⸻
Darkness.
A windless, airless kind of darkness.
Underground?
The echo of footsteps… not just his. Three sets. Gansu's heavy boots, Kenzy's light hop-skip stride, and his own.
Draven turned. They stood at the base of an enormous underground chamber. Thirty-two pillars rose like sleeping giants, each one thick as a house, each wrapped in massive chains that clinked softly ominously swaying even though the air was still.
"Where the hell are we…" Gansu muttered, adjusting the straps on his shoulder.
Kenzy whistled. "Looks like a prison for Titans. Or… some kinky BDSM club for really buff ghosts."
"Kenzy, can you not?" Gansu sighed.
the flicker of the golden gate's divine light bled out, replaced by pitch darkness. Memory overtook time. The battlefield vanished. Draven stood once more in that underground place soundless, breathless, like stepping back into the belly of something ancient.
A towering black temple.
Stone deeper than death.
And thirty-two immovable pillars, each one embedded with massive, groaning chains swaying despite the still air.
The clinking was deafening now.
Draven stood at the front. Behind him, Gansu's footfalls echoed with slow caution. Kenzy skipped along the stone tiles, her voice shattering the silence.
"You know, it's either the world's creepiest organ donor facility or someone seriously overdid their interior design budget."
Draven didn't answer.
He stared straight ahead.
There, suspended in midair by coils of glowing ethereal iron, Shiki hung like a fallen deity. Wrists stretched above him. Head bowed. Chest bare, marked with runes seared into flesh.
Then, slowly, he raised his head.
"You finally found me," Shiki said, smiling through cracked lips. "Impressive."
Draven's jaw clenched. "I thought you were dead."
Kenzy stepped forward, tilting his head. "Is he some kind of ghost?" He looked at Gansu. "You should poke him on his peeing sector to confirm."
Gansu didn't even look at him. "Can you read the room and shut up, Kenzy? Jeez. What the hell are you even saying?"
Draven's voice cut between them. "Tell me what is the meaning of this."
Shiki exhaled like he'd waited months for that question. "You've grown so much, Draven. I'm proud of you. I see… Bjorn gifted you Mjölnir. That means he's been defeated."
Draven's brows twitched. "Yeah. He's gone."
"Then there's no more time to delay," Shiki said, voice sharpening. "Back in Antarctica, we didn't fight. That was a clone I made. I wanted to test you. Measure your strength. Because this world… isn't what you think it is, little brother you will need every ounce of strength you can have."
Draven's fists clenched. "A clone? All I did was fight a fake version of you? I nearly died using everything I had, and it wasn't even you?"
"You fought better than I expected. And you survived. That's what matters." Shiki's smile was thin. "Now listen closely. Before I die completely, you need to follow a path. One laid out even by the gods."
Draven narrowed his eyes. "What path?"
"Find the Shadow. Follow its path."
Kenzy snorted. "Shadow? That's it? You dragged us into this crypt for a damn riddle?"
Draven didn't laugh. "You're alive. I saw your blood in Antarctica. I watched you fall."
"You saw a lie," Shiki replied.
Draven stepped closer, voice low. "Then who put you in this state?"
Shiki's gaze broke away. "That isn't of importance right now. What matters is this: fight for the right course, Draven. Fight for this world. No matter what."
Draven stared up at him.
"Do you still wish to kill me?" Shiki asked, eyes burning. "It's easier now, isn't it?"
Draven's eyes closed. "I won't kill you in such a manner."
He turned his back. "Kenzy. Gansu. Let's go."
As he stepped away, Shiki's voice followed him.
"It seems you've got a group of your own. That's good. You'll need them."
Draven paused. Shiki's voice lowered.
"Look into my eyes, Draven."
He turned back.
They locked gazes.
Shiki said, "Remember. Follow the right path."
Then the gates closed behind them. The memory trembled.
Chains rattled.
And as the doors sealed, Shiki whispered into the darkness,
"They'll come for me now."
He lowered his head.
"They'll come for me now."
The voice faded with the echo of chains, and the light of memory snapped away like glass shattering.
Draven's eyes flew open.
He was back in the present. Greenland's blizzard still screamed around them. The Golden Gate of Messiah had already faded to dust in the air.
But inside him, something new had anchored.
A scar remembered.
A wound reopened.
Draven's hands trembled. His breath steamed with fury.
He raised his head, eyes burning. "Shiki…"
Then he shouted into the heavens.
"Armament Shen: Mjölnir!"
The sky responded with a scream.
Thunder cracked across the clouds like the planet itself had been slapped. A spiraling arc of red lightning crashed down through the storm. In a flash of impact, Mjölnir appeared in his right palm, summoned from the divine void, vibrating with god-energy and dripping with sparks like embers from a forge.
The sheer force of its materialization split the ground around his feet.
Draven gripped it tight.
Above them, a thunderbolt began to twist into the sky.
Sakamoto looked up from the ground where he had been recovering. Blood leaked from his shoulder where the rod had pierced him, but he was already on one knee. "Draven…?"
Draven stepped forward, the hammer swinging once in his palm like a predator testing its claws.
"I'm good," he said tightly. "Are you?"
Sakamoto grunted and forced himself up. His left hand clenched the base of the white rod still skewering his shoulder. He yanked it free with a squelch, blood spurting out in a small arc before it began to clot unnaturally fast.
He tossed the rod aside.
"The Monkey King's power doesn't last long on me," he muttered. "Or that rod might've cut the connection. Either way… I can't use that form again."
Draven spun the hammer once. His knuckles didn't tremble. "Then use something else."
Sakamoto grinned. "How about I send you over there instead?"
"Perfect," Draven replied, not breaking eye contact with Lord Arcade, who hovered above the battlefield with a crooked grin still on his face.
Sakamoto's breath slowed. His wound was already scabbing over unnaturally fast, the shadows of his body swirling to repair themselves.
"Shadow Swap." He muttered
A pulse of darkness erupted from Sakamoto's palm and flowed around Draven's feet like liquid ink. The moment it touched his boots
Draven vanished.
Lord Arcade narrowed his gaze instantly. "Where did your friend go? I cannot sense him."
Sakamoto wiped blood from his lips. "Huh. You worried, eh? That hammer must've scared the shit outta you."
Arcade's eyes narrowed further.
Sakamoto lifted one finger and pointed upward. "Hey. Look up."
Lord Arcade raised his head but there was nothing.
"Trick," he realized too late.
Draven appeared at his side.
Not above. Not behind. Beside.
Mid-swing.
Mjölnir screamed through the air, wrapped in red lightning veins that shimmered across the hammer's surface like cracks in divine metal. The head of the weapon collided with Lord Arcade's temple.
BOOOOM.
The impact launched Arcade through the air like a ragdoll struck by a comet. His body spiraled midair, sparks and red light trailing behind him as he skidded, slammed, and bounced across the rocky tundra, snow exploding upward with each brutal impact until he finally came to a stop cratered halfway into a frozen boulder.
Sakamoto chuckled. "Fell for it, stupid."
Then his eyes narrowed.
He raised his hand, and the shadow beneath his feet began to stretch and twist unnaturally.
"Time to call in my last asset…"
Ark Angel Michael"
The ground hissed as Sakamoto's shadow widened unnaturally stretching in all directions like spilled oil beneath a dying star.
Lord Arcade groaned in the distance, his body half-submerged in cracked stone, blood trailing from a wound just above his temple. It wasn't healing.
He blinked once, slowly, lips parting. "…Shinkai energy…?"
His voice was small. Uncertain. Not fearful yet.
Sakamoto's eyes darkened.
"I've got one last card to play," he muttered. "One of yours, actually. Someone I pulled out of the fight with Headless."
He raised both hands.
"Shadow Manifestation: Ark Angel Michael."
The shadow pulsed, then rose.
Like a geyser of ink from hell, a black tower of writhing energy blasted upward screaming with unspoken chants. The earth cracked beneath it. The sky warped.
And from the darkness, a giant began to rise.
He came up slowly.
Seven hundred feet tall.
Built like a war statue sculpted by madness.
His skin was charred obsidian, steaming.
A single eye burned from beneath a horned Viking helm.
His shield round, massive, and stitched from something like tortoise skin bore a serpent painted in blood that writhed as though alive.
His axe, resting across his back,
His chest rose and fell like a breathing mountain.
And still he knelt.
His head bowed low toward Sakamoto.
"…My king," he rumbled, voice deep as collapsing planets. "Who is it you wish to slay?"
Sakamoto tilted his head. "You're… different. Not the same as when I pulled you into the shadow realm."
He jabbed a thumb behind him toward Lord Arcade. "That one. He's the target."
The warlord nodded once. "Very well."
From the distance, Lord Arcade floated upward, slowly dusting off the blood dripping from his brow. He hovered midair, just above the ridge line, his body twitching slightly from the impact. He squinted into the snow-glare at the figure now towering in front of him.
"…Michael?"
His voice cracked.
Lord Arcade narrowed his eyes. "How the mighty have fallen. Only a force equal to thr gods could subdue you… So. No wonder I couldn't bring you back. That explains everything."
He clenched his jaw. "This is confusing. But dangerous."
He extended a white-gloved hand and pointed a finger straight at Draven. "However… we originate from the same family, boy. So I'll start by killing you first and taking away that hammer." He starred at his side and the hit from the hammer wasn't healing.
He vanished.
In a flash of air displacement, Lord Arcade reappeared directly behind Draven, white rod already in hand, raised for a strike.
But he wasn't the only one who moved.
Ark Angel Michael appeared as well, teleporting in sync behind Draven. His massive body cast a full eclipse over them both. The warlord's tortoise-shell shield slammed backward, intercepting Lord Arcade's rod with a deafening clang of celestial metal. Sparks exploded. A recoil of divine force shook the sky.
Then Michael shoved.
Lord Arcade was launched midair again, thrown backward through his own momentum, skidding across the air like a stone on water before he halted, floating once more visibly rattled now.
He touched the blood on his brow again. Still not healing.
"…Tch," he hissed. "Michael…"
Draven leapt back from the center of the clash, landing with Mjölnir spinning in his hand.
He scowled up at the towering warlord.
"I didn't ask for your help, boy."
Sakamoto's voice rang out from the ground, still smiling. "Hey, I'm just trying to help out. Maybe say thank you?"
Draven spat into the snow. "Tch."