The sky above the battlefield was choked with smoke and ash. Blades clashed. Arrows burned. The ground quaked beneath the weight of giants.
Just beyond the chaotic frontline, Kai and Lucious Fang stood silently, watching the destruction unfold. The air trembled with every strike exchanged between Boros and the towering golem, Rex. The two warriors had become titans of the battlefield, locked in a seemingly endless war of brute force.
Lucious squinted at the horizon. "He's reaching his limit."
Kai's eyes didn't blink. His expression was like stone.
Then—
A deafening hum tore through the battlefield. Rex's body pulsed with an eerie glow as it charged a terrifying attack. Energy surged into its chest, gathering at its mouth like a sun ready to erupt.
Lucious Fang's eyes widened. "An atomic beam…"
Boros, bloodied and panting, looked up in horror. He was too injured to move in time.
The beam fired.
A blinding lance of destructive energy burst forth, aiming straight at Boros like judgment from the heavens.
And then—
A flash of white lightning.
Time seemed to freeze.
A streak of light cut through the smoke-covered battlefield, faster than sound. Dirt and debris exploded in its wake.
Kai appeared—right in front of Boros.
He didn't fly.
He ran.
The moment before impact, he swung his sword upward with inhuman speed. A thunderclap erupted as blade met beam.
BOOM!
The energy beam cracked, split, and was hurled into the sky like a deflected meteor. The shockwave split the clouds and sent soldiers on both sides sprawling.
Smoke and dust swirled wildly around them.
Lucious Fang shielded his face, stunned. "He redirected it… from the ground? That speed… he didn't even teleport."
From within the haze, a silhouette emerged—standing tall, unmoving, untouched.
Kai.
His coat fluttered in the wind, singed but still pristine. His sword, slightly glowing, was resting on his shoulder. His gaze remained locked on Rex.
Behind him, Boros had dropped to one knee, eyes wide with disbelief.
"Kai…?" Boros muttered, then smirked. "No... You're that masked man again. Heh. I should've known."
Kai glanced back, just slightly.
"You alright?"
Boros chuckled, wiping the blood from his mouth. "I was, until you made that entrance. Damn near upstaged me."
He rose slowly to his feet, using his hammer for balance.
"Thanks for the save," Boros said, voice low. "But this fight—this monster—is mine. Let me finish it. Just give me one more chance."
Kai paused, then gave him the smallest nod.
"I'll hold him off for a moment," he said calmly. "Don't waste it."
Behind them, Lucious Fang's voice called out with urgency. "Kai! I don't know how much power you're hiding… but I need you."
Kai turned slightly.
Lucious pointed beyond the golem—toward the other side of the battlefield, where the giant snake monster was tearing through Lumiya's warriors.
"It's slaughtering our troops. You go. Help them," Lucious said, his tone sharp. "Leave the golem to Boros and me."
Kai's gaze shifted toward the snake. Dozens were dying. The ground was drenched in blood. Their lines were about to collapse.
He closed his eyes briefly. Then nodded.
Without another word, Kai vanished again—his boots igniting the dirt beneath him as he sprinted across the battlefield like a bolt of living light.
Lucious muttered under his breath, impressed. "He doesn't fly... he runs faster than anything I've seen."
Now standing alone before the giant, Boros twirled his war hammer slowly.
"You're one tough bastard," he muttered, looking up at Rex.
The golem growled, its stone arms rising again, glowing with energy.
"But I've got one last thing," Boros said, exhaling.
He clenched his hammer tighter. His muscles tensed. Blood dripped down his arms.
"Enough games."
He slammed the bottom of his hammer into the ground. A powerful aura began to surge from his body—a blazing storm of pressure that cracked the earth beneath him.
"Rex!" Boros roared, veins bulging across his arms. "Let me show you why I'm called the Nightmare of the Frontlines!"
His body glowed with a deep crimson aura, like a volcano ready to erupt.
Then, he roared at the top of his lungs—
"This is my final attack—HAMMER JUDGMENT: DOOM'S DECREE!"
With both hands, he raised the massive hammer above his head. It shined with destructive energy—so dense, even the air around it seemed to bend.
Rex let out a mechanical screech and moved to swing its cudgel.
But Boros was faster.
With every last ounce of his strength, Boros leaped into the air—higher than any man his size should be able to.
The world held its breath.
Then—he brought the hammer down.
It hit Rex square in the chest.
BOOOOM!!!
The explosion lit the battlefield like a second sun. A shockwave expanded in every direction, knocking over warriors, monsters, and even trees. The ground shattered into craters. Dirt and dust rose high into the sky, covering the battlefield in silence.
For a moment—nothing moved.
Then, slowly, the dust began to settle.
And there—at the center—Boros stood, barely on his feet, panting like a beast. His war hammer was cracked. His hands were bleeding.
But before him—
Rex, the golem, had fallen.
Its body was split and caved in from the force of the strike. One of its arms lay broken, its eyes dimmed.
The titan… was no more.
Lucious Fang approached the battlefield slowly, a subtle grin on his face. He looked at Boros and nodded.
"Well done, mountain breaker."
Boros didn't reply—he dropped to one knee, exhausted but victorious.
Scene shift--
On the eastern front, soldiers screamed, magic barriers shattered, and warriors were thrown aside like broken dolls. Towering above them all, coiling with a hiss that cracked the very air, was the Giant Serpent Beast—a horrifying fusion of scaled flesh and cursed magic. Its eyes glowed a venomous green, and every motion released waves of dark mana that turned even the bravest to stone, not literally—but in fear.
"Hold the line!" a commander shouted, his voice shaking more than his blade. "We can't let it reach the center!"
But deep inside, they all knew—they wouldn't last more than a few minutes.
Suddenly—
BOOM.
The serpent stopped.
Not because of a strike.
Because the ground behind it exploded—a wave of dust and shattered stone erupting upward like a crater had just formed.
Soldiers were thrown back from the sheer shockwave. Everyone instinctively looked toward the source.
There, amidst the debris and silence, stood a lone figure in black.
Silver mask. Long black coat torn from battle. Sword drawn, glowing faintly from the heat of velocity.
No wings. No arrival from the sky.
Just tracks scorched into the earth, a trail of fire and broken stone behind him stretching all the way across the hills—proof he had run.
One soldier whispered, wide-eyed, "Is that… the Masked Man?"
"He… ran all the way here?"
"No one can move that fast—"
"Is he even human…?"
The masked figure didn't respond. He took one slow step forward, and the wind shifted. His presence cut through the fear like a blade.
The giant serpent, sensing danger, reared back and hissed, baring its fangs like it recognized a predator.
Then—
Lucious Fang's voice echoed once more, distant but firm, his magic amplifying his words across the battlefield.
"Masked one… that beast has already devoured three elite warriors. Its scales reflect low-tier spells. Its body regenerates. And its fangs are coated in magic that erodes life itself."
The serpent hissed louder, thrashing.
Lucious's voice grew tenser.
"But if anyone can stop it—it's you. I don't care who you are. Just… don't let any more die today."
The masked man said nothing.
But in that silence, a subtle movement—a shift of his stance, the faint flex of his fingers on the sword hilt.
Then, he vanished again.
Not upward.
Forward.
The earth screamed as his boots struck the ground, propelling him like a black streak. He ran—not on air, not by magic—but by raw, incomprehensible speed.
The serpent lunged.
The battlefield blinked.
One moment, the serpent's jaws aimed for a group of wounded warriors—
The next, its fangs shattered mid-lunge, severed by a single diagonal slash.
Gasps rippled across the soldiers.
"He… He cut through its teeth?!"
The serpent roared in agony, coiling back, and from the dust the masked man reappeared, sliding across the earth, blade extended, coat billowing from the motion.
Even now, no one saw his face.
No one realized that this unstoppable force—the warrior saving them all—was the very same Dark Knight they whispered about in taverns and feared in hushed rumors.
He wasn't a savior.
He was a shadow.
And shadows never ask for credit.
The serpent hissed again, summoning dark energy in its gullet.
The masked man raised his sword—not to block, but to charge.
He dashed forward—so fast the ground behind him detonated. Dust chased his heels like a sonic boom.
And then—strike one.
A clean slash across the underbelly—scales shattered like glass.
Strike two.
A spiral leap, slicing across its spine.
The serpent shrieked. Its tail swung like a whip, destroying entire sections of ruined buildings—searching, flailing to crush the speck that defied it.
But Kai was already above it.
In midair.
He crossed his blades.
His coat flowed like black wings behind him. The energy around him pulsed—visible now, a storm of heat, light, and death.
Soldiers shielded their eyes.
Whispered:
"What… is he planning?"
Then it happened.
Kai uncrossed his swords mid-fall.
And unleashed the Twin Fang Execution.
The silver sword carved down first—cutting through the cursed magic barrier around the serpent's head. The black sword followed—cleaving through bone, brain, and cursed core in one perfect vertical strike.
The entire battlefield froze.
The serpent did not roar.
It simply went silent.
Then its massive body began falling—collapsing to the earth like a dying mountain. Cracks spread beneath it as the weight of its corpse shook the ground for miles.
A wave of dust and blood mist billowed across the land.
The serpent was dead.
Sence shift – The Wolves
As the dust settled, Lucious Fang stood at the battlefield's center, breathing heavily. His magic spear rested over his shoulder.
Beside him, Boros had fallen—injured from the last fight.
Then—
Dozens of cursed wolves emerged from the shadows.
Eyes glowing red. Limbs sharpened into bone blades. Fur pulsing with death magic.
They circled, growling, hungry.
Lucious narrowed his eyes.
The next nightmare… had just begun.