time," she whispered.

"I lied to time," he corrected. "I gave it false rhythm… and stole truth from its step."

Roman stood nearby, arms crossed. "You're turning into something terrifying, you know that?"

Leon chuckled weakly. "We'll need terrifying to win at Rank 1."

The gate slid open with a deep, grinding hum, revealing the Rank 14 arena.

Unlike the others, this battlefield was not black stone or shifting obsidian. It was… green. A vast garden, seemingly suspended in air, where hundreds of swords stood buried upright in the earth like gravestones. Petals drifted on the wind. The scent of steel and cherry blossoms mingled, unnaturally serene.

Leon stepped onto the field, his boots crunching the petals beneath. It felt sacred—no flames, no screams, only the whisper of wind through the blades.

From the far side, his opponent emerged: a tall, statuesque figure in pure white armor. A single katana rested at their side, sheathed in silence. Their eyes closed as they approached the center of the garden, then opened with startling calm.

"The challenger walks without arrogance," the duelist said softly. "That is good. The Blade Garden suffers no pride."

Leon gave a slow nod. "And you are?"

"I am Vaerel of the Still Edge," the duelist answered, unsheathing his blade in a single, flawless motion. "The sword that ends motion."

The petals stopped drifting.

The wind died.

And for a heartbeat, the world became still.

No magic. No enhancements. No pulsing energies or time fractures.

Just movement.

Vaerel was on him in an instant, blade humming through the air with such precision that even Leon's enhanced vision saw only the after of each cut. He leaned, twisted, deflected—but not fast enough.

Blood bloomed on his side. His left shoulder split open in a shallow line.

He countered with a Shell Pulse-boosted elbow—but it met air.

Vaerel stood five paces away, katana resting gently on his shoulder. Not even breathing hard.

"You rely on forces outside yourself," he said quietly. "Body Force, Shell Reverb, even Origin Pulse… none of those will save you here."

Leon's jaw clenched. "Then I won't use them."

He deactivated everything. Shell Reverb faded. Core Magic hushed. No Destruction. No Abyss. No God-tier augmentations. Just his body, his staff, and his instincts.

A grin crept onto Vaerel's lips.

"Good. Now—show me the warrior beneath the power."

The clash was brutal. Pure, cinematic martial combat. Leon's staff swept in elegant arcs while Vaerel's sword danced like water flowing through cracks in stone. Their weapons rang in clean, crisp clashes—until Vaerel shifted.

He flowed.

Each motion was so smooth, so exact, that even when Leon landed hits, they were glancing. Meanwhile, Vaerel's strikes became cuts through intention—disrupting Leon's balance at every pivot.

Leon's arms were bruised, his lip split, chest gashed.

He fell to one knee, breath shallow.

"You're stronger than me," Leon admitted.

"No," Vaerel whispered, raising his blade. "I am simply… clearer."

Leon smiled.

"Then I'll clear the fog."

He didn't activate Shell Reverb… he became its echo.

Leon's body flowed like a wave. He remembered every mistake in the duel—and made none of them again.

Every feint he fell for? He answered it.

Every slip in footing? Corrected.

Every timing error? Reversed.

Vaerel's blade moved like a song—but Leon now knew the lyrics.

Staff met steel, again and again, until—

CRACK!

Vaerel's blade shattered in half.

He stood perfectly still as the hilt clattered to the ground.

Leon stood opposite him, breathing hard, sweat mixing with blood.

The duelist bowed deeply. "You cleared the path. The fog is gone."

"Victory: Challenger Leon. Rank 14 Defeated."

As they walked away, Liliana glanced back at the arena.

"He broke his sword… but he didn't seem defeated."

"He wasn't," Leon murmured. "He just lost the duel."

Roselia placed a hand on Leon's back. "That was different… honest."

Leon nodded. "And that's why it was one of the hardest."

The path from the Blade Garden narrowed into a single obsidian walkway, winding upward through swirling violet mist. At its end was not a battlefield—at least, not in the conventional sense. It was a stage.

The Rank 13 arena resembled a broken cathedral suspended in the void. Columns floated without foundation. Archways hung open to nothing. At the center, a circular platform of polished dusk-glass shimmered beneath a starlit sky. In its heart sat a massive, arcane harp—strung not with strings, but with threads of condensed void.

And before it, seated cross-legged and blindfolded, was the champion.

They were draped in black silks, thin as smoke, their skin glowing faintly with sigils etched in a language long dead.

As Leon approached, his footfall echoed once—and the harp trembled.

The figure spoke, voice genderless and melodious.

"You are noise."

Leon narrowed his eyes. "And you are silence?"

"I am resonance," the Harpist said, rising. They raised both arms—revealing they had no hands, only stubs where arms ended in threads of voidlight. The harp responded to their will, and the entire cathedral began to hum.

"This is not a duel. This is a song. Try not to be out of tune."

The harp pulsed, and with the first vibration, reality warped.

Leon's footing slipped. Gravity twisted sideways. Sound became force—each note the Harpist played striking like a physical blow. A single minor chord knocked Leon flat on his back, rattling his skull.

He rolled away as a rising arpeggio sliced through the air like a blade. Not magic. Not air pressure. Just… resonance made violence.

Leon activated Shell Reverb, his body becoming a tuning fork.

Shell Pulse: Echo of Origin – 68% Synchronization.

He began to hear the pattern behind the music.

He dodged the next strike—not by seeing it, but by feeling the frequency shift.

Still, it wasn't enough.