The clash lit up the horizon.
Kaen's flames roared, Ceyla's lightning fractured the sky, Khael's wind echoed through every heartbeat.
The air was alive, a storm of Shinrei light and raw fury.
And for a moment… it seemed like they had the upper hand.
Bakuza's cloak tore under the pressure, the obsidian chains flickering as Kaen's fire finally forced him back.
He crashed into the cracked stone with a snarl his form dissolving into shadow before reforming, battered but still solid.
Khael stood at the front, sword drawn, eyes glowing with draconic resonance.
"It's over, Bakuza."
The void-warrior's grin widened, blood tracing down his chin.
"Over? You still think I came here alone?"
The temperature dropped instantly.
The smoke behind him rippled folding in on itself like ink sinking through water.
A thin whisper echoed through the silence.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Out of the swirling shade walked a pale man skin like porcelain, long black hair cascading over his face, only a faint glint of gray-blue eyes visible beneath the bangs.
He carried a long blade, its edge whispering through the air as he dragged it lightly against his palm not to test its sharpness, but to feed it. Shinrei bled into the metal, merging with a faint current of wind that made the blade hum softly.
Bakuza straightened, grinning wider now.
"Allow me to introduce my comrade… Kero."
Khael's gaze sharpened. The air shifted again.
That name, it didn't echo in history.
It lingered in rumor.
(The Ghost of Veyra Ridge… the assassin who killed three Veinmasters without a trace.)
Kero's voice was quiet.
Almost too quiet.
"You talk too much, Bakuza."
A flick of his wrist the wind stilled completely.
Even the dust hung in midair.
Then
A soundless cut.
Khael barely blocked it, his wind barrier screamed, shattering on impact.
The shockwave blew Kaen and Ceyla back, scattering debris in a burning storm.
"Tch—!" Khael's boots skidded against the cracked ground, sparks lighting under his soles.
He looked up, eyes narrowing.
"Shade and Wind… combined."
Kero tilted his head slightly, voice flat, emotionless.
"Silence and decay — the perfect union. We are from the hollow nine"
Kaen gritted his teeth, flames reigniting as he stood beside Khael.
"Tsk, Hollow Nine? You've got to be kidding me!"
Rael said, with annoyance "And two of them, tsk"
Bakuza laughed, stepping forward, his chains reforming around his arms.
"Did you really think one of us would walk into the Dragon Knight's domain alone?"
Shigeo's eyes flicked between the two enemies, processing everything, their positioning, energy signatures, the way the pressure overlapped.
(One controls spatial void anchors… the other manipulates atmospheric vectors. Together, they can rewrite movement itself.)
His brow furrowed slightly.
(If they synchronize, we lose all ground control. Even Khael won't be able to use wind or echo steps.)
He muttered under his breath, almost amused.
"Two Hollow Nine… what a nightmare. What a complicated world."
Saya stepped beside him, her Bloom Shinrei flaring like petals of crimson and dusk.
"You have a plan, right?"
He didn't answer immediately his eyes tracing invisible lines through the battlefield.
Then, a faint smirk.
"A probability, maybe. Plans are for optimists."
Lightning crackled as Ceyla appeared beside Khael, her voice steady despite the fear.
"Orders, Captain?"
Khael's eyes narrowed, the faint glow of his dragon mark intensifying.
He felt it that same rhythm that once guided them through the hardest three years of their lives.
His voice came calm, steady, commanding.
"Formation Astra. Kaen, you take Bakuza. I'll handle Kero. Ceyla cover the airspace. Shigeo, intercept their Shinrei anchors. Saya, support and stabilize the barrier. Kenji and Rael, you're our last line if either of them break through, cut them down."
The team moved instantly, no hesitation.
Kero's bangs shifted as he lifted his blade, his voice almost a whisper.
"They move like soldiers."
Bakuza cracked his neck, grinning.
"Then let's break their formation."
The battle began anew faster, sharper, deadlier.
The battlefield split like a living storm divided by fate itself.
On one side, Khael, Juno, and Ceyla faced the silent executioner, Kero, the man whose every step erased sound and light.
On the other, Kaen and Rael locked eyes with Bakuza, whose laughter cracked through the ruins like thunder, flames and shadows writhing around him.
Behind them, Lira's bloom Shinrei flowed across the field, healing, reinforcing, soothing the strain.
Kenji darted through the smoke, his wind bursts cutting through flame spirals to strike Bakuza's guard.
But it was nothing Kenji got kick in the face and flew backwards
And further back, two figures stood still in the chaos.
Saya, crimson bloom flaring around her like a poisonous flower, and Shigeo, his gaze flickering with lightning static as his mind began to unfold the battlefield like a map.
Bakuza roared, his laughter jagged, mad, the very air igniting around him.
"SHADE AND FIRE, THE TWIN HUNGER! LET THE WORLD BURN AND VANISH TOGETHER!"
Flame twisted into black smoke, then solidified into serpents of dark light.
Each strike split the earth open; every breath he took devoured the light.
Kaen met it head-on, flames roaring brighter than ever, his seal burning crimson along his arm.
"Don't get too full of yourself!" he shouted, driving his fist into a serpent's maw.
The explosion rattled the world.
Rael's blade gleamed, a brilliant streak of green radiance.
The Lumen Blade sang, cutting through shadow-fire in a sweeping arc.
"We'll end this here, Bakuza!"
But Bakuza only grinned, blood and fire dripping from his mouth.
"You'll end nothing! I am the burning void — and I have no end!"
Meanwhile — on the other front.
Kero moved like silence incarnate.
One moment he was there; the next, gone.
Each motion left behind afterimages that twisted in the wind.
Khael's eyes darted too many vectors.
(He's merging Shade with Wind to distort perception… I can't track his real body.)
Ceyla's lightning blazed outward, tracing the afterimages like spiderwebs of light.
"Left flank!" she shouted but her voice was drowned by a whisper.
The whisper cut.
A gash appeared on her shoulder before she even realized it.
Juno charged forward, Taishin Gates flaring open raw physical might tearing through the mist.
He didn't need to see Kero.
He could feel him.
"Found you!"
But his punch met air.
Then pain.
A slice along his ribs invisible, precise, surgical.
Khael reacted instantly, dragon-scale forming across his arm as he swung his sword.
Wind roared.
For a fraction of a second, Kero's silhouette flickered a pale blur moving like a shadow dancing on light.
"Got you." Khael's tone was calm, but his eyes burned.
He unleashed Echo Art — Gale Rend.
The explosion of force shattered Kero's barrier, pushing him back several meters.
For the first time, Kero's blade wavered.
He lifted his head slightly, bangs parting enough for one eye to show — cold, unfeeling.
"Interesting."
At the same time—
Behind the chaos, Shigeo's mind unfolded like a storm of equations.
Lightning flickered along his temples, static whispering through the air.
Lines invisible to everyone else appeared in his vision, connecting every movement, every stance, every energy surge.
Thousand Way: Predictive Web.
A thousand possibilities—simulated in a split-second.
He was calculating everything.
The angle of Bakuza's arms.
The rotation speed of Kero's blade.
The interval between Rael's counterstrikes.
The trajectory of Ceyla's lightning arcs.
The range of Khael's wind echoes.
Even the micro-delays between Kaen's breaths as he fought.
Each data point converged, building a perfect lattice in his mind.
A web of probability shimmering, ever-changing.
(If Kaen shifts three degrees left, Rael can create an opening. If Khael drags the air current east, Kero's shade won't stabilize. If I disrupt the void anchors now...)
His lips moved slightly, whispering calculations faster than any chant.
Saya stood beside him, her eyes scanning the field anxiously.
"You're overloading again, your brain can't handle that much!"
Shigeo didn't look at her.
His eyes burned brighter, lightning veins sparking across his skin.
"I can handle it."
To be continue