Yul's eyes went wide as the man widely regarded as the strongest of all the commanders stood there before him, utterly unbothered by the destruction still settling around him.
Vincent's arms ignited with flame instantly, ready to throw himself into the fight.
"Vincent, no!" Yul's voice cracked with urgency. "Be careful — that's the First Commander of the Great Battalion. Scorpio."
Scorpio raised his saber and swept it through the air in one wide arc, and the shockwave that followed knocked everyone off their feet at once — Yul, Vincent, every soldier standing nearby, all thrown to the ground together. An electrical current rode the wave with it, stopping the hearts of half the soldiers caught in its radius before they even hit the dirt.
Scorpio glanced down at Garoda's body, and whatever crossed his face wasn't grief. Just contempt. "Weak. Pathetic waste." He drove his boot into the corpse, sending it skidding toward a knot of nearby SAT soldiers.
"Take him," he said, voice flat, uninterested. "Weak as he was, he's still worth more than the rest of you combined. Shame to lose him entirely."
The soldiers scrambled to obey, hauling Garoda's body up between them. Yul's stomach dropped at the sight. "Vincent — help me stop them. They're going to bring him back."
"Bring him back?" Vincent's brow furrowed hard. "As in — actually raise the dead? That's a thing they can do?"
"I don't know how. But there were reports telling that they can do such a thing. Never witnessed that myself, though." Yul was already forcing himself upright, pushing what strength he had left into one final charge toward Scorpio, while Vincent broke off to intercept the soldiers carrying the body.
Yul's blade met nothing but two fingers. Scorpio caught the strike between them, effortlessly, and in that instant Yul understood exactly how far apart their strength really was. He couldn't so much as budge his own weapon out of that grip.
"Bold of you." Scorpio's mouth split into a wide, humorless grin. "Foolish, but bold. I mean, I wouldn't fight me."
Yul's eyes went wide with dawning terror.
The saber moved almost lazily, and Yul's left arm came away from his body in a single clean stroke.
Vincent's whole world narrowed to that single image — Yul crumpling to the ground, though at first, he felt nothing. And then, a few seconds later, he was shaking on the ground, a scream tearing out of him that did not sound human anymore.
Far from the battlefield, aboard the ship carrying the royal family toward safety, a sudden, sharp pain lanced through Akira's chest, stealing her breath for a moment.
"What's wrong?" Emperor Ryuta asked, catching the way her face had gone pale.
"Nothing." She pressed a hand flat against her chest, willing the feeling away. "Just — something felt wrong, for a second."
"We're close to Oden now." The Emperor's voice was gentle, but firm. "Stay focused on your duties as Crown Princess. We need you steady through this."
Akira nodded, though the unease didn't fully leave her, and she stayed quiet for the rest of the journey.
Back on the battlefield, Scorpio planted his boot square on Yul's chest, saber raised high, already committed to the finishing blow. Vincent tore across the ground toward him, but the distance was too far, his legs too slow to close it in time.
The saber began its fall.
Kei arrived in the same instant, closing the last of the gap in a blur and driving a kick into Scorpio's side hard enough to send him tumbling sideways, saber missing Yul by inches. Scorpio's body skidded across the ground before slamming into a nearby structure, the whole thing collapsing down on top of him.
A wave of relief rippled through everyone on the empire's side of the field. But Yul's arm was gone, and the pain still had him shaking violently on the ground. Kei dropped beside him immediately, hands glowing as he tried to force the bleeding to slow — but the wound was too severe, far beyond what basic healing alone could manage.
He needed real help, and fast.
Kei's head snapped toward three nearby imperial guards. "You three — get him to a medic, now!"
The guards froze for a beat too long, unsure, overwhelmed by the scale of everything happening around them.
"Move!" Kei's voice cracked like a whip — and that was when he felt it. Scorpio, already stirring beneath the rubble, recovering far too fast.
Vincent stepped in to buy time, hurling fireball after fireball toward the collapsed structure to keep Scorpio pinned. Kei used the window to scoop Yul up himself and press him straight into the guards' arms. "Please. Get him to the medics. He needs you right now, more than I do."
The guards finally snapped into motion, nodding hard. "Yes, sir! Right away!" They lifted Yul between them and sprinted off toward the medical tents.
Scorpio rose from the rubble and unleashed a brutal air slash straight at Vincent. It struck his flame barrier dead on, the resulting explosion tearing outward and electrocuting every soldier unlucky enough to be standing nearby.
A crackling ball of raw electricity followed right behind the slash, too fast to dodge, and it swallowed Vincent whole. His body convulsed inside it, current tearing through him in agonizing waves, his screams sharp and raw.
Kei lunged to pull him free, but the static discharge kept him back, burning against his skin every time he got close. He turned instead toward Scorpio, jaw tight, and forced everything he had — strength, speed, durability — up tenfold in a single surge, ready to meet the First Commander head-on.
But Scorpio's swordsmanship was something else entirely, brutal and precise in equal measure. Kei's twin daggers, reinforced with mana to keep them from shattering, still felt like they were one hit away from breaking under the pressure of that saber.
Scorpio drove a horizontal slash clean through the ground itself, and Kei barely threw himself clear in time. Every strike carried that same terrifying reach, cutting from distances that should not have been possible.
Then Scorpio's boot caught him square in the chest, sending him rolling hard across the dirt.
The electric sphere kept tormenting Vincent the entire time, his screams tearing at something deep in Kei's chest. He forced himself back up, trying again to reach him — and Scorpio was there immediately, blocking his path, forcing another exchange. This time, the gap between them showed clearly. Scorpio's strikes started landing, shallow cuts opening across Kei's legs, shoulders, arms, one grazing dangerously close to his face.
A voice rumbled up from somewhere deep inside him — Fenral, low and urgent. "Kei. Your comrade's dying. I can save him. Release me."
Yejin reached the electric sphere around the same time, clawing and slashing at it desperately, trying to cut Vincent free. Nothing worked. "Vincent—" Her voice broke, tears spilling as she kept trying anyway, blade uselessly bouncing off the crackling barrier again and again.
Scorpio kicked Kei away hard, then spun into a full rotation, unleashing another air slash with devastating force. Kei brought both daggers up to block it, but the sheer power behind the strike carried him along with it regardless, hurling him through the air and straight into a row of nearby buildings. He crashed through wall after wall before finally coming to a stop, buried under a collapsed pile of rubble.
"Kei!" Yejin screamed.