The world froze.
One moment, chaos—the roar of a subdued Kuro-Okami, the tremors of a collapsing cavern, the ragged breaths of his companions.
The next, absolute silence.
It was broken by the leader of the Eclipsed Church hunters, his voice a dry rasp that scraped against the stones. "I will not ask again. Who commands the forbidden sun?"
His blade, a jagged piece of night etched with runes that drank the light, remained unerringly pointed at Shuya.
Before Shuya could form a word, the yokai girl moved.
She didn't step in front of him. She didn't posture or threaten. She simply appeared at his side, her presence shifting from amused spectator to something ancient and territorial.
"These are not hunters," she murmured, her voice losing its playful chime. "They are fanatics. Blades of the Eclipsed Moon. They don't capture. They excise."
Ronan found his voice, hoarse with disbelief. "The Eclipsed Church? Here? What could they possibly want with a rookie adventurer in a goblin nest?"
The leader's hollow gaze didn't waver. "The aura of a nascent sun has been detected. A heresy against the natural order. A threat to the Eclipse. It will be extinguished."
His blank helmet turned slightly toward the subdued Kuro-Okami, then back to Shuya. "You subdued a high yokai with presence alone. There is no other explanation. You are the source."
Shuya's mind raced. Forbidden sun? It had to be his aura—that calm, radiant warmth that had effortlessly crushed the goblins and dominated the wolf king. To these people, it wasn't a power. It was a sin.
He met the leader's void-like gaze, his own expression serene. "I don't know what you're talking about."
It was the truth, but it sounded like a lie even to his own ears.
The leader made a sharp, chopping motion with his free hand. "Seize him. Kill the yokai. The others are irrelevant."
The dozen armored figures surged forward. Their movements were unnervingly synchronized, devoid of the chaotic fury of goblins or the primal rage of the Kuro-Okami. This was a clinical, practiced butchery.
"Shuya!" Seren cried out, her staff flaring with a desperate blue light. A barrier of ice shimmered into existence between them and the lead hunter.
The hunter didn't break stride. He simply touched the ice with his runed blade, and the magic unraveled, dissolving into mist with a hiss. Seren gasped, stumbling back as if struck.
Ronan roared, hefting his greatsword. "You'll not have him while I draw breath!" He brought the massive blade down in a crushing arc aimed at the leader's head.
The leader didn't dodge. He flicked his wrist.
CLANG.
A smaller, hooked dagger—one no one had seen him draw—caught the greatsword's edge. There was no flash of light, no burst of energy. Ronan's powerful swing simply… stopped. The immense kinetic energy vanished, absorbed into the runes on the dagger. With a contemptuous twist, the leader wrenched the greatsword from Ronan's grip, sending it clattering across the stone.
Ronan stared at his empty hands, dumbfounded.
They were outmatched. Completely.
Shuya watched it happen, a cold clarity settling over him. His Calm Dominance aura, which had so effortlessly handled monsters, was doing nothing. These men felt no fear. They felt no intimidation. They were empty vessels for a single, fanatical purpose.
They were the absolute counter to his power.
The first hunter reached him, a gloved hand shooting out to grab his arm.
Mirror Fist triggered.
The hunter's wrist snapped with a sickening crunch.
He made no sound. He didn't even flinch. His other hand, moving with the same mechanical precision, grabbed Shuya's throat.
This time, the recoil was different. Softer. The hunter's grip loosened slightly, his own throat constricting, but he didn't release. He was prepared for it. He was absorbing the rebound.
"They've trained for this," the yokai girl hissed, her form beginning to blur at the edges. "They know how to mitigate reflection magic. Your trick won't save you here."
Two more hunters closed in, their movements a mirror of the first. Shuya's world narrowed to the hands reaching for him. He fell back on the only thing he had left—the muscle memory of the champion he used to be.
He moved.
It wasn't the sluggish, desperate flailing of his death in the alleyway. It was the flowing, economical motion of the Iron Phoenix. He weaved between the grasping hands, his spear a silver streak. He didn't try to stab or slash—his attacks were deflections, parries, and precise strikes to joints and pressure points.
A hunter's arm was knocked aside. Another took a sharp jab to the shoulder, his armor ringing. For a breathtaking moment, Shuya was a island of motion in a sea of oppressive stillness, his old skills merging with his new, lean body. He was fighting.
And it wasn't enough.
A hunter he hadn't seen tackled him from the side, driving him to the ground. The impact drove the air from his lungs. Another pinned his spear arm. A third placed a knee on his chest. He could feel the cold, dead energy of their armor seeping into his skin, smothering his aura. The warm, radiant sun inside him guttered, struggling against an unnatural eclipse.
"Enough of this farce," the leader intoned, walking forward. He raised his runed blade. "The sun must be blotted out."
The yokai girl let out a sound that was half-sigh, half-snarl. "I'm not done being bored with him yet."
She didn't attack the hunters. Instead, she slammed her palm onto the cavern floor.
A web of black cracks erupted from her touch, spreading faster than sight. The very stone turned to a brittle, ashen grey. The hunters pinning Shuya suddenly found the ground giving way beneath them, collapsing into fine, choking dust.
In the confusion, Shuya rolled free, coughing. He saw the yokai girl standing at the epicenter of the decay, her kimono now pure black, her eyes burning like red coals. The playful mask was gone, replaced by the true face of an ancient, destructive spirit.
"The Church will remember this interference, Yoru," the leader said, his voice flat, as he effortlessly levitated above the disintegrating floor.
"So remember," she spat back.
The leader ignored her, his focus returning to Shuya. "You see? You consort with defilers. You wield a power that breaks the world. You cannot be allowed to exist."
He gestured, and the remaining hunters drew small, ceramic orbs from their belts. They glowed with a sickly purple light.
"Null-grenades!" Ronan yelled, scrambling back. "They'll suppress all ambient mana in the area! You won't be able to use your aura!"
This was it. Their final move. They would strip him of his power and take him.
Shuya pushed himself to his feet, his body aching, his aura flickering weakly. He looked at Ronan's desperate face, at Seren's terrified eyes, at the yokai girl—Yoru—who was watching him with an unreadable, intense expression.
He had been given a second chance. A new world. A power that let him stand tall again. He would not let it end here, on his knees in the dark.
He took a breath, the deepest one yet.
He reached for the calm. For the dominance. For the sun.
But the well was shallow. He was tired. He was wounded.
The hunters threw the orbs.
Time seemed to slow. The purple spheres arced through the dusty air, spinning end over end, promising silence and impotence.
And then, a new voice cut through the tension, clear and authoritative.
"I believe that is quite enough."
A figure dropped from the hole in the ceiling, landing between Shuya and the incoming grenades with a soft thud. It was a woman in the pristine, silver-and-white armor of the Royal Knights of Valorhold. A crimson plume adorned her helmet, and a shield bearing the silver crown emblem was strapped to her arm.
With a single, sweeping motion of her hand, a dome of pure, golden light enveloped her, Shuya, and his companions. The null-grenades hit the dome and detonated, but the purple suppression field shattered against the golden light like glass against stone.
The Knight-Captain lowered her hand, her visored gaze turning to the leader of the hunters.
"Eclipsed filth," she said, her voice cold steel. "You are trespassing on the sovereign territory of Valorhold. You will lay down your arms and submit to the King's justice, or you will be eradicated."
Behind her, a full squad of royal knights rappelled down into the cavern, their weapons drawn and glowing with sanctioned, holy magic.
The leader of the Eclipsed Church stood perfectly still for a long moment, his void-like gaze shifting from the knight-captain to Shuya, and finally to Yoru, who had faded back into the shadows, her form once again that of a pale girl in a white kimono.
"The Eclipse sees all," he rasped. "The sun's spark will be snuffed. It is only a matter of time."
With a gesture, he and his hunters dissolved into pools of shadow, sinking into the crumbling floor and vanishing without a trace.
The sudden silence was deafening. The golden dome faded. The knight-captain turned to face Shuya, pushing up her visor to reveal stern, calculating eyes.
"Shuya Matsumoto," she stated, as if reading from a report. "By the order of His Majesty, you are to come with us. The Crown has questions about the… 'forbidden sun.'"
She looked at the crushed form of the Kuro-Okami, then at the decaying cavern around them.
"And it seems," she added, her voice grave, "so do I."
Shuya met her gaze, his body weary but his spirit unbroken. He had survived monsters and fanatics. Now, he faced the powers of his new world.
The real adventure, it seemed, was just beginning.