Rueben's moves were like a bomb detonating.
The air in the temple didn't have time to displace; it shattered. One moment, he was standing ten paces away, and the next, he was a localized hurricane of living violence. His fists were blurred streaks of tan and shadow, whistling through the air with the sound of cracking whips.
Thud-Crack-Crack-Thud.
Rueben's knuckles collided with Kenji's guard like a succession of sledgehammer blows. He was firing a barrage of rapid-fire strikes, jabs, hooks, and localized palm strikes that would have turned a normal man's ribcage into a bag of splinters. Kenji took the brunt of it, his body vibrating with every impact, his feet carving twin trenches into the ancient stone floor as he was pushed back.
Despite the onslaught, Kenji's eyes remained flat. Unblinking. He wasn't looking at Rueben's face; he was looking through him, analyzing the telegraph in his shoulders, the weight shift in his hips.
Rueben let out a breathless, jagged laugh, his adrenaline spiking as he pivoted for a devastating roundhouse. "Hey! You're an amazing fighter!" he shouted, the sheer joy of combat lighting up his eyes like a dying star. "Especially since you don't have any—"
But Kenji was bored.
The fight had lost its flavor. The "mission" was a chore, and Rueben was just another obstacle made of meat and bone.
Rueben lunged, putting the entirety of his weight into a final, crushing straight right. To Rueben, the world felt fast, electric, and full of life. To Kenji, the world had slowed to a crawl, a silent film of a man making a fatal mistake.
Kenji moved once.
It wasn't a flourish; it was an erasure. He stepped inside the arc of the punch, his body moving with the cold, frictionless efficiency of a falling guillotine. There was no sound of a struggle, only the wet, singular shirr of the Red Shard slicing through the atmosphere.
Rueben's sentence died in his throat, replaced by a soft, confused wheeze. He stood perfectly still for a heartbeat, his fist still extended into the empty air where Kenji's head had been a microsecond before.
Then, a thin, red line appeared across his neck, blooming like a dark carnation.
Kenji didn't even look back. He was already flicking the blood from his blade as Rueben's knees hit the stone. The guardian of the fire fell in silence, his eyes wide with the realization that the "amazing fighter" hadn't even been trying.
From the distant peak, Seth watched through a glass. "Wow," he muttered. "Who knew he was that easy to beat?"
"Brothers! Gather and watch," Damion shouted, his voice echoing across the peak. "Today, we shall see Father again!"
"Get rid of those two."
Kaito's heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. He saw the shift in the Adjons' eyes, the boredom curdling into a lethal, final intent. His wings twitched, muscles coiling as he reached out a desperate hand to grab the back of William's tunic. He had a singular, panicked thought: _Just one more gust. Just one more flight into the whiteout._
But against the Adjons, hope was a mechanical error.
Before Kaito's feet could even leave the frost, the twins moved. It wasn't a fight; it was a cold, effortless execution. With a casual, almost rhythmic flick of their wrists, as if snapping the dust off a silk sheet, Brone and Kerrim exerted a localized surge of telekinetic pressure.
CRACK
The sound was sickeningly wet, echoing off the jagged mountain faces like the snapping of dry winter timber. Kaito's wings, once symbols of a tattered but defiant freedom, went limp instantly. William's head lolled at an impossible angle, his eyes still wide with the shock of a death he hadn't seen coming.
Their bodies didn't fall with the dignity of warriors; they slumped into the fresh snow with a dull, heavy thud, discarded like broken porcelain toys in a nursery of monsters. The crimson blood began to bloom beneath them, turning the pristine white into a macabre map of failure.
Inside, the air was stagnant and heavy. A massive coffin stood chained to the far wall, and at the center of the room, a mystical fire burned with an otherworldly glow. Kenji approached the flame and reached out.
The moment his fingers brushed the light, a violent surge of energy tore through his body. The fire hissed and dissipated, absorbed into his very marrow. Kenji cleared his mind, his lungs burning as the magical barrier protecting the mountain slowly fractured and broke apart.
"He did it!" the brothers rejoiced outside. "Thirty minutes till the barrier falls."
Inside the tomb, the heavy iron chains fell away. The coffin creaked open, and a man stepped out. Ren moved with a skeletal grace, his skin clinging to his bones after centuries of imprisonment.
"I was worried I'd slept through the end of everything. It turns out, the end was waiting for me to wake up."
Ren whispered, his voice like grinding stones. He stepped toward the entrance, arms outstretched to catch the first light of the sun he had seen in an age. He glanced down at Kenji, who was shivering on the floor. "You must be the one who freed me. Thank you for your kindness... but my awakening is the sign that I must end this world."
Kenji looked up, his gaze dead. "This world needs a change," he rasped, forcing himself to his feet. "But we don't need a tyrant."
"So what are you?" he held his sword firm.
"Haha! You think you can fight a god?" Ren laughed.
"Come at me."
Kenji lunged. With the mana fire coursing through his veins, his speed doubled. His blade hummed, a red streak in the dim light. Ren raised a hand, effortlessly blocking the slash with his bare palm.
Kenji fell back, his mind reeling. What was that speed? He focused the fire into his blade, charging again with every ounce of strength he had left. Ren was faster. He caught Kenji by the face, lifting him off the ground.
"I have been stronger than the world's mana fire for centuries," Ren hissed. "To me, you are a baby."
He slammed Kenji into the stone floor, the impact shattering the boy's legs. Ren stood over him, looking out at the horizon. "I put myself in there, boy. I was bored. My wife died, and I had done everything a mortal could do. So I made a plan: I would start over. But I wouldn't do it on a whim. I decided that if I were destined to reset existence, someone would eventually free me."
The last barrier broke. As the world's mana rushed back into him, Ren's body began to fill out, his withered skin turning youthful and muscular.
The sons appeared, bowing low. "Father," they breathed.
"My boys," Ren said, smiling as he pulled them into a hug. "Just the people I wanted to see... I've come to collect your powers."
As Ren's words hung in the air, the six brothers, men who had played at being gods for centuries, felt something they had forgotten existed.
FEAR