The battlefield did not pause for love.
Magic still tore through the sky. Gravity screamed as the Wrath Dragon wrestled space itself. Slimes surged like a living tide, swallowing demon ranks whole while ghostly samurai carved silent paths through the chaos. Carbrarra roared somewhere in the distance, locked in battle against Rocky's endless summons.
Yet in the center of that storm—
There was a moment of stillness.
Sylvia pulled Rocky back behind a shattered wall of stone just as a wave of corrupted mana tore past where he had been standing. Her hands were already moving, precise and practiced, tearing a strip from her cloak.
"Hold still," she said.
"I'm fine," Rocky tried to argue, teeth clenched.
She shot him a look that ended the discussion.
"You stepped in front of a Demon Lord," she said quietly. "You don't get to decide you're fine."
She pressed the cloth firmly against his shoulder, tightening it with a swift knot. Rocky hissed in pain but didn't pull away. Her hands lingered—steady at first, then trembling once she realized he was still standing.
Behind them, the Guardian Wolf slammed a colossal demon into the ground. Happy's winds howled overhead. Risha's aura flared as she tore through another wave of enemies. The war raged on without mercy.
Sylvia lifted her eyes to Rocky.
"You didn't hesitate," she said. "Not even for a second."
Rocky exhaled slowly. "I wasn't going to let him hurt you again."
For a heartbeat, the noise of the battlefield faded.
Sylvia reached up, grabbed the front of his armor, and pulled him down—
And kissed him.
It was brief. Fierce. Full of gratitude and fear and relief all at once.
"Thank you," she whispered, resting her forehead against his. "For protecting me."
Rocky swallowed, his voice unsteady. "Always."
Sylvia stepped back, drew her sword, and turned toward the battlefield once more—eyes sharp, stance unwavering.
"Now," she said, standing at his side, "we end this."
Rocky looked out at the war raging before them, his summons fighting with everything they had—and felt something anchor itself deep within his chest.
Not rage.
Not desperation.
Resolve.
Together, they stepped forward.
And the storm answered.
They moved together.
Not as summoner and knight.
Not as commander and blade.
But as one decision.
Rocky felt it first—the world tightening, compressing around his spine and lungs as every summon-link, every contract, every shard of will aligned in a single direction. Sylvia felt it too, her grip on her sword steadying as something beyond training flooded her limbs.
Carbrarra looked up.
For the first time—
He was late.
Rocky and Sylvia charged.
The ground beneath them detonated as they launched forward, speed tearing stone into dust, air igniting into white shocklines behind them. The battlefield blurred, then vanished entirely as their acceleration surpassed distance.
Time resisted.
Then—
It shattered.
For one impossible moment, the universe failed to keep up.
Slimes froze mid-surge.
Lightning hung motionless in the air.
Carbrarra's army became statues of intent and fury.
Even Carbrarra himself slowed—his perception stretching, straining, trying to reassert control.
Rocky saw everything.
Every fracture in Carbrarra's armor.
Every flaw in the laws anchoring him.
Every thread of balance holding his existence together.
Sylvia moved beside him, not behind.
Her sword burned—not with magic, but with certainty.
Carbrarra raised his blade.
Too slow.
Rocky struck first—not with a punch, not with a spell, but with a command that needed no words. The Guardian Wolf's howl echoed inside the frozen moment, crushing space inward.
Sylvia followed.
Her sword cut.
Not flesh.
Fate.
The blade passed through Carbrarra's chest, and for the first time, blood—real blood—spilled from the Demon Lord. His eyes widened, not in pain, but in disbelief.
"This—should be impossible," he said, voice dragging through broken time.
Rocky met his gaze.
"You're right," he said. "It is."
The frozen moment cracked.
Time rushed back in all at once.
The explosion of force rippled outward, leveling what remained of the battlefield, knocking armies flat, shattering gates, ripping the sky open with thunderous backlash.
Carbrarra was hurled backward, smashing into the ground hard enough to carve a crater that glowed with residual lawfire.
Rocky and Sylvia skidded to a halt side by side, breathing hard, weapons lower
ed but ready.
For one heartbeat, no one moved.
Then—
Carbrarra's hand pressed against the shattered ground.
The crater beneath him glowed—cracks of distorted lawfire crawling outward like veins, flickering as if reality itself was struggling to decide whether he should still exist.
He laughed.
It was low at first. Broken. Disbelieving.
Then it grew louder.
"So this is it…" Carbrarra said, forcing himself upright inch by inch. His armor was fractured, one side of his chest carved open by Sylvia's strike, dark energy leaking like smoke. "You didn't overpower balance."
Rocky tightened his stance. Sylvia stepped half a pace forward, sword raised again.
"You betrayed it."
The Demon Lord spread his arms.
The sky responded.
The remaining gates screamed open, vomiting waves of unstable entities—half-formed monsters, corrupted laws, fragments of erased timelines given shape. The battlefield warped again, gravity snapping sideways as Carbrarra drew directly from the universe's corrective force.
"If balance cannot be enforced cleanly," Carbrarra said, voice echoing with layered tones, "then it will be enforced violently."
Rocky felt his summons strain.
The Guardian Wolf staggered but held its ground, claws digging deep. Slimes surged upward to shield the frontlines, evaporating by the billions as corrupted energy tore through them. Elementals clashed with twisted anomalies, fire and ice screaming as reality burned at the seams.
Risha appeared beside Rocky in a flash of dark light, breathing hard. "He's destabilizing everything. If this keeps up—"
"I know," Rocky said.
He closed his eyes.
Not to retreat.
To listen.
The Summoner System—fractured, half-destroyed—flickered faintly in the back of his mind. Not commands. Not numbers.
Connections.
Every summon wasn't just a weapon.
They were answers.
Rocky opened his eyes.
"All units," he said calmly, his voice carrying through the chaos without needing to be loud. "Switch to suppression formation. Don't overwhelm him—bind him."
The response was immediate.
The Guardian Wolf lunged, not to strike but to pin, its massive body slamming Carbrarra into the crater again. Ghostly yūrei samurai formed a sealing circle, blades embedded into the ground, anchoring spiritual chains. Slimes flooded every gap, hardening into layered restraints. Elementals wove barriers within barriers, locking space into place.
Carbrarra roared, power flaring wildly.
"You still don't understand!" he shouted. "The universe will tear itself apart without correction!"
Sylvia stepped forward, sword steady despite the tremor in the ground.
"Then maybe," she said, "the universe deserves a chance to choose differently."
She moved.
Not at broken-time speed.
Not with overwhelming force.
With precision.
Her blade struck the same wound again—deeper this time—disrupting the core that anchored Carbrarra's authority. The Demon Lord screamed as the restraints tightened, his army faltering, gates collapsing one by one.
Rocky raised his hand.
"This ends now," he said.
Not as a threat.
As a decision.
The summons surged together—not to kill, not to erase—but to seal. Light, shadow, spirit, and will intertwined, crushing inward as Carbrarra's power imploded under its own contradiction.
The sky began to mend.
The ground stilled.
Carbrarra fell silent, pinned at the center of the crater, his form flickering between existence and absence.
He looked at Rocky one last time.
"…Perhaps," he admitted quietly, "balance… can change."
Then the light closed in.
And the battlefield went still—
not with victory cries,
but with the sound of a universe breathing again.