The Lioness was the first to see it.
Her breath caught mid-motion, eyes widening as if she'd just glimpsed the sun die. The faint crown above Moonveil's head—visible only to those with divine lineage—had shifted. What had been a soft green glow, the mark of a demigod bound to an ancient pact, now blazed white.
Not pale, not muted, but pure. Like a star forced too close to earth.
Her knees buckled. The ground caught her. She clutched at the air and felt nothing but cold.
"Oh gods…" she whispered, voice trembling. "He's not… he's not supposed to have that."
Palisade turned toward her. "Lioness? What do you—"
But the rest of her words died in a strangled gasp. Her lips moved, mouthing a single phrase that the others could not understand—something old and forbidden, the kind of language that had been lost when the pantheons fell. Her pupils dilated, reflecting not the chamber around them but something unseen, something above it.
Then she fell to her knees, shaking, as if the act of witnessing had stolen her strength.
Across the chamber, Shiloh Kane didn't notice—or didn't care. She was already ascending into fury.
The energy pouring from her body was visible now, a storm of blue-white lightning tracing the veins in her hands, making the floor crack beneath her boots. The sword in her grip glowed bright enough to bleach the air.
"Containment field is failing!" someone shouted.
"Get Gaidan!"
"Where is Gaidan?"
"Unresponsive! His signal's gone dark!"
The command room dissolved into chaos. Heroes who'd been stationed as witnesses began backing away, whispering into comms, half-heartedly activating defensive barriers they already knew were meaningless. A few of the bravest drew their weapons; the rest ran.
Kane's eyes were electric fire. "Enough," she said, the word thrumming through the walls. "You wanted a fight, demigod? Then fight me."
Marc exhaled slowly. His calm was unbearable. The glowing mask began to spread over his face again, the death symbol returning—a spectral skull carved of moonlight, the crescent on his chest flaring to match. His presence pressed down on the air like gravity remembering it had rules.
Lioness watched, trembling. "No…" she whispered. "That's not power. That's—"
Her words failed. The crown above him pulsed once, then changed.
The green was gone. White burned where it had been.
She could feel the difference. Green meant harmony—divinity shared. White was sovereignty. Authority.
It meant he wasn't carrying Tecciztecatl's blessing anymore.
He was carrying his own.
Lioness gasped and fell fully to the ground, eyes wide with recognition and horror. "He's… ascending. He's replacing him."
But her voice was lost in the noise.
The room had erupted into shouts, orders, and the crackle of rising energy. Shiloh Kane was at full power now—her aura flooding the chamber like a second sun. She was called the Strongest for a reason. When she fought, cities trembled. When she unleashed, entire armies would rather sign treaties than face her wrath.
Even now, the air itself bent toward her as she raised her sword.
And yet…
When she charged, Marc met her bare-handed.
Their collision shook the dome. Light burst from the impact, shards of it spraying across the chamber like sparks from a forge. Kane's sword screamed against the invisible barrier of his will. Then, with a sound like thunder cut in half, it broke.
The blade shattered into glowing fragments that scattered through the air, each ember fading before it touched the ground.
Kane blinked, disbelieving. "No…"
Marc tilted his head, smiling faintly. "You talk too much."
A second later, she summoned another sword. From pure energy this time—white-hot, pulsing with fury.
Marc sighed. "I don't have time for this bullshit."
He moved.
To the spectators, it was impossible to follow. His body blurred, every motion a perfect intersection of divine instinct and human rage. The ground split under his heels, shockwaves rippling out like the beating of colossal wings. Kane parried one strike, barely; the next tore the energy from her weapon.
Each time she tried to counter, he was already behind her. Each strike came from an angle that shouldn't have existed.
In seconds, the court's strongest warrior—Shiloh Kane, the woman who had defeated gods and crushed nations—was on the defensive.
And losing ground.
Her breathing grew ragged, her attacks less precise. The power that once made her unstoppable now churned out of her uncontrollably, exploding in bursts that tore apart marble and steel. The other heroes could only stare as the two blurred into chaos—a dance of ruin between a god ascending and a legend collapsing.
"Pull her back!" someone yelled. "Contain them!"
"Contain them? Are you insane? That's Shiloh Kane!"
"And he's beating her like she's nothing!"
Lioness managed to lift her head, her vision swimming. "You don't understand," she whispered, though no one heard. "He's no longer Moonveil. He's becoming something else. The moon isn't his master anymore… it's his weapon."
Kane struck again, putting everything into one last swing. The energy flared, brighter than the sun.
Marc caught her blade mid-swing, fingers closing around the edge. Sparks flared as divine steel met the force of a god's will—and then, with a single squeeze, he crushed it.
The sword shattered.
The force of it threw Kane back several meters. She landed hard, coughing, dust rising around her like smoke.
The room was silent except for the sound of her breathing and the distant, rhythmic hum of the containment field struggling to stay intact.
Marc stepped forward slowly, each footfall leaving a faint crescent imprint glowing on the floor.
"You're done," he said.
Kane's teeth gritted. She pushed herself up, fury replacing fear. "Not yet."
Her aura flared again—one last desperate surge. She hurled herself at him.
He sidestepped easily, catching her by the arm, and flung her over his shoulder as though she weighed nothing. She slammed into the wall, the impact sending cracks spider-webbing through the marble.
Still, she rose again.
Her defiance might have been admirable if it weren't so futile.
Marc grabbed her by the throat and lifted her effortlessly, his other hand glowing faintly with lunar light. For a second, it seemed he would finish it—that the fight would end the same way it had for Juarez, in blood and divine judgment.
But something stopped him.
A memory, sharp and human, pierced through the storm.
Alexia's voice, soft and trembling, the night before he left.
> "Heroes don't just make hope, Marc. They protect it. Promise me you'll remember that."
He froze. The light in his hand dimmed. His breathing slowed.
Then, with a controlled motion, he released Kane.
She dropped to the ground, gasping.
He turned to the stunned assembly, his death-mask face expressionless, eyes cold.
"Who's next?"
No one answered.
The Lioness, still on her knees, looked up at him with the eyes of someone seeing not a man but an inevitability. "He stopped," she whispered. "He chose to stop."
The others didn't hear her. They couldn't. They were too busy reeling from what they'd just witnessed.
For the first time in recorded history, someone had stood against Shiloh Kane—the Strongest—and not only survived… but won.
Marc's form seemed to shimmer for a moment, his aura fading. The death mask dissolved, revealing his own face again. But the crown remained, white and bright as the morning star.
He looked down at Kane, still struggling to rise. His voice, when he spoke, carried neither pride nor anger. Just truth.
"You think strength makes you right," he said. "But all it does is make your fall louder."
He turned toward the others, eyes sweeping across every hero, every demigod, every symbol of the world's supposed justice. "This is what your order does—condemn the only ones who act. Fear those who do what you won't."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Even the containment field stopped humming, as though afraid to intrude.
Moonveil took one last breath, then looked skyward through the shattered dome of the chamber. The sunlight filtered through, bathing him in gold and white.
He exhaled, the faintest smile ghosting his lips.
"Tell your gods," he said quietly, "the moon remembers."
And with that, he vanished—leaving only the echo of his voice and a broken sword glinting in the dust.
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