John walked forward.
Each step was wrong.
His legs no longer moved like a human's—bone jutted through torn flesh, joints bending at impossible angles. With every step, a sickening crack echoed through the ruins, the sound of something that should not still be alive forcing itself onward.
Kael and Elric stood frozen for a breath.
The thing in front of them was no longer the boy from the orphanage, no longer even the man driven by revenge. It was a mass of hatred stitched together by dark magic and grief that had never been allowed to fade.
Elric moved first.
She stepped in front of Kael, her bow raised, body tense but unyielding.
"We have to stop him," she said, voice tight. "If he reaches the village… there won't be anything left."
Her hands trembled—not from fear alone, but from the memory of how easily Varyn had been erased. A being who had mocked death itself had been torn apart in seconds.
And John was still standing.
Kael nodded slowly. His jaw clenched as he raised his sword again, the weight of it familiar and heavy in his hands.
John lifted both arms.
The ground screamed.
Cracks spread across the earth like veins, splitting open as something clawed its way up from below. One after another, massive shapes emerged—ghouls, far larger than those that had attacked the village. Their bodies were fused from multiple corpses, limbs overlapping, mouths stretched too wide, eyes glowing with a feral red hunger.
Elric's breath hitched.
Even one of these had nearly overwhelmed her before.
Now there were many.
Before she could even nock an arrow, the ghouls lunged forward, claws tearing through the air toward them.
Kael stepped past her.
"Elric—stay back."
She turned sharply. "Kael—!"
He didn't stop.
Kael inhaled deeply, forcing his racing heart to steady. Pain still lingered in his shoulder, exhaustion weighed on his limbs—but beneath it all, something familiar stirred.
He remembered the underground chamber beneath Delcra Castle.
The cultists.
The sword fragment.
The voice that had guided his hand when he had thought to himself alone.
His grip tightened on the hilt.
"Give me strength, Licht," he whispered, barely audible.
Then he ran.
Kael met the first ghoul head-on.
Steel flashed.
He pivoted low, slicing through a leg that was too thick, too heavy for the creature to recover from. As it collapsed, he used its falling body as leverage, pushing off and spinning mid-air to drive his blade straight through the core pulsing in its chest.
The ghoul screamed before dissolving into ash.
Another lunged from the side.
Kael ducked, rolled beneath its claws, and rose in one smooth motion, sword carving a clean arc upward. Black ichor sprayed as the creature split apart, collapsing with a wet thud.
Elric stared.
This wasn't reckless desperation.
This was precision.
Kael moved like water and steel combined—each strike calculated, each step deliberate. He didn't waste motion. He didn't hesitate. His blade glowed faintly as if answering his will, guided by something deeper than conscious thought.
A third ghoul charged.
Kael braced, took the impact, and drove his shoulder into its torso despite the pain. As it reeled, he thrust his sword upward, straight through its skull.
It fell.
One by one, the ghouls collapsed around him, their massive bodies crumbling into nothing.
John let out a low groan, rage twisting his ruined features.
"So you remember how to fight now," he snarled.
He burst forward, faster than before—but Elric was ready.
Her arrow flew.
It struck John squarely in the chest.
For a moment, she dared to hope.
Then John laughed.
"You think this can hurt me?!"
He ripped the arrow free, black mana flooding over it as he hurled it back with terrifying force.
"Elric—!"
Kael saw it too late—then moved without thinking.
He intercepted the arrow mid-air, blade crashing against it with a sharp clang. The corrupted projectile shattered, scattering dark fragments harmlessly into the dirt.
John clicked his tongue in irritation.
"You really don't remember, do you?" he growled, voice warping. "You escaped this place. Lost your memories. Became the Hero."
His body twisted further, veins pulsing black beneath his skin.
"While we stayed."
John's voice cracked—not with pain, but with years of buried despair.
"We suffered."
Kael stood firm, sword raised, chest heaving.
"While you lived happily," John continued, fury boiling over, "being loved by everyone—praised—protected!"
The ground beneath Kael exploded upward.
A massive lance of jagged earth shot toward him, sharp enough to skewer a dragon.
"Now die!" John roared. "Feel what we felt—alone, forgotten, screaming for help that never came!"
Kael leapt aside at the last second, the lance tearing through the air where his body had been.
Dust filled the ruins.
Kael skidded across the ground, barely keeping his footing.
John stood at the center of the devastation, no longer human, no longer victim—only a vessel of hatred, grief, and twisted justice.
And Kael, standing opposite him, felt the crushing weight of it all.
Not just the battle.
But the truth John had hurled at him.
That while Kael had survived—others had been left behind to become this.
And the question that cut deeper than any blade:
If he had remembered sooner… would any of this have happened at all?
The lances hovered in the air, their tips trembling as if alive. Each one pulsed with thickened black mana, the color so dense it seemed to devour the light around it. The smell was wrong—sweet and rotten at the same time, like decaying flowers soaked in blood.
John's chanting slowed, savoring the moment. His lips curled into a smile that did not reach his eyes.
"But before I kill you," he said lazily, his voice echoing across the ruined ground, "I'll kill your woman first."
The lances screamed as they launched.
Elric barely had time to react. Kael moved first, sprinting toward her, sword raised, instincts screaming to deflect what he could—but the speed was inhuman. Faster than steel. Faster than thought.
"Elric!" Kael shouted.
She stepped in behind him, one hand raised, her voice steady despite the terror clawing at her chest.
"Barrier—layered formation!"
A translucent shield flared into existence, wrapping around both of them. The first lance struck it with a deafening crack. Another followed. Then another.
The barrier fractured.
Black mana crawled across its surface like veins spreading through glass. Elric felt it immediately—the resistance, the corruption chewing through her magic as if it were paper.
"It's not holding—!" she gasped.
Kael didn't hesitate.
He turned, wrapped one arm around Elric, and pulled her hard toward the crumbling ruins behind them. Stone shattered as they dove for cover. The world exploded in sound.
A burning pain tore through Kael's shoulder.
Several lances pierced him instead.
"No—Kael!!" Elric screamed.
Her voice was swallowed by the roar of impact as the remaining lances smashed into the ground where they had stood moments before. The earth cracked open, smoke and dust billowing into the air, blotting out the sky.
When the noise finally faded, Elric realized she was still breathing.
Her fingers were shaking as she gripped Kael's cloak. Slowly, she pulled back, her eyes dropping to his shoulder—and then lower.
Blood.
So much blood.
It soaked through his clothes, dark and unnaturally thick, streaked with black. Kael had positioned himself fully in front of her, his body turned just enough to shield her from the worst of the blast.
"Kael…" Her voice broke. "Why… why would you—"
Before she could finish, Kael gently loosened his hold and pulled away from her embrace. His movements were stiff. His breath came uneven, each inhale sharp, as if his lungs were resisting him.
"I don't want you to get hurt again," he said quietly. His voice trembled despite his attempt to keep it steady. "Not like last time…"
Elric stared at him, horror flooding her expression.
From the clearing smoke, John's laughter rang out—sharp, delighted, cruel.
Both Kael and Elric flinched.
"Kael…" John called mockingly. "You really are kind. You never change."
He tilted his head, eyes glinting.
"But that's exactly why you're naïve." His smile widened. "And an idiot."
John lifted his hand once more. Black mana coiled around his fingers like living smoke, gathering for another strike.
Kael and Elric remained crouched behind the ruined stone wall. Dust drifted down around them like ash.
Elric reached out, her trembling hand brushing against Kael's neck.
Her heart clenched.
Dark veins were spreading beneath his pale skin, branching outward like cracks in ice. The poison had already taken hold.
"…Kael," she whispered, panic creeping into her voice. "The poison—"
"It's fine," Kael murmured, forcing the words out. He tried to steady his breathing, though it shook against his will. "…It doesn't hurt as much as before."
He was lying. And they both knew it.
Elric clenched her teeth, her eyes burning.
"Don't say things like that," she said sharply, tears threatening to fall. "This isn't something you can just endure!"
Slowly, painfully, Kael pushed himself to his feet.
Every movement sent fire through his body. His legs screamed at him to collapse. His vision blurred at the edges, black spots dancing before his eyes. The poison gnawed at his mana, at his blood, whispering for him to give in.
Still, he stepped out from behind the ruins.
He raised his sword, though his hand trembled.
John watched him with open amusement, as if observing a dying animal struggling to stand.
"What are you going to do now?" he sneered. "My power is poisonous—just like Lord Varyn's blood."
Kael lifted his gaze.
His eyes were steady.
"No," he said, voice low but firm. "This… isn't much."
John's smile twitched.
"Varyn's blood," Kael continued, tightening his grip on the sword, "was far stronger than this."
For a split second, something ugly flickered across John's face.
"You talk big!!" John roared.
He slammed his foot into the ground.
The earth responded.
Sharp lances erupted from the soil in violent succession, tearing through stone and bone alike. This time, there were far more—dozens of them, floating ominously in the air, encircling Kael from every direction.
John spread his arms wide, drunk on his own power.
"The curse child's blood is pure!" he shouted. "Even that vampire was killed by my power!!"
He snapped his hand downward.
The lances were released.
Time slowed.
Kael exhaled slowly, forcing his mind to quiet. The pain, the poison, the fear—they all tried to drown him.
I'm Kael.
The words echoed in his chest.
I'm Kael.
He remembered the promise he made to Licht.
Live as Kael.
Not a hero forged by prophecy.
Not a weapon shaped by the world.
Just Kael.
His stance shifted.
Despite the trembling in his limbs, his posture became precise—grounded. Each second stretched like an eternity as the lances closed in, whistling through the air, hungry for his blood.
Kael's grip tightened around the sword.
"I won't fall here," he whispered. "Not in front of her."
His eyes sharpened.
And then—he moved.