Mask's headless body slumped into the rubble, and Alice barely had time to breathe before the earth thundered beneath her feet.

  Roy roared and charged—his eyes wild with unfiltered hate.

  “You bastard! I’ll make you pay!”

  Alice gasped, her whole body screaming in protest as she forced herself to rise.

  “No time to think. No time to feel. Just move.”

  She planted her feet, gritted her teeth, and pushed off the ground.

  Roy's massive arms widened for a crushing blow, but she darted low—sliding between his legs with a flick of her blade.

  Ssshhhkkk!

  A long, deep gash erupted across Roy’s torso. He stumbled, blood erupting from his chest as Alice skid to a stop behind him, panting, her knees buckling.

  Leonardo’s sharp eyes narrowed.

  Something… was changing.

  “Roy’s losing control. And she’s reading him like a book…”

  He gritted his teeth. The battlefield was tipping—and not in their favor.

  Behind them, from the cracked hallway, Frank burst in—soaked in rain, panting from exhaustion.

  “Master Leonardo! It’s nearly dawn—where were you?!”

  Leonardo didn’t even turn his head. “Plans changed.”

  He tossed Annabelle to Frank. “Take her. Get her out. Now.”

  “No! Let me go!” Annabelle screamed, flailing in Frank’s arms. “Let me go to her!”

  Frank held her tighter, shielding her from the chaos as he dashed back into the ruined halls.

  Alice didn’t even see them leave—her world narrowed to pain and blood and Roy’s heaving form.

  Leonardo sighed, unsheathing his blade.

  “I must admit, Alice… I never expected you to make it this far.”

  He stepped forward, his weight alone cracking the floor.

  “You survived Axel. Defeated Mask. And now you’re turning the tide against Roy.” His jaw tensed. “We underestimated what the will of a dying knight can become.”

  Alice didn’t speak. She couldn’t. Her lips were cracked, her lungs raw. But her eyes said everything.

  I’m still here.

  I’m not done.

  Come.

  Roy lashed out with a thunderous swing. Alice twisted just in time, sliding to the side and raking her blade across his leg. He stumbled—and roared again.

  Leonardo watched, unreadable.

  “She was always strong… but this? This is something else.”

  He exhaled. Then dropped into a stance.

  The floor cracked beneath him.

  In one blink, he disappeared.

  BOOM!

  He soared into the air, blade raised, a thunderclap following in his wake.

  "May this slash send you to the depths of hell! I, Leonardo! Call upon his lordship to give me the strength to cut my enemies!"

  “Ultra Slash!”

  CRACK!

  The light shattered the sky.

  A colossal fissure tore the ballroom apart. The ground split open, the floor below swallowed by dust and debris. The wind howled, sucking air through the new abyss.

  Leonardo stood at the edge, chest rising and falling. His sword still hummed with residual power.

  He waited.

  Then—

  Bricks exploded from the chasm.

  Alice climbed out—bloodied, one eye swollen shut, her arm shaking violently. But she was still holding her sword.

  A sword that now visibly cracked—hairline fractures webbing from the base to the tip. It glinted in the rain, a mirror of her body… her soul.

  Leonardo’s breath caught.

  She had charged into his blow. Stared at death right in the eye—and survived.

  She hurled debris toward him. He slashed it away with ease. She was already behind him. She punched—he parried. She kicked—he countered.

  Still, she danced. Still, she fought.

  He took a breath. And buried his hesitation.

  “This ends now.”

  But behind her—

  Roy rose again, stumbling forward with red eyes and clenched fists.

  They were closing in. Trapping her.

  Alice backed up, blood pooling beneath her, her blade shaking in her hand.

  “I’m falling apart.”

  Her thoughts blurred. Her vision dimmed.

  “My arms… I struggle to lift them. My knees feel like they’re shattering. My heartbeat’s deafening. My lungs won’t fill.”

  But she looked up. Through the blur of blood and rain, her gaze met the empty hallway—where her sister had been taken.

  “I promised her.”

  “I promised we’d both be free.”

  Leonardo raised his sword.

  Roy clenched his fists.

  The final blow was coming.

  SMASH!!! CRACK!!!! SLAM!!

  The room became a furnace of agony and ruin.

  Debris exploded outward as Axel’s bellow of pain rose above the raging storm outside, rattling the very foundation of the castle. Yokubo snapped both of Axel’s arms with a sickening crack, the bones giving out like brittle twigs. Without pause, the warlord hurled him downward with such force that the stone floor cratered beneath the reaper’s body.

  Axel writhed as the world spun, pain erupting through every nerve. But Yokubo wasn’t done.

  The warlord launched himself into the air—his immense body a living meteor—before crashing down and pulverizing Axel beneath him. A thunderous impact rocked the room, sending cracks crawling across the walls like spiderwebs. Axel’s ribcage shattered, his chest caving inward under the monstrous weight.

  Mana: 746/1,921

  (All stat boost!) (All stat boost!)

  Yokubo howled with laughter, leaping once more. This time, he landed directly on Axel’s face.

  The reaper’s skull fractured like brittle glass, his body flung from the shockwave like a broken doll. Yokubo caught him mid-air by the leg and dragged him across the splintering floor, crashing him into pillars, walls, and down the staircases in a whirlwind of blood and shattered stone. Gore painted the room as Axel’s limbs dangled, his body a canvas of carnage.

  His head was slammed into the wall—again, and again, Yokubo running full-force as he carved a bloody trail through the marble. To anyone else, this would be a final death. For Axel, it was a flashback.

  A memory.

  He remembered the Maiden.

  He remembered dying.

  Again.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  And again.

  Yokubo kneed him in the chest, hard enough to make the castle tremble. Axel’s eyes snapped wide as blood erupted from his throat, his sternum caving, his heart crumpling under the weight. He collapsed to the floor, wheezing, barely conscious.

  And then—sharp agony.

  He looked down. Yokubo held something.

  His right arm.

  Torn clean from his shoulder.

  No.

  The warlord grinned and—without ceremony—began to devour it, ripping into the flesh with audible wet crunches. Axel’s face twisted—not in fear, but in sheer fury.

  Mana: 623/1,921

  (All stat boost!) (All stat boost!)

  "Bastard...” Axel muttered through bloodied teeth, darkness swirling around him.

  Shadow wrapped around the remaining stump of his arm, binding the wound like a black tourniquet. He exhaled sharply, commanding the void itself to move.

  Shadow fists erupted from the ground.

  Five—then ten—then twenty, battering Yokubo from all sides in a flurry of wild, hammering strikes. But the warlord moved through them like a demon unleashed. The fists tore chunks from his skin, but Yokubo smiled, letting the blows land.

  Axel summoned shadow lances from the corners of the room—dozens. They converged at once, spearheading toward Yokubo from every angle. But Yokubo slammed his fist into the floor, sending out a concussive blast that shattered them all mid-flight. Shards of dissipating shadow rained across the room.

  Yokubo’s eyes flashed.

  He charged.

  Axel formed a black wall—thick, fortified. It lasted half a second before Yokubo’s horned charge tore through it like wet cloth.

  The warlord impaled Axel onto his tusks and slammed him against the far wall.

  CRUNCH.

  The impact caved in the stone. And Yokubo twisted, shredding Axel’s stomach to ribbons.

  Mana: 407/1,921

  Axel growled and slammed both fists—reinforced with coiling shadows—against Yokubo’s skull. The hit landed, staggering the warlord back. A breath of reprieve.

  Axel kicked, sending Yokubo sliding across the rubble.

  The air turned cold.

  Axel dragged himself to one knee, the taste of blood in his mouth, his stomach torn open, his mana running dry. His body was patchworked with shadow trying to mimic flesh, the black tendrils writhing unnaturally where skin should be.

  Yokubo stood.

  Snickered.

  "You’re slowing down, Axel. That healing factor of yours is starting to struggle. Running low, aren’t we?"

  Axel didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

  Instead, he focused—willing more shadows to him, dragging them from every corner of the room. Even his own blood cast a long enough shadow now. He forced them to form a crude second arm, black and jagged, trembling with instability.

  His breath was ragged, his body broken—but his eyes?

  Still burning.

  With hate.

  With the refusal to die.

  Yokubo charged.

  Axel moved. One arm limp, the other reconstructed from darkness, he let instinct and rage take control.

  The room blurred as monsters collided again.

  And neither had any plans of letting the other walk out alive.

  BOOM!!

  The floor trembled as Leonardo and Roy lunged from opposite ends, flanking Alice in perfect sync. Their coordinated assault left her scrambling. She blocked one, deflected another, only to be slammed with a punch from Leo that sent her staggering.

  She gasped, blood on her tongue, and barely shook off the dizziness before the vanguards came back around. Leo’s sword came first. She ducked. His leg followed, sweeping twice. She leapt—straight into Roy’s grasp.

  "HHAARRRGGHHH!!"

  The behemoth roared and slammed her into the ground. Her spine arched in agony as bricks exploded beneath her. She rolled, barely dodging his stomp, and swung her blade out of instinct.

  Clang!

  Leo deflected. Then struck. His boot collided with her stomach and sent her sailing into the far wall. Cracks spiderwebbed from the point of impact.

  She collapsed, coughing blood, trembling. Her arms burned. Her body was breaking down.

  They were too strong. Too fast. Perfectly in sync. She didn’t stand a chance.

  Her mind screamed for surrender. The pain begged her to yield. The weight of her failures threatened to drown her. All she had to do was drop her sword, close her eyes, and the torment would end.

  But when Leo and Roy charged once more, their blades gleaming in the fractured moonlight, her hands moved on their own.

  She raised her sword.

  She had no strength. No hope. No reason to still stand.

  Except one.

  Annabelle.

  "No hesitation," she whispered. Her knuckles whitened around her hilt. Her golden eyes sharpened with conviction. "Fight. No matter what."

  She burst forward, faster than before. Roy came first. He swung wide, fully expecting her to dodge upward. Leo was already there, blade primed.

  She did the unthinkable.

  She ran straight into Roy’s fist.

  CRACK!

  Her jaw crunched. Her vision spun. Her feet left the ground as the full force of Roy’s blow hit like a battering ram.

  But she didn’t fall, despite the agony she muttered an incantation under her breath.

  Her sword pulsed with divine light.

  "DIVINE BLADE!"

  She roared through the pain, through the blood, and slashed downward in a perfect arc.

  Leo’s eyes widened.

  Her blade ripped through Roy’s torso, bursting flesh, bone, and blood in a savage explosion. The juggernaut crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

  Alice fell to one knee, panting, soaked in crimson. Her vision blurred.

  But her ears perked.

  "Alice! Get up!"

  It was faint.

  But real.

  Her sister’s voice.

  "Annabelle!" she cried, scrambling to her feet.

  Across the battlefield, Annabelle clutched the healing potion and forced herself upright. Her sister’s scream had pierced the fog in her head. Her heart raced with hope and dread.

  Alice broke into a sprint, racing across the ruined ballroom.

  "Anna, hold on! I’m coming!"

  Leo cursed and turned, prepared to intercept.

  Too late.

  She was already past him.

  Alice was meters from the exit, reaching toward salvation—

  WHAM!!

  Something slammed into her side.

  Mask.

  "Hehe... Got you," it whispered.

  The wind left Alice’s lungs as they tumbled.

  Roy, somehow still conscious, let out a guttural roar and charged.

  "RRRROOOAAAARRRR!!"

  Alice panicked. She stabbed Mask through the chest, straight through the spine.

  Blood sprayed. Mask went limp.

  But Roy didn’t stop.

  "No! Roy!" Leo shouted.

  Too late.

  Roy barreled into both of them, tackling them through the shattered wall.

  "ALICE!" Annabelle screamed.

  The storm swallowed them.

  Three bodies fell into the abyss.

  Into the dark, endless void below.

  “Aaaaaaarrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh!!”

  Crack!

  Axel’s spine snaps against Yokubo’s knee with a sickening pop. His body flops onto the bloodstained floor like a broken puppet, his chest heaving in ragged, gasping breaths. His fingers twitch and tremble, sweat pouring from his chin as his entire body convulses under the weight of his wounds.

  Yokubo grabs him by the horn and yanks him upright.

  “On your feet, Reaper.”

  Then—

  Bam!

  A brutal punch to the gut.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  A flurry of merciless blows follows. One. Then another. Then another. Yokubo pummels him with increasing ferocity, each punch heavier than the last, driving the air from Axel’s lungs and the strength from his bones.

  (All stat boost!)

  (All stat boost!)

  It doesn’t matter.

  Axel is beaten senseless. His body hangs limp in Yokubo’s grasp, barely conscious, coated in layers of blood and shadow residue. The warlord grins, winding back—

  —and hurls Axel across the room like a discarded weapon.

  Slam!

  Axel’s shoulder shatters as he collides with a stone pillar, breaking it in half. Debris rains down. He crumples to the floor, twitching and bleeding, gritting his teeth through the agony.

  But even now—

  Even now—

  He raises a trembling hand.

  From the fractured stone, a series of shadow hands claw their way toward Yokubo, screeching through the air like phantoms of rage.

  Yokubo doesn’t flinch. He walks forward—through them—like mist through fingers.

  The shadows dissolve.

  Mana: 0 / 1,921

  Axel’s body buckles.

  His healing factor—gone.

  A new weight drops onto him like an avalanche. His wounds no longer close. His blood no longer retreats. The agony doesn’t fade—it builds, multiplies, consumes. For the first time since becoming the Reaper—he feels mortal.

  Yokubo’s boots echo as he approaches. He chuckles, deep and twisted.

  “Hehehe… So that’s it, huh?” he sneers. “Your well’s run dry.”

  Axel tries to rise—but his limbs betray him. His hands collapse beneath him. His body refuses to listen.

  Yokubo stands tall above him, the storm raging behind him, firelight dancing across his war-torn skin.

  “Looks like you’ve finally joined the rest of us, Reaper. No more regeneration. No more healing. Just blood, bone… and death.”

  His smile stretches wide, glinting like a blade.

  “Too bad. I was starting to enjoy our little game.”

  With a final step forward, Yokubo raises his arm—and brings it down with monstrous force.