In the lower outskirts of Libertatis, chaos reigned. The Pegaluves—those winged, celestial beings—scattered in every direction. Some hid behind shattered homes, trees stripped bare by the winds of war. Others simply took to the skies, fleeing the unfolding carnage that defied all reason.
Above the crumbling cityscape, Cryo soared—wings spread wide, eyes narrowed with fury. But his brief moment of aerial clarity was shattered when not one, but three entire houses were hurled at him with the force and accuracy of ballistic missiles.
"Cryo, watch out!!" Lecia's voice rang out from below. With a sweep of her arms, she summoned gravity itself—halting the flying structures in midair. Yet her intervention was short-lived.
A larger house, ripped from its roots like a weed from soil, came screaming through the air and slammed into Lecia. Her body was flung like a ragdoll, ricocheting off the ground with brutal force, each bounce sending her farther into the distance.
"Lecia!!" Cryo's heart froze. "C'mon… you can't die now!!" he cried out, rushing to her aid.
But fate had other plans.
Another building barreled toward him. Cryo met it head-on, arms braced, catching it with a thunderous clash. As he steadied it, he saw two Pegaluves huddled inside—terrified and trembling.
"Are you insane?!" he roared at the source of the destruction. "There are people in these buildings! Aren't you supposed to protect them?"
He gently lowered the structure, and the traumatized Pegaluves scurried out, fleeing to safety.
High above, a dark figure loomed. Polo.
"Creatures below the flying city are not worthy of our presence!" Polo bellowed. "We are the law—and they will obey it."
Without remorse, Polo tore another house from the earth—inside, three Pegaluve children screamed, trapped within its wooden prison unable to do anything.
Cryo surged forward to intercept, but Lecia blurred past him like a comet. She burst through the window mid-flight, scooping up the terrified children and escaping just before the building could crush her partner.
Her face was streaked with blood, her gaze burning with wrath.
"Ice bird… we're going to kill this bastard. I don't want to hear a single excuse." Her fury was a living thing.
Cryo hovered beside her, his voice low but cold. "They're the ones who dropped the humans... and the little boy."
Lecia's eyes widened, locking with Cryo's.
"There were human catapults," he continued grimly. "Set up above—no Pegaluves allowed is nearby and there was a sign saying... Dead or Alive."
Silence filled the air. Then came the rage… rage beyond what Cryo had ever felt from her. Lecia's power surged like a collapsing star. Cryo instinctively veered away.
"You're dead." Her voice cracked the air. "Killing my husband's people..." Her body began to glow with devastating force. "YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD!!"
The sky darkened—painted purple by her fury.
"By Nyxara's weight, goddess of gravity's darkest might,
I call forth the void's crushing descent into night.
Let spacetime writhe, and all that stands be torn—
Before my will, let gravity's fury be born!"
She clapped her hands together. Reality screamed.
The outer city twisted into oblivion. Everything—buildings, streets, even distant mountaintops—was caught in the tidal pull of her spell.
"GRAVITY RIB!" she shouted.
Polo was slammed from the sky like a gnat beneath a hammer, and the very terrain warped under the pressure of her wrath.
Elsewhere in the collapsing city, Qyioza plummeted from above like a broken meteor, landing in the midst of a fierce duel against Lisare. She touched down beside him, her wings trembling from overexertion.
"What did you do…?" she whispered, watching Qyioza writhe.
But before she could act, she too was struck down by the same crushing force, slammed into the ground with a crater that widened beneath her.
"Dop... Dop…" Her voice trembled, her eyes darting wildly.
High above, Achlys watched the chaos unfold. "Lecia... what's happening down there?" he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
He turned to Qyioza and Lisare and saw them both struggling, helpless against the sudden force.
Bellona's voice echoed in his mind. "Hey brat… You planning on using all of my energy just to stand and watch?"
"Sorry, sorry…" Achlys grunted, staggering over. With effort, he dragged Lisare from the pit, though she collapsed again almost instantly.
"Dop longet sisi…" she murmured, before fainting.
Achlys turned back to Qyioza.
"New law! REVERSE GRAVITY!" Qyioza commanded, his body glowing violet. The decree etched itself across the skies like scripture.
"Shit!" he cursed, his eyes widened as Qyioza suddenly shot upward, taking flight. "First Order, Horizon!!" roared as he unsheathed his sword.
"Get back here, damn law changer!" Achlys leapt after him, hurling attacks that mostly missed, ripping through old laws like paper with each stray hit.
"STOP IT! I NEED MY LAWS!!" Qyioza snarled and landed a brutal punch on Achlys, sending him crashing back to the city below. The ground buckled. The city began to tilt.
"YOU MORON! YOU DESTROYED THE LAW OF BALANCE!!" Qyioza roared.
Ice pillars erupted beneath the floating island, locking it in place. Qyioza turned to flee, when he spotted Crevial.
"Crevial!" he called, stretching out a hand.
What she saw froze her soul.
Qyioza was smiling—an eerie, twisted grin that could give nightmares to demons.
"CREVIAL! I need you!" he hissed.
She tried to escape, but he seized her by the head and flung her off the edge. Then he leapt after her.
"Achlys! Please help me!!" she screamed.
Achlys' mark burned bright—then flickered, darkening to black. Lines crept across his body like vines of ink.
He collapsed. Powerless.
"Achlys won't help you…" Qyioza's voice whispered. "But I will, Crevial..."
Those were the last words Achlys heard before the darkness swallowed him.
Bellona stood silently atop a jagged blade embedded in the earth, watching the flaming ball of energy shrink in the distance.
"You pushed yourself too far," she said softly, her gaze never leaving the sky. "Your emotions are taking over you..."
She turned to Achlys, lying unconscious, eyes glassy. "And now you've fainted again... chasing power you can't yet hold. You need more training, Achlys."
Achlys stirred. "What… what will happen to me now?"
"Your body will lose control. And the Order will consume you," she replied. "Don't resist it… or you'll lose yourself forever."
"Second Order…Cataract…" he mumbled.
Bellona stepped away. Three swords appeared around her, and three more bursts from the ground.
"When you awaken… don't look at your friend," she said.
Achlys' eyes shot open. "You don't mean—" But she was already gone.
He gritted his teeth, trembling. "Damn you, Bellona…"
Outside, in the waking world—
The city was breaking apart.
Homes collapsed. The very rock beneath the floating island cracked and drifted.
Achlys opened his eyes.
Lisare stood before him, weapons drawn, facing a terrifying version of himself—one no longer in his control.
"DEATH... BLOOD! BLOOD! MORE BLOOD!" the voices screamed from his mouth.
Lisare readied her swallow-blade, now reforged with dual edges—one scarred, the other pristine.
"Dop Dop!" she cried out, pointing her weapon at him.
His markings flickered violently—white and black, the black creeping further across his skin. His eyes bled. His grip on the sword was iron.
"BLOOD! SECOND ORDER! CATARACT!!" he howled, swinging with monstrous force.
Lisare blocked, but the pressure was unrelenting.
The city began to fall faster, driven by the spell's destructive momentum. Streets shattered beneath them.
"DEATH! CURSES! BLOOD! ORDER!!" the voices grew louder, stronger, drowning all reason.
Achlys, trapped within his own body, whispered in his mind, "Please... stop... I don't want this..."
Lisare clenched her teeth, mustering every ounce of strength. With a final push, she deflected the blow into the ground, cracking the earth.
"Sisi!!" she gasped.
The City— split in half
Lisare didn't hesitate. With a fierce cry, she seized Achlys by the collar and hurled him away from the crumbling ground, leaping after him with the last of her strength.
"You should give up!! Blood, blood!!" Achlys howled mid-flight, his voice guttural—twisted by the eldritch corruption that had claimed him.
He crashed violently into the debris-littered streets below, his body folding on impact. A sickening crunch echoed—ribs broken, blood spurting from his mouth as he howled in pain. "Grahhh!!"
Lisare landed atop him in a blur of movement, eyes wild, fists clenched like iron. "Longet Sisi!!" she bellowed, slamming her fists toward him again and again, her blows cracking stone where they missed.
But Achlys moved on sheer, savage instinct. The black corruption empowering him surged through his limbs. He twisted and evaded her onslaught with unnatural speed.
"BLOOD!!" he roared, every dodge more feral than the last.
Then—with a flicker of his leg—he vanished in a burst of mist, reappearing midair and spinning with a kick aimed straight for her ribs.
Lisare, a seasoned warrior of unshakable instincts, anticipated the maneuver. She shifted, her body snapping forward in a brutal counter, driving her elbow into his solar plexus.
"Grahh!!" Achlys reeled, coughing, but the agony only seemed to empower the madness clawing through his mind.
"B-Blood! BLOOD!!"
Suddenly, an explosion of dark mana erupted from within him. The black markings—like roots of ink—snaked rapidly over his body, covering him in a grotesque tapestry of power.
Lisare's eyes widened. "Longet…!?"
His muscles bulged unnaturally. Bones cracked and realigned. Pain no longer registered on his face. The entity controlling him had discarded limits and turned his very flesh into a weapon of madness.
He launched forward.
"BLOOD!!" he shrieked.
Lisare barely raised her guard in time.
His punch slammed into her face like a battering ram.
She flew backward, crashing into the remnants of a once beautiful manor, reduced now to splinters and dust. The rubble exploded around her.
Achlys followed.
He descended upon her like a storm, his strikes relentless—fists like iron, feet like hammers. Blow after blow struck home.
Lisare could barely move. Blood dripped from her mouth as her vision blurred. She stirred weakly, glancing down at her leg—twisted grotesquely.
"Sisi… dop…" she whispered, her voice quivering.
Achlys approached, slow and terrible. His footsteps echoed through the broken city.
"BLOOD! I WANT BLOOD!!" he howled, louder than ever—his voice a bell tolling doom over the remnants of Libertatis.
Lisare gritted her teeth.
"D-Dop... si-sisi…" she muttered, forcing herself upward with sheer willpower—and vanished into the sky with a desperate beat of her wings.
The skies split as Cryo surged upward, a streak of blue fire trailing his wings. Below him, the crumbling ruins of Libertatis groaned in despair. But his eyes were locked on a single figure—Polo, that self-righteous despot whose arrogance had sparked a storm of death.
"Polo!" Cryo roared, his voice cutting through the wind like steel. "You're finished."
"No! I won't die here!" Polo spat, desperation finally cracking his voice. He turned and tried to flee, his wings struggling to keep pace as the power once granted by Qyioza began to falter.
Cryo's body shimmered with a deadly frost. A ring of glacial energy formed around him—then shattered into hundreds of razor-sharp spears of ice.
With a flick of his wrist, they launched.
Polo screamed, deflecting some with erratic gusts of wind magic, but the barrage was relentless. One struck his shoulder. Another pierced his thigh. Then a third stabbed through his wing, and he spiraled downward.
Cryo descended like a comet.
He slammed into Polo midair with the force of a meteor, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him into a floating stone fragment. The impact cracked the rock in half.
"YOU THROW HOMES AT CHILDREN?!" Cryo bellowed, punch after punch landing like thunder. "You call yourself law?!"
He pummeled Polo mercilessly—each strike a punishment, a judgment, an execution delayed only by the need to make him feel it.
"Dop SISI!!" a voice cried out.
Lisare.
Bloodied and limping, she crashed between them, throwing up a shimmering barrier of mana just before Cryo's final blow could crush Polo's skull.
"What are you doing?!" he growled. Cryo's fist trembled inches from Polo's face. He wanted to end it. To erase him.
Then Achlys appeared behind Lisare—drawn by the sounds of the chaos.
His presence was like a shadow stretching over the edge of oblivion.
Lisare stumbled, barely standing. Her leg bent wrong beneath her. Cryo noticed instantly.
"Your leg…" he whispered.
Without hesitation, Cryo dropped to one knee and pressed his frost-wreathed hand to her shin. A soothing mist surrounded it as the bone locked in place, the wound sealed in a prison of ice.
"It's only temporary," he said. "But it'll hold."
She met his eyes—grateful. Nodded once.
Achlys stepped forward.
Or rather, something wearing Achlys' body.
The black lines had overtaken nearly all of him. His eyes bled. His breath came in ragged, hissing bursts. The sword in his hand trembled—not from fear but eagerness.
"Lisare…" he said—or tried to.
But the voices spoke for him.
"BLOOD.BLOOD.WANT.BLOOD"
Cryo stepped in front of Lisare. "You're not him. Not anymore."
Lisare reached behind her, hand glowing.
Then she drew it.
Life Binder.
The weapon shimmered with a light both serene and wild—its twin-bladed edges pulsing with a strange green-gold aura that seemed to defy the chaos around them.
The moment it left its sheath, the air stilled.
"Sisi longet" she whispered.
Cryo and Lisare moved as one.
Cryo led with a blast of frost, freezing the ground beneath Achlys and forcing him to jump.
Lisare followed with a horizontal slash, Life Binder's glowing edge searing through the air. Achlys parried it, but the weapon sapped something from him—a flicker of the corruption dimmed.
"NO!" the voices howled.
He retaliated, blade flashing with the second-order spell: "CATARACT!!" A geyser of cursed water erupted beneath them.
Cryo shot upward, dodging the blast. Lisare was caught mid-lunge and thrown back—but Cryo swooped in, catching her before she could hit the rocks below.
"longet" she muttered.
Together, they dove back down.
Achlys tried to hold them off, but they were relentless. Cryo shattered his defenses with an icebound flurry, while Lisare struck from behind, Life Binder leaving trails of light that disrupted the markings creeping along Achlys' skin.
Strike after strike, blow after blow—they wore him down.
Achlys screamed—his voice no longer his. "BLOOD!! I NEED BLOOD!!"
With one final coordinated move, Cryo froze Achlys' legs, trapping him. Lisare leapt, spinning midair as her blade gleamed.
"LIFE JUDGMENT!" she screamed.
Life Binder struck Achlys' chest—purging the dark mana in a violent burst. The black marks on his body recoiled, shrinking, retreating. Achlys let out a piercing cry—not of rage, but of anguish.
He collapsed.
High above, Lecia stirred.
Broken, bruised, her body unresponsive—yet her spirit fought to rise.
She watched as her husband, twisted by forces beyond his control, was defeated by those he once called allies. Her heart screamed even as her limbs refused to move.
"Achlys…" she whispered. Tears streamed down her cheeks. "Please… come back to me…"
Her fingers twitched. Barely.
She had nothing left to give—but she prayed to Nyxara, to the gods, to fate itself.
Please… don't let this be the end.