Dantero: Bring him back.
The words rang out raw and uncontrolled, cutting through the quiet that followed Lybel's departure.
No one answered him.
The courtyard was still repairing itself. Stone knitting. Air settling. Blood drying where bodies had been moments ago. The empire breathed, wounded but alive.
Enra adjusted Dark's weight on his shoulder effortlessly. Dark's head lolled slightly, hair matted with blood, breath shallow but steady. Shadows clung to him instinctively, like they refused to let go.
Enra: He is beyond your reach right now.
Dantero clenched his teeth.
Dantero: That bastard almost killed him.
Enra looked at him.
Not sharply.
Not threateningly.
Just directly.
Enra: Almost does not matter to beings like him.
Rykaou stepped forward, aura leaking in sharp edges.
Rykaou: Then send us.
Rykaou: Me. Dantero. Whoever you want.
Rykaou: We will tear him apart.
Enra's gaze shifted slightly.
Rykaou felt it.
His knees bent a fraction without permission. His aura collapsed inward like it had been pressed flat by an invisible palm.
Enra: You will do nothing.
Enra: And you will survive because of it.
Rykaou swallowed hard and forced himself still.
Cron had not moved.
He stood a few steps back from the others, arms at his sides, eyes fixed on the empty space Lybel had vanished from. His expression was unreadable, but his breathing was wrong. Too measured. Too controlled.
Someone else felt it.
Not Enra.
Not Larthax.
Not Luther.
Cron felt it first.
A pressure that did not belong to the True Emperors.
Not heavy.
Not dominant.
Just... familiar.
The air rippled high above the empire.
Not splitting.
Not tearing.
Compressing.
The clouds folded inward, spiraling once before collapsing into a single point of falling light.
Something came down.
Fast.
Controlled.
A streak of dark mass punched through the sky and struck the far edge of the courtyard like a falling star. Stone detonated outward in a wide arc, not obliterated but violently displaced. The ground cratered deep, cracks racing outward before stopping short, as if the empire itself refused to break further.
Dust rose.
Then settled.
A figure stood at the center of the crater.
Kaien straightened slowly, brushing ash from his shoulder like it was an inconvenience. His long black hair dragged across the broken stone behind him, strands catching briefly before sliding free. He wore simple layered cloth, worn thin by age rather than damage. His chest was bare, scarred not by accident but by intent.
His eyes lifted.
They locked onto Cron immediately.
Kaien: ...
Cron's fingers curled.
Kaien took a single step forward.
The ground did not resist him.
Kaien: You're still here.
Cron's voice was low.
Cron: I was thinking the same.
Dantero glanced between them.
Dantero: ...You know him.
Cron did not answer.
Kaien's gaze stayed fixed.
Kaien: Trillions of years.
Kaien: Still breathing.
Kaien: Still cursed.
Cron's jaw tightened.
Cron: Say it.
Kaien tilted his head slightly.
Kaien: They screamed when they died.
The air snapped.
Cron's aura surged violently before collapsing again, crushed instantly under Enra's presence without Enra even looking at him.
Cron's voice shook once.
Cron: You killed them because you could.
Kaien nodded.
Kaien: Because I wanted to see if you would break.
Cron's eyes burned.
Cron: You took something from me that never comes back.
Kaien's expression softened.
Not apologetic.
Reflective.
Kaien: You survived.
Kaien: I respected that.
Cron said nothing.
Enra finally turned toward Kaien.
The shift was immediate.
Kaien froze.
Not physically.
Existentially.
His breath stalled. His vision tightened. The space around Enra grew dense enough that even Kaien's posture adjusted unconsciously, spine straightening, muscles tensing.
Enra: Kaien.
Kaien inclined his head slightly.
Respect.
Kaien: Enra.
Enra: You arrive uninvited.
Kaien: Old habits.
Enra stepped closer.
The distance between them vanished without either moving.
Kaien felt it fully now.
Not pressure.
Authority.
The kind that did not need to be asserted.
Enra: You will not harm anyone here.
Enra: Not Dark.
Enra: Not his people.
Kaien swallowed.
Kaien: Understood.
Enra's eyes narrowed slightly.
Enra: If you forget.
Enra: You will die before you realize you are dying.
Kaien's pulse spiked.
For the first time, something like fear crept into his expression.
Kaien: ...Noted.
Enra shifted Dark higher on his shoulder.
Enra: I am taking him.
Leona stepped forward instinctively.
Leona: Where.
Enra looked down at her.
His presence softened.
Just slightly.
Enra: Somewhere he can break properly.
Enra: And rebuild.
Leona nodded, tears still streaking her face.
Leona: Bring him back.
Enra inclined his head once.
Enra: I will.
Enra turned away.
Space folded inward around him, light compressing into a narrow arc before snapping shut.
He was gone.
The courtyard felt colder without him.
Kaien exhaled slowly, like someone realizing they had been holding their breath too long.
Dantero stared at him.
Dantero: So.
Dantero: You gonna explain who the hell you are.
Kaien's eyes flicked back to Cron.
Kaien: He remembers.
Cron finally spoke again.
Cron: Kaien.
Cron: The First Scourge.
Cron: One of the few things that survived when we were still stupid enough to call ourselves children.
Kaien smiled faintly.
Kaien: Greetings.
Kaien: Long time no see.
Cron did not answer.
His breath slowed instead.
The space around him tightened, like the world itself was bracing. The fractured stone beneath his feet began to lift in jagged shards, pulled upward by pressure alone. Light bent around his body, not glowing, not flaring, but warping as if distance no longer agreed with where Cron actually stood.
Kaien watched him closely.
Not amused.
Interested.
Kaien: You look older.
Cron's eyes locked onto him.
Cron: You should have stayed dead.
Kaien smiled faintly.
Kaien: You said that the last time too.
The name hit before the sound did.
Kaien: She screamed louder than I expected.
The air detonated.
Cron vanished.
No warning. No buildup.
One frame he stood still, the next his fist was already buried in Kaien's face.
Bone cracked.
Blood erupted sideways in a thick arc, splattering across the stone in heavy drops. Kaien's head snapped back violently, his body launched through the courtyard like a cannon round. He tore through pillars, walls collapsing around him as his body plowed a trench through black stone.
Cron followed instantly.
He did not run.
He folded space.
Distance collapsed into nothing and he appeared above Kaien mid flight, both hands already glowing with layered sigils. Symbols stacked over symbols, copied spells interwoven with compressed spatial axes.
Cron: Arsenal Convergence.
He slammed both palms down.
The impact crushed Kaien straight into the ground.
The earth screamed.
A crater opened beneath them, miles wide, spiraling downward as layers of the world compacted violently. Shockwaves ripped outward, flattening entire districts of the Empire, towers folding like paper as pressure rolled through them.
Kaien's body twitched.
Blood poured from his mouth.
Cron did not stop.
Blades tore out of nothingness around him. Spears of folded distance. Chains made of locked coordinates. Cannons formed and fired in the same breath.
Cron moved like a machine built for slaughter.
Each strike landed with lethal intent.
Blades carved deep into Kaien's torso, opening him from shoulder to hip. Blood sprayed in thick sheets, splashing against Cron's face, dripping from his chin. Spears impaled Kaien through the chest, pinning him to the crater wall before exploding into spatial fractures that shredded flesh from bone.
Kaien roared.
Not in pain.
In exhilaration.
He ripped himself free, tearing through the spears with brute force. Flesh peeled off his arms and chest as he moved, muscles exposed, bone visible for brief instants before regeneration dragged everything back together in wet, violent motion.
Kaien: Good.
He surged forward.
Cron barely raised his guard in time.
Kaien's knee smashed into Cron's ribs.
The impact folded Cron's torso inward. Ribs shattered instantly, piercing organs. Blood exploded from Cron's mouth as he was hurled backward, skipping across the ground like a broken weapon.
Cron twisted mid flight.
Space caught him.
He vanished before impact and reappeared behind Kaien, one arm already severed and reforming, blood trailing behind him like smoke.
Cron: Copy Sequence.
The air behind Kaien collapsed.
A perfect replication of Kaien's own movement pattern detonated into him, mirrored force slamming into his spine. Kaien's back arched as bone cracked again, his body driven face first into the stone.
Cron dropped on him.
Fist after fist.
Each punch carried stacked spatial collapse. Kaien's face caved in, skull cracking, blood and teeth scattering across the crater floor. Cron's knuckles split open, flesh tearing, bone exposed, but he did not slow.
Cron: That was her voice.
Cron: That was her blood.
Cron: That was her body in my arms.
Kaien caught Cron's wrist mid strike.
Hard.
Bones shattered instantly.
Cron screamed as his arm twisted backward unnaturally, skin splitting as joints dislocated. Kaien rose slowly, dragging Cron up with him, blood pouring freely from both of them.
Kaien: You still remember her warmth.
Kaien: I remember how fast it faded.
Kaien drove his forehead into Cron's face.
The sound was sickening.
Cron's skull cracked, blood and tissue bursting outward. His vision went white as his body went limp for half a second.
That was enough.
Cron vanished again.
He reappeared above Kaien, arms spread wide.
Cron: Spatial Arsenal. Full Manifest.
The sky tore open.
An armory of impossible weapons unfolded overhead. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Blades, spears, cannons, constructs built from collapsed coordinates and stolen techniques.
They fired.
The world ceased to exist inside the barrage.
Kaien was drowned in it.
Explosions layered over explosions. Space shredded itself into ribbons. Blood mist filled the air as Kaien's body was torn apart repeatedly, limbs ripped free, torso split open, head severed and crushed again and again.
For a moment, there was nothing left but red vapor and broken light.
Cron hovered there, breathing hard, body barely holding shape.
Cron: Stay dead.
The mist moved.
Kaien stepped out of it.
Whole.
Blood still dripping from his hair and shoulders.
Eyes calm.
Kaien: You improved.
Kaien raised one hand.
No buildup.
Just a gesture.
Kaien: Gyuro 21.
The air condensed into a single point in front of his palm.
A small sphere.
Quiet.
Cron felt it before it moved.
Fear hit his spine like ice.
The sphere fired.
A line of compressed annihilation punched straight through Cron's chest.
His heart exploded.
Blood burst out his back in a thick spray as the beam carved through him and kept going, ripping a hole through the horizon itself. Cron's body was hurled backward, spinning, organs spilling out as he crashed into the far wall.
He twitched.
Regeneration kicked in late.
Too late to stop the pain.
Kaien lowered his hand.
Kaien: That was a weak spell.
Kaien: You forced me to use it.
Cron dragged himself upright, blood pouring down his torso, chest still smoking where the hole closed.
His eyes were burning.
Not broken.
Not afraid.
Cron: Then finish it.
Kaien stared at him for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
Not cruel.
Not kind.
Kaien: Not today.
Kaien turned away.
Blood dripped from his fingers as he walked, each step heavy, deliberate.
Kaien: We will continue this.
Kaien: When you can make me bleed for real.
The air folded.
Kaien vanished.
Cron collapsed to one knee, blood pooling beneath him, fists shaking.
But he was smiling.
Because Kaien remembered her.
And next time, Cron would make him remember everything.
End Of Chapter 7.