The hunter's arrow still smoldered in the earth, pulsing with constellation-born code. A silver trail of energy spiraled upward from the shaft, vanishing into the cloudless sky as though marking a countdown.
Erza crouched beside it, his fingers brushing the burned words:
"The Archer Sees. Run."
Not a warning.
A challenge.
A declaration.
⭓ The Eastern Verge – March of the Lion
A day passed. Then two.
The squad moved under low stars and tense silence. The Eastern Verge, a landscape of sun-baked ruins and shattered constellite obelisks, loomed like a mythic graveyard. Each mile they crossed was under the unseen gaze of Kaerax.
They could feel it.
The pressure.
The watchfulness.
"Like walking through a memory that isn't yours," Seris muttered, eyes flicking skyward.
"Not memory," Korr said. "It's predictive range. He's already seen us walking here. A hundred ways."
Erza exhaled. "We change the script."
⭓ Nightfall — Sigil Storm
Lysra had set up a predictive dome, lining the nearby ravine with anti-impact glyphs. Auren had climbed one of the higher arches, stargazing with an arrow nocked. Korr was pacing.
Erza stood in the center of their makeshift camp, unmoving.
Then came the shift.
The stars above warped.
Not dimmed.
Bent.
Suddenly, six arrows rained from the sky—searing through the atmosphere without sound. Auren barely shouted before impact.
"—Scatter!"
Erza blurred forward, grabbing Seris and vaulting sideways as a myth-charged bolt exploded behind them. It didn't hit the ground—it struck the space around it, rewriting where impact existed.
Reality folded. Ground tore.
Korr vanished into mist and dodged into the next layer of dimension.
Lysra's dome flared, buying three seconds before fracturing.
Another arrow struck.
This one was silent.
A blur of pure trajectory.
It pierced a tree, a rock, and a memory—Auren gasped, eyes wide. "I just saw him—three minutes from now—killing me."
Seris pulled her blades free, cutting through falling debris. "He's marking us. Hunting through probability."
Erza clenched his fists.
"Then we stop running."
He reached into his core, drawing from Leo. His flames ignited—slower than usual, but denser. Golden. Heavy.
Celestial Drive: Ember King's Ascension.
A burning halo crowned him.
The next arrow came.
And he caught it.
Mid-air.
With his bare hand.
⭓ Kaerax, the Void-Chained Archer
Far above—on a ridge untouched by time—Kaerax watched through a shifting lens of folded reality. His bow thrummed with the tempo of orbit. Beside him floated a constellation wheel, etched with predictions, turning endlessly.
He smiled faintly.
"Leo adapts."
He turned the wheel.
The paths shifted.
"But the lion bleeds before it roars."
He drew four arrows—each one from a different future.
⭓ War Plan Revised
Back at the shattered ridge, Lysra recalibrated her sigil drones. "He's using something called Trajectory Dominion. He doesn't fire at where we are, but at the moment we step into ourselves."
Erza wiped blood from his lip. The last arrow had skimmed his ribs—three seconds ahead of his parry.
"So we become unpredictable," he said.
Korr nodded. "We scatter across myth threads. Fight from outside our roles."
Seris stepped beside him. "You've been chosen by Leo. Let Leo do more than burn."
Erza nodded.
"Let's make him miss."
⭓ The Counter-Hunt
Night fell again.
The squad split.
Auren and Lysra set holographic projections spinning through the field—dozens of illusory positions mapped to false myth signals.
Korr leapt between shadows, leaving decoys in folded space.
Seris climbed the ruined tower, sword drawn like a mirrored fang.
And Erza…
Erza climbed the highest peak.
Alone.
He set no fire.
No signal.
Only breath.
"Come on," he whispered.
"I'm done playing prey."
⭓ The Clash of Myth
Kaerax's arrow came in silence—ripping toward Erza like a whispered death sentence.
But Erza was already moving.
Aether flared underfoot. He weaved between myth layers, learning from Leo's memories of battle. He dodged the first, deflected the second, and let the third cut him—just enough to read the archer's pattern.
His flame ignited again—this time in a spiral, not a surge.
He shouted:
"Solar Fang: Roarfall!"
He launched.
Through air.
Through memory.
Straight at Kaerax.
Kaerax's eyes widened.
He twisted probability—
But Erza's strike didn't come from this version of himself. It came from the other one—a mirrored afterimage echoing from an hour ahead.
Impact.
Flame met prediction.
Steel met myth.
Both crashed from the sky.
⭓ Ending Scene: The Aftershock
Kaerax bled.
Erza stood, barely upright, scorched and panting.
The Gate pulsed behind them—partially closed.
Kaerax knelt and looked up, smiling.
"You're more dangerous than I thought, lion cub."
Then, with a shimmer of future dust, he vanished—retreating into a different constellation layer.
Erza collapsed.
Seris caught him before he fell fully.
"You're not just surviving anymore," she said softly.
"You're leading."
End of Chapter 19