Chapter Title:The Three Goddess Of Fate
(Flashback )
⸻
The mountain peak stood silent, draped in endless white.
Antarctica's winds howled below, but atop this towering ridge, two figures stood unmoved by the storm, motionless beneath the gray sky. One wore a heavy hood, face hidden in shadow. The other stood beside him broad, and armored Bjorn, eyes fixed on the distance.
Beneath the hood, a voice spoke calmly.
"Let's go."
And in the blink of a moment, they vanished.
— — —
The heart of Camp Pendleton, a skyscraper fortress of glass and steel, jutted into the skyline of New York. It loomed like a needle of civilization, its upper floors glowing with controlled light. This wasn't just a company it was the seat of power for the Travelers Unit, a global faction of warriors, researchers, and mystics.
Evening had settled, and inside the grand dining hall, music played softly. Civilians and operatives dined under soft amber lights, unaware that history was about to step through their front door.
Outside, the two figures appeared.
As they approached the entrance, two armed guards stepped forward, rifles raised with a snap.
"State your—"
The hooded man lowered his hood.
The guards froze.
Then saluted.
"Lord Shiki!"
The doors opened instantly.
Shiki stepped inside, Bjorn at his side. They moved through the building like wind through a tunnel fast, unseen, respected. They entered a vertical levitator a gravityless shaft disguised as an elevator. With no commands, it took them straight upward.
Floor 100.
Bjorn leaned back slightly, arms crossed. "Faking your death. Giving him that victory. Why?"
Shiki didn't answer right away. He smiled, just faintly.
"Draven's entire soul has been molded by one thing,revenge. His only dream is to kill me. It's what makes him breathe. And that's dangerous… for someone his age."
Bjorn tilted his head. "So you fake your death? To free him from it?"
Shiki nodded. "If I take that purpose away, maybe… just maybe, he'll discover something else. A life of his own. Something that matters more than spilling blood."
Bjorn snorted. "Or maybe he'll just feel betrayed. Again. You've lied to him since birth."
Shiki didn't argue.
Instead, he rolled his arm around Bjorn's shoulder, grinning softly. "That's where you come in. I trust you to talk him down. Or… slow him down. If all else fails."
Bjorn sighed. "You got a backup plan too?"
The levitator stopped.
They stepped forward and through a concealed door on Floor 100, entered a secret inner chamber lit with blue glass and quiet screens.
Shiki's tone shifted, cooler now. "The Dusk Family and the Crane Family used to be inseparable legendary battle companions."
He gestured toward a wall map of ley lines and sealed vaults.
"But over time… alliances shifted. Lord Arcade and Huey Crane the bastard heir of that line became the founding heads of the Ten."
Bjorn's eyes narrowed. "So… Crane blood is tied into this?"
"Tightly," Shiki confirmed. "Their blood bond with Lord Arcade is what's kept the Ten alive all these years."
He poured himself a glass of red wine.
"And Draven… is a vessel. They need him. For the final ritual. To bring Arcade's spirit fully into flesh and this is what I fought against my own family long ago which lead to me killing them all because they shared the same purpose as the ten."
Shiki drank deeply.
"If everything works how I planned… Draven thinks he killed me. He has no reason to ever help them now."
Bjorn raised an eyebrow. "And if he still goes after them?"
Shiki smiled wide, eyes glinting red.
"Then we disobey the higher-ups… and destroy the Ten ourselves."
He laughed.
Bjorn chuckled too, but asked, "How strong is Draven now?"
Shiki stared at his glass. "Stronger than I expected. He broke out of my Dream Revelation technique. Forced his way out beautifully. Eyes clear. Steady."
He set the glass down.
"He's close to mastering the dual state of our family's hidden technique. I saw it in the final exchange. I gave him a real chance to unlock it—and he did."
Bjorn scratched his beard. "Maybe someday… I'll train him myself. If you two ever stop trying to kill each other."
Shiki didn't answer.
But he smiled.
⸻
———
The battlefield moaned.
Wind swept across the broken central front of Greenland, lifting smoke and shattered dirt into the air like rising ghosts. Ice cracked beneath scorched soil. Craters smoked from buried energy.
Three figures stood.
Ten meters apart.
Sir Varion, breathing low but steady, his armor dusted with ash.
Huey, expression unreadable, the faint flicker of power coiling around his fingers.
Julius, in full horse-humanoid form, a gash still visible across his shoulder.
Julius shifted slightly.
He glanced over, one eye twitching toward the wound he'd taken earlier—thin, but deep. White-hot pain flared each time he moved, and worse: it wasn't healing.
Not even in his Seven Seal form.
"Still bleeding…" he muttered.
Huey glanced at him, tone flat. "Don't get cut again. Not by him."
Julius narrowed his eyes. "No healing? Why?"
Huey didn't answer immediately. He stepped forward once, then stopped.
"Because he's tapping into a power far beyond your comprehension."
He nodded toward Varion, who hadn't moved. "The Thread of Life technique. A divine ability. Fate-born. God-fed."
Julius raised an eyebrow. "Thread of what?"
Huey's smile was bitter. "Long ago, there were three goddesses. Sisters. They governed life every soul, every moment. They didn't kill. They measured. Cut. Stitched."
He exhaled.
"Somehow… Varion made a contract with them. Before birth. And now… he uses their power to cut not flesh, but fate."
Julius's gaze hardened. "And what does that mean?"
Huey raised a hand, drawing three symbols in the air with his fingers.
"The Spinner—she weaves the thread of life. Beginning."
"The Allotter—measures the thread. Assigns fate."
"And the Inflexible One—she cuts it. End of life."
Huey looked straight at Julius.
"If that last one's power strikes you—your thread ends. No more healing. No more reversal. Not even godly resurrection."
A cold silence hung between them.
Julius's grin flickered, suddenly uneasy. "And how exactly do I avoid that?"
Huey stared ahead. "You don't."
A moment passed.
Then he added, "Unless… you're me. My Cross Ability is the only counter. His cut severs fate. My cross… binds it."
Julius let out a long breath. "So… you're his perfect match."
Huey nodded slowly. "And he's mine."
Sir Varion finally spoke, his voice smooth and sharp like steel.
"You speak highly of my ability, Huey. I appreciate that."
But he wasn't smiling.
Huey crouched low, one hand slamming into the ground. A ripple of black energy exploded outward, dust rising in a sudden funnel.
"Then appreciate this," Huey said.
"Summoning Technique: Asmodra, the Thousand-Limbed Harbinger."
The ground cracked.
A roar—inhuman and ancient—erupted beneath them.
Smoke poured upward like a geyser, black and endless. Out of it rose a titanic humanoid form—towering, twisted, layered in muscle and otherworldly skin. Its arms—dozens of them—reached into the sky like spears.
Huey and Julius now stood atop the beast's massive shoulder.
Huey raised his hand.
"Asmodra—Roar."
The creature opened its maw.
And the entire region shook.
A low, bellowing scream—not a sound, but a weight—tore through Greenland. The shockwave hit mountains. Buildings. People.
Inside the distant SUHA War Headquarters, screens shook. Sirens buzzed.
Minister Tenzy stared at the monitors, wide-eyed.
"That… almost wiped out Seoul the last time it was summoned…"
Beside him, General Soren grit his teeth. "Can Sir Varion handle that? We should deploy forces from above to bombard that creature"
Tenzy didn't look away. "Do not sacrifice our soldiers for nothing."
Soren snapped, "So we just wait?"
The door behind them slid open with a hiss.
Minister Alfred stepped through, voice low. "We have another problem."
Tenzy turned.
The roar of Asmodra still echoed in the distance.
The sky was still trembling.
Asmodra's roar lingered like thunder stretched thin across the horizon, the kind that felt in the bones before it reached the ears. Dust curled from shattered rocks. The battlefield felt smaller beneath the weight of that sound.
Sir Varion raised an eyebrow, seemingly unmoved.
"You beast," he muttered, tilting his head. "You should keep it down… don't you think?"
In the same breath, a white glowing line curved sharply across Asmodra's open, roaring mouth—silent, sudden, deadly.
Then—
Slice.
The line snapped into form and severed clean through Asmodra's gaping jaw.
Blood—black, viscous, and steaming—sprayed outward as the monster's scream was sliced in half. Its jaw flopped open unnaturally, cleaved in two, tongue writhing, teeth falling like broken pillars.
A shockwave of pain echoed from its throat.
It screeched—not in command, but in anguish.
Sir Varion exhaled through his nose, stepping back slightly. "Now that's a better sound."
Up above, Huey didn't flinch.
He placed a calm hand atop Asmodra's wounded head, pressing two fingers against its slick skin. A glowing cross symbol erupted beneath his palm, bleeding red light into the creature's flesh.
The healing was instant.
Asmodra's jaw knit itself together in mere seconds—flesh reattaching, bones reformed, teeth grinding back into place.
Julius whispered, "That's new."
Huey ignored him.
Instead, he raised his hand high.
"Now—Asmodra. Send them all."
From the beast's colossal body, thirty elongated arms rose. They twisted and cracked like bone serpents, bending at angles that defied human anatomy.
All at once—
They fell.
Thirty strikes rained down on Sir Varion, one after another like a divine punishment being executed by godly decree.
Varion's eyes sharpened.
His hands moved fast.
He formed a cross seal, palms overlapping, and thrust it forward.
"White Line Barrier."
Chunky glowing white lines shot upward from the seal, slicing straight through the first four arms that struck. Thick limbs were severed in clean angles—blood mist exploding in patterns across the battlefield.
But they kept coming.
Varion leapt back, pivoting mid-air to dodge the next arm.
Another swung from the side—he twisted with impossible precision and slashed mid-spin, cleaving it diagonally.
The remaining arms descended in rapid succession—each one larger, heavier, more erratic. He landed, spun, ducked, rolled—slashes glowing from his fingertips with every motion.
Above him, Huey nodded calmly.
"Julius," he said, "the time has come use everything into that technique and kill him."
Julius snapped his neck once and cracked his knuckles. "Finally."
Huey's fingers shaped an intricate sigil mid-air, drawing invisible lines in the space around them.
"Encampment Order: 66—Walls of Protection."
The air twisted.
Reality rippled.
To the average soldier watching from a distance, all three combatants vanished. Only dust and impact remained in their place.
But to Huey, Julius, and Sir Varion—they hadn't disappeared.
They had been pulled into something else.
A dimension of white.
Blank.
Pure.
Isolated.
Sir Varion skidded across the new ground, breathing hard. His eyes immediately flicked around.
"A spatial confinement."
He crouched low.
"Impressive."
But the attacks hadn't stopped.
One of Asmodra's massive limbs had followed them in—still mid-fall.
Varion's shadow stretched beneath him as it neared.
⸻
The dimension was still—eerily so.
No wind. No sky. Just endless white.
But in that stillness, something monstrous moved.
One of Asmodra's massive limbs was already descending—its shadow stretching across the ground like a black omen.
Sir Varion's eyes narrowed. His knees bent.
He muttered, "Taekwondo Style: Karite Kick."
As the arm neared, he launched himself backward into a tight flip, spinning mid-air with surgical grace. His right leg hardened—its surface glowing with dense Shen energy, the skin turning to armor, bone to weapon.
He spun once more and struck.
His leg connected with the limb mid-fall, and with a cracking BOOM, it shattered the impact bone, sending fractured chunks spiraling across the white void.
He landed lightly—one knee down, breath slow.
But they kept coming.
The remaining arms moved like a machine—one after another, unrelenting, no delay between strikes. The dimension amplified their speed, their weight, their distortion of space.
Sir Varion exhaled, sweat slipping down the side of his face.
He straightened.
No more dodging.
He whispered, "So… it's come to this."
His right hand glowed, and then the other joined it. White energy, thick like chalk and crackling, built around his fingers—forming into five sharpened extensions. Each line shimmered unnaturally, humming with sacred resonance.
He stared at Huey and Julius, still above on Asmodra's shoulders, still cloaked in power and confidence.
Sir Varion's voice echoed.
"Lines of Fate… Threads of Unalterable Cut."
His arms spread wide.
The energy on his fingers pulsed once, like a heart.
Then he slashed forward.
Not at the limbs.
At everything.
White lines exploded through the dimension.
They carved the ground. The sky. The monster.
The beast froze—its thirty limbs halting mid-air, trembling, confused. Then they were sliced. Every arm, every muscle, every part of its form. Carved into ribbons by invisible fate.
Huey looked down. Too late.
His body—sliced clean through across the waist, the head, the legs—dissolved into glowing fragments.
Julius barely had time to react. One moment standing. The next—
Cut.
The entire dimension fractured. Space screamed.
And then—collapsed.
All of it shattered like glass.
And they were thrown—
Back into the central front of Greenland.
⸻
Silence.
The kind that vibrated through stone, past ruins, past memory.
The white dimension was gone—folded into nothingness. Its space erased, its light devoured. The battlefield of Greenland remained, untouched by the chaos that had just transpired in another realm.
And standing alone in the center of it all—
Sir Varion.
His chest rose and fell like a forge bellows.
His arms dropped slowly to his sides, fingertips still glowing faintly from the divine slashes. The Lines of Fate had withdrawn, but their toll remained. His skin cracked faintly, webbed with pulsing lines of strain. Even the lining across his armor—always calm, always clean—now flickered weakly.
He turned his head.
No Huey.
No Julius.
No Asmodra.
Only flattened terrain, steaming scars in the earth, and air that felt scraped raw.
He closed his eyes.
"Shit…"
He dropped to one knee, not in pain—but in cost.
"…that takes a lot of Shen from me."
His voice was low, rasped, but filled with iron.
His hand touched the ground briefly. The energy around him stabilized, just barely. The weight of what he'd done—the magnitude of it—settled in his spine like lead.
Then—
A whisper in the wind.
Faint. Wrong.
Far off, near the edge of the battlefield, the air shimmered like heat. It twisted, distorted, and pulsed once in a sharp red flare.
From the sky—
A hand began to form.
Flesh rebuilding from ash.
Bone twisting together.
A single cross symbol—glowing red—blazed across its palm.
The fingers twitched.
Something… had survived.
⸻
The wind blew gently now.
No more roars.
No limbs crashing from the sky.
No screeches from summoned beasts or divine energy tearing space apart.
Just quiet.
Just wind.
Sir Varion remained crouched, one hand braced against the ground. His breath still came in slow heaves. The heat from his Shen surge hadn't fully faded. His muscles throbbed with fatigue—not pain, but aftermath. The strain of executing a god-level cut had drained him deeper than expected.
He tilted his head slightly.
Felt something.
Not sound.
Not sight.
A presence—foreign and faint, but familiar.
His eyes sharpened.
Across the flattened battlefield, near the smoking edge of a ruined ridge, red light pulsed steadily like a dying star blinking back to life.
The hand that had emerged moments ago was now complete—its fingers flexing independently. Bone, sinew, muscle—rebuilt with impossible precision.
The red cross symbol on its palm glowed brighter now.
And it wasn't just a hand anymore.
A forearm followed—then a shoulder socket stitching into place.
The air grew colder, not from weather—but omen.
Sir Varion slowly rose to his feet, squinting at the regenerating figure across the field.
"…Impressive ."
He took a step forward, dragging his breath with him.
Because he knew what that symbol meant.
The war wasn't over.
Someone—something—was returning.
And this time, it wasn't coming alone.
End of Chapter: