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As nine pillars of light punched into the heavens, an evil voice rolled out, echoing through every corner of Orario.
"Listen well, God Ouranos. In the name of the darkness that has become this era's notorious banner, I have come to pluck away the lower world's hope."
"Oath-breakers, promise-shirkers—The covenant forged between this land and the age of gods: I shall shatter it with my own hand."
"All of this is to draw forth the finest unknown—purest chaos—beyond even the gods' foresight."
Riding that exultant declaration, the speaker appeared with his champion atop the great cathedral in the city's northwest.
"I am Erebus—the primeval gloom, the god of the underworld below! Fragile ones… your name is Justice."
With the god's low intonation, the man at his side—Zald—brought a black greatsword down.
KRA-KOOM!!
At the instant the blade fell, everything before him disintegrated under a storm of radiance.
With every step he took, flames quivered. With every iron-strong slash, bodies burst apart and scattered. No one could halt his advance. Streets and towers that stood in his way were pulverized in a heartbeat.
"Most of the gods have been sent back to Heaven—just so much screeching noise."
"Adventurers, try stopping me with your strength."
"You're soft. So soft. Rotten fruit ready to cave in at a touch."
"I've only been giving you light taps. Haven't even bothered to devour. How much disappointment do you plan to feed me, Orario?"
Zald's voice thudded with leaden disdain. Once, the strongest Familias—Zeus and Hera—had been destroyed. If their successors proved weaker still, what right did they have to challenge the Dungeon?
No answer came back—only a silver lance that knifed down like a meteor, catching a perfect blind spot. Zald tilted his wrist; the lance tip scraped sparks from the vambrace on his unarmed left arm. With a casual knock—like rapping on a door—he sent the thrust awry.
From Zald's left-rear oblique, Allen Fromel—Freya Familia's vice-captain—stared stunned that his ambush had been brushed aside so lightly.
Without so much as a glance, Zald murmured, "Not bad. Fast—like the wind."
And then Allen's fur stood on end. A towering sense of peril crashed over him.
"But your force is only a breeze."
It happened in the space between words. Zald's palm shivered once; that alone blew Allen away.
"Rrrrragh!!"
Allen roared on sheer animal instinct, throwing his lance across his body as a shield while he shot backward. He skidded for dozens of meters before scraping to a stop.
"You're joking… this is…"
His heart pounded like a drum. The gulf between them was absolute. He couldn't even take one hit—absurd didn't begin to cover it.
No room to breathe. The black greatsword surged in like a breaking wave. Faster—faster even than Allen. He scraped together everything he had and barely got the lance up again.
BOOM!!
This time there was no pause. He was launched—straight up like a rocket, screaming into the distance.
Takumi, cutting through the air toward the battlefield, saw the incoming blur and lazily leaned aside.
Whoosh—
Allen streaked past, tumbling on toward a point a kilometer away. Half-conscious, he registered a dark figure whipping by and then blacked out entirely.
Hanging there above the streets, Takumi clicked his tongue, displeasure flicking across his face as he looked to Zald. "Sharp sense. You could feel me from that far and chose to toss me a catman for a greeting, huh?"
Before he could land, Freya Familia's captain Ottar made it to the square first. The moment he saw the face beneath that helm, his expression warped; sweat burst from his skin.
"Impossible… why are you here, Zald!?"
The "King," the mountain of might, had recognized the man. The psychic shock hit him like a hammer. Since the Zeus Familia's dissolution, Zald had disappeared without a trace. Everyone assumed him dead. No one imagined he'd join the Dark Faction.
Zald removed his helmet. Scars like beast-claw rakes crossed his face from brow to cheek, slashing across both eyes. "The strongest Familia vanished. I sought a battlefield that would suit me. …Is that unacceptable?"
"After the battle with the Behemoth, you withdrew from the front—rumors even said you'd died. Why, now of all times—!"
Ottar still couldn't make it add up. This was the man who had once taught him the very meaning of overwhelming might.
Zald didn't bother to explain. He raised that black blade and leveled the tip.
"I've lifted my sword. Are you really going to get hung up on an enemy's motive and forget how to fight?"
The line stilled Ottar's tongue. His great fists bunched like boulders. Zald chuckled.
"Steel yourself and come. Unless you want to be devoured."
"OOOAAAH!!"
Ottar bit down, roared from his core, and charged—like a war chariot crushing all before it—pouring speed, aura, and his entire body weight into a single blow.
"Too green."
The black greatsword fell again.
Speed, technique, momentum—everything Ottar had—was swatted aside with a flick. In the face of absolute strength, refined skill meant nothing at all.
When the blade landed, the city itself howled. Shockwaves ripped outward from ground zero; winds screamed; strata of pressure tore rubble into the sky. In burning Orario's heart, Zald's strike seared an emptiness into the map.
Where ruin had been piled waist-high a moment before, a football-field-sized void yawned.
Bones and muscle shredded inside his frame, Ottar became a cannonball
—smashing through wall after wall, plowing a furrow through the earth, cartwheeling for more than ten kilometers. Allen, only just blinking back to awareness, had time to lift his head before that massive body slammed into him like a falling boulder—and promptly knocked him back out.
With Ottar's fall, the Dark Faction erupted.
"Once a child of the greatest deities, now an apostle of the Dark—Zald has felled Freya Familia's mightiest save the Silence one! Comrades, praise him! Let Orario drown in despair!"
Olivas flung his arms wide and bellowed, and the soldiers answered, voices braided into a raucous hymn for Zald.
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