Heartz's scream tore through the forest, blood spraying in violent arcs. Rui struggled just to keep her head lifted, her vision blurring as she watched the horror unfold, her face twisting in shock.
"Heartz!" she cried, her voice cracking with pain and fear.
The Demon Rhino snorted, thick drool hanging from its jaw. Then, with a sickening wrench, it ripped its horn free from Heartz's arm—taking his entire forearm with it.
Heartz went pale instantly. His eyes widened, frozen between agony and disbelief—but he didn't have time to collapse. He staggered backward, teeth clenched hard as blood poured from the torn stump.
The rhino charged.
Heartz rolled aside, igniting a small explosion beneath his feet to rocket himself out of the way. He swung his sword as he darted past, carving deep into the beast's hide—enough to make it bleed, but nowhere near enough to stop it. The monster bucked wildly, its massive chi-infused horn carving through trees like they were blades of grass.
Heartz implated his sword into the ground and extended his remaining hand. Chi condensed in his palm, compact and violently unstable.
"Spear Shot!"
The blast fired like a beam, punching straight through the rhino's torso—
—but the beast kept coming.
Heartz ripped his sword from the dirt and charged again. He swung downward, but the rhino's shoulder smashed into him mid-strike, flinging him like a ragdoll into a tree. He hit the trunk with a crunch, coughed blood, and slid to the ground— bleeding head to toe.
Shaking, he jammed his sword into the earth and forced himself upward. He swayed, barely stable, but his eyes were burning with determination.
"I'll... kill you..." he growled, spitting blood as he lurched forward with a manic smile.
He detonated another explosion at his feet, propelling himself upward. In one furious slash, he severed the rhino's horn. Landing in a stumble, Heartz burst into laughter— wild, unhinged— hacking at the beast with reckless abandon. The cuts were shallow, but he didn't stop.
The rhino let out a guttural roar as something jagged and unnatural sprouted from its skull— a new, shorter horn.
"STAY DOWN, WILL YA!" Heartz screamed, slashing upward and gouging out the creature's eye.
Then—
his sword began to spark.
Tiny popping detonations rippled along the blade, the edge buzzing like an explosive chainsaw.
Heartz lifted it overhead with a shrill metallic ring and brought it down in a massive—
BOOOOOOM!
The explosion tore a massive chunk out of the beast— but impossibly, the Demon Rhino was still standing. Still breathing. Still fighting.
Heartz only smiled.
Not a smile of victory.
A smile born from pure delirious joy— wide, cracked, feral. His eyes shimmered like a galaxy on fast-forward, stars of every color flickering in and out, syncing with the unstable detonations rippling across his blade. Each pop of energy lit his face for a split second, revealing just how far gone he was.
Heartz had entered a state no training could reach.
A state that only appears when the soul is pressed against its final moments.
The Zero-Hope Ignition.
His future power is bleeding backward through a dying body.
Temporary.
Catastrophic.
And carrying a cost he couldn't yet understand.
Dust rolled away from him in a slow, wave as the rhino's silhouette reappeared—shaking, bleeding, but still alive. Heartz's grin widened.
"Time's almost up for both of us," he called out, voice trembling with exhilaration. "Let's see who drops first!"
They collided.
Heartz carved through the beast's side, the explosions along his blade roaring like a chainsaw made of sunfire. He twisted, slammed the sword downward, and detonated the ground beneath the rhino— sending it sprawling. But the monster clawed its way upright again, steam and blood pouring from its wounds.
Heartz only laughed.
He was drenched in blood—his own, the rhino's—dried in cracked streaks across his skin. His chest heaved. His smile never faltered.
He charged again to finish it—
—but the rhino, in its final burst of survival instinct, knocked the blade from his hands, sending it spinning into the trees.
Heartz froze.
Shock flickered across his face—
Then his eyes began to spark.
Violently.
His grin returned, wider than before.
Without the sword, his hand began to glow—no, erupt—like it was becoming the new weapon. The explosions dancing along his fingers were louder, sharper, brighter than anything his blade had ever produced. The very air around his palm twisted from the pressure.
"TSAR—"
The ground trembled.
"IMPACTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!"
His fist came down with the force of a dying star.
The world erased itself.
Sound disappeared for a heartbeat—
then returned all at once in a tidal wave of roaring destruction.
Rui was hurled into the air like a leaf in a hurricane, only saved by Cirrus swooping in and carrying her away as fast as its wings could move.
A mushroom cloud blossomed behind them— monstrous, towering, bright enough to turn the forest into a second sun. Earth vaporized. Trees disintegrated in an instant. A ten-mile radius became nothing but scorched ash.
And through the roar of the apocalypse—
Heartz laughed.
He stood in the silence that followed, the devastation still settling around him like falling snow. There was no rhino. Not even dust where it once stood.
Heartz had won.
But his body had paid the price— his skin was blackened, charred to a cracked crust. Only his eyes remained untouched: two brilliant, flickering stars burning through the ruin of his face.
"HEARTZZZZ! NOOOOO!" Rui's scream tore through the sky, raw and blood-choked, as Cirrus carried her away with lightning crackling through its wings. She clawed at the air, reaching toward the hellish bloom of destruction behind them.
"DROP ME! DROP ME NOW! I NEED TO GET MY BABY—HEARTZZZ!"
Her voice broke, turning into an ugly, agonized wail. She thrashed wildly against Cirrus's talons, desperate, animalistic— but the thunderbird only held tighter. The shockwave was chasing them, ripping through the forest like a living wall of pressure; if it hit, they would be obliterated mid-air.
Her strength finally gave out. Rui sagged in Cirrus's grip, sobbing so hard she couldn't breathe.
"Please... please... just let me go back... let me go back for him..." Her voice was a shattered whisper.
Cirrus banked hard. It had spotted something—
a cave.
Lightning flared in its wings as it dove, the world becoming a smear of wind, ash, and terror. They shot into the cave's mouth just as the shockwave slammed into the entrance.
BOOM.
The earth screamed as the front of the cave collapsed, sealing them inside with a thunderous crash of stone and dust.
Cirrus released her the second they were safe. Rui tumbled across the stone floor, rolling until she stopped— mere inches from an unconscious Loretta and a battered, barely-standing Erenyx.
Rui lifted her head with effort; only dry sobs came out now.
"Please... Heartz..." Her voice was hollow. Broken. She dragged herself forward on shaking elbows, reaching for the pile of boulders that blocked the exit.
"Rui... what the hell happened out there?" Erenyx's voice was raspy, exhausted. Blood ran down the side of her face, and her clothes were torn, burned. She looked at Rui— covered head to toe in ash, blood, and soot— and fear sparked in her eyes.
Rui kept dragging herself toward the collapsed entrance. "Heartz..." It was the only word she could form. The only thing she had left.
Erenyx, trembling and drained, raised a hand. A thin branch of earth chi sprouted from the ground, curling gently but firmly around Rui's waist, stopping her from crawling into danger.
"You can't leave... not like that..." Erenyx whispered.