"I will stop them from leaving," Hermes growled, lightning streaking across his limbs as he blurred into motion—eyes locked on the retreating silhouettes of Magnus, Lithaa, Aquila, Neil, and the unconscious Akron.

But Nioh was already there.

A flash of scarlet.

CRACK.

Hermes never made it five meters.

Nioh appeared in a streak of red light, grabbed Hermes by the leg mid-dash, and whipped him through the air like a ragdoll. Hermes crashed into Aphrodite, the two of them tumbling backward in a tangled blur of limbs and mist, rolling to a halt beside Hephaestus in a heap.

"How—how is he faster than me?!" Hermes spat, pushing off the rubble, his face twisted in disbelief. "I am the messenger of gods! I control speed!"

Hephaestus stepped forward, her eyes narrowing, armor adjusting with cold precision.

"You've spent too many years in isolation," she said flatly. "You forgot—your title is not your birthright. You are not a god."

Aphrodite rose slowly, brushing herself off. Her cloak had been torn, and for once, her voice didn't carry its usual tease—just awe.

"He's a five-star biocore," she whispered. "How… how did he reach eight-star resonance?"

"I don't know," Hephaestus replied grimly, her gaze locked on the crimson figure standing between them and the exit. "But if you hesitate, we die."

Behind them, the battlefield trembled as the storm of energy intensified.

Magnus gritted his teeth as he supported Neil with one arm, his other still smoldering from overuse. Aquila flew overhead in slow arcs, scanning for hostiles while her wings flickered from overextension. Lithaa ran with Akron cradled in her arms, every step a quake, every breath a reminder that they were still alive.

They didn't look back.

They couldn't look back.

They passed through the shattered Hellscape—across scorched earth littered with broken pillars and craters, through heat-warped air and glimmering debris. Around them, the ancient battlefield began to collapse under the weight of Nioh's unleashed presence. Lightning crawled through the stone. Shadows warped and convulsed.

They moved in silence.

Until Magnus whispered, "He's going to die, isn't he?"

Lithaa didn't answer. She just held her sister tighter, the sting of tears lost in the wind.

Behind them, a sound broke the world.

A scream—but not of pain.

Of release.

Nioh's roar tore through the sky.

It wasn't just a sound—it was a command to the air itself. Lightning danced across his skin, rippling from his spine outward like divine wings made of storm and fury. Cracks split the earth where his feet touched down. Each breath he took sent pressure waves out like ripples across a lake of broken stone.

Across from him, the three Warden-levels of Intra stood bruised, bloody, but burning with power.

Then—

They struck.

She launched first. Her Forge Zone whirred back to life in overdrive. Ten mechanical arms whirled behind her in spiraling rings—each one glowing with core-disrupting energy. Her target: Nioh's overloaded biocore.

"Overclocking protocol: Omen Burst!" she screamed.

Twin graviton emitters slammed into Nioh's torso, trying to pin him in place while the third arm fired a spike of neutron-plasma meant to rupture his biocore casing.

But Nioh twitched.

And disappeared.

A sonic afterimage took the blast—and the real Nioh reappeared beside her, hand crackling with red-and-blue voltage.

SLAM.

His palm struck her reactor core. She screamed as the surge of electricity overwhelmed her neural tether, mechanical arms collapsing like marionettes with cut strings.

She staggered.

Then he snapped his fingers beside her ear.

BOOM.

A localized thunderclap at point-blank range.

She dropped, stunned, bleeding, the Forge system in total disarray.

But Hermes was already there—flickering like a mirage, his Chrono Echo fully reengaged.

"I see it now," he muttered, voice tripling as his afterimages surrounded Nioh from all directions. "I finally see your timing."

A blur of movement. A spear of sound shattered the air, but Nioh was too slow to dodge it completely. Blood sprayed as Hermes' knee caught his ribs mid-spin.

But the counter came instantly.

Nioh opened his mouth and screamed.

Not a human scream.

A focused, compressed shockwave shriek that shattered Hermes' momentum mid-dash. It wasn't just loud—it desynced his Echoes, throwing the time-stitch into chaos.

And Nioh exploited the gap.

He thrust both arms forward, electricity snapping out like coiled whips, grabbing Hermes mid-air by the static clinging to his suit.

He yanked Hermes back and headbutted him so hard the lightning detonated on contact.

CRACK.

Hermes flew backward, trailing fire and unconsciousness.

But she'd been waiting.

Her illusions flickered.

Then disappeared entirely.

Only the real Aphrodite stood there—no glamor, no deception.

Just fury.

Her body hovered six feet off the ground, arms spread in a cruciform. Her biocore burned pure violet, overflowing with psychic and emotional charge.

"You want to conduct this symphony?" she asked softly.

"Then let me show you my crescendo."

The battlefield collapsed into a field of petals and blades—the final form of Mirror Heart. Each petal vibrated at a different emotional frequency—rage, grief, despair, lust, guilt—and together they formed a song of seduction and self-destruction.

Nioh stopped moving.

His pupils shook.

In every petal he saw a life he could have had. Leah alive. A future with the heirs. A home. Peace. Redemption.

He nearly dropped to his knees.

But then, a single frequency emerged from within him. A tone that split the false visions apart like a tuning fork cracking glass.

A counter-chord.

His heartbeat.

His truth.

"You forgot," he said, rising from the field of petals as they burned around him, "I'm the one who owns sound"

With one outstretched hand, he unleashed a waveform collapse.

The petals shrieked. The light bled away.

Aphrodite gasped as the feedback hit her core like a bullet, ripping her out of the air and into the stone.

Meanwhile, in the distance…

The heirs had made it to the final ridge of the Hellscape.

The air behind them trembled like reality was holding in a breath.

Magnus looked back.

The sky was black.

Then a red pulse lit up the world.

Like the sun itself had died and been replaced by something furious and ancient.

"What the hell is that?" Neil asked, barely breathing.

Lithaa stopped in her tracks, turning around with Akron still in her arms.

Aquila closed her eyes. "It's the end."

Magnus clenched his fists. "We should go back."

"No," Lithaa said. "He stayed so we could leave. If we go back now… we waste that choice."

Akron stirred faintly, whispering a name through cracked lips.

"…Nioh…"

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