Chapter 48 – The Aura of Calamity
The sanctuary was no more.
One heartbeat it stood tall, its spires touching the heavens, its marble halls echoing with the cries of the rebellion. The next heartbeat, it was a storm. The Celtic Highs lifted their hands in perfect unison and the world itself ruptured.
Their aura, once hidden behind veils of composure, now poured out unrestrained. It was not a flare of power. It was not even an explosion. It was annihilation—dark mystic energy condensed and unleashed as if a second sun had collapsed within the sanctuary.
The earth screamed.
The sky fractured.
The very stones of history split.
The blast ripped outward, a tidal wave of shadow and thunder, a dome of pressure that pulverized stone and shattered mountains of architecture. Walls became dust in an instant, mighty arches that had stood for centuries crumbled like sandcastles in rain.
The rebels were nothing before it. Soldiers were hurled through the air like scattered seeds. Commanders who had stood resolute now fell to their knees, their blades slipping from numb fingers. The shockwave shredded banners, toppled towers, and swallowed voices until the only sound left was the roar of dark thunder.
The sanctuary was gone. In its place stretched a crater of ruin, swirling with smoke, lightning, and shadow.
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The Shield of the Colossum
At the heart of the storm, one man refused to yield.
King Hanks.
Though his side bled and his arm screamed with pain from the stab of the Highs, he planted his feet into the fractured earth and raised his arms as if holding up the sky. His eyes blazed with a golden fury, the ancient power of the Colossum flowing through his veins.
The ground beneath him rumbled. Stone tore itself upward, bending to his will, reshaping into a radiant dome. Aura clung to it, fusing with the stone, layering shield upon shield until the structure glowed like a second sun inside the storm.
Inside, Moro staggered, Kaya pressed her palms to the earth gasping, Herbet collapsed on one knee—but they lived. The storm that erased armies could not breach the dome.
Every strike of the Highs' aura thundered against the barrier. Each impact cracked it further, raining shards of light and stone around them. The dome pulsed, screamed, and buckled, but it did not fall.
Hanks bore the weight of gods on his shoulders, and though his teeth shattered against each other and blood ran down his chin, he roared against the storm:
"NOT… WHILE I STAND!"
The dome flared once more, golden light clashing against the tide of black thunder.
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The Sky of Blood
Above, the heavens twisted. Clouds spun like whirlpools, lightning speared endlessly into the earth, and at the eye of it all hung Xerx.
He was broken. Blood streamed from his chest wound in rivers, his robes tattered, his limbs trembling as if one more gust might tear him apart. Yet still, his hands remained outstretched, glowing faintly with threads of light.
Each thread snaked toward Moro below, weaving unseen into his body, seeding him with the strength to stand against the impossible.
Xerx coughed blood into the storm. His vision blurred. The pain clawed through every nerve. And still, he whispered into the deafening void:
"Moro… hold… I will… hold with you…"
The storm whipped around him, each bolt of black lightning grazing his body, burning through his aura. His flesh blistered, his wings of energy ripped away. He was little more than a bleeding beacon, but he did not extinguish.
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The Shaking of the City
The aura of the Highs was not contained to the sanctuary.
Like rivers breaking dams, it flooded outward into the city.
Streets cracked and split, entire districts groaning as their foundations collapsed. Towers that had stood for generations bent and snapped in half, their remains collapsing into seas of dust. The people of the capital screamed, their voices swallowed by the storm as they fled into alleys and basements that offered no protection.
Children clung to their mothers, faces streaked with soot and terror. Men who had sworn to fight dropped their swords, not from cowardice but from the sheer futility of lifting steel against gods. Every breath became heavier, the air thick as molten lead.
Shadows writhed along the walls, no longer behaving like mere absence of light but alive, serpents of darkness crawling across every corner.
The entire city bent as if kneeling. As if the Highs' aura was not simply power, but gravity itself.
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The Trembling of Mortals
Shinya, once a commander of sharp conviction, stood at the sanctuary's edge staring into the abyss. His knees trembled violently before he collapsed entirely. His palms pressed to the earth as if begging forgiveness from the gods that had descended.
"This… this cannot be faced…" he whispered, his voice cracked with dread. His blade slipped from his hand, clattering to the ground. He could not even lift his head.
Around him, soldiers and rebels alike fell, not slain, but forced into submission by the aura alone. Their bones screamed, their souls bent.
Hope cracked like glass beneath the weight.
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The Survivor
But not all broke.
From within the cracked dome, one figure staggered forward, dragging himself from the rubble. Moro.
Blood drenched his face, ran in rivulets down his arms, and spattered every step he took. His chest rose and fell like a drowning man, every breath a struggle. His hands shook violently as he leaned on his blade to remain upright.
But his eyes—his eyes burned like blue fire.
The glow of his Ultra Fusion flickered around him, faint but alive. He forced himself upright, his body swaying, then steadied.
The sanctuary lay in ruins. Rebels scattered. His comrades shielded and broken. Above, Xerx bled in silence. Before him, the Highs towered like mountains of shadow and thunder, their aura devouring the world itself.
And yet, Moro stood.
His breath came heavy, ragged. His shoulders rose and fell. The weight of the storm pressed against him, but he did not kneel.
He locked eyes with the Celtic Highs, the gods cloaked in thunder, and whispered into the storm:
"You will not… break me."
And in that moment, though the world shook, though the city burned, though the heavens thundered, one man remained upright, breathing heavy, staring into the monstrous aura that promised only death.
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