The Moon had become the battlefield.
Behind the White-Robed King, the Earth floated silently in the distance, blue and beautiful against the endless darkness of space.
But between the Earth and the Moon stood an army.
Not humanity.
Not the ordinary humans who had once feared the people marked by Hallow.
These were the people who carried the Hallow above their heads.
The very people who had spent generations being hunted, hated, feared, and treated as enemies by ordinary humans.
Cultivators.
Warriors.
Resistance fighters.
Ancient survivors.
And countless other Hallow bearers who had hidden their identities for years.
They had come because Akuma had fallen.
They had come because one of their own was standing against an enemy none of them could understand.
And for the first time, millions of Hallow marks illuminated the darkness of space.
Akuma slowly lifted his head from the lunar surface.
His vision was blurry.
His body barely responded.
But he could still see them.
Millions of Hallow bearers.
Coming toward him.
Coming to fight.
Akuma's eyes widened.
"Why...?"
He could barely force the word out.
He looked at the enormous army.
"These people..."
A strange emotion filled his chest.
They didn't know him.
Many of them had probably never even heard his name before today.
Yet they had crossed the boundary of Earth.
They had entered the darkness of space.
They had come toward the Moon.
For him.
Then—
The White-Robed King laughed.
"Hahahahaha!"
His laughter echoed across the lunar battlefield.
The entire army stopped.
The King slowly raised his golden mask toward them.
"So this is the great resistance?"
His voice was calm.
Almost amused.
Millions of Hallow bearers stood before him.
Some carried swords.
Others carried spears.
Some surrounded themselves with powerful energy.
Others floated through space without any visible support.
The strongest among them stood at the front.
One ancient warrior stepped forward.
His Hallow burned brightly above his head.
"You have attacked our people."
Another warrior raised his weapon.
"You destroyed our homes."
A resistance commander stepped forward.
"And now you've come for Akuma."
The White-Robed King remained completely still.
The commander shouted,
"Today, we stand together!"
Millions of voices answered.
"FOR AKUMA!"
The sound shook the battlefield.
Akuma stared at them.
For a moment, even he couldn't believe what he was witnessing.
Then the White-Robed King slowly raised one hand.
The entire battlefield became silent.
"You misunderstand something."
His fingers moved slightly.
"I never came here to fight humanity."
His golden mask faced the army.
"I came here to erase an anomaly."
His gaze shifted toward Akuma.
"And all of you simply decided to stand in my way."
A powerful aura erupted from his body.
The space around him distorted.
The lunar dust beneath his feet began floating upward.
Several warriors immediately activated their defensive techniques.
"ATTACK!"
The order thundered across the battlefield.
Millions of Hallow bearers moved at once.
The darkness of space suddenly exploded with light.
Sword techniques.
Energy blasts.
Ancient formations.
Mechanical weapons.
Spiritual attacks.
Millions of attacks rushed toward the White-Robed King simultaneously.
From Akuma's position, it looked like an entire galaxy had descended upon one man.
The King didn't move.
He simply stood there.
The first attack reached him.
And stopped.
A transparent barrier appeared around his body.
BOOM!
The impact spread across the battlefield.
Then another attack struck.
BOOM!
Then another.
BOOM!
Thousands.
Millions.
The barrier remained.
The White-Robed King didn't even take one step backward.
He slowly raised his hand.
"Enough."
His voice was quiet.
But the word carried across the entire battlefield.
His fingers closed.
The barrier disappeared.
And the pressure changed.
A massive wave of invisible force exploded outward.
It wasn't a blast of wind. It was an invisible meat grinder.
The front lines of the Hallow army were instantly pulverized.
The sheer pressure sheared through flesh and bone as if they were made of wet paper. Arms holding weapons were violently ripped from their sockets, spraying torrents of blood into the vacuum.
Heads snapped back with such terrifying force that necks snapped, spines shattered, and skulls were torn completely from their shoulders. Dozens of decapitated bodies geysered crimson fluid into the void, while their severed heads spun away into the cold darkness.
Akuma's eyes widened in sheer horror.
"That... was only one move?"
The White-Robed King slowly lowered his hand.
"Pathetic."
Despite the gruesome slaughter, the strongest warriors recovered and immediately attacked again.
An ancient cultivator appeared directly behind the King.
His sword was surrounded by golden flames.
"Die!"
He swung.
The White-Robed King turned his head.
Just slightly.
The sword stopped inches from his face.
The cultivator's expression changed.
The King caught the blade between two fingers.
Crack.
The ancient weapon shattered.
Before the warrior could even blink, the King's hand slashed through the air like a blade of pure energy.
A thin, terrifying red line appeared across the cultivator's neck.
A split second later, the top half of his head slid cleanly off his jaw. His brain and blood spilled out in a gruesome display before the King shoved his hand straight through the man's chest, ripping his heart out, and discarding the mangled corpse.
The entire front line went dead silent.
But they had come to die. Another warrior rushed forward.
Then another.
Then ten.
Then hundreds.
The King simply walked.
Every movement was a massacre.
A Hallow bearer surrounded himself with thousands of energy blades.
The King raised one finger.
The blades reversed direction, tearing the bearer into a hundred bloody pieces in an instant. Bits of his shredded flesh rained down onto the lunar surface.
Another fighter launched a gigantic energy attack.
The King looked at it.
The attack dissolved, and with a flick of his wrist, the fighter's arms were brutally cleanly severed at the elbows. The man barely had time to scream before his head exploded from a localized pressure wave.
A group of ancient warriors combined their powers into a massive formation.
Golden symbols appeared across the battlefield.
"HEAVEN-SPLITTING FORMATION!"
The formation descended toward the King.
For the first time, the White-Robed King stopped walking.
He looked upward.
Then he raised his staff.
Tap.
The staff touched the lunar surface.
The formation shattered.
The backlash was apocalyptic. The warriors who had created it were caught in a storm of jagged, broken energy. They were diced alive. Torsos were ripped in half, guts spilling out into the low gravity. Severed hands still clutching talismans and legs severed at the thigh rained down upon the lunar dust, painting the pale ground a horrific crimson.
Akuma stared in disbelief.
The difference between them wasn't a battle.
It was a slaughterhouse.
The Hallow bearers were fighting with everything they possessed.
The White-Robed King was merely exterminating pests.
A resistance commander looked around at the floating limbs and headless corpses. His face was pale, but he roared,
"Everyone!"
He raised his weapon.
"Don't let him divide us!"
The army regrouped.
Thousands of fighters formed a massive circle around the King, stepping over the mutilated remains of their comrades.
Then millions followed.
The battlefield became a sea of Hallow marks.
For a moment, the King was completely surrounded.
The commander shouted,
"NOW!"
Everyone attacked.
The Moon disappeared beneath an ocean of energy.
Akuma could barely see the White-Robed King anymore.
Then—
Silence.
A second later, a horrific shockwave exploded outward.
The energy vanished.
The shockwave tore through the closest ranks. Men and women were instantly ripped limb from limb, their bodies bursting like overripe fruit under the crushing gravitational force. A mist of blood hung over the lunar surface.
The White-Robed King was still standing.
His white robe was untouched. Not a single drop of blood stained it.
His golden mask was still perfectly clean.
He looked around at the floating entrails and severed heads.
"Is that everything?"
Nobody answered.
The King raised his staff.
"Then watch carefully."
The staff glowed.
A wave of suffocating pressure swept across the battlefield.
Hundreds of fighters were instantly forced to their knees, their bones cracking under the weight.
Some had their eardrums and eyes burst from the sheer atmospheric distortion.
The strongest among them struggled to remain standing, coughing up blood.
Akuma clenched his fists.
"Stop..."
The King looked toward him.
"You're still conscious?"
Akuma tried to stand.
His legs shook.
He fell.
Then he forced himself back up.
The King watched silently.
Akuma looked toward the army.
Despite the dismembered bodies floating around them.
Despite the blood freezing on the lunar rock.
People were still trying to stand.
Still trying to fight.
Still refusing to retreat.
His voice trembled.
"Why are you still fighting?"
A wounded resistance soldier, missing his left arm entirely, looked toward him. Blood poured from his shoulder stump, but he gritted his teeth.
"Because..."
He struggled to stand.
"...you're one of us."
Another Hallow bearer, half his face burned away, raised his weapon.
"We've spent our whole lives being called monsters."
Another voice followed.
"Today, we're proving that we're not alone."
Another warrior shouted, coughing blood into his visor,
"Akuma!"
Millions of voices answered.
"STAND UP!"
Akuma's eyes widened.
His fists tightened.
Something inside him changed.
The White-Robed King looked at the army.
For the first time, his amusement disappeared.
Not fear.
Not concern.
Annoyance.
"You insects."
He raised his staff.
"Then I'll show you the difference between resistance..."
The sky darkened.
"And absolute destruction."
A gigantic wave of dark energy erupted from him.
The entire lunar battlefield shook.
The Hallow army was swept away in a torrent of utter carnage.
Ships were crushed like tin cans, their crews liquefied inside. Ancient warriors were obliterated, their bodies turning to bloody mist before they could even scream. Resistance fighters had their limbs torn off by the violent slipstream of energy. It was a tempest of severed arms, decapitated heads, and shattered weapons.
Akuma watched helplessly as the people who came to save him were butchered en masse.
The White-Robed King descended slowly toward him.
Every step he took seemed to increase the pressure around the battlefield, cracking the lunar crust.
He stopped in front of Akuma.
"You wanted hope."
The King looked toward the scattered, mutilated army.
"This is your hope?"
Akuma looked at the people around him.
Despite the blood. Despite the missing limbs and the staggering death toll...
They were still trying to rise.
One warrior pushed himself back onto his feet, using a broken spear as a crutch.
Another grabbed his weapon with his one remaining hand.
A resistance soldier restarted his damaged ship.
A cultivator forced his exhausted, bleeding body back into the air.
The Hallow marks continued glowing in the dark.
Akuma slowly smiled.
"Yeah."
He looked directly at the King, his eyes burning.
"They're my hope."
The White-Robed King became silent.
Then—
He smiled beneath the golden mask.
"Then I will tear them apart piece by piece until nothing is left."
He raised his staff.
The entire battlefield trembled, the gravity warping so violently that blood began to float upward from the ground.
Millions of Hallow bearers looked upward, bracing for death.
Akuma clenched his fists.
And for the first time since the battle began...
The White-Robed King prepared to use his true power.