Snow blanketed the northern cliffs of Ertha, glittering under the overcast sky. The mountains stood like ancient gods, wind howling through their peaks. Between them, smoke rose from a battlefield.
The silence before the storm had passed.
"Forward!" Ayato's voice boomed like rolling thunder.
Lightning cracked from his fingertips as he unsheathed his twin swords—silver and cobalt, forged by dragonsteel and bonded to his very blood. Frost clung to the blades, mist rising where the edge touched the ground.
The Azure Blade of the East descended upon the battlefield.
Undead wyverns shrieked overhead—hulking, rotting beasts with exposed ribs and bones reforged with black iron. Their eyes burned with necrotic flame.
Ayato ducked a sweeping tail, then leapt upward with a cry. "Lightning Vein!"
He cleaved the monster's wing mid-air. It roared, spiraling toward the snowy earth. Before it hit the ground, his second blade pierced its spine.
"Damn thing's tougher than the last batch," he muttered.
"It's not just tougher," came a voice behind him.
General Kaido stood over a wyvern corpse the size of a cottage. The beastman's leonine mane was matted with blood, his breath fogging the air like a furnace. His axe—twice the size of a grown man—rested on his shoulder like it weighed nothing.
"They're faster. Reinforced. Something's feeding them magic," Kaido growled.
"Let them come," Ayato said with a grin. "We'll bury them all."
A whistle cracked the air. A single black arrow whizzed through a wyvern's skull from over three hundred meters.
Rin stepped into view atop a rocky perch, black kimono swaying. Her exposed leg glistened with snow. Her parted bob cut whipped in the wind. Enemies who caught a glimpse of her were dead before they even knew they'd stared.
"Charming as ever," she said, nocking another arrow.
Ayato laughed. "Rin, darling, save some targets for the rest of us."
She winked. "You can have the leftovers."
Then the Emperor arrived.
Tenchi cut through the horde like a crimson storm. His nodachi swung in wide arcs, each movement precise. Flame burst behind him with every strike. When he cut, wind followed the blade like a tidal echo.
"Your formation is slipping," he muttered to Ayato as he passed.
"Father, you're late," Ayato shot back.
"Better than you being dead," Tenchi said flatly.
They pushed forward. Corpses fell in droves. The wyverns grew silent.
Then came stillness.
Then—the sky opened.
BOOM.
Five silhouettes descended like gods.
One landed before Ayato. He stood tall—6'5, twin blades drawn, red-eyed, smug.
"Prince Xalthon," he said. "Second son of the Demon King. I heard this kingdom had warriors worth testing."
His aura radiated Chaos magic—thick and oily, making the air hard to breathe.
Beside him, two grotesque demons emerged—one like a monstrous whale wrapped in iron chains and dark seaweed, the other a humanoid octopus with glowing sigils over every limb.
"Levithan and Karakken," Ayato muttered.
They walked toward the Emperor.
To the west, a slender demon with a horned hood floated above the rocks. Magic coiled around him in orbit.
"Qua'sar," Kaido growled.
The final figure moved like mist—swift, deadly, and nearly invisible. She stepped before Rin with a coy smile and knives coated in black mist.
"Kirichin," Rin whispered, eyes narrowing.
The battle shifted.
Xalthon yawned, spinning one of his blades lazily in his hand as if the battle hadn't even started. "You humans… always so dramatic about your little skirmishes. We're just here to stretch our legs, really. This whole encounter? A decoy. A distraction. A bit of performance art."
He raised his hand and gestured toward the cliffs they had descended from. "The real party is miles away, storming your capital as we speak. My dear brother, Prince Xelvar, has gone to collect your precious royal daughters. And your newly revived one? Oh, she's special."
Xalthon's eyes gleamed like burning coals. "We've heard the whispers. Divine-tier mana. Tattoos of elemental balance. Brought back from death by fate itself? Delicious."
He laughed, low and cruel. "She'll make a perfect pet. A breeding mare, passed from demon to demon. A living trophy to remind your kind of where you truly stand in the hierarchy of Ertha."
He leaned closer to Ayato, grin spreading wider. "We'll let her scream and sing for mercy while we break her spirit. All for fun. Because in the eyes of the Demon Kingdom, you're not kings. You're not warriors. You're livestock."
Kaido roared.
Lightning exploded around Ayato.
Something snapped.
Not a tendon or a bone, but something deeper—anchored in the chest, pulsing behind the eyes. Rage. Not fire, but ice. Not blind fury, but something cutting. Cold. Controlled.
His eyes narrowed. The usual playfulness in them vanished.
"You dare," he growled, his voice low, shaking the ground around him. "You dare speak of her like that?"
His stance shifted. His shoulders rolled back. His swords tilted slightly—not for intimidation, but for execution.
"You think we're weak? That we'll just listen while you talk about dragging my sister into your filthy kingdom to be broken and bred like cattle?"
Lightning forked down his arms, climbing into his blades. The air vibrated. Even the snow around his feet melted, then froze over.
"I don't care if you're a prince," Ayato said. "You will not leave this place alive."
"You'll try," Xalthon smirked.
The battlefield erupted.
Ayato fought Xalthon—blades clashing, sparks flying, frost biting into Chaos-infused steel.
Their swords sang with fury. Ayato pivoted low, his boots grinding against ice-crusted stone, and brought one blade upward in a sweeping arc. Xalthon blocked with one sword, slashing forward with the other.
Ayato twisted, deflecting the strike, but not fast enough—Xalthon's blade nicked his cheek, drawing blood.
"You're fast," Xalthon sneered. "But sloppy."
Ayato spat to the side. "I'm just warming up."
Lightning danced along his fingers, arcing into his blades. He feinted left, then delivered a crushing overhead slash with his ice-imbued sword. The blow forced Xalthon back three paces, boots skidding through snow.
Xalthon retaliated with a burst of Chaos magic, sending a jagged black wave into Ayato's chest. He grunted, skidding across the battlefield and carving deep furrows in the ice. Pain pulsed down his ribs.
Ayato coughed, one hand pressed to his side. "That all you've got?"
He slammed his swords together. Magic surged outward, the air humming with static and frost. He lunged forward again, blades blurring, trading strikes with Xalthon at a pace too fast for human eyes.
Each impact shook the air. Sparks and mist mixed with blood. The Azure Blade burned brighter, and the battlefield trembled beneath their duel. Kaido swung at Qua'sar with the force of an avalanche. His massive axe, taller than most men and broader than a carriage, hummed with raw beastkin mana. Every strike cracked the air, causing shockwaves that splintered the frozen earth.
Qua'sar conjured shimmering walls of shadow and light, magical barriers that pulsed with chaos and order in dizzying rhythm. The first wall cracked under Kaido's swing. The second shattered. By the third, the ground trembled beneath them.
"You think illusions will stop me, mage?" Kaido bellowed, voice deep as thunder.
Qua'sar narrowed his glowing eyes. "I think beasts break better when disoriented."
Spikes of light erupted from the shattered barriers, lancing toward Kaido's chest. He roared and twisted, letting the blows graze his side. Blood sprayed across the snow, steaming.
He didn't stop.
He swung again, denting the space between them. "I've crushed stronger skulls than yours with one paw," he snarled.
Qua'sar floated higher, barely avoiding the next sweeping blow.
It was not a duel. It was a war hammer pounding at a glass cathedral. Rin ducked and twisted, arrows singing as she dueled Kirichin in deadly rhythm. Her movements were fluid, hypnotic, each shot loosed with precision so sharp it made the wind whistle. Kirichin flickered around her like a phantom, daggers flashing in erratic arcs, aiming for openings Rin never left exposed.
The assassin snarled as her blades met only air and arrow shafts.
"Too slow," Rin murmured, sending a bolt between Kirichin's legs and pinning the hem of her cloak to a tree trunk.
Kirichin ripped free with a hiss, eyes gleaming with irritation. "You use your beauty as a weapon. Cowardice disguised as charm."
Rin grinned, twirling another arrow between her fingers. "And yet, here you are—distracted."
She pivoted low, spun, and loosed another shot point-blank. It grazed Kirichin's cheek, drawing a thin line of black blood. The assassin vanished in a blur, reappearing above, daggers aimed for Rin's throat.
But Rin had already moved—her bow twisting to deflect one blade while the other was met with a spike of conjured mana, sharp as a dagger.
"Pretty and deadly," Rin whispered. "Try to keep up."
The Emperor was poetry—his strikes fire and wind incarnate. His nodachi, long and gleaming like a shard of the sun itself, carved through the battlefield in sweeping arcs. Each swing carried the roar of flame and the howl of wind.
When Levithan lunged, his massive jaws gaping with corrupted mist, Tenchi stepped forward—not back. He moved faster than most men could blink. One horizontal slash split the demon's maw in two. The wind that followed his blade whipped through the gore and left a crater in the snow.
Karakken's tentacles lashed toward him, laced with barbs and chaos curses. Tenchi rolled beneath the strike, spun, and drove his blade upward in a vertical arc. Flame trailed behind the steel like a comet tail. The impact blew one of the limbs apart.
"Is this all the demon kingdom has to offer?" he asked, voice calm, untouched by exertion.
The demons shrieked in rage, swarming.
But Tenchi was immovable.
He parried one strike, countered with a flaming kick that knocked Karakken twenty feet into the air. Another tentacle tried to grab his leg—he severed it before it touched the ground.
Still, their numbers grew. Levithan circled back, bellowing, and Karakken's magic began to pulse.
Even a god-tier swordsman can be drowned by the tide.
But Tenchi didn't falter.
His next swing sent a fiery gust in all directions, clearing a path just long enough to take another breath. The Emperor of the East stood tall, cloak burning at the edges, blade humming.
Unyielding.
Ayato broke Xalthon's lock and scrambled beside his father.
"You're worried," Ayato said, his voice light but eyes sharp.
Tenchi exhaled through his nose. "Yes. I worry about our people."
Ayato blinked. "Wow. Did I just hear the Emperor admit to an emotion? Mark this day down."
Tenchi gave him a sideways glare.
"You can say it. You're worried about your daughter," Ayato teased with a smirk. "The weakest one. The one with the sharpest tongue and the worst combat instincts. Admit it—she's your favorite."
"She is my responsibility," Tenchi replied, brushing invisible dust off his cloak. "As is the rest of our kingdom."
"You didn't answer the question," Ayato chuckled. "Blushing counts as confirmation."
Tenchi coughed. "Our people come first. That includes Samara."
"Uh huh. Keep telling yourself that, Your Majesty," Ayato said with a grin. "If you'd let yourself, you'd be just as overprotective as I am."
"You wanted to protect her. With the North. The strongest Kingdom left."
Ayato turned to face the demons.
"I'll hold them. You go."
The Emperor hesitated.
"I got this," Ayato said, grinning. "Remember, I'm the Azure Blade of the East."
Tenchi exhaled, then nodded. "I go to protect the capital. Not just Samara. An Emperor does not abandon his people."
Ayato laughed. "And I'm not letting a single one of these freaks through."
As Tenchi vanished in flame and wind, Ayato turned.
The battlefield rumbled. One by one, the demons regrouped, surrounding the three human warriors in a tightening ring.
Xalthon stepped forward, blades gleaming with chaos magic. Qua'sar floated just behind Kaido's left shoulder, murmuring arcane syllables. Levithan's shadow loomed behind Ayato like a moving hill, while Karakken's tentacles slid like ropes of doom across the ground. Kirichin slithered near Rin, her movements twitching with anticipation.
Ayato, Kaido, and Rin stood back-to-back, shoulders brushing. Each of them bore wounds. Each of them knew this wasn't just battle—it was a message.
"They're trying to corner us," Rin muttered.
"They've succeeded," Kaido rumbled. "We stand or fall here."
Ayato grinned without mirth. "Let's stand so tall they never forget it."
The demons towered before them.
Lightning crackled in Ayato's one hand. Ice bloomed in the other.
His swords flared to life.
Lightning surged along his arms, and a sudden gust swept his black hair upward—then, strand by strand, it began to pale. As if the elements themselves were marking him. Ice curled along his shoulders, frost blossoming across his back. Crackling arcs of blue light danced around his feet.
By the time he stepped forward, his hair had turned snow-white, eyes glowing with focused rage.
The storm had only just begun.
TO BE CONTINUED