The eclipse had drowned the desert in ink. The dunes that once gleamed gold under sunlight were now a sea of moving shadow, cold and lifeless.
Every breath burned like frost, and every sound seemed to echo through a hollow world.
A tremor, deep and resonant, rolled across the sand. The air cracked with a faint violet shimmer. From the void horizon, a surge of black dust erupted like a tidal wave and from its heart stepped a figure very tall, wrapped in celestial black robe. The earth under his feet fractured with each stride.
Azmaik had arrived.
Around him rose legions of countless skeletons clad in nether armor, their bones engraved with runic veins that pulsed like molten silver. Each one carried weapons born from entropy itself. s
Scythes, blades, javelins that devoured the light around them. Their hollow sockets burned blue, the color of dying stars.
Azmaik spread his arms wide, his laughter a deep, celestial echo that shook the ground. "Durkan…." His voice reverberated through every layer of air, through every frightened soul hiding beneath the sand. "Your false dawn ends here brethren."
Elior stood at the forefront, hair fluttering under the chaotic wind. "Azmaik," he said, calm but edged with exhaustion. "You came crawling out again. Did the dark finally get bored of you?"
Azmaik smiled—a calm, sinister curve. "Oh, Elior.… You've changed. You still think this war is about survival. It's about succession."
He raised a single hand. Behind him, a thousand skeletons lifted their weapons in perfect unison, their armor ringing like a funeral bell.
Elior didn't flinch. "You talk about succession, yet you kneel to something that can't even bleed."
That smile cracked wider. "You'll understand soon enough, why it can't."
Before the next heartbeat, the first wave of skeletons lunged forward, shrieking as their weapons carved through air. Tom, Rosario, and Vera burst from formation. Sand exploded under their feet as they charged into the dark tide.
The clash was deafening. Metal against bone, flame against void. Tom's invisible blades spun through the crowd, slicing skeletons into dust. Rosario teleported through flashes of crimson light, punching holes through the enemy lines, while Vera conjured a shield of spiraling water to protect the Hunters rushing behind.
Yet for every one they crushed, ten more rose from the black sand. The nether army was endless.
Tom's jaw clenched. He saw Azmaik standing behind the horde, hands folded, observing like a god amused by the struggles of ants. Tom's teeth grounded together. He sprinted, cutting through bodies like wood. "AZMAIK!!!" he shouted, but the skeletal ranks closed him again, trapping him in a maze of blades.
Elior jumped in beside him, his aura bursted like a solar flare. His punches shattered shields of netherlight, shockwaves splitting dunes. "He's playing with us," Elior muttered.
"I know." Tom's eyes burned with raw fury. "Then let's ruin his game."
Before either could strike again, a sudden silence swept the battlefield.
A faint hum filled the air. The temperature dropped which spiked their consciousness.
From Elior's back, two silhouettes walked forward through the dark.
Radahn, his crimson cloak fluttering in the ghost wind, eyes glowing faint gold. And beside him was Vera, her face sharp with focus, trident crackling with condensed waterlight.
Azmaik looked mildly intrigued. "Ah…. The Emperor of Emperors," he murmured, locking eyes with Radahn. "And the deserter of eternity."
Radahn didn't reply. He raised one hand.
A sudden explosion of energy surged outward, scratching space itself. The sand beneath them fractured into floating shards. Vera's form blurred then split apart.
One became two.
Two became ten.
Ten became a hundred.
Hundred became eighty thousand.
The desert was now filled with Veras. Each moving with independent will, each bearing a trident that glowed like lightning. Their presence turned the darkness fresh, their synchronization humming like a storm about to collapse on itself.
Azmaik's grin faltered for the first time. "Impressive trick," he admitted, voice still dripping arrogance. "But numbers won't save you. My army was born from the marrow of void itself."
Radahn tilted his head, eyes unreadable. "Then let the void meet its reflection."
Elior raised his hand and gave the command none dared whisper until now. "March."
A roar shook the dark. Hunters and Homans alike surged forward beside Radahn, beside Vera's endless army. Rosario skipped through space, Tom's rotating forces slicing swathes through the enemy.
Skeletons shattered, nether bones splintering into dust and light.
Azmaik lifted his arm, summoning new ranks from the cracks in reality itself, but the sands trembled. Vera's avatars collided in perfect formation, detonating waves of waterlight that erased legions in an instant.
Through the chaos, Elior and Azmaik's eyes met again.
Azmaik smirked. "You can't win this, Elior."
Elior stepped forward through fire and ruin with a cold voice as stone.
"Winning was never the point."
The battlefield stretched endlessly beneath the blackened eclipse, a vast plain of colliding shadows and trembling light. The Hunters formed a half-circle around the bunker's ridge, their movements synchronized through instinct and desperation.
None dared let the skeletons touch them directly, every contact meant erasure, a single graze from those void-forged blades could turn flesh into dust and memories into silence.
Flames, lightning, blades of aura, all painted streaks of chaos through the endless dark. Each Hunter fought like a flicker of resistance in a dying world. A woman with ember chains wrapped her body, slashing through ten skeletons before her own flame backfired, consuming her to ash. A man screamed as his legs brushed against a nether blade; half his form dissolved into static before he even fell. Still, none ran. They fought, because stopping meant meaningless.
Elior's voice boomed across the battlefield. "Don't let them touch you! Use distance hits, range attacks!" His fists burned golden, punching shockwaves that threw skeletal hordes back into the dunes.
Vera, the calm amidst the storm, his eyes glowing a faint cerulean. He stood perfectly still for a moment, his expression unreadable, as Radahn's presence radiated behind his. His eyes swirling with unnatural sigils.
Radahn's "Face" was beside him. He extended his power, choosing Vera as the mimic. The ground beneath them cracked.
And suddenly, Vera's reflection multiplied once again.
Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. Then tens of thousands.
Veras now stood upon the dark sand, identical yet distinct. Each bore a trident of condensed waterlight, each surrounded by a halo of mist.
This power had its cost.
Each time an avatar was struck down by a nether blade, the true figure feels it. His eyes didn't move, his lips didn't part but his fingers trembled for an instant, betraying the invisible agony.
A Vera was impaled through the chest. His body burst into mist, but the main figure's heartbeat stuttered, veins glowing faint blue.
Another was sliced in half by a skeletal reaper. Its halves dissolved midair. The real Vera exhaled sharply, blood trailing from his nose. It heals casually.
A third screamed as it was devoured by the void itself, disappearing silently. The real Vera closed his eyes for a second, face blank, enduring.
Each death crawled through his nerves like thunder, but he didn't cry out. He didn't stop. His silence became the battlefield's defiance.
When his avatars screamed, those screams became fuel, making the next wave strike harder, faster, more mercilessly.
Vera stood unbroken, one man, eighty thousand reflections.
Out from that living wound poured the flock of vampires from sky, a swarm of blackened wings that devoured what little light the eclipse spared. Their silhouettes blotted the heavens, descending like divine punishment.
At the center of the sky-beast, its body a grotesque hybrid of bat and dragon. On that was standing Karma, Xamin, and Fahrenheit.
Their coats fluttered in the stormwinds long, stitched from leather that shimmered faintly like spilled oil. Karma's coat carried silver threads that resembled veins, pulsing faintly with blood aura.
Xamin wore his high-collared jacket neatly buttoned, calm and composed amidst madness. Fahrenheit…. his was half-open, his hands shaking, red eyes still burning with grief. His jaw twitched every few seconds whether rage and mourning was trapped inside the same vessel.
"Do you feel her?" Karma's voice was smooth, sharp. A whisper that carried across the battlefield. "The stench of the sun still rots here."
Fahrenheit didn't answer. His knuckles cracked audibly. In his mind, Sonia's bloodstained face replayed endlessly. The last time he held her hand. The moment she fell, because of this place.
His lips parted, barely a whisper escaping: "Whoever touched her.… I'll tear their soul in half."
The monsters beneath them gave a guttural roar, wings spreading, wind spiraling down like a hurricane. The vampires below followed their signal, hundreds of them, diving with screams sharp enough to split bone.
Below, the Hunters tried to hold formation, but the sheer presence of the vampiric host broke their rhythm. The air grew thick, toxic, drenched in iron and hunger.
Radahn stood at the edge of the desert ridge, eyes narrowing. "They brought another army," he muttered, voice low and grim.
Karma swiftly moved straight like a missile.
He didn't attack. He merely descended.
As his boots touched the earth, the space shook, the ground folded in upon itself like it was afraid to touch him. His aura was dense, electric, unnatural erupted outward. The sand was crystallized under his feet.
Vera's eighty thousand avatars were stunned..
Then one by one like candles extinguished—the Veras began to collapse.
Their bodies flickered into static, then dissolved into shimmering dust. The sound they made wasn't even a scream. The main Vera clenched his fists, teeth grinding, but he couldn't stop it. Each avatar that vanished sent an invisible blade through his core.
"Your moves are fragile," Karma said softly, almost disappointed. "Power built on borrowed identity will always bow to true essence."
Vera fell to one knee, eyes still burning, refusing to look away. "Then try me yourself."
Karma tilted his head, faint smile curving beneath his breath. "You're not worth my hand."
Behind him, Fahrenheit finally spoke, voice trembling with wrath. "Just point me to the one who took Sonia."
Karma didn't look back. "You'll know soon enough."
The battlefield was no longer chaos. It was annihilation. The vampires swarmed, skeletons tore through dust, and at the center of it all, Karma's silent dominion reduced existence to trembling silence.