The battlefield stretched endlessly under a blood-red sky. The invasion was in full force. Kael, Kaito, and Raizen had engaged Kurojin. Meanwhile, chaos erupted across the battlefield.
At the northern ridge, Hana Yume and Tetsu Akiyama clashed violently with Lilith, the master of Chrono Veil. Her time distortions twisted space around them. Tetsu's fists glowed with kinetic Will as he launched himself at her, but his strike passed through an afterimage.
"Too slow," Lilith whispered behind him, her voice warped by time.
Hana intercepted her with a flurry of flame petals. Lilith dodged, but a scorch grazed her cheek. For the first time, she frowned.
"You've grown stronger," she said.
"Stronger than your twisted illusions," Hana shot back.
Elsewhere, Veyron clashed with Kaede Mizuno and Ryuu Takashi in the ruined training compound. Shadow and void blades burst against Ryuu's lightning and Kaede's gravity manipulation. Veyron smiled.
"So the old guard still has a spark," he sneered at Kaede.
Kaede's eyes glowed. "You'll regret underestimating me."
Veyron barely blocked a crushing gravity spike while Ryuu came in from the side with a crackling storm fist. The blow connected, sending Veyron flying into a stone pillar.
But even then, he rose, dark aura swirling like a typhoon. The elite fighter wasn't done.
To the west, the Wielders—graduates and senior students from Nova Academia—faced off against mutated beast-villains. Eri led a group, her illusions confusing even the most primal monsters. Beside her, Magnus Kreel—one of the Top 3 Wielders—brought down a colossal beast with a single motion of his massive broadsword.
Seraphine Vale, another of the Top 3, hovered in the sky, bathing sections of the battlefield in waves of purifying light, disintegrating corrupted beasts.
Zhen Kairo, the third, moved like a phantom through enemy ranks, his blade dancing as dozens of enemies fell without a sound.
Kael's war wasn't just his now. The world had joined him.