The surface beneath Sir Varion's boots was no longer a battlefield, but a broken relic of it—smoldering rock, glassed dirt, and jagged splinters of what once stood. He stood completely still, framed in silence, smoke curling around his armor. Faint light shimmered across his obsidian plating, which bore visible cracks—lines etched with heat and impact, as though his entire body had been carved with lightning.
He blinked once.
A low, brittle hiss escaped his skin as his body began the process of knitting itself back together. Burnt patches slowly smoothed out. The fractures in his lining hummed softly, resonating with invisible lines of energy that flowed through him like a current.
"…Ultra Step."
He spoke it as if stating a fact, and instantly, his form distorted. A blur. A flicker. Gone.
The next moment, the air behind Huey ruptured.
Huey barely managed to inhale before the presence materialized behind him. Sir Varion was there—his voice low and sharp, like a blade running across steel.
"Taekwondo Style: Double Razored Kick."
Huey's body twisted on instinct. His eyes widened. "You learned the Ultra St—"
Before the sentence finished, Varion's right leg arced forward, coiling mid-motion. Huey dropped instantly, a full-body duck, as the first kick whistled just above his scalp—missing him by inches.
But Varion's leg didn't complete the arc.
It reversed.
In a blur, the leg snapped back in the opposite direction—heel-first—colliding squarely with Huey's cheek.
The impact was grotesque.
Huey's head snapped sideways with a muffled thud, as if his skull had momentarily become ballooned—his face distorting from the sheer momentum. His body flung sideways like a ragdoll, twisting mid-air before crashing to the ground in brutal rhythm—bouncing once, then again, rolling across the terrain.
He gasped out a breath caught somewhere between pain and disbelief as he struggled to plant his limbs against the shattered earth.
Huey's body skidded violently across the ground, flipping once—then twice—before crashing into a jagged outcrop. His limbs flailed for balance, struggling against the momentum of Sir Varion's strike. Dirt, blood, and shattered rock scattered around him.
Julius's eyes narrowed.
He was still focused on the fading silhouette inside the smoke cloud ahead—still thinking Sir Varion was standing there.
Then it hit him.
Sir Varion… wasn't there.
His gaze snapped toward Huey's position. His nostrils flared. "Tch…"
And then he moved.
Julius blitzed forward—his Horse-Humanoid form tearing across the battlefield with terrifying velocity. His four legs pounded like iron hammers into the earth, blurring through smoke and debris as he charged. Dust whipped into whirlwinds behind his gallop.
Sir Varion stood still, glancing down at his legs.
There—embedded deep in his calves—thin, black rods.
He scowled. "That bastard… even at that last minute he managed to get me still…"
The pain surged up his legs, burning. He couldn't activate Ultra Step again. Not like this.
"Shit…"
He slammed his palm against his thigh. In an instant, white chalky lines pulsed from his hand, stretching across his leg like a fractured circuit. A cracking snap—sharp and electric—ripped through the air.
The rods burst apart, shattered by the lining energy.
His legs flexed, regaining partial motion.
But it was already too late.
Julius was upon him.
The horseman's back leg swung with brutal power—crashing straight into Sir Varion's chest.
The impact echoed like a thunderclap.
Sir Varion's body bent inward under the pressure, and then—airborne. He flew backward, spinning mid-air. Blood gushed from his mouth in a jagged arc as his body tumbled across open sky.
But before he could hit the ground—
He growled and forced his hands forward.
Two fingers extended.
A sharp twist.
"Lining Release: Double Cut."
Two instantaneous glowing lines appeared on Julius—one slicing across each shoulder.
And they cut.
The gashes split open with brutal precision. Flesh tore, blood spraying outward. Julius was thrown back, his hooves dragging lines through the earth as he tried to steady himself.
He grinned through gritted teeth—blood-streaked, pained—but still standing.
Meanwhile Far from the burning ruins of Greenland, across oceans and silence, deep in the forgotten stretches of Antarctica—Draven, Kenzy, and Gansu arrived.
The land was not what it once was.
Snow, usually endless and biting, had thinned. The cold was still present but hollow, like a memory that hadn't finished dying. The wind whispered differently. No sharp sting in the air. No blinding flurries.
And the temple the once-proud structure buried beneath ice and time was gone.
Destroyed.
Only fragments remained. Shattered walls. Burnt stone. Ice melted into blackened pits of glass.
Draven stood still, his boots crunching what was left of sacred ground. His gaze locked on the open land, eyes narrowing slightly.
Kenzy's voice broke the silence. "What the hell happened here?"
Gansu stepped beside him, arms folded. His voice was flat, clinical. "There was a serious battle."
Draven said nothing for a long second. His eyes scanned the scorched remnants—ash buried in slush, blood buried in shadow.
Then he spoke, quietly.
"Whoever did this… I hope my brother's remains are safe and sound."
Kenzy snorted and picked at his teeth with his finger. "Well, when a fight of this scale happens, Draven… do you really think there'll be any remains?"
But he didn't finish the thought.
A violent wind blasted through the open field like a scream.
Draven's body blurred. Gone.
He leapt forward, vanishing from view, and landed on a massive ice block ahead—his cloak whipping behind him.
Kenzy blinked, then turned toward Gansu. "He won't even let me finish my speech…"
No answer.
Gansu had already jumped.
Kenzy stared after them both, exasperated. "Oh, please. Cut that, Gansu. You ain't as cool as Draven. Motherfucker didn't listen to me too, alright?"
He bent his knees, grumbled, and launched himself upward—landing with a harsh stomp beside the others.
Before them stretched a vast crater—like something massive had carved into the very earth. Smoke spiraled from the center, slow and heavy. The land looked wounded.
Draven's eyes widened.
"What monsters fought here?"
He looked up sharply as Gansu pointed to the far side of the crater. "There's smoke coming from that side."
Draven disappeared again—his figure blurring as he zipped from ice block to ice block, barely touching the surface. Gansu and Kenzy followed behind, flanking him from both sides.
They landed together at the base of the crater.
Lying on the ground motionless, bloodied was a man.
Bjorn.
One of the Travelers.
Draven was the first to spot him. He stepped forward cautiously. Behind him, Kenzy landed and frowned.
Gansu's cold voice cut through. "Isn't this one of the Travelers? Who on earth fought him and brought him to his knees?"
Kenzy shook his head slowly. "No idea. But we need to be careful—"
Draven ignored him.
He stepped forward again, slowly closing the distance between himself and Bjorn.
Bjorn's face was soaked in blood, barely recognizable. His chest rose and fell faintly—still alive, but unconscious.
Beside him rested a hammer.
Not just any hammer a short-handled one with a large, rectangular head, glowing faintly with a dangerous hum.
Then, it happened.
As Draven took one more step forward, a rectangular seal appeared on the ground—glowing white on each corner. The entire shape lit up instantly.
It locked.
Only Bjorn, the hammer, and Draven were inside.
Kenzy and Gansu screamed from behind him.
"Dravennnnnnnn! Come out! It's a seal! A trap!"
But it was already too late.
The rectangular seal pulsed violently, its white edges surging with rising intensity. Arcane symbols lit along its sides, locking Draven inside with Bjorn and the hammer.
Outside the seal, Kenzy stepped forward in panic. "Draven! Are you okay?!"
Gansu's eyes didn't blink. "That's not just any seal. That's a celestial binding glyph. He won't be able to get out until it completes."
Kenzy cursed under his breath. "Fuck—that's gonna cripple him. He literally just woke up a few days ago from a coma!"
Then the sky changed.
It didn't darken—it vibrated. Like water shaken inside a glass. The clouds rippled, not with wind, but with something older, heavier.
The hammer lying next to Bjorn pulsed again.
Then again.
A chime-like hum echoed in the air.
Above them, the sky cracked.
A godly bolt of thunder formed—a strike thick as a mountain, glowing with divine fury. It roared downward, straight toward the center of the seal.
And then—
Impact.
The thunderbolt crashed into the rectangular seal with blinding ferocity.
A deafening sound tore through the land. Even Kenzy and Gansu, standing at a distance, staggered back. The air split open with the force of a falling star. For a long moment, all was engulfed in light and smoke.
Kenzy shouted through the chaos, "Draven!?"
The cloud didn't clear.
Kenzy staggered forward. "Fuck—fuck—DRAVEN, are you—!?"
"Shut up, Kenzy," Gansu hissed. "Look."
The smoke parted.
Standing within the seal's epicenter was Draven's Sitra Achra: Sephiroth.
A colossal astral warrior—its form towering and black, woven from celestial threads and void matter. Its two arms were stretched high above, catching the thunderbolt mid-strike.
The force was unimaginable.
Its hands—those massive, obsidian constructs—began to disintegrate under the pressure. Chunks peeled off. The outer layers shattered. Fingers cracked and split as the thunder poured into them.
But it held.
And then—
The thunderbolt stopped.
Sitra Achra's form faded—its body dissolving into black mist, flickering out of existence.
Draven stood in its place.
His cloak charred, his arms lowered, steam rising from his back. His body held firm, untouched by the bolt.
He exhaled sharply.
"Sitra Achra: Sephiroth… summon complete."
And then Red lightning surged across his right arm, crackling from his fingertips down into the seal. The energy spiraled across the floor—tearing into the geometric shape that bound him.
With a final surge, the glyph exploded—shattered into pieces of dead light.
The seal was broken.
As the remnants of the seal evaporated into the air, the last pulse of red lightning sank into the ground with a fading crackle. The battlefield around Draven fell still again—silent save for the whisper of residual energy crackling through the ice.
Kenzy said with love emojis in his eyes " He's so Cool, Draven is so cold"
And Gansu snapped looking at Kenzy as he thought "Is Kenzy Gay" his eyes widened
Draven stepped forward.
Bjorn lay crumpled in the center, his body limp but still intact. His face was drenched in blood, eyes closed, breathing shallow.
Draven knelt beside him.
With two fingers, he touched Bjorn's neck.
A beat.
A second.
Then—pulse.
"He's still breathing," Draven muttered.
Behind him, Kenzy landed with a heavy thud, immediately grimacing at the sight.
Gansu landed moments after, eyes scanning Bjorn and the now-neutralized hammer lying beside him.
Draven stood up slowly. "Get him treated… to the point he can speak."
Kenzy scoffed. "What am I, a field nurse?"
He stepped forward regardless, crouching beside Bjorn. His right arm morphed—flesh turning pale and sinewed, fingers elongating into serpent-like coils. With a flick, the snakes wrapped around Bjorn's chest, neck, and arms—tight but careful.
Green light pulsed faintly from the snake limbs as they began working, weaving into Bjorn's open wounds, pulling damaged flesh together.
"This is disgusting," Kenzy muttered. "Why do I always get the blood-soaked jobs?"
Gansu didn't even blink. "Shut up and do that."
Kenzy rolled his eyes. "Oh, he speaks. Finally."
The snakes continued their work, tightening and hissing softly as they forced muscle and skin back into alignment. Bjorn twitched once, groaning faintly through closed lips.
Kenzy leaned back slightly. "He's stabilizing. I'll keep him there 'til he can talk."
Draven didn't respond.
He stepped away, walking slowly across the broken terrain until he reached a low, fractured stone. He sat down without a word.
His hand hovered in front of him, palm facing upward.
He stared into it.
Lightning still danced across his fingertips—small, sporadic pulses of red energy that sizzled and popped against the cold air. His brow furrowed as he flexed each finger individually, watching how the light reacted to his command.
The world had gone still around him.
Behind him, Kenzy and Gansu worked in tense silence.
And above—clouds rumbled.
Faintly.
The wind rolled slowly across the wounded plains of Greenland.
Smoke continued to rise in thick waves from shattered earth, distant energy blasts crackling now and then like aftershocks of a war still unraveling.
And cutting through that silence—footsteps.
Fast. Focused.
Sakamoto's cloak flared behind him as he sprinted across broken terrain, his boots barely touching the ground. Beside him, Sir Caelum moved like a silver blur—one hand gripping the hilt of his still-sheathed blade, the other trailing behind like a rudder for balance.
They were closing in on the central front.
The clash ahead echoed faintly—metal striking bone, raw power detonating in distant intervals.
Sir Caelum turned his head slightly mid-run. "We're getting close."
Sakamoto nodded, not breaking stride. "Too close for my liking."
Then—
It came.
A sound.
Faint at first, buried beneath the wind.
Then louder.
A hiss.
Long. Wet. Inevitable.
Both men froze mid-motion, sliding slightly as they stopped. Their heads turned in unison, eyes narrowing.
The hiss wasn't coming from behind, not from side not from ahead they couldn't pin point its where about.