The wind shifted as the first ranks closed in.
Jin stood alone in the doorway, rain trailing down his face. The Saber rested easily in his hand, its etched steel gleaming as lightning crawled along the fuller. Below, the Moon's soldiers pressed forward in disciplined lines, each footstep marking the slope with another shallow grave of mud. Their helms reflected the last light of dusk, a thousand impassive masks.
Integration: 81%.
Kasane's voice came from behind.
"They're moving in force now."
"I know."
Her spear tapped lightly against the ruined lintel as she studied the ranks below.
"Even you can't kill them all."
Jin did not look at her.
"I don't need to."
The first wave advanced to within a dozen paces of the threshold. Shields raised, blades drawn. Their commander—a broad-shouldered man in lacquered black—lifted his sword and shouted.
"Jin of the Circuit! Submit!"
He did not reply.
The commander's sword dropped.
"Kill him."
The front ranks surged.
---
Jin moved.
The Saber came up in a slow arc, trailing sparks. The lightning he had held in check for days spilled outward in a lattice of blinding force. The first attackers hit the barrier and convulsed as white fire crawled over their armor. Their screams were torn away by the wind.
Kasane watched from the doorway, expression set.
Integration: 82%.
The second wave hesitated, blades wavering. Jin lowered the Saber, lightning curling around his arm in restless spirals.
"Go," he called.
No one moved.
He stepped forward. The mud sucked at his feet, but each pace felt lighter than the last, as if the Circuit had begun to lift him above the ordinary weight of the world.
A single figure broke from the ranks—tall, armored, her gauntlets carved with old glyphs. Commander Isayo. She planted her boots in the churned earth and raised both hands.
"Form the cage!"
Her soldiers shifted in practiced motion. Six circled Jin, each drawing a hooked talisman of etched bone. As one, they struck the earth.
The air shivered.
Jin felt the lattice of binding force surge up around him—a hexagonal cage of pale radiance. The mud hissed as the barrier sank into place.
Isayo stepped closer.
"You are not invincible," she called.
"This seal was carved for monsters like you."
Jin raised his gaze. Lightning sparked along his jaw, dancing in thin threads between his fingers.
Integration: 83%.
"You believe I am a monster?" he asked calmly.
Isayo's eyes narrowed.
"You left us no choice."
"No," he said softly.
"You came here because you wanted to see if you could break me."
She hesitated, just a fraction of a breath.
"You wanted proof that nothing is beyond your reach," Jin continued.
"That the old orders still matter."
Isayo did not speak.
Jin lifted one hand. Sparks trailed upward, pressing against the lattice that confined him.
"I am done pretending."
The lightning poured out in a single, blinding wave.
---
The seal shattered like glass under a hammer. The six soldiers who had held it screamed as arcs of white fire crawled up their arms and flung them backward into the mud.
Isayo staggered, her gauntlets smoking.
"Fall back!" she shouted hoarsely.
But her order came too late.
Jin strode through the ruin of the barrier, each step sending ripples of force across the trampled slope. When he swung the Saber, the blade split the air with a crack of thunder. The nearest soldier fell without a sound, chest opened by a seam of incandescent energy.
Integration: 85%.
Daigo watched from the vault's threshold, hands clutched to his mouth. Kasane stood at his side, silent.
Below them, Jin turned in a slow arc.
"This is your last chance," he called.
"Leave."
The rain hissed into sudden silence. All that remained was the low, steady hum of the Circuit rising to claim him.
Isayo straightened. Her armor smoked where lightning had scored it, but her grip on her sword was unbroken.
"No," she said.
"This ends now."
She raised the blade.
"All lines forward!"
The slope erupted in motion.
---
They came as a wall. Black-lacquered shields locked in a line that swallowed the churned ground, swords bristling in perfect discipline. At their center, Isayo advanced, her weapon leveled.
Jin lifted the Saber and let the lightning gather.
Integration: 86%.
When he spoke, the words resonated through the rain and the waiting hearts beyond the ridge.
"Crown of Resonance," he whispered.
"Come to me."
For an instant, everything stopped.
The rain hung in the air like frozen glass. The wind died. Even the heartbeat of the world seemed to pause.
And then the storm answered.
---
The lightning struck him in silence. No thunder, no roar—just an impossibly bright pillar that consumed him utterly. Every eye on the slope turned away. Every blade lowered.
Kasane flinched, shielding Daigo with her body as the vault shuddered around them.
When the glare faded, Jin still stood.
But he was changed.
The Saber in his hand was no longer dull steel. Its edge burned white, a blade of pure resonance. The lightning that crawled over his body had settled into lines—fine traceries of pale radiance that traced his veins and pooled in the hollows of his eyes.
Integration: 90%.
He raised the blade.
The storm moved with him.
---
Isayo's voice cracked as she screamed her final command.
"Advance!"
But the ranks hesitated.
Jin took one step forward.
The ground split.
From his feet, a lattice of lightning tore across the slope in branching fissures. The nearest soldiers were flung back as the earth cracked open, spilling light and force in a torrent that seared the mud to glass.
He moved again—this time in a blur the eye could not track. One moment he stood at the threshold; the next he was among them. The Saber swung in a slow, inevitable arc.
Where it passed, men fell.
---
Kasane watched, her expression carved from stone.
"He's no longer…" she began.
Daigo's voice was a whisper.
"Human."
But she did not look away.
Integration: 91%.
---
Jin moved through the ranks like a wind no blade could touch. Each step carried him in a slow spiral down the slope. The Saber burned brighter with every heartbeat, its edge leaving afterimages that seared the eyes.
The Eclipsed Moon's lines collapsed. What had begun as a measured assault became a rout. Soldiers stumbled over one another to escape, abandoning shields and standards in the sucking mud.
Isayo alone did not retreat.
She raised her sword in both hands, face set in a mask of grim determination.
"Jin!" she called.
He stopped ten paces from her.
"I will not yield," she said.
He studied her in silence. Lightning crawled up the blade in his hand, shedding pale sparks that hissed into the rain.
"I know," he said at last.
And then he lowered the Saber.
---
Isayo's eyes widened.
"You…will not strike me down?"
Jin's gaze did not waver.
"Your death serves nothing."
Her jaw tightened.
"You will let me live to hunt you again?"
He turned away, the lightning slowly guttering along his skin.
"Leave," he said.
"And tell the Moon what you saw."
---
Behind him, she stood unmoving as the rain fell between them. For a moment, it seemed she might lunge forward, strike him in the back as he walked away.
But she did not.
When he reached the ruined threshold, Kasane stepped aside to let him pass.
Daigo swallowed, voice trembling.
"What happens now?"
Jin did not look back at
the broken slope, the scattered remnants of the army that had come to end him.
He closed his eyes.
"Integration: ninety-two percent."
The storm that waited beyond that threshold stirred again in his veins, vast and patient.
"Now," he said,
"We finish this."