Lancer stood still, his chest rising and falling slower than before. He looked ahead—not at an enemy, but at a boy. A broken boy, stumbling forward on raw will alone. A boy who should've been crushed long ago. Yet here he was.
Lancer's hands trembled. For a brief moment, he wondered…
Maybe this is it. Maybe I can die here, free of the weight on my back.
But Niko lunged—and instinct prevailed.
Their blades clashed again, sparks flying. But something had changed.
Lancer's hair, once tied back in a disciplined warrior's knot, fell freely across his face now, windswept and unruly. His eyes lost their edge of frustration. Now they were blank. Cold. Calm.
On the ground, Mena's eyes widened. She felt it—like a key turning inside a locked gate. Something ancient and quiet snapped awake.
"No," she whispered. "Not that. Not now."
Then she screamed:
"Niko! GET OUT OF THERE! NOW!"
But Niko didn't hear her. He was too close, too locked in. His feet hit air and steel, and their blades screamed again.
Then… everything stopped.
A shimmering veil appeared between the two boys like a blade of light, splitting their clash in half.
A floating screen of energy projected between them, glowing golden-white, runes circling the edges:
CONTRACT RESONANCE
You may now upgrade your contract.
Do you accept?
Lancer's voice, distant and clear, almost grateful:
"I accept."
And with that, a wave of wind blasted outward, separating the two. Niko crashed back into the ground, sliding and tumbling, coughing dust.
Mena knelt beside him, speaking into his mind:
"His contract… it's changed."
"To what?" Niko coughed.
"The One Who Is The Gale," she answered. "He's no longer a child chasing approval. He's become the wind itself."
"And his punishment?" Niko asked, standing shakily.
"His lungs now pull oxygen not from the air… but from his own future. Every breath is borrowed time. His life is his fuel."
Niko grit his teeth. "I just wanted to kill him…"
"No you didn't," Mena said softly.
High above them, Lancer rose—no longer flying, but simply existing within the sky. The clouds parted around him like curtains torn from their rails.
For the first time in his life, the air obeyed.
"This is what I was meant to feel," Lancer said, voice echoing across the sky.
He held out his hand.
"Gale… come to me."
And from the winds themselves, from pressure and temperature and raw ideal—a bow formed. Pure wind and force, strung with streaks of condensed essence. It pulsed with rhythm, like a storm given shape. The very clouds around it evaporated, parted, and the sun beamed down on his shoulders.
On the ruined earth below, Niko looked up, blinking against the light.
"What the fuck is that!?" he shouted, exasperated. "A giant wind bow?! What the—"
Too late.
"Gun of the Gale."
An arrow—not seen, but felt—descended from heaven itself.
Before it even reached the battlefield, the pressure cracked the ground. Niko's shirt was ripped clean from his body, shredded by sheer force. He screamed, not in fear, but in will. His jian, glowing with Essence, shimmered into his hand.
If that arrow hit the ground… the entire Sanctuary would be obliterated.
He couldn't dodge. He had to slice.
Niko leapt upward, body screaming in resistance, and swung.
Elsewhere…
Midway up the Dark Tower, Juno stood on a tilted slab of broken wall, one arm hanging lazily at his side, the other gripping his katana.
He felt it before he saw it.
A wind sharper than any blade. An essence so clear and oppressive that even his skin prickled.
He looked up through the hole in the ceiling—his expression unreadable for once.
"…That pressure," he muttered.
Then he grinned. "That's more like it."
His katana vibrated in its sheath.
"Don't die yet, Niko," he chuckled, taking a step upward. "I want that fight."
At the summit of the Tower, Chalice stopped walking.
He stood alone in the throne corridor—just shy of the final door.
The air changed. The wind howled briefly, then bent unnaturally in silence.
His fingers twitched by his blade. He closed his eyes.
"…You awakened it," he whispered. "Without your father."
He didn't smile. He didn't curse.
He only stepped forward and said—
"Good. Now it's time I end mine."
And pushed the doors open.
…
…
…
Silence.
Dust spiraled upward in the still-burning wind. Smoke coiled into the sky like ghosts screaming upward from the earth. Niko opened his eyes. His vision blurred with pain—but it wasn't his body he focused on. It was the horizon.
Or rather, what used to be the horizon.
Half the city was gone.
Rubble stretched endlessly to the east, charred stone and shattered buildings all reduced to gray gravel and ash, the ruins bleeding out like veins from the cratered impact zone. Civilians… shops… homes… all erased. The only thing left untouched was the Dark Tower, still standing like some divine monolith—unbent, unbroken, mocking him.
He blinked slowly. The air was thick with smoke and essence residue. Then—
"Niko!!"
Mena's voice echoed through the mental link. Sharp. Panicked.
"Are you okay!?"
"…Yeah," he muttered weakly, his voice brittle. His jaw tightened. His body ached everywhere—his left side barely moved—but he didn't scream. He didn't groan. He simply stood.
Stood in the ashes of his failure.
His eyes flicked upward.
There he was.
Lancer.
Still floating in the air like a god untouched. The same smug look on his face. His pale green hair drifted lazily in the wind he'd made. As if he hadn't just erased thousands of lives.
A scowl carved its way into Niko's face.
"Where are you," he asked through gritted teeth, scanning the area. His link with Mena was still active.
"Beneath that rock—just a little south of you."
Niko hobbled forward, following her guidance. Soon enough, he spotted the sloped ruin of a broken wall, and beneath it, her voice called out again. He grunted, pushed it aside with a tendril, and gently pulled her out.
He set her down on the cleared ground, blood still lightly caked in his hair and dust over his clothes.
"I need to finish this," he said softly.
Mena didn't argue.
Niko turned back, limping at first—then walking—then running, sprinting back to where he had fallen. He slid to a stop in the cratered battlefield and cupped his hands around his mouth.
"LANCER!"
The green-haired prince hovered in the sky, the sunlight haloing his back.
"YOU'RE FREE NOW, AREN'T YOU?! THEN LET'S END THIS—PROPERLY!!"
The challenge echoed through the wind-scarred city. Niko drew his Jian—its faint glow pulsing brighter with each heartbeat. His breath was heavy. Mind racing. He could feel it—he needed to dig deeper, understand his own ability if he wanted a chance now.
Through the link, he asked:
"Mena. What's my ability called?"
There was a pause.
Then a scoff.
"You don't know?"
"I have a feeling. But I need the description. And you're the only one who can see it."
A beat. Mena focused. Her inner vision gazed into Niko's soul—a skill she alone bore, even while blind.
What she saw was… almost nothing.
A field of black static.
Three question marks.
But then, a glimmer—just for a second.
Half a line of a description formed, only to be cut off, like a string severed by some higher will.
???. "You have sparks of one banished by the gods itself, you are blessed by—"
And then… silence.
"I only saw that much," she said quietly.
Niko's hands trembled. "What the hell kind of cryptic curse is that?"
He spat blood again, more bitter than before. "Nothing ever comes easy for me, huh?"
But there was no time to scream. No time to curse.
Because wind began spiraling downward again.
Lancer had descended.
The very air itself pulled toward him, twisting around his body like ribbons. Each step he took on the air sent cracks through the sky. He was no longer just controlling wind—he was wind.
Lancer's eyes scanned the broken ground. Then he looked to the ruins of the city. His voice was calm. Cold.
"Look at this destruction," he said. But his tone was oddly disconnected—almost casual, as if he hadn't just caused it.
Then he smiled.
"Let's move somewhere more… suitable, shall we?"
His hand lifted.
"Forge of the Gale."
The moment he said it, Niko's body jerked forward, impaled from four sides by sudden blades of compressed air. They had formed instantly, faster than he could blink—just wind, hardened and honed to cut through steel.
Niko didn't scream—he couldn't.
He was already flying, flung like a ragdoll across the entire ring—the massive continent-like zone that surrounded the tower.
He smashed through a half-standing wall, tumbling through sand, stone, dust, pain.
He hit the ground hard.
Coughing. Bleeding.
And yet, even as the pain drowned him, his hands gripped the Jian. He refused to let go.
His body was finished, but something inside him—some part of him that had not bowed to the House, not to Chalice, not to fate, not even to Lancer— still burned.
Somewhere, deep inside, the sparks stirred again.