The battlefield was already a storm of fire, thunder, scripture-light, and molten rivers. The rookies strained against the tide, their sweat, blood, and Shinrei burning like kindling in the furnace of war. The veterans blazed like gods, their Eclipse Forms bending reality itself.

And yet—

Sloth still stood.

His flesh blistered from Zeke's magma. His chains cracked and coiled back on themselves in Sensei Kurosawa's mirror. Raiden's lightning storm had slowed his every twitch, forcing his bodies into lagging delay. His three souls bled screams into the air.

Still… he grinned.

Sloth's shadows churned, vomiting voices and faces. A thousand mouths, a thousand laughs. The battlefield dimmed, light itself retreating.

Then came his whisper soft, but it drowned everything.

"Void Art… Soul Society."

The ground shattered like glass.

The world folded.

The chamber melted into an ocean of screaming faces. Countless souls writhed in a black sea, their bodies chained together, dragged into Sloth's abyss. A cathedral of writhing chains rose behind him, towering into an infinite void sky. Every link was a person. Every clang was a cry.

The rookies staggered

Kaen's void-flames sputtered.

Rael's radiant wings flickered under the weight of so many stolen lights.

Shigeo's predictive web went haywire, every path fracturing into chaos.

Juno's fists struck only air, his opponent now everywhere and nowhere.

Ceyla's Shinrei shuddered, despair worming into her veins.

Even the veterans faltered.

Raiden's lightning chains sparked violently, but the ocean of chained souls absorbed them like sponges.

Zeke's magma bled into the black tide, but for every soul burned, ten more rose, screaming.

Sensei Kurosawa's mirror fractured reflections of a thousand souls tearing his domain apart.

Sloth's laugh rippled through the void:

"Do you feel it? This is not my power. This is the weight of every soul you failed to save. A society of the dead, chained forever… through me."

His multiple-souls surged outward one arm fighting with Wrath's relentless fury, another with Envy's twisting mimicry, another with Gluttony's endless devouring chains. The battlefield warped into a slaughterhouse.

Khael, blood dripping down his chin, rose again. His dragon-heart thundered against the weight of despair.

(Damn it… this bastard… he's pulling everything into the void. If this keeps up even the Eclipse Vanguards will break… And Shigeo's web… it can't hold against infinity.)

His scales glowed faintly brighter. His grip on his blade tightened.

But before he could move, Sloth's gaze no, gazes snapped to him.

"Dragon Knight… You carry eternity in your veins. You are not meant to exist. So tell me… will your soul shine…"

Chains lashed toward Khael from all sides, splitting the void sky

"—or will you join my Society?"

Sloth's chains lashed down like black comets, ripping through the shattered ground. The void cathedral groaned under the weight of countless screaming souls.

And then

Back to Isen and Lucere

…

Meanwhile, on the screen, the two watched one a saintly general with tired eyes, the other a smile that never reached his teeth.

"Who would win," Lucere asked idly, fingers twining through popcorn, "your so-called shield of humanity, your Veinwalkers or my ultimate weapon… the Sloth?"

Isen's hand hovered over the armrest. "Mine."

Lucere laughed, low and delighted. "Hoh. Do tell. Sloth is not like the others. He may be a voidborn, but he is… different. Multiple souls. He can feel and use emotion—Shinrei's heart. Sloth embodies every feeling he keeps inside. That makes him more than a monster. It makes him a shinrei itself."

Isen's face darkened. "You know what that means."

Lucere's eyes glittered orange, red, black spiraling in an ugly, calm swirl. "Yes. He can wear the world's heart like armor. Well…we could kill him. They cannot, unless someone orders their soul into a blade and drives it through the wound."

The screen went quiet. On it, the ruined ceiling had long since fallen away; moonlight and ash rained through the open sky. Sloth crouched in the center like a mountain of loose cloth wounds knitting closed even as razor-thin scars spidered outward. Around them, veterans breathed hard, faces streaked with soot and blood. Rookies knelt, panting, clutching shattered weapons. At the center of the ring, Khael Corzedar steadied himself wings folded, dragon scales flaring with every ragged inhale.

"If he touches Khael," Lucere murmured playfully, "that boy's bloodline will be swallowed, folded into Sloth's chorus."

Isen's jaw tightened; his voice softened. "Then Khael must be the blade. Not just his strength his choice. If anyone can force multiple souls into a single line, it will be a dragon who refuses to be divided."

Back in the shell of the school, the roar of combat shrank to a single, focused thrum, the sound of a plan becoming a single thing.

"PROTECT KHAEL!!!"

Shigeo's voice cracked like thunder both command and plea.

The Thousand Way flared open. Lightning veins webbed across the battlefield, infinite futures mapped into burning lattice lines. Each thread showed a strike, a counter, a death, a failure. But one line one path glowed crimson. The single thread where Sloth fell.

Everyone understood.

Everyone moved.

Zeke roared, magma spilling from his arms as he slammed both fists into the void-floor.

"ECLIPSE ART: LAVA BURIAL!!!"

The black sea boiled alive. Rivers of molten flame erupted, cutting off Sloth's left flank. Screaming souls evaporated in the fire, their echoes feeding Zeke's blaze until his silhouette glowed like a living volcano.

Raiden surged next, lightning wrapping him in a storm-born cloak. His twin plasma blades sang with power.

"ECLIPSE ART:CHAIN NOVA!!!"

He dashed forward in bursts of thunder, each strike severing dozens of arms. Chains exploded into sparks, echoes scattered to dust, and his storm carved open space where there had been none.

Sensei Kurozawa anchored the line. His Mirror Shinrei unfurled like a fractured domain—endless glass planes encircling them. Sloth's many arms lashed in, but each one struck itself instead, reflections tearing his sins against one another.

"ECLIPSE ART:MIRROR DOMAIN."

The veterans bled. Their Eclipse Forms howled. And still, they stood.

The rookies answered in kind.

Ceyla Nox threw herself in front of Khael, veins glowing storm-blue, eyes burning with defiance. Chains whipped toward him

"NO!!!"

Her Shinrei erupted, a tempest wall screaming into existence. Each lash crashed into her barrier, sparks exploding across her trembling arms. The force nearly tore her apart, but she held.

(If you fall, Khael… then what was all my pain for? I won't let you die here. Not you. Not now.)

Beside her, Juno Arkai ripped open the gates of his body.

"Bone Gate! Tendon Gate! Core Gate! Iron Nerve Gate FIFTH GATE OPEN!!!"

His skin split. His muscles screamed. But his fists became hammers of white fire. He stood between Khael and the storm of chains, each punch breaking bone, each strike defying reason. His body cracked, but his spirit only roared louder.

"IM STILL HERE YOU BASTARD!!!"

Kaen fought like a beast cornered by gods. Half-transformed, void-flames scarred his arms. He ripped chains apart with claws that weren't fully his, snarling through blood.

"You want a voidborn? Then come take ME instead!!!"

Rael became judgment incarnate. His Judicator Form blazed, six radiant wings spanning across the battlefield. With scripture-light etched into his blade, he struck once. Just once.

And Sloth's Gluttony arm fell away, severed clean.

"By judgment's light, be severed!"

At the center, Shigeo's web collapsed thread by thread. Sweat poured from him, lightning crawling down his body, his eyes wide with strain.

"HURRY, KHAEL!!! Every second we stall, the threads close! Only your plan can end this!"

Khael staggered. Wings twitched. Blood dripped into the cracks below. His golden eyes swept the field Ceyla breaking herself on her barrier, Juno tearing his body apart with each punch, Kaen ripping chains like a feral flame, Rael burning his soul to judge a Sin, veterans bleeding their legacies dry.

All for him.

(They're risking everything… for me. No. Not for me. For the chance. The one chance.)

Ceyla's trembling hand gripped his arm. Her storm-blue veins burned, but her eyes stayed steady.

"Khael… you better not waste this."

Juno roared, fists blazing white through broken bone.

"STAND UP, DAMN YOU!!! You're the only one who can do it!!!"

The battlefield froze into a single heartbeat.

Veterans raging against infinity.

Rookies clawing against despair.

Shigeo's lightning web burning a single thread red.

And Khael—

Dragon Knight.

Half-dead.

Unbroken.

He raised his head, scales flickering across his jaw, wings tearing wider with a snap of green flame. His voice cut like steel, low but unshakable.

"Then it's my turn."

To be continue

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