Inside the fractured psyche of Shinji Saitou, there was only cold iron and the smell of ancient dust. Shinji hung suspended, bound by glowing golden chains of the Unison Seal, his breath hitching in the dark.
"Why... why are you taking over?" Shinji whispered to the void. "I was finally strong enough to protect them. Why take my hands now?"
From the shadows behind him, a presence emerged. It didn't walk; it simply existed into being. The armor was a shimmering violet-silver, pulsing with a rhythm that matched the heartbeat of the world.
"I am not taking," the figure spoke. Its voice was a resonance that vibrated in Shinji's marrow. "I am manifest. Your soul is a glass vessel, Shinji. To hold your human Arcane and the legacy of the Moon at once would shatter you. I am the Guardian of the Moon, the will of your ancestors who saw the stars before the first Maiju crawled from the mud."
The figure placed a gauntleted hand on Shinji's chained shoulder.
"You have a rift of life waiting for you. You have people waiting for a stable land. But to reach that land, you must first clear the weeds. Sit tight. Watch. I will show you how to hunt the things that cannot be killed."
THE BATTLEFIELD: THE VOID VS. THE NOTHING
Outside, the reality around Ukyo's western gate was fracturing. Shioj Leclerc de Montfort, once the sophisticated "Void Shepherd," was now a geometric nightmare. His body was a living rift, his skin replaced by coiling void-scales that seemed to swallow the light.
"Shinji... help me..." Shioj's voice drifted out of a spatial crack, distorted as if heard from the bottom of an ocean. "The Shepherd... has lost his flock..."
"Eclipse Menagerie!" Shioj shrieked.
The sky fractured like dropped glass. Dozens of Rift Wolves and warped, semi-invisible eels phased into existence, flooding the battlefield.
Kuraido K. Tenryu landed a mile away, his left eye burning with a solar corona. "Shinji—no, whatever you are! I'll clear the path! Focus on the shepherd!"
Kuraido surged forward, his body a blur of Flare Burst Acceleration. He became a whirlwind of fire and shadow, his Solar Plasma Blasts incinerating the minor void beasts before they could reach the armored Shinji.
"Get back to the rift, you glitchy bastards!" Kuraido roared, sapping the heat from a cluster of Rift Wolves with his Lunar Chill, making them brittle enough to shatter with a single punch.
THE DANCE OF THE CALAMITY
Arcju (Shin-Zilla) didn't run. He took a single step, and the earth beneath him didn't just crack—it turned to dust.
Shioj noticed the threat and raised a hand. "Spatial Dominion: Null Curtain!"
The air between them thickened into an invisible wall of infinite pressure. Anything entering that space should have slowed to a standstill. But Arcju engaged Eindhoven: Supernova Pulsar. A cloak of violet lightning erupted around him. He didn't slow down; he disintegrated the spatial pressure with high-frequency vibrations before his boot even touched the zone.
"You're in my space..." Shioj groaned, his arm morphing into the Leviathan Merge. His arm became a titanic pillar of coiling scales. He swung with a force that ignored physics.
Arcju met the blow head-on with Rotterdam: World-Ender Docks.
BOOM.
The collision sent a shockwave that flattened every tree for three miles. The "weight of the Netherlands' coastline" met the "Void of the Leviathan." Arcju's fist didn't just stop the strike; it cracked the void-scales of Shioj's arm.
"You fought to protect the gap between realities, Shioj," Arcju's demonic voice echoed. "Now, let me show you the silence that exists in the vacuum."
THE FINAL STATE: ZEELAND ZERO
Shioj screamed in agony and frustration. The sky above them began to fold inward. "Eclipse Menagerie – Arcane Cataclysm!"
The ground beneath Arcju began to stretch like rubber. A spatial implosion began, pulling everything—rocks, Maiju, and light—into a storm of broken dimensions.
"You're not fighting me," Shioj's voice cried out from a thousand points in space. "You're fighting the end of the world!"
Arcju stood in the center of the collapsing dimension, perfectly still. He reached up and unlatched his own visor. The shimmering violet-silver armor began to dissolve into pure, blinding light.
"ZEELAND ZERO."
The 60-second timer began. Arcju was no longer a man or a monster; he was a Walking Singularity.
0-10 Seconds: He used Amsterdam: The Ghost Province to glitch through the spatial implosion, appearing behind every single void beast simultaneously.
10-30 Seconds: A chorus of Utrecht: Heart of the Void pulses erupted. Every minor beast was starved of its mana instantly, turning into grey flakes of ash.
30-50 Seconds: Arcju converged on Shioj. He didn't punch. He delivered the Groningen: Sky-Shredder, a violet tornado of Aura that shredded the "Shepherd's Cage" into microscopic dust.
THE VERDICT
55 Seconds.
Arcju stood before the core of Shioj's being. The silver blade of The Hague: Absolute Executioner extended from his arm, humming with the frequency of a dying star.
"End... it..." Shioj's human face flickered briefly through the void-scales. "The sermon... is over..."
"Verdict: Salvation," Arcju declared.
He swung. The blade ignored Shioj's spatial defenses, passing through his heart as if he were made of mist.
"The Leiden Cold-Fusion."
Arcju collapsed his entire remaining Aura into the point of contact. A vacuum effect triggered inside Shioj's chest. The void didn't explode; it imploded. Shioj's massive, grotesque form began to pull inward, collapsing into a single point of zero-pressure.
In the final second, the violet-silver light reached out and touched Shioj's forehead.
"Go to the Moon, Shepherd," Arcju whispered. "Your flock is waiting."
With a soft pop, the spatial distortions vanished. Shioj was gone. Not a trace of the monster remained—only a single, unburnt Leclerc family crest lying on the ground.
Arcju stood in the center of the clearing, the light of Zeeland Zero fading as he reverted to his armored form. He didn't move. He simply looked at the crest, his demonic voice softening.
"Two down," he murmured. "Four to go."
Kuraido landed behind him, his fire flickering out, his face pale with exhaustion. "Shinji... if that's still you... we're running out of time. The others are coming."
[TO BE CONTINUED]