The battlefield burned a fractured sea of flame, wind, and light.

The ground itself seemed to bleed Shinrei, pulsing like a wounded heart.

Above it all, two titans clashed: Rael Eluron, his blade blazing with divine radiance, and Bakuza, the Shadefire Butcher, his laughter echoing like molten thunder.

Their clash was blinding.

Every strike between them was a calamity light tearing through shadow, shadow devouring light.

The air screamed. The soil turned glass.

Kaen, barely standing, shielded his eyes from the blast.

Even his flames flickered in the face of such raw destruction.

Kenji, still panting from his failed charge, tried to rise again. His Eclipse Form had faded, wind still coiling around his trembling frame.

"Damn it… even at full speed, I couldn't scratch him…"

Bakuza turned toward him, his smile sharp and feral.

"You again? I thought I broke you already."

Kenji spat blood, forcing a grin.

"Guess you didn't break me enough."

But before he could strike again, Bakuza's fist crashed into him a shockwave of Shadefire sending him flying through three broken walls. His Eclipse aura shattered.

Kenji collapsed, unconscious, smoke rising from his armor.

Kaen's eyes widened.

He clenched his fists until blood dripped.

(Should I… use that power?)

He remembered Khael's voice, cold and firm:

"That power isn't for now, Kaen. Once they unleash everything — that's when we show the world what we are."

Kaen's jaw tightened.

(But that power… it's the only way to stop this monster.)

He turned toward Khael the calm center of the storm.

Khael's gaze met his.

His tone was steady, but his aura whispered of restrained fury.

"Now is not the right time. Once they use their hundred percent… that's when we move."

A gust of silence passed between them then, an explosion of black wind.

On the other side, Ceyla and Juno faced Kero, the masked swordsman whose wind distorted even the laws of sound.

Ceyla's lightning roared like a living storm.

Juno slammed his fists together, veins glowing as he opened another gate.

"Taishin — Sixth Gate"

The two auras collided and merged flame and lightning spiraling into a cyclone of blinding violence.

Kero's eyes widened slightly.

Then, he smiled.

"Finally… something worth cutting."

He raised his sword and the air screamed.

A thousand invisible blades tore through the space around them. Ceyla's barrier shattered. Juno blocked one strike but three more hit his ribs, breaking them instantly.

Juno coughed blood, then grinned.

"Heh… I've had worse sparring sessions."

Ceyla, panting beside him, shouted,

"You sure about that, musclehead!?"

"Positive—!" He caught Kero's next strike barehanded, flame cracking across his forearm.

Lightning coiled around him Ceyla adding her storm to his fire.

For a moment, they pushed Kero back but then, his mask split further, and that hollow whisper left his lips.

"Enough."

The ground darkened.

From the shadows, eyes opened.

Thousands of them.

Each one dripping Shinrei rot.

Voidborn.

They slithered from the rifts in reality shapeless horrors stitched from forgotten Shinrei.

Shigeo Motome's mind instantly mapped their paths, numbers, angles but even his eyes widened slightly.

"Tch… that's—too many."

Saya, beside him, activated her Blight Bloom, dark petals spinning in the air, cutting through the first wave.

"Voidborns… a lot of them."

Shigeo rose, blue threads of Thousand Way expanding like a web across the field.

"We can't hold this line unless we compress their vectors, Saya, keep your field tight around my perimeter."

Saya, blades blooming like obsidian flowers, smirked despite her fatigue.

"You could just say 'protect me,' genius."

Shigeo exhaled sharply.

"What a complicated world…"

Lira's healing light swept over the wounded, mending what she could.

Ceyla's lightning raged again, Juno's gates flared, Rael's blade burned brighter, Kaen's fire refused to fade and through it all, Khael Corzedar stood in the storm, his dragon-scaled arm glowing faintly.

His eyes narrowed.

(They're not Eclipse Vanguard anymore. We've surpassed that. We're the Blue Veinwalkers… and I—)

He felt the pulse of something deep in his chest.

A faint hum of crimson Shinrei awakening.

(…have already stepped into Crimson.)

The wind howled, lightning split the heavens, and darkness answered.

The battle for Tildaroot had only begun to bare its fangs.

As The battlefield screamed.

Shinrei tore the sky apart wind shearing through flame, lightning ripping through shadow. The entire village of Tildaroot had become a storm of souls, its air thick with echoing wills and fractured emotions.

Bakuza's laughter rolled through the chaos like thunder wrapped in madness.

His veins pulsed black-red, the Shadefire in him burning hotter than ever — each step he took melted the ground, each swing of his arm distorted the air itself.

"Is this all the Blue Veinwalkers can do?!" he roared, driving his fist into the earth.

A wave of molten shadow erupted, swallowing half the battlefield.

Rael countered instantly.

The Lumen Blade in his hands glowed pure white — a sliver of heaven forged into light.

He stepped through the incoming darkness, his every motion disciplined, perfect.

Each swing cleaved through the shadow like cutting through glass.

"Pathetic," Rael spat, voice dripping arrogance. "Your flames are unrefined filth. I am light — and I do not yield to ashes."

Bakuza smirked, one eye twitching with feral delight.

"Light burns too, boy."

He slammed both palms together.

From between them burst a spiral of black-and-red Shinrei — Shadefire Coil: Infernal Descent.

The explosion struck Rael squarely.

For a heartbeat, light disappeared.

Then Rael's voice thundered from within the storm:

"Judicator's Wrath!"

His light reformed, cutting the spiral apart in a flare so bright that even Khael had to shield his eyes.

The clash between the two titans sent shockwaves across the valley every Blue Veinwalker was forced to brace, grit, or anchor themselves against the blast.

Across the field, Kero moved like silence given form.

Every swing of his blade bent the wind.

Each step erased sound itself.

Ceyla was lightning incarnate her cloak burned to tatters, her eyes feral with defiance.

She flashed past him, her voice a streak of fury:

"Thousand Strikes of Dawn!"

Bolts rained from every angle.

Kero deflected all of them.

Not one spark reached him.

His sword danced in slow, deliberate arcs too precise to follow, too beautiful to comprehend.

Juno charged, muscles swelling, his sixth gate still blazing.

"Hammering Heart!"

He drove his fist forward, detonating the air between them.

The shockwave slammed into Kero.

For the first time, the masked swordsman slid back.

A hairline crack split across his porcelain mask.

He touched it… and smiled faintly.

"Finally… blood."

Then he vanished.

One blink later Ceyla was sent crashing into rubble, lightning sputtering out.

Juno followed, slamming into the dirt, coughing blood.

Kero appeared between their falling bodies, whispering,

"This is how wind kills — quietly."

He raised his blade, and the world bent around it his psycho mode beginning to surface.

The veins around his neck turned black, his Shinrei flow twisting with wind and void. His movements became erratic, broken, unpredictable.

Khael Corzedar felt it instantly.

The pressure, the distortion the wrongness.

His dragon arm tensed.

Wind gathered around his feet, curling like coiling serpents.

(He's losing control of his emotion flow… his Shade and Wind are blending. That's not a technique — that's corruption.)

He dashed forward, breaking the sound barrier, intercepting Kero's descending strike.

Their blades met dragon aura versus void wind and the clash split the battlefield clean in half.

Khael was thrown back, sliding across molten stone, but he didn't fall.

Ceyla, panting, raised her hand again.

"Idiot—! Don't stand there alone!"

Juno, broken ribs and all, forced himself upright, grinning.

"She's right. Let's make this three-on-one."

Khael's lips curled into a sharp smirk.

"Fine. Let's crush this psycho together."

The three moved as one storm, flesh, and dragon breath.

Khael's wind carved paths in the air; Ceyla's lightning filled them; Juno's fists shattered through.

Kero blocked, twisted, and spun his blade clashing against all three at once.

But for the first time, he staggered.

Blood splattered across his blade.

He looked at it and laughed.

A hollow, distorted sound.

"Good. Good! You'll make perfect graves."

He opened his hand and the air collapsed.

Black holes of wind Voidborn Spirals tore through the ground, ripping space into ribbons. Dozens of Voidborn poured out, howling in unison.

Ceyla cursed, lightning erupting again.

"Tch—Voidborns again!?"

Shigeo's voice cut through the storm.

"Vector lock active! Saya, keep my zone sealed, if they breach, it's over!"

Saya's Blight Bloom expanded, dark flowers blooming into shields.

"Just focus, genius. I've got you covered."

Rael's battle intensified.

Bakuza, grinning through the chaos, raised his hand flames devouring his arm, shadow turning his veins black.

"You're good, boy of light. But tell me, what happens when even light burns?"

He unleashed Inferno Maw, a Shadefire serpent the size of a cathedral.

Rael clenched his teeth, forcing his Shinrei to its absolute limit.

"Judicator Form… full release!"

He vanished reappearing above the serpent.

Light condensed in his blade until it turned silent white.

Then he cleaved downward.

Light and flame collided.

A sphere of white and red swallowed them both a second sun igniting above Tildaroot.

Kaen shielded his face from the blast.

Even from afar, the heat burned his skin.

(Damn it… even Rael's power can't put him down.)

He looked at Khael again.

Khael was already analyzing, eyes darting between both battles.

"Hold your ground, Kaen. Not yet."

Kaen's fists trembled.

"But if we wait any longer, they'll die—!"

Khael's tone turned razor-sharp.

"If we move too early, we all die."

Their eyes met command and rebellion clashing between them.

Then everything stopped.

To be continue