The battlefield was no longer earth.
It was a storm—soul magic tearing through stone, elemental energy screaming through the sky, shadows dancing across fractured terrain.
Zero stood quietly, his body glowing with pale silver light. His hair flowed behind him, white as snow. Crimson eyes stared forward, devoid of fear.
Akumo watched from a distance, chest heaving.
"He's changed… What happened to him?"
Zero took a single step. The ground didn't crunch—it blurred.
Necros' eyes widened.
"How… How did he reach my level of speed?"
Before he could react, Zero appeared beside him—not ran, not teleported, but moved with pure space distortion.
Necros growled and threw Sumi to the ground like a discarded blade. She gasped, clutching her shoulder.
Zero caught her mid-fall without turning his head, placed her down gently, and faced Necros with silence.
Necros charged.
Zero matched him.
They collided. And the sky flinched.
- Necros hurled a gravity pulse, ripping the terrain open. Zero sliced through it with a crescent arc of soul flame, countering the pressure.
- Necros summoned dark glyph spears, each as heavy as metal planets. Zero dodged them with microsteps, vanishing and reappearing behind each one.
- They both locked blades—Necros with his twin black katanas, Zero with a pure-light construct, forged from memory and guilt.
Each slash was poetry. Each parry was pain.
They weren't just fighting. They were proving existence.
Inside a lava-glow cave, Ryū paced like a restless wolf.
"Why are they late?" he snarled, shadow flickering around his feet. "I can't wait anymore."
He gripped the pommel of his obsidian blade. "I'm coming."
Outside, storms began to break.
At the royal courtyard, the Emperor closed a parchment and turned to his butler.
"Ready my horse carriage. I'm going."
"But my lord—the battlefield…"
"Ruka is there," he said, voice low but firm. "And where my daughter goes, I follow."
The butler nodded. "As you wish."
A few kilometers away, General Kael ducked beneath a fire-slash and countered with Thousand Eyes foresight, narrowly missing Jack's throat.
"You fight well, Kael," Jack laughed, dust swirling around him. "Still as sharp as ever."
Kael flipped backward, his boots sliding through rubble. "You're stronger than you were. But so am I."
Jack smirked and stepped forward, unsealing a glyph from his wrist.
The world twisted.
Kael's eyes shimmered—multiple soul images appeared behind Jack, showing every possible move.
Jack lunged.
Kael saw the pattern—and dodged.
But Jack changed direction mid-strike, twisting magic through probability itself.
A dagger plunged into Kael's shoulder.
"You remembered my title," Jack whispered. "The Unblessed Legend. But you forgot the lesson—I bend the rules."
Kael snarled, eyes burning.
On the highest ridge, beneath a shattered sky, Leo and Ardy knelt, drenched in blood and ash.
Lightning cracked.
Their breathing was slow, labored. Every fiber of their body screamed.
Ardy's knuckles were bleeding. Leo's cloak was torn, his arm scorched with darkness.
"Why aren't you giving up?" Ardy asked, voice cracking.
Leo didn't answer immediately.
Then:
Ardy whispered, "Why, Leo?"
Leo coughed. "Because… I have someone to protect."
A pause.
Ardy looked down—and saw Ruka in his thoughts. Her soft smile. Her determination. Her tears the last time she begged him not to disappear.
Leo spoke next. "And you, Ardy… why aren't you giving up?"
Leo's voice was hoarse. "You should have won this already."
Ardy lifted his chin. "Because I want to save the world."
Leo chuckled through pain. "The world? Really?"
Ardy shook his head. "No. My world."
He looked forward. And saw Eno. Standing quietly in the fog.
And slowly… she faded.
Into Sylren.
Eyes gentle. Heart still. Gone forever.
Leo whispered, "So you know, Ardy…"
Ardy tilted his head. "What?"
Leo smiled—a broken, quiet smile.
"…What time it is."
Ardy nodded. Then smiled too.
Both stood.
They whispered together:
"Let's do this till the end."
And they charged again.
Fists. Fire. Shadows. Memory.
Everything collided—two brothers shaped by grief, charging toward collapse.