The wind across the outskirts of central font kicked up spirals of scorched dust and broken stone, remnants of battles past. Amid the quiet chaos stood Cain and Dakun stone-faced, grim staring across the ruins at the lone figure who watched them with unreadable eyes.
Shiva.
His body was lean and sinewed, clad in a patchwork of scavenged armor fused with tribal detail. White-painted body markings twisted along his arms and chest like dancing spirits. Mechanical enhancements blinked beneath his skin seamless, unnatural. He wore a jagged headdress of bone and steel, crowned with streaks of red and white feathers. In his hand, a broad cleaver blade inscribed with ancient runes rested against his shoulder.
He tilted his head slightly. "Huh. Who are you guys?"
Cain's jaw twitched.
"You've got to be kidding me," Dakun muttered.
Cain took one step forward, eyes narrowing. His voice cracked under pressure. "You don't remember these faces, huh, King Shiva?"
Shiva gave a crooked smile. "Nope. No idea."
Cain's fists clenched. "Very well, then. You usually don't remember anything, anyway. Not the first time this has happened."
He turned his head slightly. "So Volcanus was right… you're not yourself Since that day."
Dakun's voice dropped into something darker. "He's so far gone, he can't even recall the ones who bled beside him. What a waste."
Cain's eyes burned. "Dakun. Call forth Ravenfeather. We didn't expect this today… but the gods have gifted us an opportunity. Revenge."
Dakun nodded grimly but did not yet move.
Cain stepped forward, muttering low under his breath, "Summoning Technique: SungMo."
A sharp whistle pierced the air as something small flickered into view above his right shoulder.
It was a child-like spirit blue-skinned, ethereal, its translucent limbs floating in constant slow motion. Its eyes, pure white, widened as it saw the figure across from them.
SungMo's voice was soft but trembling. "…Shiva?"
Cain nodded once. "Yeah."
Shiva, watching the exchange, raised his head toward the sky and laughed. "Lord Arcade, are these my opponents? That's adorable."
Dakun leaned in toward Cain. "He really doesn't remember anything, does he?"
Cain didn't answer. He didn't have to. His gaze alone said it all: it didn't matter.
The bond was already broken.
SungMo blinked twice, its childlike expression flickering with something close to dread. Then its demeanor changed.
Its tiny limbs bent low an odd, jittery stance like a twisted marionette poised to sprint. The corners of its mouth cracked open, and white smoke began to pour out in ribbons.
Cain stepped back.
The air temperature spiked instantly.
From SungMo's mouth, a thin column of liquid burst out a narrow beam of scalding, high-pressure water, so dense it carved a straight, vertical path into the ground as it fired upward from the earth. Steam hissed as soil exploded into shards of mud and stone.
The blast shot toward Shiva like a launched guillotine.
Shiva didn't flinch.
He pivoted smoothly, launching himself backward just as the water cleaved through the space he'd occupied. The force of the cut split the ground with a sickening rip, leaving a molten gash beneath where he had stood.
"Damn," Dakun muttered. "Fast."
But SungMo wasn't done.
Mid-air, its body twisted unnaturally. The spirit's neck snapped back and coiled in a serpentine arch, and then reverse flow.
The stream, still bursting forth from its mouth, curved like a serpent turning in the air. The beam of hot water whipped back toward Shiva now coming from behind, its edge thinner, faster, and sharpened with kinetic rage.
"Now," Dakun murmured.
His fingers twitched and pressed against the ground. "Masquerade Mask: Hollow Gate."
From beneath Shiva's feet, a ghostly white mask appeared on the stone—oval-shaped with hollow eyes and a wide, carved smile.
Shiva's boots slid. He looked down.
His feet glued. Not physically bound, but stuck as if reality itself refused to let him move.
He turned his head just in time to see the reversed water beam rushing toward him ripping through the air like a mechanical buzzsaw made of fluid and pressure.
The steam shrieked as the water neared.
Cain's voice growled behind the storm: "It's over
Shiva's smile didn't fade.
Even as the roaring beam of steaming, compressed water descended upon him ready to bisect him from crown to sternum he didn't flinch. His eyes shimmered faintly, like ancient stones catching firelight.
His lips parted with a whisper.
"…Appear. Totem."
A sharp hum cut through the battlefield, like the low roar of ancient drums echoing through a canyon.
To Shiva's right, the air twisted and a monolithic blue glow materialized beside him.
A massive totem pole slammed into existence with a thunderous weight. Carved into its glowing, translucent surface were the faces of sacred beasts: an owl with gemstone eyes, a snarling jaguar, a serpent coiled around a fox's head, a roaring lion at the base, a butterfly stretching wings at the top, and a raven perched at the crest.
The incoming water struck the totem.
SSSSHHHHAAAAK.
Steam exploded outward. But the totem did not crack, did not budge, did not so much as flinch. The water carved against it like a scalpel against an immovable godstone leaving not even a scratch.
Cain's eyes twitched. "What—?"
Then Shiva moved.
He gripped the totem with one hand and slammed its base against the ground with a booming THUD.
A ripple of white energy burst from the impact point, shattering the hold of the Masquerade Mask. The seal hissed into vapor, the hollow face evaporating like it had never been there.
Shiva's feet unstuck. His body moved free.
In one smooth, dancer-like motion, he leapt back, leaving the totem standing mid-battle.
The water beam still pressed down on it unyielding but Shiva's hand flicked sideways.
And the totem still rooted to the earth shuddered.
Then it launched across the ground toward him.
It slid with supernatural force, catching his outstretched palm as though obeying a master's call.
He spun it upright and let it rest beside him, gripping it like a second weapon.
Cain's face twisted in disgust. "He's still using it…"
"He doesn't deserve it," Dakun hissed, spitting into the dirt.
Together, they stepped forward.
Their shared rage uncoiling like something old, personal.
Southern Font Region( Team Madagascar Racing towards the Central Font battle Zuolin)
Elsewhere on the war-torn plain, the silence bent.
A shadow descended from the ash-draped sky slow, controlled, weightless.
Zuolin.
He landed as if the earth accepted him, rather than resisted him. His long, tattered robe fluttered once before stilling, the cryptic runes etched across it glowing dim red like fading sigils on dying parchment. Black smoke rose from beneath the veil of his hood, coiling in lazy, poisonous threads into the air.
He did not speak.
He didn't have to.
Madagascar felt it first a pressure on his skin, like a hand pressing just above the bandaged eye that still throbbed beneath the linen. He took a half-step forward, hand hovering toward the covered socket.
Asger was already standing between them, eyes fixed on Zuolin, Osiris cracked his knuckles. "He's alone."
"No," Madagascar muttered. "He's worse than alone."
Zuolin moved.
He didn't step his entire body simply shifted.
The sword that had been held lazily at his side now hung over his shoulder. In a smooth, almost alien gesture, his arm reached up and grasped it from behind, as if changing hands mid-thought.
Madagascar's eye burned.
"MOVE!"
He exploded sideways, an arc of white ice bursting from beneath his feet.
Osiris followed instinctively.
Asger stayed.
"What?"
SSSHHLKT.
Two lines of red flashed across the air faint, silent, diagonal.
Asger didn't move. For a moment, it seemed like nothing had happened.
Then her arms fell.
Cleanly severed at the shoulders, both limbs tumbled down in slow, almost graceful arcs, landing with a dull slap onto the blood-slicked ground.
Asger dropped to her knees, eyes wide.
"When…?" she whispered.
Blood geysered from her stumps in thick pulses. Her face twisted, not with pain but disbelief. Her mouth tried to move, but no words followed.
Osiris stood frozen, then erupted in anger seeing the damage Asger had suffered he called out "ARMAMENT—ANKH!"
In his right hand, a golden looped cross appeared, humming with holy light.
"AND SCEPTER!"
His left filled with a weapon of kings long, narrow, inscribed in spiraling language only the gods could read.
He pointed both weapons forward.
The god of death was ready.
But the warlord's blade had only tasted blood.
(FROM THE NORTH FONT)
The northern wind howled above cracked tundra as Ravenfeather, Vincent, Wei, and Chiro sprinted toward the central font, their boots crunching over broken terrain. Through the thinning mist, they spotted a figure already kneeling among the fallen.
Marcus.
He stood over four bodies arranged carefully in a line Sir Varion and the three Presidents. They lay unconscious, their energy signatures faint, but intact.
Wei's face broke. "No… no no—"
He rushed to Zichen's side, the President of the Chinese Hunter Fiction, falling to his knees, touching his shoulder gently.
Chiro dropped beside Mujin, Seoul's battle-scarred President. His fists clenched as he whispered something inaudible.
Vincent bowed his head low.
For a moment, time stilled. The sky crackled. Distant echoes of war thundered like forgotten drums.
Then
Ravenfeather straightened suddenly.
His nose twitched once.
Twice.
He inhaled sharply, deep and long. His eyes sharpened, nostrils flaring.
"What…?"
The shift in his body was instantaneous. His form vanished in a green arc of light lightning forged of instinct.
He was gone heading straight to the outskirt of The central front he had sensed Shiva Shen energy, and he wasn't about to play.
Wei looked up, alarmed. "Raven?!"
But no answer came.
At that very moment, inside the war room of SUHA, Minister Alfred stood over the main console, mic in hand. Behind him, glowing panels mapped every active battle sector.
His voice echoed through every channel, every earpiece worn by the northern unit.
"Northern Team," he said. "I understand your fear. Your grief. The faces beside you are gone… or going."
The room behind him held its breath.
"But this is not the time for mourning."
He leaned forward.
"This is the moment we fight. You are our last defense. The final chance. You are the new heroes of this generation and victory is the only way their sacrifice means anything."
He dropped the mic.
General Soren, arms folded beside him, spoke without looking.
"You're different from Tenzy."
Alfred exhaled. "When I take command, I forget emotions. He didn't."
The battlefield didn't pause to reflect.
It was still waiting to be saved.
Marcus knelt beside Sir Varion, placing his gloved hand flat against the scorched ground. Glitch marks spread outward in a circular pulse—jagged, neon-pink fragments of space-time that cracked and re-stitched themselves as they moved.
"Stand back," he said without looking.
Wei, Vincent, and Chiro did as told, though their eyes never left their fallen leaders.
A deep hum, like feedback from a forgotten frequency, trembled through the earth.
"Glitch: Spatial Fold."
A fissure opened beneath the unconscious trio—Varion and the Presidents—lifting them gently in midair. Reality itself distorted like a warped mirror, swallowing them into a crystalline ripple of refracted light.
And then they were gone.
The ground sealed with a crackle.
Inside SUHA Headquarters, sirens blared briefly, signaling arrival. White lights scanned the forms of Varion, Zichen, and Mujin now resting in containment pods. Medics scrambled in silently. But their battle was over for now.
Back on the field, Marcus stood up slowly.
His gaze didn't drift toward the sky or the damage or even the red-lit horizon.
It went forward.
Toward the battlefield.
Vincent tightened the strap on his shoulder guard. "We go in now."
Chiro nodded, her pool weapon already drawn. Her face was hard, features carved in stone.
Wei's expression remained sorrowful, but something sharp had returned to his eyes.
Marcus took one last glance at the spot where their leaders had lain.
"Let's finish this," he said.
Without another word, the three of them stepped into motion fast, coordinated, and without hesitation. The storm of war ahead awaited, and they ran toward it like men who no longer had anything left to lose.