Beneath the crumbling ruins of what had once been the Grand Temple of Threads, the Ministry's last stronghold stirred.
Candles flickered along the stone walls. Old machinery, powered by mana-fusion coils, buzzed to life. Monks in dark hoods moved like shadows across iron bridges suspended over vats of glowing ink—soulscript, the last remnant of ancient arcane tech.
An old man stood in the center chamber. His beard was ash-white, braided with thin cords of fate. Arch-Deacon Noro, last of the Threadweavers.
"They've awakened," he whispered, gazing into a divining basin that shimmered with visions of Ren, Haru, Daiki, and Icarus.
A younger priest—clad in combat robes—stepped forward.
"Then the prophecy holds."
"Yes," Noro said. "But it came with a cost. The Vatican has declared holy war."
He looked up.
"And we've run out of time."
Meanwhile — The Vatican Warships Above
Cardinal Eva walked through her command ship, her crimson robes trailing like blood across the marble floors.
The air was cold, preserved by angelic runes etched into the ceiling. Her face, half-machine and half-beauty, was emotionless.
"Prepare the Final Edict," she told her second-in-command. "If they resist again, we level the desert."
"But the boys—"
"The boys are assets," she interrupted coldly. "Tools. And tools can be broken or reforged."
Her eyes glowed faintly with infernal magic.
"Besides, the real threat is no longer the Ministry."
She turned to a hologram.
A shadow moved on the edge of the solar map—far too fast, far too large.
"The demons are waking."
Elsewhere — Forbidden Zone: The Black Wound
At the bottom of the world, where the stars refused to shine and gravity twisted sideways, a prison forged by gods began to bleed.
The Black Wound—a tear in the world's crust and reality itself—was cracking.
Its seals, written in the tongues of the old celestial engineers, shimmered… then shattered.
A hand emerged. Pale. Clawed. Wrapped in bandages made from human souls.
From the pit rose a figure, ten feet tall, robed in chains and fireflies. His face was stitched shut, but from his forehead glowed a third eye—burning with ancient hunger.
"It's been… centuries," the figure whispered.
All around him, lesser demons stirred—shadows with wings, serpents with human faces, lions with skeletal halos.
"Find the Threaded. And burn their light to ash."
Back in the Desert — Ministry vs Vatican vs Hell
Ren sliced through a vanguard of Vatican knights, the Tempest Edge roaring with stormlight.
"They're not retreating," he said through gritted teeth.
"They're stalling," Icarus said, his chains forming a dome around Haru and Daiki. "They're waiting for something."
"Like what—"
That's when the air cracked.
It wasn't just heat. Or mana. Or divine pressure.
It was something older. Wronger.
A horned creature erupted from beneath the sands, taking with it half the battlefield. Its torso was humanoid, but its lower half was a writhing centipede of burning bones. It screeched—a scream that made light bend.
"DEMON!" screamed a Vatican knight.
Cardinal Eva's eyes widened.
"They've broken through the Black Wound already!?"
Ren's squad froze. Even with their awakened Threads, this thing—this General of the Deep Brood—was beyond reason.
But they didn't run.
Ren pointed his sword forward.
"We finish what we started."
What followed was chaos—beautiful, cosmic, violent.
Vatican paladins formed a halo phalanx, blasting sacred sigils toward the demon. It only laughed—absorbing the divine light and hurling it back as molten chains.
Ministry monks emerged from underground, chanting in the Old Tongue, summoning mech-golems infused with mana cores, their hands glowing with scripture-tech.
Ren, Haru, Daiki, and Icarus dove headfirst into the fray.
Ren sliced through the air, turning oxygen into blades.
Haru danced between flames, locking into bullet-time with his pistols like they were extensions of his soul.
Daiki threw entire boulders, now wrapped in kinetic sigils, breaking bones with tectonic fists.
Icarus leapt through space—not moving through time, but bending it around him.
The demon absorbed attacks, mutated, split into four serpent-headed torsos, each breathing different curses.
"They're evolving with every blow," Daiki shouted. "What the hell is this?!"
"It's a General," Icarus said grimly. "A Lesser Crown."
Ren narrowed his eyes.
"Then let's dethrone him."
Ministry's Secret Weapon
Back beneath the sands, Arch-Deacon Noro placed his hands on an ancient console.
"It's time."
He pressed the final rune.
A dormant war relic, buried since the first war between Heaven and Hell, began to rise from beneath the ruins.
PROJECT: SANCTUM ARK — a floating cathedral made from obsidian and steel, armed with ancient turrets and enchanted core cannons.
Its cannons aimed at the demon.
"FIRE!"
A lance of blue fire erupted from the sky, slamming into the beast with the force of a falling star.
The desert split in two.
For a moment—silence.
But the Demon Still Lived
Charred. Broken. Yet still smiling.
It whispered.
"We're not the only ones. We're just the vanguard."
The boys exchanged looks.
If this was only the beginning…
Then the world was already too late.