Both fighters now found themselves crashing hard onto the ground, rejected by the realm of shadows.
Heinrich slowly forced himself to his feet, his once-elegant attire now reduced to rags. His right hand trembled as he clutched it—bones twisted, muscles shredded and warped like crumpled paper. Every movement sparked waves of agony that surged through his battered frame. The Shadow Realm had torn into him, its chaotic currents wrenching his body like a cruel tide. He wanted to scream but bit his lip hard, determined to keep an air of control.
"It seems this fight has finally come to an end," he muttered, sweat running down his face from the pain. "Wouldn't you agree, Adam?"
Adam, sprawled across the cracked earth in the distance, barely had the strength to push himself up with his scorched, broken arms. The damage from Heinrich's earlier assault had burned not just his limbs but most of his body. His left eye was shut, blind, and useless. The right one flickered with blurry vision as consciousness threatened to fade.
He sucked in ragged breaths, fury simmering beneath his wounds.
"Where did you bastards take my son," he growled, his lone eye burning with quiet rage.
"Your son?" Heinrich mocked, eyes glinting with amusement. "Ooh! You mean that hawk-eyed little brat? Is that who you're talking about?"
"Who else," Adam replied coldly.
Suddenly, soldiers appeared behind Heinrich, dressed in strange uniforms foreign to the era—machines of war slung across their backs, unlike anything seen before in the young industrial age.
"Commander!" one called out, eyes wide at Heinrich's condition. "You need medical attention!"
Heinrich gave a pained chuckle. "No need. Just tell me... have you found the rest of the Lantern Society?"
"Yes, sir. All accounted for."
"Good. Those fools were a persistent thorn in His Majesty's side."
Adam's body stilled. His comrades. The ones he'd fought to save. The ones he'd tried to protect by transporting them away into his shadows.
Gone.
He dropped his head. Silent. Powerless.
Heinrich caught the expression. He knew it well: defeat. A broken heart sealed in a broken body. And it made him smile. He remembered what Percival had told him before all this:
Kill them both together.
With that in mind, he turned. "Did you bring the person I asked for?"
The soldiers exchanged uneasy glances before one stepped forward. "Y-yes, sir."
"Bring him. Now."
A few soldiers disappeared behind the formation, then returned with a figure.
A boy.
Young, no older than Xavier. His long orange hair caught the moon's light like flames at dusk. His eyes were dim, hollow, yet within them burned embers of something fierce. Something sharp. Like a hawk.
Adam recognized that look.
The face, though tired, thin, and bruised, carried a ghost of familiarity. A gentleness that reminded him of Miria.
The boy standing before him...
Was Caelan.
His son.
The child taken from him at just three years old. The one he and Miria had never stopped praying for. The reason he never gave up.
But now... now Caelan stood before him with a wooden arm. Crude. Cheaply made. As though no one cared enough to build him something better.
Adam trembled.
"Go on, boy," Heinrich said, pushing the child forward. "That man right there—he's the father you wept for all those nights. The one you never stopped begging to see."
"Go to him," Heinrich smirked. "Before it's too late."
Caelan stared at Adam, stunned. This was the man he remembered only in fragments—a blurry figure from a warm dream. For years he had clung to that image in silence, wondering if it was ever real.
Adam could barely hold himself together. His whole body wanted to scream, but what came out instead was something far softer.
"Caelan... come. Come to your father," he said, reaching out with all he had left, tears streaming from his good eye.
The boy didn't hesitate anymore. He ran—stumbling, struggling with his fatigued body—but he ran. And when he reached his father, he threw himself into Adam's arms.
Adam wrapped him tight, as if he could fold time and make up for the years they'd lost.
"Oh, how I missed you," Adam choked out, clutching him tighter. "All these years... I searched every corner of this world. And today... today I found you."
Caelan buried his face into his father's shoulder. His voice was soft. Fragile.
"I... I missed you too, Papa."
Tears fell freely now from both of them. Even with one eye blind, even with his body broken, Adam could still see the one thing he thought he never would again:
The light in his son's eyes.
Hope.
Heinrich and his soldiers watched from afar as he recalled the command Percival had given him before any of this had begun.
"I reckon you'll come across Adam during this mission," Percival said, sipping from a glass of rich, red wine. "But don't concern yourself. I know everything there is to know about his abilities. I've fought him before."
"Is that so, Master?" Heinrich responded, kneeling with his head bowed low.
"But there is one thing I need from you."
"What would that be, Sire?"
"Bring his son, Caelan, with you."
Heinrich flinched. "But... isn't he someone of importance to you?"
"He was," Percival replied flatly. "But I no longer have any use for him. What I needed from the boy is already done."
He sipped again, then calmly added, "Dispose of him. Along with his father."
Heinrich's eyes narrowed. "I see."
"Adam will be thrown off. Imagine the look on his face when his son appears in the middle of battle. He'll lose focus. His emotions will get the better of him."
Percival leaned back, smirking. "Once he's vulnerable, you deliver the finishing blow. Kill them both. Father and son, together."
"It would be quite the spectacle... but I won't be there. I have matters to attend to once we arrive in London."
Still kneeling, Heinrich bowed deeper. "Then I will not fail you, Sire."
"Splendid," Percival said with a grin. "Best of luck."
Now, in the aftermath of the battle, Heinrich saw the moment laid before him like fate had aligned the stage.
He acted without hesitation.
He channeled both positive and negative space into his arm, the currents wrapping around his limb like threads of destruction.
"Fracture Bloom," he muttered.
He raised his hand and unleashed a devastating blast aimed directly at Adam and Caelan.
The warmth of reunion shattered in an instant. Adam's instincts kicked in. He didn't think. He just moved.
He threw himself around Caelan, shielding him with his own broken body. He conjured every last shadow he could, wrapping them around his son in a desperate, flickering shield.
The blast hit.
It tore through the world like judgment. Earth, wind, stone—all obliterated in its path.
The sky itself split as a familiar roar echoed from the heavens.
The Starlight Voyager returned.
A soldier sprinted toward Heinrich, panic in his voice.
"Commander! Commander!"
"What now?" Heinrich snapped.
"The Lantern Society... They managed to leak the documents! All of them! The files about His Majesty's work—they were published to the public!"
"WHAT!?" Heinrich roared. "WHY ARE YOU ONLY TELLING ME THIS NOW?!"
The soldier shrank. "We just found out ourselves. One of the captured members confessed... said it was already too late to silence them. The files went out minutes before we attacked."
"DAMN IT!" Heinrich exploded, his fury shaking his wounded frame. "Where is Yuto?!"
"We don't know. He's not responding to any of our communicators."
"FUCK!"
Breathing hard, Heinrich straightened himself and barked his next order.
"Get everyone back on board. We have to report to His Majesty before he finishes his business in London."
"YES, SIR!" the soldiers echoed, saluting in unison before scrambling to follow the command.
With Heinrich and his men leaving, convinced that both Adam and Caelan were as good as dead—or at least too far gone to survive—silence returned to the burning alleyway. The once-pristine stone streets lay fractured and bloodstained, flames licking the charred edges of broken homes. Smoke blurred the stars above.
Amid the wreckage, Caelan stirred. Dust clung to his hair and clothes, his head throbbing with disorientation.
"P-Papa?" his voice trembled. "A-Are you okay?"
"I'm alright, son," came the faint reply.
But it was a lie.
Adam lay slumped against a crumbling wall, his body torn and drenched in blood. His shadows flickered around him like dying embers—too slow, too weak to close the gaping wounds. Flesh failed to knit. Bones refused to mend.
"Daddy's just… tired," he muttered, forcing a smile that barely masked the weakness overtaking his body.
His vision blurred again, this time almost completely losing sight in his right eye. He no longer felt the sharp agony that had once racked his frame. Instead, there was a creeping numbness—an emptiness where pain used to be. It was the kind of stillness that told him his body was quietly shutting down.
"I'm so sorry for not protecting you from Percival, my son," he whispered. "I tried to be the hero you believed in."
"But I failed."
"You didn't!" Caelan's voice cracked. "You did everything you could to protect me, Papa!"
"So please… don't say that. You're not a failure."
Adam smiled, faint tears falling. "I'm… I'm glad. So glad."
A sudden voice broke the stillness. "ADAM!"
Victoria's voice. She came running, with Sophia, Jack, Aria, Emily—all of Xavier's friends. Their eyes widened at the sight before them.
"What happened?!" Victoria asked, rushing over, her breath panicked. "We saw the explosion from far off. What happened to you?!"
Emily stood frozen, her small voice barely escaping her lips. "Mister…"
Adam chuckled weakly, though every breath took effort. "No need… to look so gloomy. I'll be fine."
"Adam…" Victoria knelt beside him, trembling.
He gazed up at her gently. "Victoria… please give my goodbyes to Teslaine. Remind her… she isn't her father. She'll never be Percival."
"Tell her not to chase the path of a monster. Let her live for herself. Be free."
Victoria bit her lip and nodded solemnly. "I'll tell her. You have my word."
Adam shifted his gaze to Jack and the others. "Please tell Xavier… not to worry about his promise. I saved my son. That's one less burden for him."
Jack's eyes glistened. "We'll tell him. I swear it."
"Tell him… I hope he finds peace. That his past and trauma doesn't drown the light inside him. That he remembers… he's special. And Percival fears that."
They nodded in unison, holding back tears.
Adam's gaze returned to Caelan, who knelt quietly beside him, sobbing.
"Caelan," Adam murmured, his voice now fading. "You've grown so much. Almost a man now… Only nine more years and you'll be one officially, huh? Haha…"
With trembling effort, Adam lifted his arm. Though numbness had dulled most sensation, he still felt the faint strain in every muscle as he raised it to place a blood-stained hand on Caelan's cheek.
"Promise me something…" his voice rasped. "Take care of your mother. Protect Miria."
Caelan nodded, crying openly. "I promise! I promise I'll protect Mama with everything I have, Papa!"
Adam smiled, proud and soft. He used his thumb to wipe the tears off his son's face.
"Don't cry, Caelan. There's nothing to be sad about. I lived. I found you. And… I got to say what I always wanted to say."
"I love you. I love your mother. I love you both. Forever."
"And I'm proud… to call myself your father."
Those words pierced every heart present. None could hold back the emotion.
"Tell Miria… I'm sorry."
Adam looked at Caelan one final time. His son's face, once just a dream in the back of his mind, was now the last thing he saw.
His hand slipped from Caelan's cheek, falling gently to the rubble below.
The breath left him like a breeze—quiet, peaceful.
Caelan wept. His cries silent, his shoulders shaking as he held his father's body.
"Papa… Papa… Please don't go…" he whispered again and again.
But Adam lay still.
His suffering was over. His heart finally at peace.
And on his face, a final, gentle smile remained.
One of a father fulfilled.