"They are coming out," Raz muttered from the porch of the villa as two figures emerged through the main doors, their footsteps slow and deliberate against the stone. Sunlight clung to them as they approached, stretching their shadows toward him like reaching fingers.

At first, Raz had assumed Victoria would arrive with an army, blades drawn and intent clear. That was how she used to do things. Loud. Final. Yet as the distance closed, that expectation crumbled. There was no troop. No formation. Just her, and the man beside her.

The young man with her was not even armed in any way that mattered.

"Kilgar?" Raising a brow, Raz's lips curled into a cruel smirk as they stopped a few paces away. Recognition flickered, followed by something uglier. He remembered this one well. The man with the pretty wife. The quiet children. The one who had dared deny him passage through Greenwood Forest.

For that refusal, Raz had sent men in the night. Simple. Necessary. The world worked better when lessons were permanent.

"Hmp," Enzo offered nothing in response. His face remained still as stone, eyes steady as they swept across the figures flanking Raz. Five of them. Four Demi gods and one divine, their presence heavy, their gazes sharp.

They wore matching uniforms, red and black woven in rigid patterns. The sigil of the Red Sun Legion burned proudly on their chests. Enzo felt his jaw tighten. These were the same colors that haunted Milina. The same force that had once chained Victoria and called it justice.

"You never learn, do you?" Raz sneered. "Throwing in your lot with my useless sister. No foresight. No ambition." He turned his head away dismissively, then slowly looked back at Victoria, eyes crawling over her with open contempt.

That was another reason he despised her. She drew people to her. Loyal ones. Dangerous ones. The kind who looked at Raz and saw exactly what he was. It felt deliberate, like fate itself had decided they would stand on opposite sides no matter the age or world.

"And you could not even bother bringing someone with substance," Raz continued, his voice dripping scorn as his gaze slid back to Enzo. "Just this."

""I assure you, Raz. He is enough to finish you and your underlings," Victoria said, her voice calm and precise. Her gaze never wavered, not even for a heartbeat, as if the outcome had already been decided long before this moment.

"Is that so?" Raz scoffed. "And what exactly is a tyrant going to do?" He clicked his tongue in mock disappointment. "You truly let me down."Despite the sneer, his muscles stayed tense. His instincts refused to relax.

Reports had reached him only moments ago. Outer positions falling silent. Guards taken down without warning. Attacks striking from the dark, sudden and coordinated. This was not a reckless charge. Victoria had layered this assault carefully, threads of strategy woven on top of one another. Underestimating her now would be fatal.

"No, Raz Draken," Victoria replied, her tone cooling further. "You are the one who disappoints me. I gave you more chances than you ever deserved. Again and again, I asked you to see your own corruption. And each time, you chose to remain blind."

As she spoke, the air above the city shifted. Clouds thickened unnaturally, rolling in from every direction until the sky darkened and the sun vanished behind a suffocating veil. The light dimmed as though the world itself was holding its breath.

Then a crimson glow seeped through what little sunlight remained, staining the streets and stone in red.

"Hm?"For the first time, Raz frowned. Genuine surprise crossed his face as he lifted his gaze skyward.

Battles between immortal divines were wars of concepts. Where the sun reigned, the Sun God stood supreme. Where night and shadow ruled, the Queen of Vampires and the Red Moon found dominion. It was an unspoken law, one proven countless times across eras.

And the sun had always been stronger than Victoria's power. Her authority was fractured, tangled between blood, night, and moonlight. It should never have been able to suppress his domain so completely.

Yet here it was.

The sun choked behind her will, its brilliance smothered beneath gathering darkness, as the red glow deepened and the world tilted ever so slightly in her favor.

"I will not make this difficult for you," Victoria said calmly. "After all, you are still my little brother."Her voice carried no warmth, only certainty. "You will endure three strikes from me without retaliation. After that, I will leave you to my friend here and I will not interfere." Her hair slowly lifted, deepening into a rich crimson red. "The only condition is that you survive."

"Hmp?!" Raz barked out a sharp laugh. "And what makes you think you can accomplish anything in three strikes?" His eyes burned as he drew his saber in one smooth motion. "You would be fortunate not to lose your head."

He leaned forward, muscles coiling to rush.

Before he could take a step, a presence filled the space in front of him.

"One."

A blade drenched in red light descended in a blur. It tore into his shoulder, cleaving through flesh and bone until the joint gave way with a sickening snap. His arm hung uselessly as pain exploded through him.

"Ah—"

The sound never fully escaped his throat.

The sword was already gone, then buried straight into his chest. It pierced his heart cleanly. Raz's eyes widened as his body locked, the pulse in his chest stuttering before freezing altogether.

"Three."

The blade was ripped free and driven into his ribs. Bone collapsed inward, cracking through and shredding his lungs. Blood sprayed as his body folded, breath stolen before it could become a scream.

"That is sufficient," Victoria muttered.

She stepped back, creating distance between them in an instant. The entire exchange had lasted no more than three seconds. Only now did space exist for the others to react.

Raz's underlings surged forward in panic, surrounding him as they stared at the ruin of his body. Blood soaked his clothes. His breathing came in wet, broken gasps. The sight was horrifying, even to seasoned divines.

"You are that much stronger than him?" Enzo asked quietly. Something about this felt wrong. If Victoria possessed this level of power, then how had Raz ever managed to poison her in the first place.

"It is complicated," Victoria replied, wiping the blood from the tip of her blade. "Strictly speaking, no. I can defeat him in combat, but his concept surpasses mine. At equal stages, raw strength would favor him."

She smiled faintly, something dark flickering in her eyes.

"Unfortunately for him, he made a fatal mistake when he poisoned me and failed to hunt me down."

She had already been on the brink of breaking through when Raz struck. The poison nearly killed her, yes, but it also granted her an entire month of isolation. A month of clarity. A month without interference.

She advanced.

Now, she stood as a divine immortal at stage three.Raz was still trapped at stage two.

"You five," Victoria said, turning her gaze toward the Red Sun Legion. "Move aside. Let us begin properly." Her voice was light, almost pleasant. "I promised I would not touch him again."

Her earlier strikes could not kill a divine, They were fast, brutal, and precise. But as a divine being Raz would ultimately survive .

""Hm?" One of the legion guards frowned, uncertainty flickering across his face. Their drills, their formations, everything they had been taught revolved around restraining Victoria long enough for Raz to assert dominance. Yet the very man who trained them now lay broken at her feet, torn apart in seconds.

What were they meant to do against that.

For a moment, none of them moved. Their hesitation hung heavy in the air, thick with blood and fear.

"Do not falter," the divine among the legion said sharply, though irritation seeped through his voice. He lifted his gaze toward the unnatural sky above the city. "She only managed that with external assistance."

The clouds churned slowly, dark and swollen, smothering the sun's presence. The divine's jaw tightened as he sensed the distortion more clearly now.

Far above the city, a young man sat casually atop a drifting mass of shadow. His skin was pale, almost ghostlike, his white hair stirred gently by the wind. Dressed in black, he leaned forward slightly, a mocking smile resting on his lips as he looked down upon the villa.

His domain pressed outward in silent waves, deepening the darkness and further strangling Raz's connection to the sun. The imbalance pleased him.

He had never liked Raz or the vermin that followed him. Their arrogance, their certainty that the world belonged to them, had always grated on his nerves.

Helping Victoria tip the scales, even if only for a moment, was no burden at all.

If anything, it was something that he Yuno Al'K was happy to do.

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