Ceyla: "KHAEL!!!"
Her voice cracked the silence lightning flashed from her palm but the Shades twisted, absorbing even that light.
The world darkened.
Cold. Suffocating.
Khael's body was half-consumed, his heartbeat echoing inside the void.
He could feel the ancient hatred of the Hollow Vein beneath the land, feeding through the elder's dying soul.
(If this keeps up… I'll be pulled under too.)
He clenched his fists.
The Dragon Veins under his skin flared open, silver and azure scales pulsing faintly.
"Wind Echo Art—Seventh Verse: Heaven's Recoil!"
A burst of compressed air shattered outward, tearing through the Shades.
The shockwave cracked the soil, breaking the connection just long enough for Khael to leap back, dragging the old man with him.
The Shades howled, reforming into a single, monstrous shape before being ripped apart by a descending shadow.
Then a hand tore through the swirling darkness.
Chains of obsidian Shinrei coiled behind it, spiraling like black wings forged from corrupted light.
A low, jagged voice broke the silence cold enough to freeze breath in midair.
"Still using echoes to resist the void, Dragon Knight?"
The smoke parted.
He stepped through it—
hair wild and yellow like burning hay, cloak torn from beast hide, his body a map of old scars that glowed faintly with Shinrei corruption.
Each scar pulsed, leaking threads of red-black energy that twisted the ground beneath him.
Bakuza.
The rogue Veinwalker.
The one who crushed Kaen into the dirt couple of days ago
The one whose blade pierced through Kaen's heart and left him breathing in ash.
Khael's eyes narrowed. "Bakuza…"
But Kaen…Kaen didn't flinch this time.
His boots scraped against the cracked earth, eyes blazing with twin infernos of red and orange Shinrei.
He remembered everything:
the taste of blood,
the mocking laughter,
the helpless fury when his flame failed.
His hand clenched around his weapon's hilt until it bled.
The Void Seal under his skin throbbed, whispering to him again.
"Time for a rematch, you bastard!!"
Bakuza smirked. His eyes, black-ringed and sharp as broken glass, glimmered with amusement.
"Rematch? You think you've grown in just couple of days"
His voice was a scar turned into sound.
The words cracked through the wind, raw and furious.
Bakuza tilted his head, a lazy grin tugging at his mouth.
"Hahahaha" His chains slithered like serpents through the air. "this ks what I want"
The ground beneath him pulsed with strange sigils — a faint circle of the Hollow Vein glowing beneath his feet.
Kaen's rage only burned hotter.
The Void Mark across his chest flickered beneath his skin, light crawling through his veins.
Khael's gaze sharpened.
He could see the instability, the Shinrei flow already beginning to distort.
(Damn it… his emotions are spiking. If he draws on that seal—!)
Kaen's flames roared higher, burning red and black together.
"I don't care how deep your Void runs—this time, I'll burn through it!"
The ground exploded beneath him as he lunged forward, fire and shade intertwining into a blinding spiral.
Khael stepped forward, wind gathering around him. His voice cracked with worry, almost swallowed by the roar.
"Kaen! Don't—don't overdraw your seal!"
But Kaen didn't hear him.
Or maybe he did and simply chose to ignore it.
Because for once, he wasn't afraid.
He had trained for this.
He could still feel the rough grip of Master Genzo's hand, the old man's voice echoing through the storm of memory.
"Power is a curse only when you let it own you.
But once you learn to dance with it, even the curse bows."
He'd spent months mastering that dance pushing himself until the seal no longer burned him from the inside.
Until the Hollow Vein's whispers grew quiet.
Until he could wield sixty percent of his power without losing control.
Now that confidence bled through every motion.
His flames were no longer wild, they flowed, each movement sharp, deliberate, almost regal.
Even Bakuza paused, eyes narrowing slightly as he read the aura shift.
Kaen's lips curved into a faint, confident grin.
"I'm not the same weakling you crushed before."
Bakuza tilted his head.
For the first time, amusement glimmered in those void-like eyes.
"Hoh, action speaks louder than words"
The ground began to tremble again faint cracks spreading outward like roots.
And then, his tone shifted, the grin curdling into something darker.
"But you're standing before one of the Hollow Nine, boy.
And leashes mean nothing to gods."
The air around him shattered.
Chains of voidlight lashed outward, the space itself twisting and convulsing.
Kaen's smirk faded the moment the weight of that aura hit him.
It was not strength.
It was absence an endless pull that devoured all light, all warmth, all meaning.
His flames faltered for a heartbeat.
(This pressure… it's—no, impossible… I can't even sense the end of it!)
Bakuza's silhouette blurred, one step and he was there, right before Kaen, eyes gleaming with cruel recognition.
"Tell me, Genzo's student, how long do you think you'll last… before your seal cracks again?"
Kaen's instincts screamed, but he refused to flinch.
He clenched his jaw, forcing his Shinrei to surge, the red storm reigniting around him.
"Long enough to burn that smirk off your face!"
Their energies collided fire against void and the very air screamed.
Khael shielded his face from the shockwave, his heart pounding against his ribs.
(That idiot... he's holding it steady but even sixty percent won't be enough against a Hollow Nine.)
Dust and smoke surged around him as Ceyla's lightning flared again.
"He's matching him?! How—he shouldn't even—"
Shigeo's voice drifted through the din, quiet, thoughtful.
"Confidence and control… but arrogance kills faster than chaos."
…..
The ground trembled, cracks spreading wider as Kaen's firestorm clashed against the void.
Bakuza moved like a specter each step warping the space around him, every strike a ripple in reality itself.
Shigeo stood a few meters behind the frontline, hands still in his pockets, eyes half-lidded.
To anyone watching, he looked bored.
But his gaze sharp, calculating was tracing invisible lines through the chaos.
Lightning flared. Wind roared.
Kaen's fire tore through the black mist, only for it to reform like smoke refusing to die.
(So… his void energy doesn't burn or evaporate—it devours and reforms. That means he's not projecting Shinrei… he's bending it.)
Shigeo tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing as he watched the chains of voidlight shift.
(Those chains… each one anchors a spatial distortion. They're feeding him back the energy he loses. Which means… he's not fighting them. He's fighting the world.)
His brain fired through probabilities like lightning across circuitry.
Ceyla's energy output too erratic for long-term support.
Khael stable, but still adapting to the storm resonance.
Kaen holding 60%, but the seal's edges are fraying under the pressure.
Shigeo exhaled quietly through his nose.
(They'll last… maybe two minutes before one of them collapses. Three, if Khael forces synchronization.)
He flicked his gaze toward the ground toward the faint hum beneath the soil.
Something ancient was pulsing there, faint but steady, resonating with the same frequency as Bakuza's void chains.
(And then there's that. He's drawing from something below us. The source isn't him—it's the land itself.)
The thought sparked a ripple of unease even through his calm demeanor.
For the first time, Shigeo's lips twitched into something that wasn't quite a smirk.
"What a complicated world…" he murmured.
Saya, standing beside him, glanced his way.
"You're thinking again, aren't you?"
He didn't answer, his eyes were already glowing faintly with static energy, the first hint that the "lazy genius" was about to move.
(If I cut those anchor chains at once, the void field collapses. But if I miscalculate… the backlash could consume the entire village.)
He clicked his tongue softly.
(Tch. No good options. Just probabilities.)
The ground shook again as Kaen screamed, fire bursting around him like wings of blood and light.
Khael dashed forward, wind coiling around his blade.
Lightning, fire, and storm merged into one blinding roar.
And Shigeo finally sighed, stepping into the fray.
"Fine. Let's make this a little less complicated."
To be continue