At the western route, the air was thick with the copper scent of blood and the acrid smell of ozone. The elite hunters stood frozen, their weapons trembling in their hands. The sight of Shido—a high-ranking powerhouse—bursting into nothingness had shattered their morale instantly.
Takida turned his head slightly, his gaze fixed on the pulsating red aura that had swallowed the center of the battlefield.
"What the fuck is going on!!" he roared, his voice cracking with a mixture of rage and genuine fear.
As the thick, black smoke began to clear, the battlefield groaned. The ground was no longer earth; it was scorched glass and shattered stone, weeping heat from the sheer intensity of the blast.
The shimmering geometric shield that had been protecting Kael finally flickered and faded away. Kael stood in the center of the crater, his eyes wide and vacant as he stared into the swirling red mist.
"How is it possible..." Kael's voice was hoarse, a ragged whisper of hope that refused to die even in the face of logic. "Argen!?"
At a distance, Takida remained stationary, his eyes locked onto the silhouette forming within the crimson light. He didn't dare move—every instinct he possessed as a Commander told him that a single step toward that aura would be his last.
The other hunters didn't fare any better. They formed a wide, jagged circle around the red energy, keeping a desperate, safe distance. One of the scouts, gasping for air, scrambled up behind Takido.
"Commander..." the hunter panted, his face pale as ash. "What the hell is going on here... and what is this aura!?"
Takida's eyes remained locked on the strange figure, his pulse hammering against his throat.
"How can I know!" he spat back at the scout, his voice laced with the frustration of a man who had lost all control of the situation.
The figure ignored the chaos around him and slowly turned back toward Kael. The red aura radiating from his body was so blindingly intense that the Western Route—once shrouded in the smoke of war—now shone with the brilliance of a midday sun.
Kael, his body broken and his shadow energy exhausted,gritted his teeth and tried to push himself up from the cracked earth. His arms buckled, and he began to fall, but he never hit the ground.
The smoke finally parted. The face within the light was finally revealed.
It was Argen.
But it wasn't the Argen they knew. This version of him felt ancient, a primal force wrapped in human skin. He moved with a ghostly fluidness, reaching a hand down toward Kael.
"Argen..." Kael whispered, his fingers trembling as he grabbed Argen's hand. The heat from the aura was immense, yet it didn't burn him. "But how!? I saw you—"
Argen gripped Kael's hand firmly and pulled him up to his feet in one steady motion. He looked straight into Kael's eyes, his own glowing with a steady, terrifying crimson light.
"I don't know how..." Argen said, his voice echoing as if multiple people were speaking at once. "But I'm here because you survived... because you refused to kneel... because the fight is not over yet."
The moment was profound, but the battlefield was heartless. Seeing Argen's back turned, one of the hunters saw what he thought was an opening. He let out a desperate cry, channeling his remaining mana into his blade as he rushed toward Argen from behind.
Argen looked at his friend, the red light reflecting in the blood on Kael's face.
"Together... let's end what we should have ended a long ago."
Across the scorched field, the lone hunter continued his desperate charge. To the others, he was a blur of movement, but to the figures in the center of the aura, he looked like a fly crawling toward a flame.
Takida watched the man, his eyes narrowing in disdain. "How stupid," he muttered, making no effort to stop his own subordinate.
The hunter's voice cracked as he pushed his shadow energy to the limit. "DASH!!"
A surge of light-blue shadow energy enveloped his form, propelling him forward like a bolt of lightning. In less than a second, he closed the distance, materializing directly behind Argen. With a manic look in his eyes, he thrust his blade forward, aiming to pierce through Argen's spine.
Kael's eyes widened in alarm. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but the air never left his lungs.
Argen didn't even fully turn. With a casual, almost bored fluidity, he pivoted his upper body halfway. In a blur of motion that bypassed the concept of speed, he drove his open palm upward, catching the hunter squarely under the chin.
CRACK.
There was no struggle. The impact didn't just knock the hunter back—his head burst upon contact, the sheer pressure of Argen's shadow energy liquefying bone and flesh instantly. The headless body slumped to the ground, the blue energy flickering out like a dying candle.
The silence that followed was absolute. The surrounding hunters took an involuntary step back, their faces twisted in pure horror.
Kael stared at the fallen body, then back at the man standing beside him. "This isn't the same Argen anymore"
He thought, a shiver running down his spine. "This is something else."
Takida exhaled a heavy, ragged breath and closed his eyes for a brief second, centering himself against the overwhelming pressure. When he snapped them open, his gaze was icy and devoid of hesitation.
"Attack!" he commanded calmly.
The air instantly filled with the roar of dozens of hunters igniting their shadow energy,the sound of steel being drawn echoing across the ruins. Argen slowly looked around at the closing circle of enemies, then turned his back on them to face Kael once more.
"Are you sure about fighting?" Argen asked.
Kal looked down at the bloody st1ump where his left hand used to be. The pain was dull now, replaced by a cold, burning adrenaline. He looked back up, his jaw set in a hard line.
"I'll fight."
Argen let out a small, weary sigh, but a trace of a smile touched his lips. "That's my commander."
Argen placed his right hand over Kael's severed arm. With a sharp, melodic snap of his other fingers, a pulse of concentrated crimson light enveloped the wound. Within seconds, the flesh knit together, bone regrew, and a new hand formed out of thin air. Kael was fully healed.
As Argen pulled his hand away, Kael's eyes caught a glimpse of something beneath the sleeve of Argen's tattered tunic—a strange, intricately crafted bracelet that seemed to pulse with an inner, rhythmic light.
"What the..." Kael stammered, flexed his new fingers in disbelief. "When did you learn healing techniques? And what is that thing on your wrist?"
The hunters were closing the gap, their weapons humming with lethal intent, but Argen didn't seem to notice the impending danger. He looked down at his wrist, his eyes narrowing at the strange, pulsating artifact.
"Oh this..." Argen muttered, almost to himself. "Mahito gave it to me. I don't know why it's shining like this."
The first wave of hunters was now only meters away, their blades poised for the kill. Argen slowly turned his head toward the attackers, his expression eerily calm.
"As for the healing technique... I don't know," he said, his voice echoing through the chaos. He looked down at the red aura dancing across his skin like liquid fire. "But I can feel this power... like it was always mine."
Just as the hunters swung their weapons, the air distorted. In a flash of crimson and blue, both Argen and Kael moved. They didn't just dodge; they vanished from their spots, reappearing several meters back in the blink of an eye.
"Too fast!!" one hunter screamed, his blade cutting through nothing but the empty air where Argen had stood a millisecond ago.
While the lower-ranked hunters scrambled to keep up with their movements, Takida remained perfectly still. He hadn't joined the fray yet, but his presence was more suffocating than all the other hunters combined. He watched Argen and Kael with a heavy, predatory focus, his eyes glowing a deep, dark blue—the sign of a man who was finally beginning to take this threat seriously.
Both men stood side by side, a stark contrast of red and black energy. Despite the hundreds of blades pointed their way, they were both smiling—the grim, exhilarated smile of warriors who had found their second wind.
Argen took a single step forward, the ground cracking under his boot.
"Are you ready... Mr. Shadow King?"
Kael's grin widened, his new hand clenching into a powerful fist. "As always..."
"Then go ahead," Argen said, his aura flaring until it looked like a pillar of fire. "I'll cover you."
"Very well..."
Kael dropped one knee to the scorched earth. He placed both palms flat against the ground, his eyes glowing with a dark, rhythmic pulse.
Seeing the opening, five hunters lunged at Argen from the front, their swords blurring with high-speed shadow energy.
Argen moved like a flicker of light—a series of micro-dodges that left afterimages in the air. He didn't even counter-attack the five in front of him; instead, he sensed the threat behind him.
In an instant, he vanished.
He reappeared directly in the path of the hunters who were charging the kneeling Kael. Before they could even register his presence, Argen's leg whipped out in a devastating roundhouse kick, sending the lead hunter flying. Without losing momentum, Argen lunged forward, his hand snapping shut around the neck of the next closest attacker.
He lifted the man off the ground as if he weighed nothing, then with a grunt of raw power, he hurled him bodily into a third hunter, the collision sounding like two boulders smashing together.
The entire sequence unfolded in less than a nanosecond—a blur of violence that the human eye couldn't even process.
Argen was a whirlwind of motion, his fists moving so fast they created sonic booms as he punched a hunter nonstop, the man's armor shattering like glass under the relentless assault.
"Kael!!" Argen roared over the sound of breaking bone. "How much more time?!"
Kael, his face beaded with sweat as he poured every drop of his shadow energy into the earth,shouted back, "Almost done!"
The battlefield was swarming. More than 200 hunters, sensing that Argen was the primary threat, abandoned their formations and surrounded him in a massive, suffocating circle.
"You're done!" one of the elite hunters yelled, raising a massive claymore glowing with jagged energy.
Argen stopped his assault for a brief second. He looked at the sea of enemies and smirked. "Nice joke."
Suddenly, the bracelet on his wrist flared with a blinding, celestial light. The temperature around him skyrocketed. Argen didn't use a weapon; he simply pulled back his fist and slammed it into the cracked earth with everything he had.
BOOM!
A massive shockwave of crimson energy erupted from the point of impact. The land didn't just crack—it disintegrated. The 200 hunters were tossed into the air like weightless insects, their screams drowned out by the roar of the explosion.
Despite the chaos, a handful of hunters who had been outside the blast radius saw their chance. They ignored Argen and sprinted toward Kael, who remained motionless, his palms still pressed firmly against the ground.
Argen snatched a discarded sword from the debris-strewn ground. In a flicker of crimson light, he vanished, reappearing directly in front of Kael. The six hunters rushing in didn't even have time to blink. Argen surged forward, a horizontal streak of red trailing his blade; in less than a nanosecond, all six men were sliced clean in half, their bodies sliding apart as he stood over them.
Takida watched from the ridge, his brow furrowed as his eyes remained locked on the kneeling Commander. "What is he trying to do... why isn't he moving?"
The answer came in a terrifying surge. An immense, suffocating tide of pitch-black shadow energy suddenly erupted from the ground around Kael, swirling like a dark hurricane that blotted out the red sunlight.
Takida's face went pale, his eyes widening in pure realization. "No, no, no..."
Recognizing the threat, Takida didn't hesitate. In an instant, he used a high-speed teleportation skill, materializing directly in front of Kael with his sword raised for a killing blow. But he wasn't fast enough.
Before Takida's blade could descend, Argen appeared. He didn't use a weapon; he simply reached out and clamped his hand around Takida's forearm, stopping the Commander's momentum dead.
Their eyes met—dark blue clashing with glowing crimson. Without wasting a single heartbeat, Argen wound up and landed a brutal hook directly on Takido's chin.
The sound of the impact was like a cannon blast. Takido didn't fly back—his physical reinforcement was too high—but he was taken aback, his head snapping to the side. The sheer force of the blow traveled down through Argen's legs and into the earth, causing the ground beneath them to shatter into a massive web of deep fissures.
Takida spat on the ground, his face contorted in a mask of pure irritation. "Tch! Damn you!"
In a flash of dark blue steel, Takida's blade sang through the air. The movement was so precise and sudden that Argen's hand was severed in an instant, spraying crimson across the shattered earth. But Argen didn't even flinch. Before the blood could hit the ground, the bracelet on his right wrist erupted in a blinding, celestial light.
Harnessing that surge of raw power, Argen drove his remaining fist into Takida's chest. The impact echoed like a clap of thunder, and this time, even Takida's immense reinforcement wasn't enough to anchor him. He was launched backward, hurtling through the air.
The opening, however, was a double-edged sword. Two elite hunters capitalized on Argen's momentum, landing a pair of synchronized kicks that sent him skidding across the debris, his boots carving deep furrows in the stone.
At the center of the chaos, a lone hunter saw his chance. He lunged at Kael, his blade aimed directly for the Commander's throat. "Die!" he roared.
But the blade never found its mark.
Suddenly, the world went cold. The very air turned viscous and dark, shimmering with a suffocating black shadow energy that rose from the ground like ink in water. The hunter's blade stopped millimeters from Kael's skin, his entire body frozen in place as if the laws of physics had been rewritten. Every hunter on the battlefield felt the same crushing weight; their movements were nullified, their strength drained by the encroaching void.
Kael slowly looked up, a predatory, triumphant smile playing on his lips. His eyes were no longer human; they were twin abysses of pure darkness.
"Absolute Authority..." he whispered, his voice resonating through the souls of everyone present.
"ULTRA UMBRAL DOMINION!!"
[SCENE SHIFTS]
Far from the cataclysmic struggle at the Western Gate, the Warrior's Hideout lay in an eerie, unsettling silence. The distant roar of battle was nothing more than a faint vibration in the soil.
From the emerald depths of the forest, a man stepped into the clearing. He moved with a slow, deliberate grace, his boots crunching softly on the dry leaves as he approached the cluster of tents. The wind caught his tattered cloak, revealing a silhouette that commanded the very air around him.
He stopped, his gaze fixed on the center of the camp, as if he were exactly where he was meant to be.
The man emerged from the treeline like a ghost woven from the midnight air. He wore a deep hood and a black mask that obscured everything but the cold intent in his posture. In his right hand, he held a bizarre black card, embossed with an intricate pattern of a throne adorned with butterfly wings. In his left, he gripped a glass-like sphere that pulsed with an eerie, rhythmic green light.
It was 1:30 AM. The hideout was supposed to be a sanctuary, guarded by twenty of the forty-eight female hunters remaining in the unit. But as the man approached, the very atmosphere seemed to thicken.
"Hey, you... stop!" one of the sentries shouted, her hand flying to the hilt of her blade.
She never saw him move.
In a terrifying display of speed, the man disappeared and reappeared directly behind her. The other guards reacted instantly, rushing toward the intruder with weapons drawn, but they were already too late.
Before the sentry could even turn her head, the man casually leaned forward and tapped the black card against the nape of her neck. A sudden, thick fog erupted from the card, rolling over the ground and swallowing each and every tent throughout the hideout in a cold, white embrace.
"Sleep..." the man murmured.
His voice was calm, devoid of malice, yet it carried the weight of an absolute command. The female hunters who had been jolted awake by the shout found their eyes growing heavy before they could even stand. As the word left his lips, a wave of magical exhaustion swept through the camp. One by one, the elite guards collapsed into the dirt, claimed by an unbreakable slumber.
The man didn't spare the fallen women a second glance. He began to move through the camp, methodically lifting the flaps of every tent, his movements surgical and hushed. He was searching for something—or someone.
Finally, he stopped before a small, secluded tent at the edge of the clearing. He pulled back the heavy fabric, his eyes locking onto the two figures inside. Shizuka lay fast asleep, and beside her was the boy.
"Found you..." the man whispered. "Akiyama Kai."
As he leveled the black card toward the sleeping child, the butterfly-wing pattern began to glow violently, casting jagged shadows against the tent walls. The man stepped forward, his silhouette looming over the boy, and effortlessly lifted Kai into his arms.
The green sphere in his other hand flared one last time, illuminating the mask of a predator.
To Be Continued...
""Samarei01"