The sun was rising and time is ticking for Forstjaw Reiken.
06:30 A.M. — Pacific Ice-Sheet, 250 miles off the Chilean Coast.
Silence.
But not the peaceful kind. It was the kind that clawed into the soul—a stillness so absolute it threatened to unmake the mind. Moonlight slowly was getting replaced by the sun it spilled like silver blood over the shattered ocean, frozen over into a continent of ice.
Massive chasms and jagged glaciers stood like monuments to a war between gods. Cracks glowed with faint cobalt veins, the residual energy of an apocalyptic clash that had pushed the very planet to its limits. At the center of the devastation stood Frostjaw Reiken.
The monster's body—colossal, deformed, divine—rose from a crater of melted ice. Twelve god-eyes pulsed with blue fire, and a single titanic core beat visibly behind shattered rib-ice, emitting enough pressure to deform gravity itself. Each thrum sent vibrations through the crust of the ocean floor, forming rippling shockwaves that buckled distant glaciers. Hovering above the ruin were the last four standing.
Archer Irving. Karu Arakizawa. Rylen. And Lucien. Bloodied, flickering, torn apart by exhaustion—but still there. Their exo-frames sparked with damage. Archer's Aegis Armor had several gashes and was now on 35%; Karu's Titan-0 reactor was leaking fire and on 6%; Rylen's Animus had begun to unravel at the soul-thread level. His suit was on its last legs with 1%.
Lucien hovered by sheer force of will—his skin torn, eyes bloodshot, and right hand glowing from a seal he didn't fully understand. None of them spoke. But they all knew the same truth, burned into muscle and bone: One core wasn't enough. They had to destroy both. At once. Or the world would die. ⸻ I.
The Watching World NEWSNET GLOBAL – EMERGENCY BROADCAST ANCHOR: "We are approaching the 1-hour mark since Frostjaw Reiken entered its final form.
Temperatures in Santiago have now dropped to minus 79 degrees Celsius. Entire power grids are collapsing. Military evacuations are underway." GRAPHIC: PACIFIC FREEZE COVERAGE: 99.9% — SPREADING INTO COLOMBIA AND ARGENTINA. ANCHOR: "We've received new satellite imagery. Only ten combatants with four of them fighting remain at the epicenter. No other life signs detected in a 350-mile radius. Analysts confirm: the next five minutes will determine the fate of the Southern Hemisphere—and possibly the world." Across the globe, humanity stared upward or downward. In Nigeria, entire villages crowded into church halls, praying beneath cracked ceilings. In Tokyo, citizens watched from shelters as the ocean was swallowed by frost, holding onto loved ones with trembling hands. In Paris, emergency bunkers broadcast the footage via heat-protected drones. Some cried. Others couldn't look away. A child in Seoul whispered, "That man in the red fire… he's flying…" In New York, silence fell in Times Square as the final four hovered onscreen—four against a god. ⸻ II.
Reiken Unleashes Ice Power V – "Polar Cataclysmic Halo" The transformation was not announced—it erupted. Reiken's eyes burned white as a cry echoed across the upper atmosphere. Then it came. From its chest, spinning discs of pure crystalline ice burst outward—layered rings like orbiting saws, growing in number, density, and complexity. The air pressure dropped so sharply that thunder cracked across the entire Pacific.
Each halo spun at relativistic speeds, refracting every wavelength of light until the night sky shattered into diamond shards.
There were twelve rings. Each composed of ten thousand blades. Each blade thinner than a molecule, yet harder than neutronium. The physics were impossible. The power divine. Karu's suit ran emergency diagnostics. "These rings… they're quantum-phased.
They convert energy into negative entropy—cold plasma—and feed it into his core. He's built a perfect defense grid." "Planetary," Archer murmured. "We're looking at a shield that reflects energy, time, and matter." The team circled slowly, searching for any weakness. Rylen's voice crackled. "Rotation sequence… repeating every 4.02 seconds.
There's a delay—0.4 seconds between outer and inner ring alignment." Lucien wiped blood from his lip. "So that's the window." Karu's eyes narrowed. "Then we break it open." ⸻ III.
Reiken Unleashes Ice Power VI – "Stellar Frost Oblivion" What came next felt like the world dying. Reiken spread all six arms into the heavens. A humming began—low, harmonic, ancient. The air thickened, and light itself seemed to flee the space around him. He began to draw in heat from every direction. From the stratosphere, the thermosphere, even the sun's reflected warmth. Everything vanished into his core. And then— Boom. Boom. Boom.
Three pulses, like the drums of Judgment Day. From above Reiken's body, a lance of energy formed—colder than absolute zero, brighter than nuclear fire.
It stretched miles into the sky, forming a pillar of frost so massive it cast shadows over the Chilean Andes. Karu screamed through the comms. "Star-level attack forming! That lance—it's extracting heat from tectonic layers! It'll annihilate half the Southern Hemisphere!"
"Then we stop it," Archer replied, his voice steel. Lucien flexed his fist. The seal blazed again. ⸻
Setup Attacks to Exploit the Halo's Gap 1. Karu: Chrono-Breaker Strike Karu went first. With a roar, he activated the Titan-0's temporal overdrive. The stabilizers screamed as time fractured. To the world, Karu vanished. To his enemies, he became an afterimage of fire. The gauntlets on his arms glowed crimson-white as she blitzed across the battlefield. Her first punch cracked one of the inner rings. The second shattered a dozen blades. HE spun, flipped, dove—and struck a perfect impact point on the outer halo. In his slowed perception, she could see the rings beginning to realign. 0.312 seconds left. She shouted through the open channel: "NOW!"
2. Rylen: Soul-Anchor Gambit Rylen followed with spectral precision. His body phased through ice and gravity alike. Two blades—enchanted with soul-runes—drove into the fracture Karu had made. Chains burst forth—ethereal, glowing green. They latched onto the core's exposed tissue and held. Rylen's soul screamed. The Animus burned from within. But the chains held fast. "Locked. You've got 0.3 seconds," he said, before falling to one knee.
3. Archer: Eclipse Divider – Prime Stage Archer surged upward. No holding back. Both swords crossed as he invoked the final form of his Divider: Eclipse Mode. Darkness and light wreathed him. His armor began to melt—too much energy. But he didn't stop. "Lucien," he called. Lucien met his gaze. "This is where you end it." Archer slashed. And space parted.
06:36 A.M. — Pacific Ice-Sheet, 250 miles off the Chilean Coast
Time cracked.
As Archer's katana's tore through the heavens and Rylen's soul-chains wrenched open the last of Reiken's halo defenses, a singular path opened—barely a second
Lucien shot forward.
No armor. No weapons. Just his fists, his will, and a brand on his right hand that pulsed with unspeakable energy.
The seal burst open.
A black fire engulfed him—no flame, no heat, just pressure. Reality bent inward, as if the world were holding its breath. The color drained from everything around him. The clouds froze. The sky fractured.
A voice echoed from within him, deep and serpentine:
"Finally… you choose to let go."
Lucien's eyes became pitch voids, his skin etched with obsidian markings. Six crimson horns formed briefly above his crown like an ancient war-crest before vanishing into pure light.
He didn't understand what this form was. Only that it had offered itself to him a week ago, in the ruins beneath Tokyo.
"You are not vengeance from heaven but from hell.
," the figure had whispered, masked in bone and ash."You are our saviour. Let me show you."
Lucien accepted. But he never wanted too use this power.
But now—
Now he let it in.
"REIKEN!!" Lucien roared.
He struck.
⸻
Clash of Divinity and Demonheart
Reiken reacted.
All six arms hurled toward Lucien—each crackling with gravity-fused entropy. Twelve divine eyes focused their full wrath on the approaching blur. The lance in the sky surged, ready to fall. But Lucien was no longer of this planet.
He blinked forward, slipping between instants. A fist collided with Reiken's first arm, and the limb disintegrated. Another strike cracked the core's outer casing.
Then he screamed—and drove his entire body into the god's heart.
There was no explosion. No flash.
There was silence.
Then—
A reverse implosion. Like creation rewinding. A vacuum of sound and light collapsed in on itself as Lucien unleashed the full might of the infernal seal.
The core shattered.
And the lance in the sky fractured into stardust.
Reiken—final form, divine, eternal—let out a cry that shook the world.
Then disintegrated into ash.
⸻
Worldwide Consequences
06:38 A.M. – Broadcast
ANCHOR (weeping): "It's gone. It's… over. Satellite scans confirm: Reiken's life signature has ceased. The ocean is thawing. Temperatures are rising. Global wind currents are stabilizing."
Santiago: People pour into the streets as the frost melts in real time. Children cry in their mothers' arms. Firefighters and medics weep together. The sun peeks through the clouds for the first time in days.
Berlin: Sirens cease. One by one, civilians emerge from shelters, staring at sky-patched footage of a lone boy hovering above the Pacific, surrounded by ruin and radiance.
Cape Town: School children sing. Elders fall to their knees. The frost never reached them—but the fear had. And now it was gone.
Manila. Seoul. São Paulo. Toronto. Cairo. Mumbai. All across the globe, nations hold their breath—then erupt in unison. Not in rage. Not in panic.
But in relief.
⸻
The Fallen Watchers
Kagetsu, body broken, arm shattered, eyes barely open, watches from behind a cracked glacier.
He whispers, voice like smoke, "So that's… the kid who couldn't make Division One…"
And then laughs, bloody and unfiltered.
**
Lisa, pinned beneath a wreck of ice and armor, blinks tears from her eyes. "Lucien," she murmurs. "You're terrifying."
She tries to sit up. Fails. Then smiles.
"He finally stopped holding back."
**
Jason, coughing blood, watches the demon-form above the vanishing god. "I don't know what the hell that was," he breathes. "But damn…"
He reaches into his coat, pulls out a crushed pack of gum, and pops one in with trembling fingers. "Felt like a devil just saved us all."
**
Cho, laying beside a ruined satellite drone, stares at the sky with her one good eye. "That wasn't god-power," she mutters. "That was… something worse. Or better."
She doesn't know. But it saved them.
**
Emiluna, chest rising and falling faintly, weeps quietly. "He did it. He really…"
She tries to say more, but emotion drowns her.
She just places her hand over her heart.
**
Kisuke, half-frozen in place, grins despite himself. "Lucien… that stubborn bastard. Of course he'd punch a god in the face."
He coughs. Laughs again.
And passes out with a smile.
**
Ayumu, she was knocked out because of exhaustion and injuries. But when the final punch landed she opened her eyes. Just for them too close again in a matter of seconds.
⸻
Aftermath – The Boy Who Walked Through Hell
The ice began to melt.
The sky turned gold.
Lucien collapsed to one knee, steam pouring from his body. The markings faded. The seal on his hand dimmed—but didn't vanish.
He looked at it.
At the emptiness that remained inside him now.
That thing was still there.
Watching.
But it was silent, for now.
Archer landed beside him in divine glory. On the other side Karu and Rylen stumbled over almost falling. None of them spoke.
They didn't need to.
They'd won.
Together.
The sun finally rose over the Pacific.
And four shadows stood tall where once only ice remained.