The battlefield was already a graveyard.
Voidborn corpses twitched in heaps, fading into black mist. Blood—red and violet—stained the cracked courtyard. The air itself seemed heavy, pressing down like a crown of iron.
And in the center, Pride stood.
His form was regal, grotesque in its perfection. His body shimmered with veins of dark-gold Shinrei, cracks glowing like molten arrogance. His claws gleamed obsidian, each strike earlier having carved through stone and flesh alike. No chains wrapped him like Greed—he didn't bind. He crushed. Wings of fractured light unfurled behind him, feathers sharpened into spears. His eyes were pits of burning superiority, as though every life around him was already beneath his heel.
He bled from his ribs, one wing torn, skin scarred by Khael and Shigeo's last strikes—yet still he stood straighter than a king, grin sharp and venomous.
