CHAPTER 41 – THE HEAVEN-SHAKING WAR
The castle trembled as though the heavens themselves had descended. The air was thick with smoke and blue sparks, stone groaned beneath unseen pressure, and the night was painted in firelight and shadow. Every soldier, rebel, and mage on the battlefield knew it—this was no longer just war. This was destiny being carved in real time.
Moro stood in the center of the ruined throne hall, shoulders heaving, his palms glowing with the raw circuitry of the Matrix flowing through his veins. His body radiated a soft but blinding blue—so bright it illuminated the cracks along the ceiling like cracks in glass. His enemies staggered at the sight, and even his allies were speechless. This was not the Moro they had known—the hesitant boy, the fighter learning to channel his gift. This was something else, something more.
Ultra Fusion.
His very breath distorted the air, bending the shadows around him into ribbons of trembling light. His eyes were oceans, glowing so brilliantly that Hawks—once confident, once unstoppable—stepped backward, for the first time uncertain.
"Impossible," Hawks spat, his wings of dark flame unfurling wider, casting long claw-like shadows across the ruined stone. "That power—no human should wield it! You'll shatter yourself before you even scratch me."
Moro didn't answer. He simply clenched his fists, and the chamber groaned like the world itself feared his resolve. Blue streams of fusion energy licked across his arms, crawling into his chest and erupting outward like he had become a living star. The light burned away the creeping darkness Hawks commanded, dissolving shadow into nothingness with every pulse.
Hanks, battered and bloodied, leaned against the broken pillar. His arm, once limp from Hawks' strike, now surged with the remnants of his colossus form, muscle wrapped in molten stone. He gritted his teeth, staring at Moro's silhouette. He's doing it. The kid is really doing it.
But Hawks roared, refusing to let go of his dominion. His feathers erupted outward like spears of shadow, filling the chamber in black rain. "I AM THE KING'S WING! THE SANCTUARY IS ETERNAL!" he thundered, the words echoing with enough force to splinter the fractured throne in half.
Moro lifted one arm slowly, every movement radiant, as though the very Matrix itself bent to his will. He spun, and the feathers dissolved on contact with the blue veil wrapping him, turning Hawks' lethal storm into ash. Then he blurred forward, closing the distance in an instant. Their clash was no sound, only force—like two worlds colliding, cracking space itself inside the throne room.
The shockwave ripped apart walls, hurled shattered statues into dust, and sent Hanks sliding across the floor despite bracing with all his strength.
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But outside—
In the torn plains where the rebellion surged toward the Sanctuary, another storm brewed.
The Celtic High had arrived.
No words, no threats, no speeches—just presence. Their aura alone was enough to choke the field into silence. A darkness not born of shadow, but of dominion—ancient, patient, suffocating. They hovered above the rebels, cloaks fluttering in wind that was not wind, eyes gleaming with the burn of abyssal fire.
Rebel soldiers froze mid-charge, blades clattering from their hands. Horses reared. Even the bravest knights staggered, their lungs refusing to pull in air under that crushing weight. The Celtic High radiated fear the way the sun radiated heat.
Herbet felt his chest tighten, his knees begging to buckle. But Kaya, eyes blazing with the spirit of her ancestors, broke the silence. She screamed, a battle cry so fierce it cut through the spell of dread. Without hesitation she launched herself into the sky, twin blades glowing with emerald fire. "WE WILL NOT KNEEL!"
Herbet followed, slamming his gauntlets together, his body igniting with runic shields. The rebels roared behind them, voices trembling but hearts catching fire again. Together, Kaya and Herbet leapt into the impossible, striking first against the Celtic High with all the desperation of humanity's final stand.
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Far above, cloaked in the whirling storm of the collapsing battlefield, Xerx stood alone upon the Sanctuary's balcony. His robes whipped violently around him, his staff etched in runes glowing with every element, every frequency of magic at once. His eyes had gone white, his body shaking under the magnitude of the spell he had nearly completed.
Beneath his feet, ancient circles the size of cities glowed across the stone. His incantation had reached its crescendo—the kind of spell that could unweave nations. Sweat ran down his face, his lips bloody from biting back the pain of channeling what no mage should channel. He whispered a final word, one syllable too old for any tongue, and the entire sky warped.
But before he could release it—
Steel shattered the air.
The Captain of the King's Guard—defeated, bloodied, yet impossibly still standing—dragged himself from the rubble. His armor cracked, his blade glowing with the last essence of royal oath. He swung, and his strike tore across the balcony in a line of pure light.
Xerx raised his staff, blocking, but the clash split the heavens open. Lightning erupted across the horizon, clouds shredded apart by the force of it. Sparks showered like meteors over the Sanctuary. The two titans stood locked—one channeling the end of an empire, the other clinging desperately to the last vow of loyalty.
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Back in the throne hall, the fight had escalated into nightmare.
Hawks had summoned his full demon form—six shadowed arms sprouting grotesquely from his back, each wielding a blade of pure night. His eyes glowed red, his grin manic. He slashed and the entire chamber folded into a shadow domain—reality itself bent, pulling Moro and Hanks into a prison of darkness where light barely existed.
In this void, Hawks was god.
He moved with six blades at once, every strike lethal, every shadow an extension of his fury. "This is the grave I've built for you," he whispered, his voice everywhere, in the walls, in their bones. "Even your blue fire will flicker out here."
Moro staggered under the weight, his light dimming in this realm that fed on despair. But Hanks, roaring through his injuries, planted himself like an unmovable wall. His colossus form swelled, the stone around his broken arm reforging itself with magma veins. He smashed one of Hawks' blades aside, forcing open a sliver of space where Moro's glow could flare.
"You're not alone in this, kid!" Hanks shouted, voice echoing through the void.
Moro closed his eyes, the Matrix flowing into perfect sync. He let go of fear, let go of doubt, and in that silence the light inside him roared alive once more. His body ignited into pure Ultra Fusion, brighter than the domain could smother. The void hissed, recoiling, threads of shadow unraveling under the unbearable truth of his existence.
When Moro opened his eyes again, blue fire licked from his skin, and every strike Hawks launched melted into sparks before they could touch him.
The final clash was inevitable.
Moro and Hanks together surged, one glowing like the sun, the other burning like a living mountain. Hawks screamed, six blades spinning in a storm, but when the light met the shadow, the entire castle split in half from the explosion.
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And above the chaos, Xerx still stood against the Captain, his spell aching to be unleashed, his arms trembling, the rebellion screaming, the Celtic High advancing, and the war of gods and mortals colliding into one singular, shattering truth—
The balance was tipping.
But no one yet knew which side it would fall to.
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