The battlefield still burned. Shadows writhed, chains rattled, and Sloth's monstrous form loomed in the haze, an endless wound in reality itself.
Shigeo's voice broke the tension. Calm. Flat. Certain.
"The plan… Khael."
Khael turned, golden eyes steady, storm-fire still clinging to his scales.
"Yes. The plan. Shigeo… you know what to do."
Shigeo sighed, his shoulders rising lazily as if the burden of the world were nothing but an annoyance.
"What a complicated world."
He raised both hands, palms facing one another as if cradling an invisible sphere. Lightning crawled across his skin, not wild, not uncontrolled but deliberate. Every spark drew a line, every arc a branching path.
And in that moment, the air thickened. The veterans and rookies alike felt it, the weight of calculation.
Thousand Way.
