Skyler's body slammed against the rock . The stones beneath his back shattered before he could stop. Air burst violently from his chest. The taste of blood flooded his mouth.
He wasn't granted a single second.
The threads. They surged from the darkness like serpents . Coiling around his arm… his neck… his waist… And dragging him inward.
His feet slipped across the slick ground. The soil itself was shifting… contracting… As if the mountain were trying to swallow him whole.
The colossal demon roared.
The sound was not a scream But a vibration in the air itself. The rocky walls trembled, Dust cascading like rain. It lunged toward Skyler in a single step But that step struck like an earthquake.
Skyler raised his sword with difficulty.
A strike.
The massive fist collided with the blade, And pain detonated through his arm up to his shoulder.
A snap.
The crack of bone was unmistakable this time. His body recoiled against his will, His knees sliding over ground that had turned soft as mud.
Skyler tried to focus. He couldn't. Thoughts unraveled before they could form. Sound arrived late… The image preceded the movement… And time itself seemed to slip from his grasp.
The rage radiating from the entity before him was suffocating. This was no ordinary demon. It was hatred made flesh.
The giant roared again, The threads behind it swelling… tightening… Then surging forward in a single violent thrust.
Skyler was hurled into the air. He crashed against a second rock wall . Stone fracturing around his body like a spiderweb. He landed on his feet with difficulty… Staggered… Nearly fell.
But the sword remained raised.
His breaths came heavy. Blood streamed down his forehead… his eye… his chin… And yet He stood.
The giant paused for a second. The threads around it trembled slowly… As if sharing its rage.
Then, It took another step forward. The ground dragged Skyler's foot downward, As though gravity had suddenly doubled.
He could no longer dodge. He could no longer even think clearly. Only the instinct to survive remained.
Skyler tightened his grip on his sword. He raised his trembling hand… Very slowly. He didn't have enough strength. But his eyes Did not waver. And the pressure mounted.
The mountain… Began to shake.
_
Elsewhere on the mountain,...
Kai was trying to stand. His feet did not respond at first. Blood slid down the side of his face… Dripping from the tips of his fingers to the ground.
His body trembled as he placed weight on his leg. A sharp pain climbed from his ankle up to his back, But he gritted his teeth… forcing himself upright.
His breathing was ragged. He looked toward the direction where Skyler had disappeared among the rocks.
A second of silence. Then he muttered in a low, rough voice:
"Don't die now… I still need you."
There was no fear in his voice. Only… irritation. He wiped the blood from his eye with the back of his hand, And tried to focus. He slowly lifted his head.
"I won't allow you to die at the hands of that demon… Skyler."
Then he forced his body one step forward despite the pain.
_
At Skyler's location,...
The giant moved. It wasn't an attack It was a falling mountain. The air compressed. The ground cracked beneath its feet before it even reached him.
Skyler instinctively raised his sword, his body screaming in pain, bones emitting muted cracks yet his eyes remained steady.
The massive fist descended toward him. At the last moment, The light around him vanished. Then compressed. A voice emerged—low, fractured, yet clear:
"Stone Art - Solar Stone - Level 3 : Collapsing Ray."
A compressed solar point formed before his blade, As if a star had been forced to fold into the size of a fingertip.
Then, It burst forward. It was no ordinary beam. It was a compression of existence itself.
The strike pierced the giant's arm… Then swallowed it. No burning. No flames. No smoke. Only A circular black void within the stony flesh, As if a fragment of reality had been carved away.
The entire area fell into a single frequency. The ground… the air… Skyler's very body. Any wrong movement now could have doubled the damage against him.
His knee nearly gave out from the recoil, but he forced himself steady.
"Withdraw… slowly… don't make a mistake…"
But the giant, Paused. It looked at its arm. At the void. It trembled. The ground shook beneath it.
Skyler narrowed his eyes. He saw it. For a fraction of a second The dark fabric inside the wound was not chaotic.
It was… moving. Organizing itself. As if something were trying to close from within. A thought struck him immediately:
"Regenerating…? Then this is its weak point…"
A faint smile appeared despite the blood on his lips. But in the next moment , A sound. Not a roar. A vibration of anger.
The giant's body swelled, black veins spreading across its stony skin, and the void within its arm did not close . Instead It solidified. As if the darkness itself had hardened into matter.
Then it looked at Skyler. And for the first time Its anger was unmistakable. Its voice grated like grinding stone:
—"You…"
Skyler stood amid the devastation, His chest rising and falling violently… Blood covering his arms… His eyes locked onto the giant. But Something was wrong.
The giant moved.
No.
Did it move?
In his mind , He saw it attacking from the right. His body reacted instantly. He dodged left… Raised his arm to block But the strike never came.
Only emptiness.
And in the next instant, His body slammed into the ground with savage force. Air tore from his lungs. His mind froze.
"What…?"
An inner voice… cold… unfamiliar… He hadn't made a mistake. His memory had been deceived.
The giant whispered:
"The Loom - Thread of veil - Depth VII : Instant Memory Distortion"
An implanted memory. In the same instant. He thinks he moved… But he didn't move at all.
The giant hadn't stopped. Its black eyes widened. Anger. Real anger. The ground began to shift…
The mud turned viscous… Threads emerged from the cracks…
Skyler clenched his teeth.
"No… not now…"
The light contracted, Then went black. A whisper:
" Level 7 : Black Sun Descent "
The place, Transformed into a dark entity. Light no longer illuminated. It devoured. The sound deepened Like a call of the apocalypse. Pressure descended upon the entire area.
The threads paused for a moment.
Skyler lifted his head And saw it. The black thread. Only one. Denser. More alive.
"There… This is the core of regeneration… If I destroy it… everything will end."
His body moved. With everything he had left.
The giant before him.
Skyler shouted :
" Level 5 : Voice of the Sun "
"VANISH."
The voice erupted. Not merely sound. A vibration. A wave. Pure force.
The air fractured. The ground shook. Light passed through the giant And erased the black thread. The massive body trembled… Cracked… Collapsed. Stillness.
Silence.
Skyler stood… gasping… His eyes slowly widened.
"It's over… I won…"
Then, A shadow. Appeared behind him. The sound of a thread tearing.
A hand.
Pierced his chest from behind.
His eyes widened. Blood spilled from his mouth. Slowly… he looked down… And saw A black claw.
The giant's voice But from behind.
—"You… You attacked the wrong copy."
Around him, Other copies. Many. Emerging from the shadows.
In that moment, Time slowed. Skyler couldn't move. He didn't try to attack. Even the pain began to drift away, as if the body no longer mattered.
His vision widened slowly, The noise around him growing distant… very distant.
So… this is how it ends. It wasn't despair.
But a quiet certainty.
As if the battle no longer belonged to him As if the mountain had decided the outcome from the very beginning.
But A silver light passed beside him.
One voice :
"Get away from him."
Impact.
The hand was torn free. A body landed before him.
Kai.
Standing. Between him… and death.
_
Meanwhile, at the Wizards Academy, ...
The archive wing was unnaturally still, A dense silence… as if the walls themselves preserved secrets older than light.
Shōen sat alone at the long stone table. No books lay open before him. No tools. Only silence chosen by his own will.
His fingers were interlocked, His eyes half-closed, Like someone pushing the world out of his mind.
A faint sliding sound cut through the stillness. Then another. Then dozens. From within the shadows, snakes emerged.
Crawling across the shelves. Hanging from the pillars. Coiling around the metal handles. As if the place had become alive… and was awakening.
Yoruko appeared behind him, whispering into his ear:
"Did you miss me…?"
She stopped directly behind him :
"Strange… to find you here. Alone as always."
He didn't turn :
—"Noise annoys me."
She smiled :
"But I'm not like them… to you…"
He was silent for a moment, then said coldly:
—"Both are the same."
She moved closer, sitting on the edge of the table. One of the snakes coiled around her arm like an ornament.
"You know…"
She watched him with gleaming eyes.
"I used to think you were just an annoying case I was forced to work with."
He didn't respond.
She leaned slightly toward him.
"…But it seems I misjudged. You seem to be my favorite type of man."
He finally lifted his gaze to her.
—"Are you finished?"
She laughed softly.
"No. On the contrary… it's starting to become interesting."
She leaned closer until her face was nearly touching his.
"You… are ... se."
Then, without realizing, she extended her hand toward the edge of the table And pressed an ancient carving etched into the stone.
Nothing moved. No drawer opened. No mechanism revealed itself.
Yoruko simply placed her palm on the table. And remained there. Two seconds. Three.
Shōen said coldly:
—"Are you waiting for something to happen?"
He looked at the table. Nothing had changed. But The engraved lines were no longer as they had been moments before.
They hadn't moved. They hadn't shifted. He simply… could no longer remember their previous form. He withdrew his hand unconsciously.
—"What is this?"
She answered:
"I don't know."
She wasn't joking.
A page appeared. Not a book. Just a single page. It did not emerge from anywhere.
It lay upon the table As if it had always been there, And as if his eyes had simply been late in noticing it.
It had neither the weight of paper Nor transparency. Something in between. As if an idea had decided to become a surface.
He didn't touch it. It clung to his fingers on its own. Words appeared. No, Not words. Boundaries.
Thin rectangles, tightly arranged, As if the void itself had been imprinted into the shape of… cards. But they were not drawn. They were carved out of the surface itself.
Each bore a different mark Fractured radial lines… The shape of an incomplete sun… And a number that would not settle, shifting every time he tried to focus on it.
Shōen furrowed his brow.
—"Did… you add this?"
Yoruko looked where he was pointing.
"Add what?"
He fell silent.
One of the shapes slid slowly Not an actual movement, But as if his perception lagged behind its position. He extended his finger without thinking.
The instant it touched the edge. The shape vanished. But A sharp sensation ran through his palm, As if something that should have been removed… wasn't. He withdrew his hand immediately.
—"This is annoying."
His tone was dry. Not protest, Observation.
Yoruko laughed lightly.
"You're the annoying one. Sitting alone, staring at the table, then blaming me."
She saw nothing. For her Nothing had happened at all.
The surface was as it had always been. Ancient engravings.
But Shōen did not respond.
Silence settled once more.
The snakes did not approach. As if they, too, could not see what was happening at all.