Dust drifted slowly across the ruined plain.
Jack stood alone among the wreckage of his fight with Ozzy.
His armor was still cracked. Blood had dried down his jaw. Several of the spectral blades he had summoned earlier still hovered weakly around him, flickering like dying lamps.
But he was alive.
Barely.
He wiped blood from his mouth and laughed quietly.
“This isn’t fair.”
The words slipped out before he could stop them.
Time and time again he had been pushed aside.
Time and time again he had been left behind.
North.
Calmbrand.
Ozzy.
Even the Herald.
Everyone had stepped into the spotlight while he was forced into the background.
He clenched his fists.
He had done everything right.
He trained.
He adapted.
He survived.
He grew stronger.
He was even fulfilling his character arc perfectly.
The struggling underdog.
The rising protagonist.
The one destined to prove everyone wrong.
Then it hit him.
Jack blinked.
“…oh.”
The realization spread across his face slowly.
“Duh.”
A laugh escaped him.
The act wasn’t over yet.
That was the problem.
Stories didn’t climax in the middle.
They built.
They twisted.
And the protagonist—
The real protagonist—
Always rose after being knocked down.
His smile slowly widened.
“I get it now.”
He rolled his shoulders as his weapons began reforming around him, orbiting slowly.
He wasn’t tied to their little team.
He wasn’t bound by their morality.
He didn’t care about their friendships.
Their alliances.
Their little emotional speeches.
He had no alignment.
No faction.
No loyalty.
Except one.
“Qui Tensigon.”
The name left his mouth almost reverently.
Everyone else?
NPCs.
Just characters in his story.
His smile turned cruel.
He looked toward the battlefield where Ozzy had disappeared.
“That man…”
His aura flared again.
“…is really going to regret turning his back on me.”
Jack stretched his neck slowly.
Crack.
“And he’ll regret saving his strength for the Herald. I guess I got my own kind of plot armor.”
Energy pulsed from him again, clearer now.
Understanding sharpened his resolve.
The chaos across Veltrisse suddenly made perfect sense.
North fighting the Herald.
Ozzy bleeding himself dry.
Calmbrand chasing his heroic nonsense.
Everyone was exhausting themselves.
Everyone was burning their power.
Preparing the stage.
For the one who would arrive last.
Jack laughed quietly.
“This event…”
His weapons spun faster around him.
“…was always about me.”
His eyes narrowed.
“And I’m the only one smart enough to realize it.”
He stepped forward into the smoke of the battlefield.
“Time to take back the spotlight.”
——
Destiny’s knee buckled.
She caught herself with one hand against the broken rubble, breathing hard as the world swayed around her.
The battle had moved far away.
North was far off somewhere fighting the Herald.
And she was barely standing.
“That… hit harder than expected,” she muttered.
Her ribs ached.
Sryun burns crawled across her side like cold fire.
Blood soaked through the sleeve of her hoodie.
She forced herself upright.
Stop.
Heal.
Restore.
Then get back in the fight.
North’s already fighting.
That idiot won’t last long without you.
Her aura stirred.
Gold Ryun coiled around her body like a serpent gathering strength.
Then—
SNAP.
The aura exploded outward.
Light flared as she forced the threads through her body, knitting flesh, sealing shallow wounds, slowing the bleeding.
Not perfect.
But enough.
She straightened.
At least her blue hoodie and black pants were still covering her lady bits.
“That’s something,” she muttered.
Then—
“DESTINY!”
Her head snapped toward the voice.
Crisper.
“MOVE!”
Destiny’s eyes followed the line of fire.
The sniper round cracked across the battlefield—
—and the ground behind Destiny exploded.
She turned.
Her stomach dropped.
Civen.
Red hair blazing like a living flame as she surged forward through the ruins. Her feline upper body moved with sleek, predatory grace while the scaled mermaid legs pounded across the shattered ground like a bullet.
Beside her—
AAA-Ka-Nier.
The towering skeletal thing moved in long, unnatural strides, robes dragging across the rubble as hollow green eyes burned with cold intelligence.
They were already almost on top of her.
“Shit.”
Civen’s clawed hand snapped forward.
Emerald Ryun claws tore through the air like blades.
Destiny thrust both hands forward.
A radiant shield flared to life just as the strike hit.
CRACK.
The barrier buckled violently.
Civen grinned.
“Hello Vari’s Jujisn,” she purred. “Glad you lived long enough for us to meet.”
Behind her—
AAA-Ka-Nier raised one skeletal arm.
Cloth unfurled outward from its sleeves.
But the fabric wasn’t normal.
Dark robes stretched across the air like living curtains, bone outlines stitched through them like skeletal frames. They expanded into massive veils, swallowing the area.
“Containment,” Destiny realized.
Then the battlefield exploded again.
Crisper’s neon warhounds came charging in.
The glowing dogs slammed into Civen from the side, snapping and clawing with crackling energy.
“GET HER!” Crisper shouted over the comms.
The summoned soldiers opened fire.
Ryun rifles thundered.
Dozens of shots ripped toward Civen and the skeleton.
At the same time—
BOOM.
One of Crisper’s tanks fired.
The shell screamed across the street and detonated behind Civen in a plume of dust and neon flame.
Crisper kept firing from her position, sniper rounds slamming into the battlefield in perfect rhythm.
AAA-Ka-Nier moved its arm.
The bone-stitched cloth surged outward.
The fabric hardened midair like a skeletal wall.
Gunfire smashed into it and fizzled.
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Another tank shell hit—
CRACK.
The barrier bent but held.
“Annoying,” Civen sighed as she killed the last dog.
Then she moved.
Destiny launched herself upward.
Golden wings flared as she took to the sky.
Civen followed immediately.
The cat-mermaid shot upward like a spear, tail whipping behind her as she twisted through the air with terrifying speed.
Destiny fired.
Golden Ryun bolts exploded from her hands.
Civen dodged effortlessly.
Left.
Right.
Spin.
One blast grazed her shoulder—
She laughed.
“Oh please.”
Civen lunged.
Destiny threw up another golden barrier just as the claws came down again.
CRASH.
The impact blasted her backward through the air.
Crisper kept firing from below.
“Hold still you damn catfish!”
A sniper round cracked past Civen’s head.
Civen twisted sideways midair and smirked.
“Cute.”
Below them—
AAA-Ka-Nier expanded its cloth prison further.
Bone-outlined curtains stretched across the surrounding area, swallowing soldiers, neon dogs, and incoming fire.
The battlefield dissolved into chaos.
Gunfire.
Tank blasts.
Claws.
Golden light.
Bone Ryun.
And through it all—
Civen kept closing the distance.
“I thought you weren’t a fighter,” Destiny chuckled as golden Ryun flared around her hand. The energy condensed smoothly, forming a radiant blade. Without hesitation she lunged forward, cutting through the air with a downward slash that burned bright against the ruined skyline.
The surprise phase of the battle was over. Destiny had regained her footing, and now the fight could actually begin. She could take this catfish.
Civen only smiled.
Her scaled lower body planted firmly into the ground like an anchor being dropped deep into the ocean. For a moment it looked like nothing had happened, like she had simply braced herself for the incoming attack.
Then the battlefield answered her.
Blue Ryun surged outward from Civen in a violent wave. It flowed like water…. The energy spread across the battlefield in rippling currents that warped the air and rolled outward like a tide breaking across the ruins.
Crisper saw the opening and fired immediately.
Her sniper cracked across the battlefield, the round screaming toward Civen with deadly precision.
The bullet never made it.
The moment it touched the expanding blue field, it dissolved into the current as if swallowed by an ocean.
“Shit,” Crisper muttered under her breath.
Destiny realized it at the exact same moment.
“A barrier.”
But this wasn’t a normal defensive wall. It wasn’t something rigid that blocked attacks. This barrier moved, flowed, and absorbed. Anything entering it was dragged into the current and broken apart.
Destiny didn’t hesitate.
Golden Ryun spiraled around her arms as her hair flared in the wind. Pools of spiked golden energy condensed above her palms, each one rotating with lethal intent.
“Let’s see it digest this,” she said.
She unleashed the attack.
Golden spikes exploded toward Civen in a barrage of radiant power, but the water shifted again. The Ryun tide folded inward, the currents bending and twisting as if the battlefield itself had become an ocean responding to its master.
The energy collapsed inward.
Like a wave swallowing a ship.
Destiny, her attack, and Civen were all caught in the sudden surge.
The water folded around them completely.
A thunderous boom rolled across the wasteland as the barrier sealed shut.
When the light cleared, a massive sphere of swirling blue Ryun floated high above the battlefield. It shimmered like a suspended sea, currents spiraling endlessly within its surface.
Below it, AAA-Ka-Nier raised its skeletal head.
The towering monster immediately soared toward the floating sphere, its robes trailing behind it as hollow green eyes locked onto the swirling prison.
Crisper swore loudly.
“Oh hell no.”
Her UI responded instantly as she summoned a neon bike beneath her feet. The machine materialized with a burst of color and energy, roaring to life as she slammed the throttle.
She launched forward across the ruined battlefield in a blur of neon light and dust.
But even as she accelerated, she could already feel it.
She wasn’t going to reach it in time.
AAA-Ka-Nier was almost there.
Then the ground split open.
A violent eruption of coral spikes burst upward from the earth like a forest of spears. Jagged red formations shot toward the sky in a brutal wave that forced the skeletal monster to twist away.
Crisper slid her bike sideways and looked up.
Tabia stood atop a rising coral platform, balanced calmly above the battlefield as if she had grown from the very spikes she commanded.
Her teal-and-white hair shimmered like a living flame as the wind whipped it behind her.
Around her floated several small Ryun orbs, spinning rapidly in tight circles. Then they began firing.
Condensed Ryun blasts erupted from the spinning spheres like miniature cannons, hammering the skeletal monster with a relentless barrage.
Crisper grinned.
“Kick his ass!” she shouted up at her. Her attention snapped back to the battlefield.
Above them, the massive sphere of water churned violently. Flashes of gold and emerald erupted inside as Destiny and Civen continued their battle within the prison.
Her UI flashed suddenly.
A new aura signature was approaching the sphere.
Fast.
Crisper slowed the bike.
“…That must be the entrance,” she muttered to herself.
A window.
A way to enter the water prison.
She could go in and help Destiny finish the fight.
Her finger hovered over the throttle as she considered it.
Then she looked around the battlefield.
Her summoned army was still fighting. The neon warhounds were tearing through disoriented soldiers while the tanks and infantry pushed deeper into the remaining enemy forces.
If she left now, would they disappear? Would the battlefield collapse without her controlling the summons?
They finally had a solid advantage.
She clenched her jaw.
“Destiny can handle it.”
At least she hoped she could.
Crisper brought the bike to a full stop and stepped off.
Just as she did, the approaching aura finally arrived.
Green and red energy flared as the figure stepped forward.
Forest-green Ryun armor gleamed beneath the dust and smoke, etched with glowing markings of ancient war spirits. The woman wearing it moved with rigid confidence, her posture disciplined and unshaken.
Bright red eyes locked directly onto Crisper.
Keryna Vel Dross slowly rolled her shoulders.
The armor plates shifted as her muscles loosened beneath them.
Crack.
Crack.
Crisper smiled.
“Well,” she said casually.
Her sniper rifle folded inward and reconfigured, reshaping into a full-auto combat rifle as she spun it into position.
“Looks like you’re my opponent.”
Keryna’s armor began glowing brighter as Ryun gathered around her body.
“Then let’s see if you’re worth the effort.”
Crisper’s grin widened as she racked the rifle.
“Oh,” she said.
“I’m definitely a boss fight.”
———
Jamal was getting tired.
Running only worked for so long before the body started asking questions.
His lungs burned as he sprinted across the ruined district, shoes skidding across cracked stone and shattered glass. Sweat ran down his face, mixing with dust and blood as he forced his legs to keep moving.
The problem wasn’t speed.
The problem was damage.
His attacks weren’t doing much.
And Caelus—being the perfect golden child he apparently was—had already adapted to the one advantage Jamal had been leaning on.
The time stop.
To be fair, Jamal wasn’t even entirely sure how the ability worked himself, so the fact that Caelus had figured it out before he did was honestly disrespectful.
He wished Ozzy had told him a little more than “follow your instincts.”
But that was then.
And this was now.
Blue Ryun flashed.
Caelus appeared in front of him again, blade already mid-swing.
Jamal spun the soul ball across his fingers.
Dribble.
The blade cut through the space his head had occupied half a second earlier.
Crossfade.
His body slipped sideways between two micro-realities, leaving a fading afterimage behind as Caelus’s slash passed through empty air.
Caelus didn’t slow.
Phantom echoes split from his body, three translucent copies of him rushing forward in perfect rhythm.
The ghost blades came down together.
Jamal pivoted.
Dribble.
The ball bounced between his legs as he stepped through the first attack.
He spun sideways under the second.
Then he launched the ball upward, letting it ricochet off a collapsed wall behind him.
Pass.
The moment the ball came back into his hand he leapt backward, landing lightly on a broken ledge several meters away.
Caelus’s clones slashed through the space he had just left.
Stone exploded.
Rubble scattered across the street.
Jamal crouched low, breathing hard.
“Damn…”
Caelus moved again.
His body flickered through space in a sudden teleport dash, appearing behind Jamal with a ghostly backslash while a phantom version of him struck from the front.
Jamal twisted sideways just in time.
The front strike grazed his shoulder.
The backslash carved through the wall behind him.
He bounced the ball again.
Dribble.
Then sprinted.
Another ghost slash ripped through the street beside him.
He vaulted over a wrecked vehicle, skidded across a collapsed rooftop, then jumped backward again.
This time Caelus didn’t chase immediately.
The two of them landed across from each other in the middle of the ruined street.
Dust drifted slowly between them.
Jamal rested his hands on his knees for a moment, breathing heavily.
“What blood,” he muttered tiredly.
He straightened slightly and pointed the ball lazily at Caelus.
“You tired?”
Caelus didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he stepped forward and raised his blade properly for the first time since the fight began.
The gesture was calm.
Respectful.
His blue armor shimmered faintly as Ryun flowed through it.
“I’m sorry.”
Jamal blinked.
His grey robe-tracksuit hybrid hung in torn strips from his shoulders, barely recognizable after the beating he had taken.
“What you talm bout?”
Caelus centered the blade in front of him.
His golden eyes remained steady.
“You’re actually very skilled,” he said quietly. “And with proper training… you would likely be able to defeat me as I am now.”
Jamal blinked again.
Then shrugged.
“I’m buhl,” he said simply. “What you expect?”
For a brief moment, Caelus closed his eyes.
When he opened them again—
Something had changed.
Jamal saw it instantly.
That look.
The kind someone gets when they’ve already decided to do something they don’t want to do.
Jamal sighed.
“Shit.”
Caelus exhaled slowly.
He hated this part.
Across from him Jamal stood slouched but ready, the soul ball still spinning lazily in his palm despite the exhaustion written across his face. Yet, the man still carried himself like the fight wasn’t over.
And that was the problem.
Jamal had potential.
Real potential.
Caelus could see it clearly now.
But three things were happening right now that demanded his attention, and none of them allowed him to continue this dance any longer.
The first were the civilians.
Even from here he could feel their scattered presences across the city—people hiding in basements, barricaded tunnels, collapsed structures. They had tried to evacuate before the Herald’s arrival, but many had been trapped once the battle escalated.
Those zones were no longer safe.
If the battlefield shifted again—and it would—those hiding places would become graves.
The second problem was Eirian.
Her aura was still burning somewhere far across the battlefield. Caelus could feel it faintly through the chaos of Ryun and Sryun colliding across Veltrisse.
But she wasn’t fighting the Herald.
She wasn’t fighting the Blood Prince.
She was fighting something else entirely.
Something powerful enough to keep her fully engaged.
That alone was alarming.
And then there was the third problem.
Caelus glanced down at his sword.
His grip tightened.
It hadn’t activated once.
Even though he hadn’t landed a clean strike on Jamal yet, the weapon should have responded by now. The divine mechanism within the blade should have begun counting the sequence.
Seven strikes.
Then death.
But nothing had happened.
The divine function of the blade—the power granted through his goddess—was silent.
Gone.
Something had happened.
Something that severed that connection.
And Caelus could only assume the worst.
His goddess was no longer watching.
That realization settled heavily in his chest.
He lifted his gaze back to Jamal.
“You and the elf were careful,” he said quietly.
Jamal blinked.
“What?”
Caelus rolled his shoulder once.
“You made sure I never landed a clean strike.”
Jamal shrugged.
“I mean… yeah blood that’s kinda the point.”
Caelus nodded slightly.
What Jamal didn’t realize—what neither of them had realized—was that many of the near misses hadn’t been accidents.
He had been aiming only for strict killing blows.
Perfect executions.
If he struck anywhere less precise, the blade wouldn’t activate properly.
And he didn’t want them to know the sword wasn’t working.
Didn’t want them adjusting around it.
But that strategy no longer mattered.
Too much was at stake now.
The civilians.
Eirian.
The failing connection to his goddess.
This fight had to end.
Caelus slowly shifted his stance.
Blue Ryun began gathering around his body, the energy flowing heavier now than it had during the earlier exchanges. The phantom echoes surrounding him grew clearer, sharper, as if reality itself was beginning to sync with his movements.
Jamal noticed immediately.
“Ah.”
He bounced the ball once.
Dribble.
“That look again.”
Caelus lifted his sword.
This time the blade hummed with a deeper resonance.
“I didn’t want to do this.”
Jamal tilted his head.
“Do what?”
Caelus stepped forward.
The ghostly echoes around him multiplied.
“Take a life.”
Jamal stared at the growing swarm of spectral clones forming around him.
Then sighed.
“…man.”
Blue glyphs spread outward from Caelus’s feet.
At first they were faint—thin lines of glowing Ryun threading across the cracked pavement like veins beneath the skin of the city. But within seconds they multiplied, spreading through the district in intersecting patterns, climbing walls, wrapping around collapsed towers, crawling through the broken streets.
The air itself began to hum.
Caelus slowly lifted from the ground, hovering a few inches above the glowing web as the Ryun gathered around him. Phantom echoes rippled along his form, ghostly versions of himself appearing and fading in rhythmic pulses.
The blue lines stretched farther and farther, tracing a massive pattern across the battlefield.
Jamal’s eyes widened.
“Oh hell nah.”
He could feel it now.
The Ryun buildup.
“He finna blow the block up!”
Jamal didn’t wait to confirm it.
He ran.
His shoes pounded across the ruined street as the blue lines beneath his feet intensified, glowing brighter with every passing second. The soul ball spun rapidly in his palm as instinct screamed at him to get away.
Behind him, Caelus slowly raised his sword.
The phantom echoes mirrored the motion.
Six spectral blades lifted alongside the real one, circling him like silent judges.
The entire district vibrated.
Jamal didn’t look back.
“NOPE.”
He pivoted once.
Dribble.
Then planted his foot.
His legs compressed with Ryun.
And he jumped.
Caelus blinked.
Jamal launched into the sky like a cannonball.
He cleared the ruined buildings in a single explosive leap, rising higher than any normal Ryun-enhanced jump should have allowed. Soaring so high that he became a dot.
For a split second Caelus simply stared.
When could this man fly?
No.
He wasn’t flying.
But when the hell could he jump that high?
The answer hit him instantly.
Momentum.
Jamal’s entire fighting style revolved around motion, pivots, bursts of direction. The constant dribbling and movement had been building kinetic Ryun throughout the fight.
And now—
He had released it all at once.
Caelus clicked his tongue.
Too late to adjust.
His blade came down.
The phantom echoes struck with him.
Calmbrand Divide.
Time seemed to pause for a moment.
Then six spectral slashes erupted outward from different angles, converging on a single point.
The district exploded.
Blue Ryun tore through the streets like a collapsing star, buildings splitting apart as the converging strikes carved enormous scars across the battlefield. Stone, steel, and shattered glass were ripped into the air before the final vertical blade crashed down.
Shockwaves rolled outward, flattening rubble and scattering debris across the ruins.
Dust rose into the sky like a storm cloud.
High above the destruction—
Jamal was still rising.
His arms flailed slightly as gravity finally started reminding him that launching himself like a rocket had consequences.
“…oh.”
He looked down.
The entire district was gone.
“…damn.”
Jamal was still falling when something slammed into him midair.
The impact knocked the wind out of him as his body spun violently through the sky.
“—WHAT THE—”
He grabbed onto the figure instinctively. “Ozzy?!”
He stared.
“What the fuck—where the—”
His robe was gone.
One arm missing.
His blindfold gone.
One eye socket empty.
His remaining eye closed.
Jamal blinked.
“Bro what the hell happened to you?!”
Ozzy didn’t answer.
Instead he grabbed Jamal by the collar.
“No time.”
He tossed him toward the floating blue orb.
“Help Crisper.”
Jamal frowned; he spun through the air again.
“And get to cover!” Ozzy added.
“YO WHAT THE—”
He was about to start yelling—
Then he saw what Ozzy was staring at.
And his heart dropped straight into his stomach.
Across the battlefield—
Something was forming.
A storm.
Weapons.
Every kind of weapon imaginable spun through the sky in a massive swirling formation.
Behind the storm—
Portals.
Hundreds.
They opened one after another like glowing wounds in the sky.
From those portals—
Tendrils of yellow-blue Ryun slithered outward.
They moved like snakes.
Long streams of energy weaving through the air before wrapping themselves around the floating weapons.
The Ryun fused with the storm.
Each weapon began glowing.
Power building.
More portals opened above.
And above those—
Massive swords formed.
Gigantic constructs of Ryun and metal slowly descended from the sky like divine executioners.
They started blocking out the sunlight.
The battlefield dimmed.
Everyone noticed.
The soldiers.
The summoned army.
At the center of it all—
Jack floated.
Calm.
Unmoving.
The storm of weapons revolved around him like a living galaxy, blades, axes, and spears spiraling outward in endless layers. The portals behind him continued opening one after another, each one vomiting more steel into the sky while the yellow-blue tendrils of Ryun threaded through the storm like veins feeding a monstrous heart.
Every blade tilted slightly in the direction Jack faced, responding to the subtle shifts of his aura.
He looked eerily composed.
His armor—cracked and bloodstained from the fight with Ozzy—was now fixed. The wounds across his body pulsed faintly as Ryun flowed through them, forcing the broken pieces of his power back together.
His black hair hung in damp strands across his face.
His blue-yellow eyes burned brighter than before.
Below him, the battlefield had gone quiet.
Even the explosions had slowed.
The massive swords forming above the portals continued descending slowly, their shadows stretching across the ruined city as they began to blot out the sky itself.
A slow smile spread across his face.
“Geez guys!”
His voice carried across the storm, calm and almost amused.
“I step away for a few minutes…”
Another portal opened behind him, spitting out a spiral of blades that instantly fused into the growing storm.
“…and the entire story derails.”
The Ryun tendrils thickened, tightening around the floating weapons like puppet strings.
Tabia stopped firing.
Crisper lowered her rifle slightly.
Keryna paused mid-advance.
High above the ruins—
The water sphere containing Destiny and Civen trembled as the pressure of Jack’s Ryun began distorting the air around it.
And out in the distance away from the battle—
S?urtinaui felt the storm like a physical weight pressing against her chest.
Back in the center of the sky—
Jack slowly spread his arms.
The weapons storm expanded outward, shifting like a metallic ocean.
He looked eerily driven now.
“Time,” he said softly,
“for the OP protagonist…”
More portals opened.
Massive swords finished forming overhead.
The sky darkened more.
“…to wipe the page clean.”
Thanks for reading and hope you’re enjoying the chapters so far.
