The Hollow Wyrm didn't roar this time. It smiled.
A horrible, guttural curl of its jaw, lined with teeth that looked like carved bone and eyes that dripped smoke instead of tears. It hovered above the valley, wings spread wide enough to block the moon.
Every soldier below—Imperial or rebel—fell silent.
And then they ran.
But Kaien and Aira didn't.
They stood still, shoulder to shoulder, blades drawn, every part of them trembling—but not from fear. From focus.
"This is suicide," Kaien muttered.
"No," Aira said. "This is destiny."
She stepped forward. The glowing runes around her still pulsed beneath the ground. Her scarlet eyes reflected the monster like mirrors.
Kaien followed. "Then let's make history."
—
They leapt.
Magic surged under their feet as the ground exploded. Kaien flew first, slicing upward with a scream that shook the bones in his back. His blade connected—barely—a single spark flying off the Wyrm's obsidian scale.
It turned toward him, slow, taunting.
He didn't stop.
Aira followed. Not with a scream—but with silence.
Dead silence. The kind that comes before the world breaks.
Her blade, Kurenai no Yoru, slashed straight across the monster's eye.
It howled. Blood like molten fire splashed across the sky.
—
Below, the soldiers had stopped fleeing.
They stared up, mouths open, as two human silhouettes fought a god.
"Who… are they?" one whispered.
No one answered. Because no one knew.
—
Kaien fell.
The Wyrm had flung him like a toy, crashing through tree after tree before landing hard against the rocks. He didn't move.
Aira screamed.
Something in her snapped.
Her blade pulsed brighter. The runes turned black.
And suddenly… she wasn't alone.
The spirit inside her—the one sealed in the blade—woke up.
It spoke in her voice.
But it wasn't her.
"Let's end this."
—
The sky cracked open again as she shot upward, slicing through the monster's throat. The Wyrm twisted, shrieked, then crashed into the valley below, shaking the earth for miles.
Silence.
No one moved.
Even the wind stopped.
And then—
Aira landed beside Kaien, blood pouring down her face, breath trembling.
"You alive?" she asked, voice cracked.
He groaned. "Barely."
She smiled. "Then let's go kill the rest."
—
Far away, in the heart of the Imperial Fortress, a boy with golden eyes watched through a crystal mirror.
"They've awakened it," he whispered.
And from the shadows behind him… someone else smiled too