The air broke.
Not exploded.
Not shattered.
It bent.
Noa took another step—and vanished.
The monster swung on instinct.
Too slow.
Noa appeared above it, standing on nothing, heel dropping straight into its skull. The impact folded the creature into the ground like a collapsing tower. Stone liquefied. A shockwave tore outward, tossing broken weapons and bodies like leaves.
The monster screeched and twisted free, adapting—plates forming, muscles swelling—
Noa laughed.
A quiet sound.
Almost bored.
"So this is your trick?" he said, tilting his head. "You copy. You adjust. You survive."
He blurred again.
This time, he didn't strike to kill.
He played.
A punch—light, almost lazy—cracked the monster's jaw sideways.
A knee shattered its ribs before it could react.
A palm strike slammed it backward across the battlefield, carving a trench hundreds of meters long.
The monster tried to counter.
Noa caught its claw.
With one hand.
"Oh," Noa said softly. "That's it?"
He twisted.
The monster's arm tore free, adapting too late. It screamed—real pain this time.
Thar stared, breath caught in his crushed chestplate.
"...He's not fighting to win."
Lunnaux whispered, horrified.
"He's enjoying it."
Noa walked forward as the monster scrambled back, regeneration going wild, body reshaping faster and faster.
"You learned from us," Noa continued, voice empty. "But you never learned fear."
The monster roared and unleashed everything—flames, force pulses, sharpened limbs, raw energy tearing the ground apart.
Noa walked through it.
Flames bent away from him.
Force waves shattered before touching his skin.
Blades broke against the dark aura wrapped around his body.
He appeared in front of the monster and flicked its forehead.
The creature was launched straight up, vanishing into the clouds.
A heartbeat passed.
Noa reappeared above it, grabbed it by the neck, and drove it back down, smashing it into the battlefield like a meteor.
The ground collapsed.
Silence.
Then—
The monster moved.
It rose, mangled but adapting again, armor thicker, core glowing violently.
Noa sighed.
"Still standing? You're persistent. I'll give you that."
He cracked his neck.
"Let's speed this up."
What followed wasn't a fight.
It was a lesson.
Noa disappeared and reappeared dozens of times per second, each strike landing before the monster could process the last. Bones shattered and reformed only to shatter again. Wings grew—were ripped off. Armor hardened—was crushed inward.
The monster stopped attacking.
It defended.
Then it begged—wordlessly—instinctively—trying to escape.
Noa grabbed it by the face and slammed it into the ground again and again, each impact shaking the horizon.
"For learning wrong."
Impact.
"For thinking strength is survival."
Impact.
"For touching my people."
Impact.
He finally lifted the monster by the throat, holding it helplessly in the air.
The battlefield was silent except for the crackle of distorted energy.
Noa raised his free hand.
Dark power coiled around it, screaming to be released.
"This is where you—"
He stopped.
The aura around him flickered.
A sharp hiss escaped his lips.
His body burned.
Not from fire—from inside.
Cracks of red light spread across his skin like fractures in glass. The dark presence around him thrashed violently, unstable.
Thar's eyes widened.
"…His body can't handle it."
Noa gritted his teeth.
"Tch."
The monster felt it.
Hope.
It surged violently, ripping free as Noa staggered. The dark aura collapsed inward, devouring itself.
Noa dropped to one knee.
Then both.
Smoke poured from his body. His white hair dimmed, strands darkening. The crimson eye flickered wildly.
"Damn it…" he muttered.
The monster roared in triumph and charged, gathering everything it had into a killing blow.
One strike.
One end.
It raised its claw—
TWANG.
A sharp, slicing sound cut through the air.
The monster's core exploded sideways.
An arrow—glowing with compressed wind and light—had pierced straight through it.
Everyone looked up.
On a shattered tower at the edge of the battlefield—
The Archer stood.
Cloak torn, bow humming with energy, eyes locked on the target.
"Hey," the archer called calmly.
"You're not done yet."
The monster screeched and turned—
Another arrow struck.
Then another.
Each one detonated precisely, disrupting its adaptation mid-process.
Noa laughed weakly from the ground.
"…Took you long enough."
The archer smirked.
"Looked like you were having fun."
Noa forced himself up, aura flaring again—smaller now, controlled, burning hot instead of wild.
"Let's finish this," he said.
They moved together.
The archer fired in rapid succession, arrows pinning the monster's joints, freezing its adaptations at critical points.
Noa vanished and reappeared inside its guard, driving a punch straight into its core—right where the arrows had weakened it.
The monster howled, thrashing—
Noa grabbed its head.
"This time," he said, voice steady, Noa's voice again,
"You don't get back up."
The archer drew one final arrow—everything he had left—and released.
The arrow and Noa's strike landed at the same instant.
Light and force collided.
The monster screamed once—
Then shattered.
Not exploded.
Not adapted.
It ended.
When the dust settled, the battlefield was still.
Noa collapsed backward, smoke rising from his body.
The archer dropped beside him, breathing hard.
"…You good?"
Noa closed his eye, exhausted.
"…Ask me later."
Around them, the survivors stared in silence.
Elysium still stood.
Barely.
But it stood.
The archerer healed Noa's body instantly.
And left saying-
"Don't be dead till I come again Jiraci".