Kael lay on the ground, his vision blurred as he stared up at the high boundary of the wall. Standing atop the stone battlements was a silhouette that seemed to swallow the light around it. The figure held a bow that pulsed with an unstable purple radiance, an arrow notched and ready. The archer didn't speak; he simply stared down at Kael with a strange, piercing gaze.
The guard who had been fighting Kael looked up and smiled. He ignored his own wounds and began to limp toward Kael's broken body, his confidence returning.
The figure on the wall didn't stay there. He stepped into the open air, jumping down from the massive height and landing with a heavy, precise thud right beside the guard.
"You did well, Shido Aoyama," the man said, his voice as sharp and cold as the air. He turned his gaze toward the guard, acknowledging the work done to bring the commander down.
Shido wiped the blood from his mouth and grinned. "That was quite a timing, Commander Takida."
Kael's fingers dug into the dirt. Every muscle in his body screamed in protest, but he forced himself to move. Trembling with agonizing pain and his energy nearly spent, he dragged himself back to his feet, facing the two men who stood between him and survival.
Shido looked at Kael and chuckled, the sound thick with malice. "Still standing!?... Impressive!"
But the smile didn't last. Suddenly, Shido's eyes widened, and he let out a violent cough that sprayed blood onto the dirt. His legs gave out, and he collapsed to his knees, his hands trembling as he looked down at his stomach. Two holes of shadow, remnants of Kael's hidden technique, remained buried deep in him.
Kael stood there, his body shaking uncontrollably from the effort, but he managed to curl his lips into a mocking smile. "You should take a look at yourself first!"
Takida didn't seem bothered by the sudden turn. He calmly placed a hand on Shido's shoulder. With his other hand, he performed a sharp snap of his fingers. As the sound echoed, a surge of energy rippled through Shido's body, and the jagged wounds in his stomach began to knit together, the flesh closing as if time were being reversed.
Satisfied with the healing, Takida turned his attention back to Kael. He reached into the air, and in a flash of violet light, a sword materialized in his grip.
"Hey Shido..." Takida said, his voice light, almost bored. "Can I play with your prey?"
Shido stood up, testing his newly healed strength, and smiled. "Go ahead... but don't kill him."
Kael felt the killing intent in the air thicken. He lowered his center of gravity, bending his knees as he prepared to launch one final, desperate attack. His eyes were locked on Takida, watching for the slightest muscle twitch.
But it didn't matter. In the blink of an eye, Takida simply disappeared.
Kael's eyes widened, darting frantically across the battlefield. "Where did he go!!"
The question was still hanging in the air when the world shifted. In the very next second, Takida was standing right beside him, his presence as sudden as a heartbeat.
"Too slow!" Takida whispered, a weird, unsettling smile stretching across his face.
Before Kael could even raise a hand to defend himself, Takida's palm shot out. He grabbed Kael's face with effortless strength and slammed him into the ground with brutal force. The earth shattered beneath the impact, spider-webbing into a deep crater as Kael let out a choked cough, spraying blood across the stones.
Takida didn't give him a moment to breathe. He reached down, fist clenching into Kael's hair, and hauled him back up. With a casual, powerful swing, he buried a punch deep into Kael's face. The force was immense; Kael was launched backward, his body skipping across the dirt like a stone over water.
[SCENE SHIFTS]
Toji, Soichiro, and the remaining warriors charged deeper into the heart of the fortr, their boots thundering against the cobblestones as they sprinted toward the second wall.
Toji remained at the spearhead, his red fiery shadow energy leaving a scorched wake behind him. He glanced back at the warriors following , his voice rising above the din of battle.
"I'm going to Toji to cover him!" Soichiro commanded, his eyes fixed on the massive fortifications ahead. "Your duty is to kill every hunter who comes our way. Me and Toji will keep moving forward—nothing stops us!"
A heavy silence fell over the group, broken only by the rhythmic thud of their boots hitting the stone. The tension was thick, the air vibrating with the sheer intensity of the power Toji was putting out.
Soichiro glanced back at the warriors, his expression unusually grim. "Remember," he warned, his voice cutting through the silence. "No matter what happens, don't come within a 30-meter range of Toji. If he decides to unleash a technique, the fallout will hurt you just as much as the enemy."
The warriors tightened their grips on their weapons, their voices rising in a unified chorus. "UNDERSTOOD!!"
With the warning delivered, Soichiro pushed off the ground, his blue energy surging as he accelerated to close the gap. He pulled up alongside Toji, but within a minute, beads of sweat began to pour down his face. The closer he got, the more the air felt like a furnace.
"Damn, bro!" Soichiro let out a strained, playful huff. "Your body is radiating way too much heat. I feel like I'm running next to a sun."
Toji didn't look over, but the corner of his mouth twitched into a weak, weary smile—a brief flicker of humanity amidst the overwhelming pressure of his Cinder Sovereign state.
The second wall now loomed large before them, its massive gates casting a long shadow over the path. Up on the battlements and at the base of the gate, the guards finally spotted the incoming red and blue streaks.
"Intruders at the second gate!" a guard screamed.
Dozens of hunters drew their steel and began a desperate rush toward the two leaders, their armor clanking as they moved to intercept the rebellion before it could breach the inner sanctum.
"How did they manage to cross the first gate?" one hunter stammered, his grip tightening on his sward hilt as he watched the two streaks of light approach along with warriors.
Stationed at the base of the massive second gate were twenty-three elite guards. Unlike the fodder at the perimeter, these men stood their ground with a heavy, oppressive presence—all of them S-rank hunters. Their armor was etched with defensive runes, and their weapons hummed with high-level shadow energy.
Soichiro didn't slow down. A sharp, confident ring echoed through the air as he drew his blade from its guard, the steel shimmering with a cold, blue light.
"S-rank hunters... I see," Soichiro said, a dangerous smile spreading across his face. "That'll be a great warm-up... Attack!!"
[SCENE SHIFTS]
Setting: The Warriors' Hideout
The forest was swallowed by a deep, heavy darkness, lit only by the flickering orange glow of torches burning outside the silent tents. Inside one of the small shelters, the air was still. Soichi lay fast asleep beside Himari, his breathing steady and peaceful.
Himari, however, remained wide awake. She stared at the canvas ceiling of the tent, her hands clutched tightly over her chest. The silence of the camp felt wrong, haunted by the distant echoes of a battle she couldn't see.
Please be okay... Soichiro, she thought, her heart heavy with a prayer she couldn't stop repeating.
[SCENE SHIFTS TO WESTERN GATE]
Kael remained on his knees, the ground beneath him stained with his own blood. Each breath was a ragged, wet rasp that tore at his lungs. He was panting heavily, his strength flickering like a dying candle, while Takida stood several paces away, watching him with an air of cold detachment.
Shido stepped forward, his posture straight and his movements fluid. The healing snap of Takida's fingers had worked perfectly; he was fully restored, his earlier wounds nothing more than faded memories.
"Let me take the lead now," Shido said, a cruel anticipation in his voice.
"As you wish," Takida replied casually, stepping back to grant his subordinate the kill.
Kael forced himself to stand. His legs buckled twice before locking into place, his body swaying from the sheer loss of blood. He looked at Takida, then at the sky, a final realization settling over him.
"Is it the end for me?" he whispered to the wind.
He looked at Takida one last time and slowly closed his eyes. A strange calm washed over his face, replacing the agony. "Yes... it is."
He raised his left hand, pressing his palm flat against the center of his chest, right over his heart. Slowly, a thick, abyssal black shadow energy began to radiate from his skin, darker and more volatile than anything he had summoned before. The air around him grew freezing, and the grass at his feet turned to ash.
Kael opened his eyes and smiled, a wild, jagged expression.
"Well then... let's make it their biggest nightmare!"
Takida's sharp gaze narrowed, his calm demeanor finally cracking as he watched the dying commander. "What is he trying to do!?" he hissed under his breath. "Why is he smiling!?"
The air pressure around Kael began to spike, the black energy swirling into a localized vortex. Kael ignored the blood dripping from his chin and raised the index finger of his right hand toward the dark sky, a final, defiant gesture.
"Absolute authority..." Kael's voice echoed with an otherworldly resonance. "UMBRAL PRES—"
SPLICHT!
Kael's incantation was cut short by the sound of severing bone and sinew.
Before he could utter the final word, Takida had teleported. In a blur of motion, he appeared at Kael's side, his purple-edged blade flashing through the air. Kael's right hand, still pointed toward the heavens, fell to the dirt.
The shock was immediate, but Kael's instincts didn't fail him. Screaming through the agony, he spun on his heels, swinging a desperate left-handed punch at Takida's head. But Takida was already gone, flickering away in a violet haze and reappearing several meters back, untouched.
Kael was wide open, his balance shattered. Without wasting a single second, Shido seized the opening. His fist surged with a dense, crackling shadow energy as he lunged forward, moving with the speed of a predator closing in for the kill.
The punch connected squarely with Kael's chest. A sickening CRACK! echoed through the clearing as a massive blast of green shadow energy erupted from the point of impact. The force was enough to shatter five of Kael's ribs instantly, sending him flying backward like a broken doll.
His body slammed into a massive tree with such violence that the thick bark burst outward under the pressure, the wood splintering behind his back. Kael slumped against the trunk, his lungs burning and his vision fading into a haze of red.
Despite the agony, despite the blood spilling from his lips, he still smiled.
"I'm sorry, Lord Toji..." Kael whispered, his eyes barely remaining open as his consciousness began to slip. "I failed."
Takida watched from a distance, his face twisting into a cold smirk. He had seen enough.
Beside him, Shido wasn't finished. He began to charge his fist once more, the shadow energy swirling into a dense, lethal point. He stepped toward the broken commander, narrowing his eyes as he aimed directly for Kael's head.
"This ends here!" Shido roared, lunging forward to deliver the final, executioner's blow.
Takito turned his back to the scene, already walking away as if the result was a foregone conclusion. "R.I.P! ...hahahaha..."
The moment Shido's fist was about to crush Kael's skull, the world turned crimson.
An explosion of red shadow energy, far more violent than anything the battlefield had seen, erupted from the ground. The sheer heat was catastrophic—anything within a 400-meter radius began to liquefy. Ancient trees, jagged stones, and even the reinforced stone of the outer wall turned into glowing slag in an instant.
Shido, caught at the very epicenter of the blast, was launched backward with unbelievable speed, his scream drowned out by the roar of the energy. The shockwave was so massive that the entire region shook as if a star had collapsed. Even Takida, despite his distance, was knocked off his feet, his body slamming into the boiling earth.
As Shido was dragged across the scorched ground for hundreds of meters, his body smoked; half of the skin on his chest and arms had been scorched away by the radiant heat.
Through the thick, red smoke and the shimmering haze of heat, a small sanctuary remained. A glowing red shield had formed around Kael, perfectly preserving the tree and the dying commander within a circle of safety.
Shido barely managed to push himself up, his breath coming in agonized gasps. He turned his head back toward the epicenter. Through the rising embers, a silhouette became visible, standing protectively in front of Kael.
Takida, bleeding from a gash on his forehead, stood up and turned around, his eyes wide with disbelief.
Takida's composure vanished instantly, replaced by raw, primal fear. "What the fuck is this!!" he screamed, shielding his eyes from the blistering radiance.
In the center of the scorched wasteland, the silhouette remained motionless. There was something wrapped around the figure's wrist, something that pulsed with a light so brilliant it seemed to pierce through the very fabric of the night.
From the shadows of the surrounding ruins, thousands of Kazim hunters arrived, flanking the area from two different sides. They stopped dead in their tracks, their weapons lowering as they witnessed the devastation.
Shido, his skin hanging in charred tatters, locked his gaze onto the shining object on the figure's wrist. His entire body began to shake with a violent, uncontrollable tremor.
"W... w... w... What is going on..." Shido stammered, his voice breaking into a high-pitched whimper. "This isn't possible... This thing does not belong to mortals... i... it's THE MATRIX...."
The moment the word 'MATRIX' left his lips, the air itself seemed to turn into lead. Blood began to pour from Shido's nose in a thick stream. Suddenly, a voice—booming and ancient—echoed directly inside his skull, vibrating through his very marrow.
"HOW DARE YOU TO SPEAK THOSE NAMES!"
Shido's eyes bulged. His arms, his legs, and his torso began to swell at a sickening rate, his skin stretching to the breaking point as if his internal organs were inflating.
"AAAAAA!!... AAAA... I'M SORRYYY!" Shido shrieked, his voice reaching a crescendo of pure agony. "AAA!!!"
With a wet, deafening thud, Shido's entire body burst like a balloon, leaving nothing behind but a crimson mist and scorched earth.
The surrounding hunters froze, paralyzed by the horrific display. Takida stood stunned, his hands trembling as he stared at the spot where his comrade had just existed. "Wa... what... what just happened?"
He slowly turned his gaze back toward the red shadow energy, where the smoke was finally beginning to drift away. Kael, leaning weakly against the tree, looked up at the back of the figure who had saved his life. His voice was a faint, disbelieving whisper.
"How is it possible...
Argen!!?"
To Be Continued...