Then everything stopped.

Kero raised his blade to the sky, voice calm again, mask half shattered.

"Let us see… which side breaks the world first."

The wind fell silent.

And then he vanished into pure motion.

Khael barely saw the strike.

He blocked by instinct his dragon arm ringing like a bell.

Ceyla's lightning storm was split in half.

Juno's punch met air and his arm snapped under the recoil.

In less than five seconds the Blue Veinwalkers were on the defensive.

Rael, still dueling Bakuza, shouted across the battlefield, his voice filled with arrogant pride and fury:

"Enough restraint!"

Light exploded from him, burning holes through the void.

Kaen clenched his fists, his aura roaring alive.

"Khael… is this the time?"

Khael's eyes hardened.

"No"

"If I don't—" Kaen started.

"Like I said we won't die today, Kaen." Khael cut in. "We… wont"

Ceyla snarled, stepping forward.

"Tsk!!"

She extended her hand, veins glowing blue-white.

"Im gona beat them!!"

Her lightning spiraled skyward.

"Lightning Sky"

Juno, blood running down his jaw, grinned wide.

"Then I'll match you — Taishin Path: Sixth Gate, Pulse Resonance!"

Their combined auras detonated, crashing against Kero's void winds.

Across the ridge, Saya shouted,

"Shigeo! Are you okay!?"

Shigeo's eyes remained locked on the chaos, his blue threads glowing across the entire field.

"I'm fine…."

He adjusted his glasses, his mind spinning like lightning.

(I won't use mine… not yet. Not until I can guarantee a sure win.)

He smirked faintly.

"What a complicated world."

The storm of Shinrei swelled again.

Ceyla and Juno stood defiant, Khael's aura beginning to shimmer crimson, Rael's light devouring the sky, Kaen's flames rising like a second sun.

The Blue Veinwalkers no longer fought just for survival —

they fought as one heartbeat, one will, one storm.

And in that moment…

even the Void trembled.

As The sky had split.

The battlefield trembled beneath the weight of two rampaging souls Rael Eluron and Bakuza, the Shadefire Butcher.

Their clash wasn't a fight anymore.

It was a storm made flesh.

Every strike from Rael's Lumen Blade tore through the horizon, light carving across the world like divine judgment.

Every counter from Bakuza's fists each wreathed in roaring Shadefire sent waves of molten darkness rolling outward, swallowing the light whole.

Cracks spidered through the ground. Flames bled into shadows.

Rael's teeth ground together as he swung again, his body trembling, light flaring bright enough to blind.

"I am Rael Eluron, the Judicator of Light!" he roared.

"And I won't bow to filth like you!"

Bakuza caught his blade with his bare hand, the metal screamed, melting under his grip.

"Then shine harder, boy. Let's see if your light can burn through hell."

He twisted, and Rael was thrown — a shockwave detonating as Rael's body slammed into the ground hard enough to crater it.

But the light didn't die.

Rael rose, his armor cracked, his hair drenched in sweat and blood yet his grin was still sharp, defiant.

"You're stronger… than I thought…"

He coughed blood. His Lumen Blade flickered.

"But I'm still Rael Eluron. Remember that name when I bury you in your own flames."

He launched again light fractals bursting outward like wings and for a moment, it was as if dawn itself struck the battlefield.

Yet Bakuza only laughed.

The laughter was low, hoarse, and too human to be sane.

"Good. GOOD! That's the look! Show me the spark before you're ash!"

Shadefire erupted, swallowing the light once more and when the brilliance faded, Rael was kneeling, blood pouring from a wound that ran from shoulder to chest.

"Damn it…" Rael hissed, his breath heavy.

His fingers trembled on the hilt.

"He's… still holding back."

Bakuza exhaled a thick breath of smoke, half-grin cutting across his scarred face.

"Now you see it, pretty boy. Eighty percent… that's what true despair looks like."

The ground around him boiled.

Flames fused with darkness until the air itself warped.

As Kenji after waking up and tried to charge in again wind streaks tracing across the ground but before he even reached, Bakuza's aura struck him like a hammer.

"Arugh!!"

He coughed blood midair, his Eclipse form flickering out as his body crashed through shattered stone.

He didn't rise.

Khael's eyes widened. His hand twitched dragon-scale gleaming faintly beneath torn gloves.

"Kaen!!"

Kaen's body trembled, his aura flickering violently.

He had been holding back, obeying Khael's command but seeing Rael fall to his knees, and Kenji broken again, something inside him snapped.

He grit his teeth. The flames around him shifted from red to white.

The ground cracked beneath his feet, his veins glowing like molten rivers.

"If I don't do this now… they'll die."

"Khael—! I'm using it!"

Khael turned sharply, eyes burning gold under the stormlight.

"Kaen, stop—! You're not stable yet!"

Kaen's voice cut through the chaos, fierce and trembling.

"If I don't, who will!? You said to wait till they go a hundred percent—well, he's already there!"

His flames burst outward forming wings that clawed at the sky.

Wind pressure rolled like a hurricane, scattering the Voidborn in the distance.

Khael clenched his jaw. His dragon-mark pulsed once.

"Then don't die, Kaen. That's an order."

Kaen's eyes ignited. His voice became a roar.

The world turned crimson.

Fire coated his limbs, Shinrei veins blazing like molten steel.

Bakuza turned his head grin widening, intrigued.

"Oh… now that's the flame I remember."

Kaen stepped forward, every movement trailing explosions.

"Yeah. And this time—"

He vanished mid-sentence, appearing behind Bakuza in a blaze of heat.

"I'm not the same idiot you beat before!"

His fist struck a flare burst detonating at impact. Bakuza blocked, but the sheer shockwave sent both of them skidding backward, stone splintering under their feet.

Bakuza chuckled, the laughter deepening.

"Now that's what I like! Come on, boy—burn me brighter!"

They collided again fire and shadow spiraling, tearing apart the ground in waves.

Khael's cape whipped in the backlash. He raised a hand to shield his eyes as Kaen and Bakuza's shockwaves clashed across the plains.

Behind him, Ceyla and Juno were still battling Kero, their roars and lightning piercing through the other end of the battlefield.

Lira's healing light flickered between teams, Saya's petals sliced through incoming Voidborn, and Shigeo stood unmoving, calculating thousands of outcomes with his Thousand Way — the blue threads of his mind webbing across the chaos.

"This is bad…" he murmured.

"At this rate, Kaen's veins will rupture. Bakuza's still not using his core. Probability of Kaen surviving—forty-one percent."

Saya looked back, slashing another Voidborn apart, blood spattering her cheek.

"Then make it a hundred, genius! He's betting his life out there!"

Shigeo's eyes flickered.

"That's… the problem. He's betting it against someone who doesn't lose."

Kaen roared again fire taking the form of a dragon's maw as he struck Bakuza head-on.

Bakuza's grin widened.

"Good hit, too bad it's not enough!"

He slammed his palm into Kaen's chest. Shadowfire erupted.

Kaen was sent crashing back straight toward Khael.

Khael caught him midair, skidding backward across molten stone.

Kaen coughed blood.

"He's… still stronger…"

Khael's eyes narrowed, his aura shifting a faint pulse of crimson Shinrei whispering behind him.

(Still stronger… huh.)

He looked up, meeting Bakuza's eyes across the battlefield.

(Then I'll just have to become stronger still.)

The world howled.

Bakuza laughed again, voice echoing across the ruins of Tildaroot.

"Don't die on me yet, Veinwalkers! The fun's just getting started!"

And from above Kero's whisper slid through the wind, cold and unearthly.

"Then let's make it beautiful, Bakuza. Let's end this world in color."

The void trembled.

Khael's crimson aura began to awaken.

And history began to burn.

To be continue