Chapter Title: Cherubim Unleashed.
Sakamoto's feet sank deeper into the fractured earth, toes gripping the surface with raw tension. His fingers trembled slightly though not from fear but from the searing intensity coalescing at his fingertips. A sphere, no larger than a golf ball, floated just above his hand. It pulsed. It shimmered.
It threatened.
Blue-orange-black, the energies swirled so tightly the orb looked like an imploding star dense beyond reason, humming with the potential to level continents. The very air around it shimmered as though reality were warping under its weight. Wind fled. The ground beneath his stance quivered, then began to fissure.
From across the battlefield, Lord Arcade's expression shifted minutely. His eyes narrowed, the usual apathy replaced by something more focused.
"Impressive, kid," he said, voice carried by the echo of their standoff. "You're compressing the energy of three distinct sources. Phoenix flames… and two more I cannot yet comprehend."
He raised one hand, beckoning. "Bring it on."
But inside Sakamoto's mind, the world shifted. Darkness folded inward and opened like a flower of shadow. There, floating without form, Jushin appeared.
"Saka…" the spirit's voice rippled like water. "You know he's not taking this fight seriously, right?"
Sakamoto's breath was ragged, eyes burning with focus. "I don't care. I won't let him talk about my pops like that."
He clenched his fingers tighter around the glowing sphere.
"I want to one-shot him. With Cherubim."
Jushin was silent for a second. Then: "I can grant you more Shen. I can pull you from death. I can even mend a broken rib or two… But if he does get serious you must seek backup."
Sakamoto gave a curt nod.
Back in reality, the sphere in his hand pulsed violently. A surge of Shen flowed through his arm, feeding it.
The orb quaked then expanded.
Its compressed surface bulged, then reformed, increasing tenfold, then a hundredfold. In mere seconds, it eclipsed the size of the moon, then doubled that again. The energy gained mass true mass warping gravity in its immediate vicinity. Dust and stones began to float around him. The entire battlefield swayed.
From the edge of the broken dome, heat bled inward.
Inside Suha's war room, red lights snapped on. Alarms screamed.
A sudden gust of heat laden air swept through the interior corridors, knocking over coffee mugs and papers. The technicians cried out.
General Soren, half shielding his face from the sudden pressure, squinted at the monitors. "Such dense heat… If not for the dome, that heat would melt us alive!"
Outside, Sakamoto braced himself, sweat pouring down his face despite the winds. The weight of the Jupiter-sized energy sphere was bending even his knees. Shadows formed trenches under his eyes. His bones groaned.
Lord Arcade finally spoke again.
"What a dangerous power."
Sakamoto snarled, throwing his arms back and screaming
"Hybrid Art: Jupiter Cherubim!!"
And then
The heavens cracked.
The beam fired forward in a surge of unrelenting light and pressure. It wasn't just heat it was obliteration itself, a wave of thermal annihilation racing across the land, vaporizing the ground, glassing stone, tearing open the sky.
Its target was Lord Arcade And Arcade
He didn't flinch but he recognized the potential strength of the attack.
He raised one palm forward.
"Red Ice Release: Walls of Jericho."
The instant the words left Arcade's mouth, a blinding pulse of crimson light erupted from his extended palm.
In a roar that froze the heat itself, walls of shimmering red ice slammed into existence forty feet high, stacked in layered rings like a divine fortress. Their surfaces shimmered like ruby glass, each wall humming with ancient power.
The Jupiter Cherubim struck the first layer, the second layer , the third layer and so on the land wept.
The collision unleashed a shriek of energy that shattered the earth beneath. A surge of steam exploded upward, blanketing the battlefield in a geyser of superheated mist. Sakamoto's beam continued forward, devouring everything in its path, even as the red ice resisted with defiant strength.
Inside Suha, the impact rippled through the dome like a hurricane of heat and vibration. Technicians dropped to the ground, ears bleeding. Panels blew out in showers of sparks.
General Soren's voice was drowned in the screaming of sirens, but one line cut through:
"It's melting the dome. It's melting the dome."
Outside, the Walls of Jericho held barely.
Layer by layer, they melted under the furious breath of the Jupiter Cherubim. The red ice hissed, cracking, deforming, until the last layer began to shudder. Arcade's feet scraped backward over the ground, dragged by the raw force of the blast.
He stood firm but only just.
Then the final layer of the wall broke.
The energy beam, smaller now its body narrowed, its heat still merciless punched through the final defense and slammed directly into Lord Arcade.
He grunted, eyes flashing. A second eye opened on the center of his palm, blinking once. It tried to absorb the impact but it failed.
The beam struck.
He was flung backward like a ragdoll, his armor sizzling, the eye on his palm closing violently as it burned. He tumbled through the air and slammed into the ground, gouging a crater into the rock. For the first time he bled.
Far to the right, the weakened Cherubim blast spiraled off course, hissing and humming until it detonated against a distant cliffside. The land screamed. A blinding explosion lit the sky, tearing a crater so massive it erased the horizon. The heatwave flattened hills and turned forests into ash.
Silence.
Then
Movement.
Arcade rose.
Smoke curled off his arms. His right hand hung limp, skin charred, cracks running along the flesh. But even as blood dripped, the wounds were knitting together, inch by inch, his regeneration already in motion.
He flexed his fingers. The joints popped.
His voice was calm.
"I'm impressed… Blood of the Crane."
He looked straight at Sakamoto, still struggling to hold himself up across the scorched battlefield.
"But the chance you just had?" His fingers curled into a fist. "You will never get it again."
Then he began to float.
Rising slowly, steadily, like a phantom untouched by gravity. His five fingers spread wide, and all five rings on them began to glow one after another.
And beneath Sakamoto, the ground moved.
A low rumble rolled beneath Sakamoto's boots. He staggered, glancing down as the earth beneath him trembled not cracked, but rising.
From one side, the terrain peeled upward like skin, raw soil curling unnaturally. From the opposite side, a wall of dirt surged skyward. The two collided midair with a boom sealing Sakamoto inside a dome of fused earth, thick as iron, silent as a tomb.
Darkness.
The moment the cocoon sealed shut, the light disappeared. The air turned dry, stale. The walls were alive he could feel them shifting.
Then
Crack.
From all directions, spear-like formations burst from the walls dozens, then hundredsshooting toward him in brutal silence.
Sakamoto twisted midair, dodging left, rolling right, but one jabbed into his shoulder, another grazed his thigh, and a third slammed into his ribs. He cried out, landing awkwardly against the hard-packed wall.
Blood oozed from fresh wounds.
"What the hell…" he hissed, clutching his side. "It's like the walls are thinking…"
He placed his free hand against the wall and threw a punch with full Shen force.
Boom.
The blow echoed but then, without warning, the wall returned the impact.
A counter-shock hit Sakamoto's chest like a hammer, throwing him backwards into a cluster of jutting spikes.
He gasped. "It's absorbing force… then rebounding it. He's… manipulating the nature itself?"
Above, Lord Arcade hovered with arms crossed.
"The Five Rings of Death," he announced as if lecturing a class. "A power granted only to those who consume the sacred fruit of Yggdrasil, the God Tree."
He lifted one hand, rings glowing with ethereal light.
"One ring for elemental control. One for nature manipulation. Another for strength amplification. One for flight. And one for the hardened flesh of the gods resistant to death."
His gaze darkened.
"You are outmatched."
Inside the earth cocoon, Sakamoto grit his teeth. Sweat poured from his brow. Blood ticked down his arm in rivulets. The walls were too thick, too reactive. His mind raced.
"Damn it… I can't break out of this with brute force."
Then he inhaled.
Closed his eyes.
And whispered:
"Shadow Manifestation: Anuman the Great Monkey."
The ground beneath him pulsed.
From the center of the darkness, a boiling burst of black energy exploded upward. It coalesced, stretched, then solidified into a hulking simian form a humanoid monkey, ten feet tall, with fur the color of ink and a massive bronze staff gripped in both hands.
Anuman opened his eyes, grinning.
"Hey," Sakamoto said through bruised lips. "This place is real tight. Can you break us out?"
Anuman cracked his knuckles.
"Yes. I can."
The monkey spun his staff once, then braced it against the floor and aimed it upward.
"Expand."
The staff pulsed then extended.
It shot upward like a missile, growing in size and force until it rammed the top of the cocoon with earth-shattering might.
CRACK.
The shell above them fractured. Then BOOM the entire cocoon burst apart, pieces of living dirt and rock flying in every direction like meteors.
The light of the battlefield flooded back in.
And high above, Lord Arcade's eyes narrowed sharply.
He saw them.
Sakamoto battered, bleeding and beside him, Anuman, staff resting on his shoulder, fur bristling with residual power.
As the dust cleared from the shattered cocoon, Sakamoto grinned through the blood on his lips. "Let's send you over, Great Monkey."
Anuman cracked his neck, twirling his staff. "Just say the word."
Sakamoto raised a hand fingers twitching through the air like a conductor and muttered, "Shadow Swap."
The shadows around Anuman's feet curled upward, yanking him into the void. At the same instant, a dark smear in the sky split open directly above Lord Arcade.
Anuman exploded from the shadow, descending with his staff high overhead, spinning downward with the force of a wrecking ball.
Lord Arcade didn't even blink.
He'd been watching. Measuring. Learning.
Just before Anuman's staff could land, Arcade raised his chin slightly and whispered a single phrase:
"Tiger of the Sea: Doomsday."
The moment the words were spoken, something shifted in the air.
Anuman's strike landed
But not on Arcade.
Instead, the staff collided with a long, serpentine body scales like liquid steel, a red-crowned dorsal fin slicing through the air.
It was a sea beast, thirty feet long, a ghost of the deep a fish with glimmering eyes and teeth like glass blades.
The impact threw up a whirlwind of mist and sound.
The Doomsday beast turned its massive head, its eyes catching Anuman's in a moment of primal exchange and then, a pulse of white light shot from those eyes, silent and merciless.
Anuman froze.
Then his limbs went slack. The mighty monkey's body dropped like a stone towards the ground.
"No!" Sakamoto's voice cracked. "Anuman!"
The monkey fell, tumbling through the air.
Arcade looked down, voice now filled with command. "Flood it, Doomsday."
The beast coiled in midair like a snake preparing to strike and then it opened its maw.
A roar followed.
A torrent of water not clear, but dark and sickly, glowing faintly with poisonous green spewed out like a sea's worth of death. The land below was devoured, the blast erasing valleys and sinking stone. Trees vanished. Crags crumbled.
Sakamoto's eyes darted to Anuman, who was falling toward the toxic waves.
His fingers snapped.
"Shadow Swap."
A small rock on the ground vanished and Anuman's body appeared in its place, landing beside him with a heavy thud.
The rock splashed uselessly into the toxic flood.
Sakamoto dropped to one knee, catching his breath, gripping Anuman's shoulder. "You okay, monkey warrior?"
Anuman stirred, groaned faintly. "I've had… better landings." And then he immediately went unconscious
Above, Lord Arcade hovered, arms folded behind his back, gaze cool and imperial.
Sakamoto knelt beside the unconscious Anuman, one hand pressed lightly to the monkey warrior's chest, feeling the shallow but present rhythm of his breath. The heat of the toxic flood radiated nearby, warping the air. Every instinct in his body screamed to keep moving but he didn't.
Not yet.
Above, Lord Arcade's voice unfurled like a sermon to the broken world below.
"Do you see now, boy?" he said. "The weak only bring suffering, They chain the capable, They slow the march of evolution."
His white clad body hovered in place, perfectly still, his cloak unfurling behind him with divine calm.
"This is why humans without Shen must not be allowed to persist,They produce only one result…"
He raised a single finger.
"Pain. And weakness."
Sakamoto's fists clenched. His teeth ground together, heat rising from his chest not just from Shen but from rage.
But Arcade didn't look at him anymore.
His gaze turned to Suha's dome, still flickering, still resisting the chaos outside its walls.
"I've wasted enough time," he muttered.
He drifted downward, descending like a god approaching judgment. His boots touched the poisoned water with barely a ripple standing as though the corrupted sea itself dared not touch him.
"Doomsday," he said, without raising his voice. "Again."
From above, the great sea-beast roared in eerie silence, its body undulating with impossible grace. It arched skyward, mouth yawning open like the maw of fate.
Then
It spat.
A second flood of corrupted water but this time it was a quick slash, even larger than before, poured from its gullet. It slammed downward like an avalanche. The ground buckled. And this time, the dome
It split.
Like glass under a hammer, the protective field fractured. Its seams flared, then shattered entirely. Cracks raced through the entire Suha installation.
The flood didn't stop there.
It struck the central command building and tore it in half.
Concrete and steel peeled like wet paper. One side collapsed inward; the other tilted violently, sending officers and equipment tumbling like toys.
Inside, screams erupted.
Two officers grabbed the console as the floor gave way.
"Oh my God—" one shouted. "We're so dead!"
Minister Alfred stood frozen for a moment then bit down hard on his lip, blood blooming at the corner of his mouth.
Outside, Arcade hovered higher again, the wreckage below him like a cathedral of ruin.
He said nothing.
He didn't need to.
The air inside the shattered Suha headquarters was thick with dust and panic. Walls groaned. Pipes screamed. Sparks rained from the exposed ceiling like angry fireflies. People shouted, some prayed, others wept beneath desks or dove toward stairwells that no longer existed.
Mika stood frozen in place, one hand braced against the trembling wall, the other still clutched to a cracked med-kit. The console screen in front of her was flickering in and out, showing a jumpy image of the battlefield beyond of him.
Of Sakamoto.
He was kneeling beside a wounded Anuman, his face bruised, his clothes torn, hair soaked in blood and sweat. And yet, somehow he was still upright.
Still defiant.
But so hurt.
Her eyes welled up.
"He's… he's fighting this alone…"
Another violent tremor rocked the building. Mika stumbled back, nearly hitting the wall. Dust coated her jacket. She looked to the side officers were scrambling, yelling for medics, searching for survivors.
But none of them moved toward the battlefield.
No one ran toward the fire.
"I have to…" she whispered. "I have to protect him."
She pressed a palm to the cracked glass of the console. "I have to show him I can be there when it counts."
Then she turned.
She didn't wait for orders. Didn't look for approval.
Mika sprinted through the chaos, pushing past fallen beams and overturned tables. She dodged sparking wires, ducked under crumbling frames, and made her way to the breach where the dome had once stood.
Wind tore at her. The heat from the battlefield scalded her cheeks.
She didn't care.
And then she was outside.
The battlefield stretched before her, scorched and still smoking. At the center, a single figure stood hunched over another.
Sakamoto.
She ran, feet pounding across fractured stone and steaming soil.
Toward him.
Toward the war.