Silence had settled over the ashes.
The ground still trembled, heavy with muffled cries and the smell of burnt blood.
Kael remained kneeling.
His left arm missing, head bowed, motionless. He no longer spoke. He barely breathed.
Hiro gritted his teeth.
There was nothing left to count. Just the remains of a ruined battlefield.
Oren, beside him, gazed toward the horizon.
Then he finally spoke.
— "They're coming."
From the north, south, west, and east, four groups of humans approached.
Fleeing. Screaming. Each chased by a deformed giant.
— "Again?!" Kohaku shouted.
— "They're bringing us the apocalypse," Kubira growled.
The civilians had only their legs, their screams… and their fear.
Among the newcomers, some still bore the marks of long battles. They weren't as famous as Kael or Oren, but their names echoed among the survivors.
Lima, slender and silent, controlled ice. She could raise massive frozen spikes from the ground to pierce her enemies.
Next to her walked Rhan, whose strange power was to solidify the air itself, creating walls sharp as blades.
Ezra, with sharp eyes and a nervous body, possessed extraordinary speed: he could duplicate himself for a few seconds, appearing in multiple places at once.
Tenna carried an old bandage wrapped around her arm. She had the gift to heal others' wounds… but each healing took a toll on her own body.
Further away stood Miro, whose arms could transform into blades of pure shadow, and Vahl, a mysterious illusionist capable of creating physical reflections so perfect they could distract a monster… if only for a moment.
Jiro, broad and muscular, generated powerful shockwaves from his own aura. One strike could unbalance a giant… if he didn't miss.
Finally, Ayra, with brown hair tied in braids, controlled roots and earth. Beneath her feet, the ground opened, grasped, or sliced, obeying her silent commands.
Oren ordered:
— "Form up. Everyone."
Kubira, Hiro, and Kohaku moved into position.
— "Master!" Kohaku shouted. "We can still win!"
— "Not win," Oren replied. "Survive."
The four giants charged.
The ground exploded. Screams burst forth.
Lima launched spikes of ice beneath a giant's feet. It stumbled but crushed her under its fall.
Ezra tried to run behind another to strike its neck. He succeeded but was swept away by a backhand. His skull hit a wall.
Tenna saved two wounded civilians, dragging them from a collapse. A chunk of wall fell on her.
Vahl created an illusion of an explosion to fool a giant. It worked. But the second giant wasn't fooled… and crushed him with a heel strike.
Jiro sent a shockwave too close. He lost control. The recoil threw him into the air. He fell… into the hand of a giant.
The battle was brutal. Fire, earth, electricity, ice… everything was mobilized. Three giants fell.
One pierced by shadow blades.
Another strangled by roots tightened like cables.
The third struck by Kubira's lightning and shattered by Hiro.
The survivors screamed.
It was over. Only one remained.
But as the last giant retreated, the ground gave way.
A viscous mass emerged.
The octopus-elephant.
Its pierced eye oozed purple, smoking blood. Its back was covered with black crusts. It stood lower… but it breathed.
— "No…" Ayra whispered. "Not him…"
The octopus opened its mouth. It did not attack.
It absorbed the last giant.
Slowly engulfed it, tentacle by tentacle. The body disappeared into its gelatinous mass.
Then it writhed. Its shape broke apart. It changed.
Its legs thickened, its torso covered with a distorted shell, its single eye doubled in size.
It became half giant, half octopus, a malformed flesh aberration.
It no longer regenerated.
But it breathed.
And it waited.
The survivors gathered.
Oren looked at his students: Kubira, Hiro, Kohaku. All wounded, but standing.
— "It's him," he said. "The last one. The one you must not face alone."
On the ground, Kael turned his head. He looked at Keita.
While the protectors' cries echoed across the plain, while the dust of battle smothered faces and fire tore at the sky, Kael remained kneeling.
He didn't move. Not since the last assault. His arm was still missing, but no blood had flowed.
Beside him, Keita, still shocked, kept staring at the ruined field.
Yuna stood apart, her hand resting on Keita's shoulder, watching Kael out of the corner of her eye.
Then, without warning, Kael's body began to glow softly.
— "Huh?..." Keita whispered.
Multicolored particles detached from his back. One by one.
As if his body was dissolving into the air.
Kael slowly turned his head toward him.
— "I don't have much time left."
— "What?! Wait, is this a joke?!"
Kael sighed.
— "Listen. You need to know. You finally have to understand. Not because I care about you… but because I have no choice."
A desolate scene slowly formed in Keita's mind.
A village, or what was left of it.
Debris, screams, fire. A collapsed house.
A small bloodied boy stood, knees scraped, tears streaming down his ash-blackened face.
— "Dad?! Mom?!"
A woman's voice moaned beneath the rubble. Keita's mother, kneeling, tried to pull the trapped arm of her husband, whose torso was caught under stones.
And behind her, in the shadows, a monster with deformed limbs approached.
Kael spoke, from the back of the memory:
— "That day… a monster attacked your home. You weren't yet in this city. You had no powers. You were… just a child."
Little Keita, seeing the creature approach his mother, screamed in terror, then… something inside him broke.
His eyes turned white, pupil-less. His body lit up.
And in a flash, he leapt, striking the creature with a power no child should have.
— "…It can't be… that's me?..." Keita murmured, trembling.
— "You awakened your power. Brutally. But your body was too weak."
In the memory, little Keita spat blood, trembled, and collapsed unconscious.
Kael continued, his voice growing colder:
— "Your father… still trapped beneath the rubble… used his last strength to save you."
A glowing circle appeared beneath the unconscious child. A light escaped it, tearing from his body.
— "He expelled your power. To protect you. And that power… was me."
Keita stepped back, pale.
— "Wait, what?… You're the one… inside me?..."
— "I'm not 'inside' you, Keita. I am you. What you should have become."
— "Wh… what?..."
Yuna, shocked, dared not speak. Her gaze flickered between Kael and Keita, uncertain.
— "That's why I've always protected you," Kael continued.
"Not because I like you. Quite the opposite.
If you die… I die too."
Kael's particles continued detaching. But now, they no longer scattered into the air.
They entered Keita's body.
One by one.
— "And you want to know the truth, Keita? I hate you."
— "…What…?" Keita stammered.
Kael lifted his glasses with one hand. His eye sockets were empty. He never had eyes.
— "I was never accepted. Neither by men nor monsters.
I lived in your world like a monster, rejected, hunted…
Because I had no eyes, no soul in their eyes.
That's why I wore these glasses. So people would look away, instead of facing me."
— "I… I didn't know…" Keita whispered.
— "You were a weak kid. And I suffered in your place.
All your suffering… I carried it."
The last particles left Kael. Only a glowing fragment floated before Keita.
— "Don't think I gave you a choice.
You trapped me. Now I'm coming back."
The final fragment entered Keita's chest.
A violent breath surrounded his body.
Yuna was pushed back a step. Even the ground vibrated.
At that exact moment…
A monstrous roar shook the skies.
The octopus-giant appeared in the distance, fused, deformed, abominable.
Keita reopened his eyes. They had no pupils.
Yuna stepped back, throat tight.
— "Keita… are you… alright?"
He did not answer. He looked at her with terrifying calm.
The monster remained silent. It did not move forward. It did not attack.
It waited.
Its fused, immense eye beat like a monstrous heart.
Its deformed limbs twitched slightly, tense as a predator.
Facing it, Keita advanced.
Eyes pupil-less, breath quick, arms still trembling.
He had just reintegrated an ancient power, but… this power was not yet fully his own.
He attacked. A blast, a leap, a strike.
The monster blocked without moving. With a sweep of a tentacle.
Keita was thrown against a rock. He got up, grimacing.
— "Keita!" Yuna shouted.
He slowly nodded.
— "I'm fine… It's just… too heavy. Too… dense."
Yuna looked at him sadly.
She alone knew what he had just endured. What Kael had revealed to him.
But no one else knew.
Around them, the surviving civilians watched the scene, paralyzed.
There were twenty of them.
Some trembled. Others cried.
All had seen Kael disappear, all had heard the beast's roar.
A heavy silence settled.
Then, a boy — Dayo, the one with the sharp eyes — stepped forward.
He shouted:
— "Look at him! This guy keeps getting up again and again, even though he knows he's weaker than that thing! He's still fighting! And we just stand here like stones?!"
— "But… we don't have powers!" Sanae shouted.
Dayo clenched his fists.
— "Maybe… because we don't deserve to have them yet."
Silence.
Then he screamed with all his might:
— "Maybe it's by running toward death that we become what we should have been!"
Without waiting for a reply, he started running. Straight at the monster.
— "HE'S RIGHT!" Malik shouted, following him.
— "For once… we just have to jump, not think!" Léana said.
Twenty civilians started running. Shouting. Screaming.
Some with rage. Others with fear.
Keita, on the ground, watched them. Eyes wide.
— "No… what are you doing?!"
— "They're… running to their death," Hiro stammered, shocked.
And that's what happened.
The monster raised a deformed arm.
Three of them were crushed.
The noise was horrific. Screams. Then silence.
But the other seventeen did not stop.
And then it happened.
Their bodies glowed.
Slowly at first. Then violently.
A golden and bluish light surrounded each of them.
The ground shook. The sky seemed to pulse.
Kubira, panting, half stood up.
— "They… they're awakening their powers…"
Yuna, in tears, whispered:
— "They deserved it."
Keita, on the ground, clenched his fists.
Behind him, seventeen new fighters rose.
Bodies burning with energy.
Eyes filled with newfound will.
And this time, the monster… took a step forward.