???: "Wake up, Tellewin. Wake up, darling."
Tellewin: "U-Umazo? What in the…?"
Wake up.
Tellewin snapped violently back into reality, his eyes springing wide as his battered body recoiled in midair.
Breath caught sharply in his throat as his gaze whipped skyward toward an impossible sight—a titanic hollow column of glistening aqua, vast as a fallen heaven.
It was slowly descending over Senson Town with dreadful yet beautiful inevitability.
Instinct seized him before thought ever could.
Tellewin burst forward at once, diving past the looming oceanic mass before soaring higher into the dusk-lit skies, desperate for a clearer vantage.
The cold winds lashed against his bloodied skin and celestial feathers scattered faint shimmering dust behind him.
He could imagine it now.
The caskets of his zealots, neatly lining whatever battered remnants of the city that had somehow survived ruin's cruel appetite. They'd be resting among fractured streets and broken stone like sacred relics.
No.
No!
Tellewin sharply raised his crimson-smeared hands above his head, clasping his palms together with resounding force.
It sent out a commanding ring through the feathery constructs draped across every district below.
They understood immediately.
The white masses surged upward into the dimming skies in elegant unison, lifting homes, structures, and all those tucked safely within their embrace.
They carried them far from the swelling doom below until they floated peacefully in the twilight distance—like serene islands of white against an increasingly merciless sky.
Behind him, Tellewin's massive wings unfurled wider, each radiant plume moving with exquisite harmony.
They glided like twin constellations waltzing across the firmament in perfect rhythm.
At last, a grin pulled across his battered face.
He turned his ruby gaze downward toward the First Captain.
Jerry remained standing in the center of the muddy street below, perfectly still amidst chaos.
His posture was loose, expression chillingly casual.
Tellewin: "What now, Windfield? Lost? You're running out of time. You won't last forever in that state of yours."
Jerry chuckled, brushing sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
Jerry: "What are you blabbering about now? I'm the one waiting for you."
Snap.
In an instant, the descending ocean abandoned all restraint.
The slow-moving column became a ravenous plunge of crushing tides, torrents of roaring seawater smashing ferociously into the heart of Senson Town.
It swallowed flame, drowned embers, and washed the blistered streets clean beneath overwhelming force.
Wave after wave thundered through shattered roads and broken buildings, rebounding off stone before rushing outward into the lands beyond. They slammed against the borders of the shadow sphere, creating bursts of quaking impact and violent splashing.
Both sounds echoed like drums of doom without end.
Tellewin watched.
And watched.
And slowly, fear crept into his chest.
The channel was still pouring.
Still flooding.
Still rising.
It wasn't stopping.
Beyond Jerry's illusionary Apex Output, the tides continued to swell higher and higher, feeding monstrous amounts of ocean into the open passage.
More and more water was pushed into the barrier until the entire enclosed world began steadily filling… with no escape in sight.
It started to pile.
And it would not be long—no, not long at all—before those hungry waters reached the very summit of the shadow sphere… right where Tellewin, and every last one of his winged constructs, had so conveniently gathered.
———
Meanwhile, far beneath the catastrophe above, a harrowing scene was unfolding amid the flooding remnants of Senson Town.
Two of the last surviving Shining Crusaders raced across vast stretches of flooded ruin, mounted atop magnificent white horses.
Their gleaming coats were stained with seawater, soot, and streaks of battle-worn grime.
Their powerful legs leaped desperately from rooftop to rooftop while the ever-rising seas below snapped hungrily at their hooves like starving jaws eager for fresh blood.
Strapped tightly against the back of one rider, Levy's unconscious body swayed limply with each passing bound.
She was secured firmly in place despite the pace.
Atop the second steed, August clung tightly to her father's waist with trembling arms. Gerald gripped her tiny hand with fierce reassurance—refusing to let her slip away from his grasp.
Suddenly, one of the horse's front hooves skidded against the slick edge of a half-submerged rooftop.
August's heart plunged straight into her gut.
For one awful moment, everything tilted.
One mistake.
One bad landing.
And the sea would devour them whole.
The chances of survival were low. Terrifyingly low.
Where were they even meant to go?
The incoming waters were tireless—they would not pause, they would not pity, and they certainly would not wait for frightened stragglers scrambling across sinking stone.
August: "F-Father… I-I don't…"
Gerald's grip on her hand tightened.
Gerald: "Don't worry, August. We're going to get through this. I promise."
She wanted—more than anything—to believe him.
Wanted those words to wrap around her like warmth against winter.
But even through her fear, she could hear it—that strain buried deep in his voice, the quiet terror he was fighting desperately to keep from reaching her ears.
There was no hope.
And even if there was, it was long gone by now, lost somewhere far behind them.
Crusader One: "Look! Up there! Rope!"
At once, every weary eye snapped skyward.
Dangling from one of the great angelic feather-constructs above was a long, dark-brown braided lasso-rope.
It swayed wildly in the freezing breeze like a lifeline.
The survivors above had seen them.
Somehow, amidst mayhem and devastation, they had gathered every rope, cord, and tether they could find.
They had knotted them together into one desperate line of salvation, lowering it toward those still trapped below.
Gerald's eyes widened with raw relief.
Gerald: "Thank the Balance! We're saved! Look, August—we've been blessed!"
The riders pressed onward with renewed fury, their white steeds pounding harder against slate as they rushed toward the rope.
They were mere minutes from safety.
August gasped sharply, both hands flying to cover her mouth.
Her eyes watered instantly.
August: "W-We're saved…? W-We're gonna be okay…?"
A cry burst from her lips—not of fear this time, but joy—as her tiny fragile heart began filling at last with warmth, comfort, and the beautiful ache of hope rediscovered.
August: "We're going to survive! Oh, thank the Balance!"
The Crusaders laughed breathlessly, wild joy breaking through their exhaustion as they urged their steeds faster still.
Everything was going to be okay.
Okay.
August's face drained of every trace of color.
Time itself seemed to halt, as though the world had silently waited for this exact moment to reveal what came next.
Her eyes had caught something in the distance.
No.
It was not something.
It was someone.
A boy.
He looked no older than nine.
Soft light-gray hair stirred gently in the bitter winds. Skin pale and smooth like whey beneath moonlight. Torn, ragged clothes flowed loosely around his thin frame.
He stood only a few miles away. Still and silent.
No one else had seen him.
Only August.
August: "H-Huh?"
The boy's neck was swollen, ravaged by old burns born from the destruction of the great palace.
His throat had long since been scarred—no cries could leave him, no desperate pleas could escape his lips—but his arms still worked.
And so, he waved.
The instant August turned, their eyes locked.
He knew she had seen him.
The boy frantically flailed his bloodied hands through the cold air, waving with wild desperation—begging for her attention, begging to be rescued from the starving beast of sea gnawing greedily at the rooftop beneath his feet.
August swallowed hard.
He was only a few miles away.
They could reach him.
They could save him.
They'd still make it.
Couldn't they?
Her teeth slowly pressed into her bottom lip until the smallest ribbon of scarlet welled at its edge.
No.
She couldn't take that risk.
She wouldn't.
August: "I have to live… I just have to…"
Not another word left her mouth.
Not a whisper.
Not a peep.
The boy caught her gaze one final time—just long enough to understand.
From that moment onward, he realized his grave would rest somewhere nameless… somewhere his family would search for until their dying breaths, yet would never find.
Quietly, he lowered himself onto the rooftop, curled into a tiny shaking ball.
He surrendered himself to fate.
His hope was lost.
⸻
Tellewin plunged like a hunting falcon, ripping through every stubborn pocket of air that dared resist his descent before blasting into the colossal undershaft of glistening hydro.
The moment he entered, the current battered him without mercy.
Still, he forced himself upward.
He fought against the crushing torrent with everything left in him, desperately swimming toward the mouth of the channel.
He had to block its entrance with his wings and hold firm until Jerry's Apex Output finally withered away.
But Tellewin's pennons were broken.
Their mangled flesh leaked crimson into the galloping waters, staining the once-luminous channel in vast blooming clouds of maroon haze.
It was as if wine itself had been poured into the veins of the sea.
Tellewin persisted.
Higher.
Higher.
Higher.
Tellewin's Headspace: "C'mon… c'mon… C'MON—!"
Jerry: "Drown."
Impact.
Jerry materialized from the blood-dark flood like a ravenous animal, ramming into Tellewin's body with bone-rattling force and dragging him viscously downward.
Hundreds upon hundreds of bubbles shot up in frantic swarms, clustering together like colonies of startled ants as both men spiraled deeper into the vermilion abyss below.
Tellewin thrashed wildly in Jerry's ironclad grip, wrenching one arm free and hammering blow after blow into the captain's skull.
Jerry bared those shark-like teeth, seizing him by his leg and dragging him even farther into the choking darkness.
Air.
He needed air.
In desperation, Tellewin reverted one of his giant wings back into an arm, revealing the Viax Ring shimmering around his finger once more.
He swung.
At once, a long razor-edged blade of brilliant gold ejected from the ring's tiny seams, plunging clean through Jerry's stomach and gutting him like a fish.
The instant Jerry's grip loosened, Tellewin retracted the weapon and dove upward.
He bursted from the fleshy current, tearing through the surface and sucking down greedy mouthfuls of air before rocketing straight back into the depths below.
Ripples of savage vigor pulsed through the drowned battlefield as Tellewin darted through the waters at impossible speed.
His fist reeled back.
Knuckles tightening.
Murder filling his eyes.
He prepared to drive every ounce of his strength straight through Jerry Windfield's skull.
Weave.
Even burdened by injury, Jerry moved as though the battle were little more than leisurely sport, gliding through danger with maddening ease.
Tellewin's furious strike carved through nothing but empty water as Jerry slipped aside effortlessly. He grabbed his wrist in one swift motion, twisting it with playful cruelty.
Then he spun him.
His fingers tangled into a fistful of Tellewin's pale, colorless hair. He yanked his head downward and directly into a nasty elbow to his nose.
The crushing blow rang across the hurrying waters like thunder rolling over a restless sea.
Impossible.
How?
How was he still doing this?
Tellewin's thoughts buckled beneath disbelief.
Jerry's Apex Output should have faded by now, yet here this creature was… looking fresher than ever.
H was acting as if the fight had only just begun.
When a wielder unleashes the full bloom of their Blessed Tool, the time they may sustain that awakened state is dictated by energy spent.
But if that were true…
Then what did this mean?
After all the suffering—after all the torment and misery he had endured—was it truly possible… that this beast hadn't been trying at all?
Not once?
Not from the beginning?
When had Jerry Windfield started taking this seriously?
When?
Had he ever?
Had Tellewin's resolve been nothing more than amusing little theater to him?
Was he merely a joke?
A toy?
A thing to be played with?
Tellewin's Headspace: "NO!"
Pure rage swallowed reason whole.
With a guttural scream, Tellewin lunged forward, clamping both hands around Jerry's neck.
He savagely hurled his own cranium against Jerry's forehead!
Each hammering collision burst outward like cannonfire, every impact overflowing with the False King's wild, uncontrollable wrath.
The man had gone berserk.
Jerry grunted.
His starlit irises widened in genuine surprise as he absorbed the staggering brutality behind each headbutt.
Still, Tellewin kept going.
He had no intention of stopping.
Never.
If he could not win swiftly, then he would drag Jerry into hell inch by inch until even that monstrous body couldn't take anymore.
He threw his head forward again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again—
And AGAIN—
Squelch.
Tellewin: "Ah… H-Huh…?"
His breath vanished.
His vision blurred slightly as he dropped his gaze.
Mere inches away, curled across Jerry's brown lips, was a lovely—almost innocent—smile.
Windfield was impressed.
Deeply impressed.
He was pleased… and very much satisfied.
The Scarlet Horcriax slid free from Tellewin's abdomen wet snap, dragging ribbons of scarlet flesh, violet organs, and rose pink entrails. They swayed grotesquely through the water like feeding worms in a river current.
Above them, the great dome of never-ending midnight ruptured, shattering into millions upon millions of black glimmering shards that dissolved softly into nothingness.
The imprisoned ocean crashed downward in a deafening avalanche, smashing into the peninsula and swallowing everything.
Beneath the thunderous torrents, moist mounds of mud were left where streets, homes, and memories once stood.
High overhead, the feathered constructs descended gently, carefully lowering the separated districts back upon fractured foundation. They dissolved away like quiet snowfall.
The survivors stared at Senson Town in mute devastation.
They did not know whether to scream, weep, or to fall to their knees and curse heaven itself.
So they simply stared—at what centuries had built—now reduced to ashes in a single night.
At the center of it all lay Tellewin Seer, sprawled helplessly across the earth, unconscious and hovering at death's threshold.
He saw nothing.
He heard nothing.
Everything just hurt.
Jerry's form slowly morphed back into its natural shape, his light-red cloak fluttering softly behind him as he adjusted his dirtied spectacles.
He stood over the fallen king.
Though subdued now, that overwhelming primal aura still clung to him like shadowed flame.
He rested the Horcriax across his back, lifting his hands and giving a small applause. His smile grew wider.
Jerry: "Well done, Seer. Truly well done. You gave me quite the workout—and if I'm being honest, I was in dire need of one."
He tilted his head slightly, considering.
Jerry: "Perhaps I could suspend your death sentence… let you spend the remainder of your days rotting away in prison. Hmph. Assuming you're still breathing, of course."
Then Jerry turned, his eyes silently surveying the devastation stretched before him.
His seem to dampen as he did so...
Jerry: "This town looks even deader than before. I must've gotten rather lost in the battle… Ah well. They can keep what's left."
With those final words, the captain walked toward the distant docks at the rear of the muddied landscape, leaving silence in his wake.
a single tear slowly strolled down Tellewin's face and bled softly into the soil below.
That was it.
He lost…
Didn't he?
…Or was he unlucky?
———
Angela dragged herself out of the crumbling remains of a clock tower, one hand pressed tightly against her chest as sharp pain knifed through her ribs.
She staggered upright on shaking legs, favoring one side as she limped over splintered timber.
She had been fortunate—miraculously so.
The king's colossal wings had swept her from destruction's jaws, gathering her up alongside countless others.
Her bright yellow curls whipped violently in the bitter air, damp with blood and muddy water.
Her delicate robes hung in tatters—edges singed black, sleeves slashed open, sacred cloth dirtied by catastrophe.
Slowly, Angela lifted her gaze—and horror found her all over again.
Senson might as well have been gone.
The very foundation of the region had been remade into something alien—jagged earth thrust upward in cruel spikes, rugged stone twisted at unnatural angles.
Angela: "Oh my—"
Hera: "Angela Destinies."
The authoritative voice cut cleanly through her shock.
Angela swung her head around at once, eyes widening as they settled upon the figure steadily approaching.
Hera Xyles.
Angela: "I-I thought you—"
Swift as a blade, Hera raised her hand.
Angela's words died instantly in her throat.
Hera slowly shook her head and tilted the brim of her peaked hat down, shadow falling across darkened eyes heavy with strain.
For a brief moment, she stood there—breathing.
She was collecting herself, struggling to steady whatever invisible wound was threatening to pull her apart.
Then she stepped closer.
Drew in a long breath.
And muttered the words.
Hera: "You will—tsk…! I… I need your help… please?"