The void howled.
Every swing of the Oathlord's blade tore rifts into the nothingness, black flames dripping from its edge like blood from an endless wound. The silvery threads of Kento's oath writhed and cracked as they clashed, each impact reverberating through his very bones.
Kento staggered, knees bending under the crushing weight of the clash. Sweat rolled down his temple, stinging his eyes. His chest burned with every breath, as though inhaling shards of glass.
"Damn it…!" He bit down, his voice hoarse. "If this keeps up, I'll be shredded apart."
But he didn't falter. His grip on the threads tightened, pulling more of his spirit into them, weaving them into barriers, shields, desperate strikes. Sparks of silver collided with fire-black void, casting twisted shadows across the battlefield.
The Oathlord advanced with inexorable fury. His armor, fractured and ancient, clanged with each step, yet no weakness showed in his stride. The flames in his eyes burned not with life, but with a curse that would not die.
"Child of a new oath," the Oathlord growled, his voice like crumbling stone. "Your thread sings—but it will break. All vows break. That is the only truth."
Kento gritted his teeth. "Not mine! Not this one!"
Silver flared around him, spiraling into a whirlwind of light. For a brief moment, he thought he gained the upper hand. His threads lashed forward, slicing through the void, wrapping around the Oathlord's blade. With a shout, he pulled, trying to disarm him.
But the Oathlord didn't move. Instead, he leaned forward, letting the silver bind him—before his flames surged outward in a violent eruption.
The silver threads screamed, snapping one by one, as if they were living veins torn apart. The backlash hurled Kento backward, spinning him through the void until he crashed into nothingness solidified into a floor of black glass.
His lungs emptied in a ragged gasp. He tasted iron in his mouth.
"…Ugh…!" He forced himself to his knees, body trembling, vision blurred. The Oathlord stood above him, shadowed against a storm of black fire, like a god of ruin incarnate.
And then—
Through the roar of collapsing void, a voice slithered into his mind.
Not Furi.
Not the Child of the First Promise.
Something older.
Kento… do you know whose oath I carry?
Kento froze, eyes darting around, searching for the source. But the voice didn't come from outside. It echoed from the very chains of fire wrapped around the Oathlord himself.
For a heartbeat, Kento forgot to breathe.
The Oathlord's movements slowed. His blade lowered. The storm of black fire stilled, as if listening to its own voice.
And in that silence, Kento felt it.
The resonance.
A broken heartbeat—yet still alive.
The Oathlord spoke again, but this time, not with rage. His tone carried something heavier. Something mournful.
---The silence was unbearable.
Black fire still smoldered around the Oathlord, but it no longer lashed wildly. It flickered—hesitant, as though torn between fury and something buried deeper.
Kento staggered back to his feet, clutching his ribs, silver threads still twitching faintly around his arms. He narrowed his eyes, trying to make sense of what he had just heard.
"…Whose oath you carry?" he rasped. "What do you mean by that?"
The Oathlord lowered his blade. For the first time since their clash began, the figure did not strike. Instead, his helm tilted downward, and the flames in his eyes dimmed—not extinguished, but softened, glowing like dying embers.
"You fight with the arrogance of the young," the Oathlord said slowly. His voice was deep, but the jagged edge of rage had dulled into something sorrowful. "You think vows are weapons. You think oaths are chains you can wield. But an oath… is a burden heavier than blood."
Kento's throat tightened. Something in that tone felt too human.
The Oathlord raised one hand. The black fire around it swirled—and suddenly, the void twisted, pulling Kento into a storm of images.
He fell through memory.
A temple of white stone beneath a bleeding red sky. Warriors in silver armor kneeling, pressing their hands to their hearts. At their center stood a man—not yet the monstrous Oathlord, but a guardian. His voice rang like thunder as he declared:
"I swear upon this life, this soul, and the heavens above—no harm shall ever touch my people."
Kento gasped as the memory tore through him. It was not just sight. He felt it. The weight of that vow, pure and radiant, flooding the heart with fire that was not destructive, but protective.
Then came the shattering.
The same people who once knelt turned away. Their faces blurred in the memory, but their contempt cut sharper than blades. Abandonment. Betrayal. The vow's fire faltered. The man who swore it reached out—but no one reached back.
And so the oath twisted.
The temple burned. The vow blackened. Silver became ash. Fire became ruin.
The vision cracked apart, hurling Kento back into the void battlefield. He fell to one knee, chest heaving, eyes wide with the afterimage.
"…That was… you."
The Oathlord's laugh was hollow, the sound of stone splitting under pressure.
"It was me. Once, I swore to protect. But when faith died, when promises shattered… my vow consumed me. It remade me into this."
His flames roared higher again, but their heat was unstable, flickering like a candle in storm.
"I am no guardian now. I am a husk. A broken oath given form."
Kento clenched his fists, silver threads sparking to life around him again. His voice shook, not with fear, but with anger.
"Then you're not my enemy. You're not a monster. You're just someone chained to betrayal."
The Oathlord's body jerked. The flames surged violently, as if rejecting the words. His roar cracked the void apart.
"Do not pity me! Do not insult me with mercy! An oath once broken cannot be mended—it can only demand blood!"
The battlefield trembled as the Oathlord raised his blade once more, black fire coursing along its edge like rivers of molten night. Yet behind the rage, Kento could still feel it—
The heartbeat of a vow that had once been pure.
---The battlefield quaked as if the void itself recoiled from the Oathlord's fury. Shards of black glass lifted from the floor, spinning into the storm of fire that wrapped his colossal frame.
Kento's heart pounded. He could still feel the echo of the vision—the promise that had once burned bright, now twisted into chains of ruin. That heaviness wasn't just memory. It pressed on his chest, choking, demanding he acknowledge it.
This is what happens when a vow is broken, the voice in his mind whispered, deep and bitter. This is what awaits you if you falter. If you fail Furi. If you fail yourself.
Kento's silver threads quivered violently, resonating with the storm. He grit his teeth, forcing the panic back.
"No… that's not what has to happen."
The Oathlord raised his blade high, black fire splitting the void sky. "Then show me, boy! Show me a vow that does not break!"
The sword fell—
—and Kento surged forward, silver light exploding from his body.
Threads lanced upward, forming a shield that caught the blade. The impact rattled his bones; his knees buckled. Sparks screamed across the void as silver strained against black. For a moment, the shield cracked.
Kento roared, pouring everything into it. "I won't let this end the same way yours did!"
The threads flared, not with raw power, but with conviction. His thoughts weren't only of survival—they were of Furi, of the promise he made beneath that star-stained sky. The vow that had guided every step of his journey.
And the silver threads responded.
They didn't just block. They wove around the Oathlord's blade, spiraling up his arm, wrapping his burning form. The silver tangled with the black fire, sparks cascading like meteors as two vows collided.
The Oathlord snarled, struggling, the flames around him surging in defiance.
"You dare bind me?!"
Kento's voice cracked, but it carried, raw and unyielding.
"You said a broken oath can only demand blood. But you're wrong. Even shattered vows can be rewritten—!"
The threads constricted, silver bleeding into black. For a brief moment, the Oathlord's armored form flickered—
And beneath the flames, Kento glimpsed the man he once was. Tired eyes. A scarred face. A guardian who once swore to protect.
The Oathlord froze. His blade trembled. The fire roared higher as if in denial, but his voice wavered.
"…Rewrite…? You speak madness…"
Kento stepped forward, silver blazing around him. His own voice rose, breaking through the storm:
"Then I'll prove it! I'll carry your vow along with mine—and I'll show you it doesn't have to end in ruin!"
The silver threads burst outward, binding the Oathlord completely in a cocoon of light. The black fire clashed violently, screaming, resisting. The void itself split into two horizons—one drenched in silver, the other in endless night.
And in that moment of collision, as the battlefield tore apart—
Kento felt it.
A crack—not in his threads, but in the chains of fire binding the Oathlord.
For the first time, the curse wavered.
The Oathlord let out a sound that was not rage, but grief. His head lowered, his grip loosening.
"…If you can… then perhaps… my oath… was not in vain."
The black fire erupted one last time, engulfing them both in searing heat.
And the chapter ended—
not in victory, not in defeat—
but in the trembling space between destruction and rebirth.
---