The city was dying.
Kojo felt it in every swing of his fists, every scream that echoed through the burning streets. The Hands of the God of War blazed with golden light as he tore through another wave of Pities, but for every one he destroyed, three more emerged from the shadows.
"Left side!" Rhea's voice cut through the chaos. Her twin blades sang as she moved like wind through flesh, protecting a group of civilians trying to reach the evacuation point.
Kojo spun, his gauntlet catching a Pity mid-lunge. The creature's skull caved under the impact, but its claws still managed to tear across his ribs before it died. He grunted, pushed through the pain, and kept moving.
There were children behind them. Families. People who'd done nothing wrong except live in the wrong city at the wrong time.
"Keep moving!" he roared at the civilians. "Don't stop! Don't look back!"
A mother stumbled, her young son clutching her hand. Kojo grabbed them both, practically threw them toward the safe zone, then turned to face the next wave.
Ogun's power thrummed through him, making him stronger, faster, more dangerous than any mortal had a right to be. But even a god's blessing had limits. And Kojo could feel himself reaching them.
"How many more?" Rhea appeared beside him, breathing hard, blood and ash coating her face.
"Too many." Kojo's eyes swept across the district. Everywhere he looked, Pities were overwhelming the defenses. Church soldiers and gang members fought side by side, but they were losing ground. "We can't hold much longer."
"We have to." Rhea's amber eyes burned with determination. "People are still evacuating. We give them every second we can."
Kojo nodded. Raised his fists. "Then we fight until we can't anymore."
They charged back into the chaos, two warriors against an endless tide of darkness.
---
Three blocks away, Mira knelt over a dying Church soldier.
"Stay with me," she whispered, her hands glowing green as she poured life resonance into the wound. The soldier—barely twenty, face pale with shock—gasped as his punctured lung began to seal.
"The... the children..." he managed.
"Safe. We got them out." Mira pulled him to his feet, passed him off to another soldier. "Get him to the shelter. Next!"
She'd been healing for hours. Her resonance reserves were nearly empty, her hands shaking with exhaustion. But she couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop.
Not while people were still dying.
Kai appeared beside her, sonic gun smoking. "Mira, you need to rest—"
"I need to save them." She moved to the next wounded person—a gang member this time, missing half his arm. She began the work of stopping the bleeding, stabilizing, buying him a few more hours. "How's the evacuation going?"
"Seventy percent cleared. Maybe more." Kai fired at a Pity trying to break through their defensive line. The sonic burst shattered its skull. "But the Pities are adapting. They're targeting the evacuation routes now."
"Then we adapt too." Mira finished with the gang member, stood on unsteady legs. "Find Taren. Tell him to redirect people through the industrial district. The Pities haven't reached there yet."
"And you?"
"I'm going to buy us more time." She picked up a fallen soldier's resonance blade. Her specialty was healing, but she'd been trained in combat too. She'd killed before. She could do it again.
Kai grabbed her hand. "Don't die."
"I won't." She squeezed back. "You either."
He nodded, then was gone, sprinting toward the command post. Mira turned to face the next wave of Pities, blade humming in her grip, and prayed she wasn't lying.
---
On the rooftops above, Seraph moved like a ghost.
She was exhausted. The massacre at Valencrest estate had drained her—physically, emotionally, spiritually. Ayọlá's blessing still pulsed within her, but even divine power had limits.
But people needed her.
So she fought.
Her twin blades flashed in the smoke-filled air, cutting down Pities that tried to flank the evacuation routes. She moved silently, efficiently, killing without hesitation or mercy.
This was what she'd been trained for. What the Church had made her into.
A weapon.
But for the first time in her life, she was choosing who to point that weapon at. And right now, it was pointed at the things trying to kill innocents.
"East route is clear!" she called down to a group of gang members herding civilians. "Move now!"
They moved. She kept watch, scanning for threats.
Her mother's face flashed through her mind. Isolde, dying in her arms, apologizing for everything. Telling her to live. To find peace.
Seraph hadn't found peace yet. Didn't think she ever would.
But she could find purpose.
"More incoming!" someone shouted.
Seraph looked up. Saw a wave of Pities cresting the next building, heading straight for a shelter full of families.
She ran.
Her blades sang, and the Pities died, and she didn't stop moving because the moment she stopped, the moment she let herself think about what she'd done at Valencrest, she might not be able to start again.
So she kept killing. Kept saving. Kept pushing forward.
---
In the old cathedral plaza, Ilias was dying.
The Entity towered over him, twelve meters of crystalline horror and stolen flesh, its multiple arms ending in weapons that could tear reality itself. Every movement it made sent cracks through the air, distorting sound, warping resonance.
Ilias barely dodged another strike, his staff becoming a shield just in time to catch the blow. The impact drove him through three buildings, each one collapsing in his wake.
He crashed into a street, cratering the pavement, and forced himself to stand.
Blood streamed from dozens of wounds. His left arm hung at an odd angle. Ribs were broken—he could feel them grinding with each breath. His regeneration was working, but not fast enough.
The Entity approached, each step measured, inevitable.
"YOU'RE WEAKENING, BLESSED. YOUR POWER IS INSUFFICIENT. YOUR REGENERATION IS FAILING. YOUR STAFF IS CRACKING."
Ilias looked at the Osh'Kora. The Entity was right—hairline fractures ran along the divine weapon's surface. It was still responding to his will, still transforming when needed, but even it had limits.
"I don't need to win," Ilias said, spitting blood. "I just need to buy them time."
"TIME FOR WHAT? TO RUN? TO HIDE?" The Entity laughed with a thousand stolen voices. "THERE IS NOWHERE TO RUN FROM ME. NOWHERE TO HIDE. I AM ETERNAL. I AM INEVITABLE."
"You're annoying." Ilias's staff became a spear, and he launched himself forward.
The Entity caught the spear with one hand, then backhanded Ilias with another. The blow sent him flying, through a building, through another street, finally crashing into the ruins of an old warehouse.
Ilias lay there for a moment, vision blurring, tasting blood and ash.
*Get up,* Orun-Fela's voice urged. *You're not done yet.*
"Feel like I am," Ilias muttered.
*You're not. They need you. She needs you.*
An image flashed through his mind—Seraph's face when she'd kissed him. When she'd said she loved him.
Ilias forced himself to his feet.
The Entity was already there, moving faster than something that large should be able to move. Its arms came at him from multiple angles, each strike designed to kill.
Ilias's staff shifted rapidly—shield, sword, hammer, spear—blocking, parrying, counter-attacking. But he was being driven back, losing ground with every exchange.
They crashed through what used to be a marketplace. Civilians scattered, screaming. Ilias tried to redirect the fight away from them, but the Entity had no such concerns.
One of its arms lashed out, and a building collapsed. People were inside.
"NO!" Ilias broke away from the Entity, staff becoming wings, carrying him toward the rubble. He could hear them screaming, trapped, dying—
The Entity's fist caught him mid-flight.
The impact shattered bones. Ilias's vision went white with pain, and he fell, crashing into the street so hard it created a crater.
The Entity stood over him, and for the first time, it sounded almost disappointed. "YOU COULD HAVE BEEN MAGNIFICENT. WITH YOUR FULL POWER UNLOCKED, YOU COULD HAVE CHALLENGED GODS. BUT LOCKED, RESTRAINED, YOU'RE JUST ANOTHER FAILED VESSEL."
It reached down with multiple arms, and Ilias couldn't move fast enough to dodge.
The arms wrapped around him—cold, suffocating, WRONG. Constructs of pure silence, darker than darkness, emptier than void. They coiled around his limbs, his torso, his throat.
Lifting him into the air.
"LET ME SHOW YOU WHAT I TRULY AM," the Entity said. "WHAT YOU COULD HAVE BECOME IF YOU'D JOINED ME WILLINGLY."
More constructs emerged, wrapping around Ilias, layer upon layer, until he couldn't see anymore. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
A cocoon of absolute darkness.
And inside it, something began to invade his mind.
The Entity's consciousness—ancient, vast, malevolent—pushing into Ilias's thoughts like oil seeping through cracks. It brought with it images of eons past, of worlds consumed, of civilizations that had risen and fallen before humanity even existed.
It showed him what it planned to do with his body. The gods it would kill. The realms it would conquer. The eternal silence it would bring to a universe too loud, too chaotic, too ALIVE.
"NO," Ilias gasped, trying to push it back. "Get out. Get OUT!"
But the Entity was too strong. Too old. Too everything.
His consciousness was being smothered, drowned, ERASED.
And in the darkness, Ilias felt himself slipping away.
*This is it,* he thought distantly. *This is how I die.*
*Not in battle. Not fighting.*
*But consumed. Possessed. Turned into a weapon against everything I love.*
*I'm sorry, Kojo. I'm sorry, Seraph. I'm sorry, everyone.*
*I tried.*
Then, in the depths of his fading mind, a voice spoke.
Not the Entity's. Not his own.
Orun-Fela's.
"You are not done yet, child of freedom."
The god's presence filled him, warm and fierce and absolutely unyielding.
"You have fought well. Grown strong. Learned what it means to protect those you love. But you are still locked. Still restrained. Still carrying chains I placed to protect you from jealous gods and your own unready soul."
Ilias tried to respond, but the Entity's consciousness crushed the words before they could form.
"I see you fighting," Orun-Fela continued. "See you struggling. See you willing to die rather than let this thing take you. That is good. That is right. That is what I hoped you would become."
The god's voice grew softer. Sadder.
"But it is not enough. Not against this. Not alone."
Ilias felt something shift. The locks around his power—the chains that had held back the majority of his strength—began to groan.
"If you are to survive this," Orun-Fela said, "if you are to save them, to stand against primordial evil and WIN, then I must give you what you are not yet ready to bear."
*NO,* Ilias wanted to scream. *Don't. I'm not ready. I'll lose myself. I'll—*
"You need to know," the god said gently. "You need to FEEL what freedom truly costs. What it demands. What it takes from you."
The locks began to crack.
"This is my gift to you, Ilias Venn. My blessing. My curse. The power to stand as my equal. The burden of divine strength."
The first lock shattered.
"And the price—"
The second lock broke.
"—the price you will learn soon enough."
The third, fourth, fifth locks exploded.
"Forgive me, child. For what you are about to become."
And the final lock—the one that had held back FIFTY PERCENT of his true power—
SHATTERED.
Inside the cocoon of darkness, inside the suffocating embrace of primordial evil, inside the prison meant to consume him—
Ilias's eyes snapped open.
They burned GOLD.
Not the warm gold of before. Not the flickering divine light that had grown stronger over the past days.
This was the gold of suns. Of stars. Of creation itself.
Pure. Absolute. DIVINE.
No pupils. No whites. Just infinite golden light blazing from his eye sockets like he'd swallowed the dawn.
The Entity's consciousness recoiled. "WHAT—"
Power exploded from Ilias's core.
Not in a wave. Not in a blast.
In a PILLAR.
A column of golden light erupted from the cocoon, tearing through the constructs of silence like they were paper, shooting upward into the smoke-darkened sky with such force that it scattered the clouds.
The light was visible across the entire city. Across the Morrows, the Church districts, the Upper City, the industrial zones—EVERYWHERE.
A beacon. A signal. A declaration.
The shockwave that followed was gentler—not destructive, but overwhelming. It rippled outward in concentric circles, carrying with it a resonance that made every person in the city stop what they were doing and LOOK.
---
In the eastern evacuation zone, Kojo froze mid-punch.
The Pity he'd been fighting dissolved, its connection to the Entity disrupted by the shockwave. Around him, dozens of other Pities simply... stopped. Flickered. Faded.
"What—" Rhea started.
Then they saw it. The pillar of golden light rising from the cathedral plaza, so bright it hurt to look at directly.
"Ilias," Kojo whispered.
The light in his gauntlets—Ogun's blessing—pulsed in response, recognizing divine power when it felt it.
"Is he—" Rhea's voice was shaken. "That's not possible. That much power—"
"It's him." Kojo started running toward the light. "It has to be him."
---
In the medical station, Mira's hands stilled over a wounded civilian.
She felt it through every nerve in her body—a resonance so pure, so VAST, that it made her want to weep. Life and death, music and silence, everything and nothing, all vibrating at frequencies that shouldn't exist.
"That's Divine-level," someone whispered. "No. That's beyond Divine. That's—"
"Blessed," Mira breathed. "That's what a Blessed truly is."
She looked toward the pillar of light and smiled through her tears.
"Give them hell, Ilias."
---
On the rooftops, Seraph stopped mid-strike.
The Pity in front of her collapsed, its connection severed. All around the city, she could feel the Entity's army weakening, disrupted by whatever was happening at the plaza.
She turned toward the light, shielding her eyes, and felt something crack in her chest.
He was alive. Still fighting. Still standing.
"Don't you dare die," she whispered. "Not after I finally told you I love you."
The golden light blazed brighter, and Seraph felt something she hadn't felt in years.
Hope.
---
In the command post, Taren stood with the leaders of the defected Families, staring at the pillar of light.
"I've seen that kind of power before," he said quietly. "Once. Years ago. When a Blessed passed through our sector during the Border Wars."
"And?" Lord Celio asked.
"And they leveled three cities by accident. Just by EXISTING." Taren's jaw tightened. "If that's Ilias Venn... if he's unlocked that much power..."
"Then either he saves us all," Lady Sporosa said, "or he destroys everything trying."
---
Throughout the city, people stopped. Looked up. Felt the power washing over them in waves.
Some fell to their knees, weeping. Some raised their hands, praying to gods they'd never believed in. Some just stared, unable to process what they were witnessing.
In the shelters, children pointed at the light and asked their parents what it was.
"Salvation," some answered.
"A miracle," said others.
"Hope," whispered a few.
They were all right.
---
In the cathedral plaza, the Entity stared at the cocoon of darkness—now pierced by brilliant golden light—and for the first time in millennia, felt something it had almost forgotten.
Fear.
"IMPOSSIBLE," it said, backing away. "YOU SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO—"
The cocoon SHATTERED.
Not dissolved. Not faded.
EXPLODED into fragments of shadow that burned away before they could hit the ground.
And standing where it had been, bathed in divine light that made the air around him shimmer and warp—
Was Ilias.
But not the Ilias who'd been fighting minutes ago. Not the young man with white hair and determination burning in his eyes.
This was something MORE.
The light emanating from him was almost solid, flowing from his skin like liquid gold. His staff—the Osh'Kora—blazed in his grip, no longer cracked, restored by the surge of divine power. His hair lifted on winds that didn't exist, each strand gleaming like spun sunlight.
And his eyes.
His eyes were twin suns, burning with power that made reality itself bend away from his gaze.
The Entity took another step back.
Ilias looked at it, and when he spoke, his voice resonated with harmonics that shouldn't exist—as if multiple versions of him were speaking at once, layered across dimensions.
"Let's finish this."
The words weren't a threat. Weren't a boast.
They were a PROMISE.
And the final battle was about to begin.