The spatial rift snapped open, dropping Tae, Kd, Joseph, Ayden, Ethan, Diego, Marcos, Jax, Rashad, and the Walker onto the cracked obsidian ring of the Core.
Above them, the sky churned with thick, golden mana currents. In the center of the ring, Karai and the Prime Clone stood near a towering obelisk—a beacon pulling raw energy directly from three fading, localized reality pockets hovering above them.
Karai didn't even turn around as they materialized. "Right on time, boys."
"Not another step," Tae warned, drawing his Logos Katana as the rest of the team spread out across the stone floor.
"Joseph, Ayden, Walker—keep Karai away from that obelisk," Tae ordered, his golden lotus eyes locking onto the center platform. "Kd, you're with me on the Clone."
"Got it," Kd said, his crimson aura flaring as he stepped up onto the higher ridge.
The Prime Clone tracked Kd's movement, a quiet smirk playing on his lips. As Kd drew his weapons, the Clone's eyes flicked toward the base of the obelisk for the briefest, almost imperceptible moment before locking back onto Kd. "You always led with your temper, Kd. You haven't changed."
Kd didn't waste time talking. He rushed forward, gathering heavy crimson lightning in both fists, throwing a dense shockwave straight for the Clone's chest. The Clone shifted his weight, letting the strike graze his shoulder, and lunged inward.
Before Tae could bridge the gap to assist, the Prime Clone's arm transformed into a dense, pitch-black void spike, driving it clean through the center of Kd's chest.
Kd froze. His fingers trembled once before clamping hard around the Clone's wrist, pinning him in place. His breathing grew shallow and ragged. He didn't scream.
"Tae..." Kd choked out, his voice quiet, raw, and completely stripped of his usual bravado. "Don't... don't let him... touch the others..."
"Shut up! Hold on!" Tae shouted, hacking frantically at the wall of void fire Karai raised between them.
Kd looked back over his shoulder at his brothers one last time. His crimson eyes softened, fading into a dull grey. "I got him... I got him..."
The Clone sneered, uttering a low spatial incantation under his breath. A dark vortex collapsed inward beneath Kd's feet, completely swallowing his body before snapping shut with a dull crack.
Kd's energy signature flatlined. Zero response on the tactical grid.
The wall of black fire faded, but Tae didn't charge forward.
He stopped mid-stride. His sword tip lowered, scraping against the stone.
"Kd...?" Tae called out, his voice small.
No response. The ridge was empty except for the Clone, who was casually wiping dark blood from his hand onto his pants.
Ayden dropped to his knees, staring blankly at the empty obsidian where Kd had been standing seconds ago. "Kd, stop playing, man. Get up."
Joseph stared at his tactical interface, his hands frozen mid-air. The line monitoring Kd's soul-vibration wasn't just low—it was a flat, unbroken horizontal mark.
"Tae..." Joseph whispered, his voice trembling violently. "He's... his signal is gone. Completely."
Tae's chest heaved. He took a slow step toward the empty spot, then another, his eyes wide, unblinking, overflowing with tears that ran hot down his face. His knuckles turned white around the hilt of the Logos Katana, but his aura... his aura was completely dying down, smothered by a suffocating, hollow numbness.
The Oracle's prophecy returned to him.
A Prodigy will fall.
He's gone, Tae thought, his knees shaking so badly he almost collapsed beside Ayden. He's actually gone.
The Clone chuckled, shaking his head. "Told you. You boys talk big, but when it counts, you bleed just like anyone else."
Tae closed his eyes, a single sob escaping his throat—
Then, something moved in the void.
It wasn't a sudden explosion or a flashy beam of light. It was a cold, subtle twitch in the space beneath the Clone's feet. The air turned so cold that the tears on Tae's cheeks instantly froze into tiny crystals.
The sealed spatial tear didn't snap open. It began to rot.
The obsidian stone decayed into fine black sand, and a long, pale hand reached up from the absolute dark beneath reality, gripping the edge of the pit.
Kd stepped back out onto the stone.
His descent into the deep underworld had bound his soul directly to the concept of decay and mortality itself. The deeper Kd fell, the more the realm recognized something within him—not a visitor, but a ruler. Something ancient within the Pandemonium Realm had been waiting for a soul capable of inheriting its authority.
His hair floated like quiet embers, his eyes entirely black pools. He moved toward the Clone with slow, heavy steps. "You threw me into the grave," Kd said, his voice carrying a double-layered echo that made the Clone's skin crawl. "You forgot who runs it."
Kd closed his fist. The Clone's armor began to rust, decay spreading beneath the surface and slowing his movements as the surrounding air aged instantly.
Too strong.
Kd couldn't simply kill him instantly. The Clone's life force resisted his authority, forcing Kd to burn through his own body just to accelerate the decay within him.
Black veins crawled farther up Kd's neck. His breathing became shallow and ragged. Controlling the laws of decay was actively tearing at his physical vessel—every second he maintained this form brought him closer to destroying himself.
4. Temporary ManifestationsNeeding to strike hard before his vessel gave out, Kd snapped two fingers.
"Sovereign Recall."
Three dark pillars struck the stone. As the ash cleared, Cygnus, Rix, and Jay stood beside him.
They weren't truly alive—their skin had a translucent, greyish hue, and dark smoke drifted off their shoulders. They were temporary battle-spirits, bound to Kd's current aura.
"We don't have long," Cygnus noted, looking down at his fading hands. "Make it count."
"Good enough for me," Rix growled, drawing his weapon.
Jay looked at Tae across the platform. He didn't say anything—he just gave Tae the same familiar, calm nod he always had back when they fought side-by-side. Tae's breath hitched, returning the nod with a fierce, quiet resolve.
The three spirits rushed the Prime Clone, executing a tight, coordinated strike that pinned his arms and shattered his physical guard.
5. The Clone's Final TwistWith the Clone pinned by the spirits, Tae cut through the remaining distance and lunged forward, his grief snapping into pure battle intent as he thrust his Logos Katana straight through the Clone's core!
The Clone spat dark fluid, but instead of panicking, his eyes flared with a desperate, bitter light. A faint pulse traveled from his chest toward the obelisk, matching the resonance frequency he had aligned earlier in the fight.
"You think I didn't know what would happen when my core reached the Beacon?" the Clone gasped, grinning through the pain. "I calculated this before the fight ever began."
Instead of trying to heal or pull away, the Clone forcefully detonated his own newly formed core! The localized explosion didn't aim to kill Tae—the shard pierced the base of the obelisk, becoming a conduit that forced the Beacon to full capacity!
"It's... done..." the Clone wheezed, his physical shell collapsing into dust as the obelisk ignited into a towering column of crimson light.
6. Buying TimeKarai stepped back from her fight with Ayden and Joseph, sheathing her scythe as the ground trembled violently.
She looked at Tae, wiping a trail of blood from her chin, a calm smile spreading across her face.
"Did you really think we came here just to fight all ten of you?" Karai said softly. "The Clone sacrificing himself, me drawing your attention... we were just buying time for the signal to reach its destination."
The sky ripped open above the obelisk, revealing a massive, pitch-black rift.
7. The Reveal & NoxFrom the darkness of the rift, three figures stepped down onto the floating ruins.
Karai bowed her head slightly as they landed.
Tae and his brothers immediately fell back into a defensive ring, weapons raised, breathing heavily from the fight.
Among the figures was a young boy with silver hair, wearing an oversized dark coat. He walked forward casually, completely ignoring the tension, holding a small, hand-carved wooden puppet.
The puppet was painted to match Tae's exact clothes, complete with tiny golden eyes—and right over its left cheek was the exact thin, pale scar Tae had earned during their training in the lower realms, a detail no outsider should have known.
Nox stuck a small iron pin straight through the puppet's left shoulder.
Tae gasped and dropped to one knee as a sudden, crushing pressure seized his left shoulder, locking the arm completely dead and useless without a single physical hit touching him.
The two figures behind Nox finally stepped forward.
Nox smiled.
"Found you."