The moment the elder's voice trembled with the words "a one-armed man…", the air around them changed.

A low hum rippled through the ground. Then —

CRACK.

The soil split. Shadows poured like black water, thick and seething and from it, thousands of Voidborn began to crawl forth.

Their forms were warped arms too long, eyes that flickered like dying candles, their cries layered in whispers that spoke of hunger, envy, and despair.

Erun stumbled back, his cane shaking. "No… not again…"

Juno immediately drew his stance, Shinrei-less energy coiling through his veins like lightning beneath the skin.

"Ceyla! Take the right flank!"

"On it!"

Khael's crimson Shinrei erupted a dragon's roar echoing in the air as translucent scales shimmered across his arm.

"Andromeda, Matthew! Protect the villagers!"

"Right!" Andromeda barked, summoning his Echo Art — "Resonance Wall!" A barrier of rippling sound energy expanded outward.

Matthew stomped the ground, and his Shinrei pulsed like wind veins beneath his boots — "Echo Art: Wind Field!"

A shield of condensed force spread across the front line.

The air shook from the collision Shinrei versus Void.

Then, above the black swarm, two figures descended like falling feathers.

They landed softly, boots touching earth with eerie grace.

The twins.

Their eyes were mirror images pale silver irises that reflected no emotion.

Alaric — his short, messy black hair brushed with streaks of white, his gaze sharp, calculating.

Selene — long hair that floated like silk under the moonlight, her expression unreadable, voice like a whisper of sorrow.

Erun's face went pale.

"That's them!" he shouted hoarsely. "The twins! They're back again!"

Ceyla's Shinrei crackled violently. "Those are the ones who fought Master Vince?"

Khael took one step forward, the ground beneath him fracturing under his pressure.

"You're the reason Vince is missing, aren't you?"

Alaric glanced around lazily, eyes scanning the battlefield. Then he spoke, calm and cold:

"So that old man isn't here again."

Selene's lips curved into a faint smile, a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"A shame. We were told to finish what he started."

Andromeda muttered under his breath, "What kind of freaky family reunion is this?"

Matthew ignored him, eyes narrowing. "Their Shinrei feels… wrong. It's not pure Voidborn… there's something else mixed in."

Khael's dragonfire flickered to life, coiling around his arm like a serpent ready to strike.

"Whatever you are… you're not leaving here alive."

Alaric smirked faintly. "You can try, But this isn't Normal you're fighting."

Selene raised her hand and the thousand Voidborns screeched in unison, their shapes distorting, merging into larger, grotesque forms giant wraiths of emotionless black, towering over the trees.

The villagers screamed, clutching their children as the air vibrated with killing intent.

Khael's voice thundered across the chaos:

"Everyone, formation Delta! Protect the civilians!"

Ceyla drew her blade, her Storm Affinity flaring blue. "On your mark, Khael!"

Juno cracked his knuckles, Shinrei-less energy bursting through his body like a shockwave.

"Let's show them what a Taishin can do."

Alaric's eyes gleamed. "Come then… Veinwalkers."

The storm exploded light, fire, and shadow clashing as the sky screamed.

The Dragon Knight's crimson blaze met the Twins of the Void and the plains of Tashi burned once more.

Juno's shout cut through the screaming wind like a bell.

"GET OUT OF MY WAY!!! TAISHIN, FIFTH GATE: IRON NERVE — OPEN!"

The world narrowed to the drumbeat of his heart. Muscle, tendon, bone — everything locked into a single, relentless rhythm. Pain dulled into a distant throb; breath became a metronome he could command. Where fear had lived, only purpose remained.

He ran.

Each step landed with the sound of a hammer; each punch landed with the force of an avalanche. Voidborn swarmed scores, then hundreds black shapes surging like a tide. They hit him and shattered, blown apart by the pure, physical ferocity of Taishin. Juno moved through them as through tall grass, his fists cleaving air and shadow with the same impersonal efficiency.

"MOVE!" he barked at the villagers who had frozen in place. "GET BEHIND THE BARRIERS—NOW!"

A cluster of voidborn leapt at him together jaws open, limbs like blades. Juno answered with a flurry of strikes so fast the trees blurred: Bone Gate strike, Tendon Coil, Core Thrust. The sounds were muted under the thunder of his body. When the last of that wave hit the ground, it was a smear of ash and silence.

But the twins did not recoil. They watched eyes like hyenas and Alaric's voice rang out, detached and curious.

"You move like a mountain," he said, watching Juno's relentless advance. "Solid. Stubborn. Kinda reminded me of that monster."

Selene's smile was a slash of white. "Yet he cannot hold forever. No body can."

Juno heard them felt their presence like a cold draft and for an instant his fists hesitated. The pause was a crack. Voidborn poured into that break like water finding a seam.

"JUNO!" Khael's voice roared over the chaos. Khael was already a blade of wind and scale, cutting a path through the swarm to where Juno had been swallowed for a beat. The Dragon Knight's crimson aura flared, a living thing that pushed the darkness back in waves.

Alaric stepped closer to Selene, study in his gaze. "Don't worry sis….We will find him," he said softly, and his tone carried no triumph only the iron certainty of someone who thinks suffering owed them repayment. "That old man will answer for what he took from us."

Juno's breath came heavy and measured now; the Iron Nerve held the pain at bay but not the toll. Every time he pushed farther, controlled fury burned another small piece of himself. He smashed a palm into a hulking voidborn; the creature exploded into a rain of black motes. He spun, his legs an engine, and threw a shoulder into another pack, scattering them.

(Keep going. Keep going. Master Vince taught me this, fight until the body is a tool, not a traitor.) he thought, gritty and focused.

A voidborn leapt high and latched to Juno's back, thorned limbs sinking into his shoulder. For a flash, pure instinct screamed through him then he rolled, slammed his heel into the monster's skull, and tore it free. Pain flared where the creature had bitten, but the Iron Nerve swallowed the scream.

From the margin of the battle Alaric watched Juno's small, furious war—and a flicker of something almost like respect passed across his features. "He's braver than I expected," Alaric mused aloud. "Or angrier."

Selene's head tilted, her voice a whisper that slid through the clash like cool water. "Anger is a bright blade. Useful when guided." She turned her pale gaze toward Khael. "And that Man… he holds the heat in him, doesn't he? Who the hell is he?."

Khael, catching sight of the twins' quiet appraisal, met Alaric's eyes. In the space between them passed a current recognition, not of friendship but of two predators acknowledging one another's teeth.

"Juno—hold!" Khael called, and with a fluid motion carved a hollow in the tide of Voidborn. He moved like the wind, a living eddy that took pressure off Juno's shoulders. Ceyla's lightning cracked the nearest shadow-forms to ash. Matthew and Andromeda guarded the villagers' retreat, their shields a moving wall.

But Juno didn't step back. He stepped through the hole, fist arcing in a blow that would have felled a lesser man.

For a moment, the field narrowed to the point where only Juno's strike and the twins' watching faces existed. Then Alaric leapt forward fast, a blade of practiced malice yet when his sword met Juno's forearm, it was not Juno who recoiled. The Taishin practitioner met him fist for fist, bone for void, and the impact rang the air like a bell. Metal skittered off bone. Void shimmered, then snapped.

Alaric's eyes flashed with pain and a quick, involuntary admiration. "He's… stronger than the last memory I have of him."

Selene moved like a whisper to flank Juno. Her hand lifted—no spell, no cry—just a touch of shadow. It slid along Juno's ribs, seeking to unbalance him. Juno felt the shadow's cold finger trace his side, but instead of faltering he used the pressure. A Taishin twist, a Tendon Gate pivot; he turned Selene's attempt into momentum, sending her stumbling past.

"You're good," Selene murmured, voice flat, almost intrigued. "But not… complete."

Juno's pulse hammered, chest burning now as Iron Nerve bled strain into tendon and bone. He felt the gate's cost aftershocks of numbness creeping into his limbs, the aftertaste of suppressed terror but he kept pushing, because standing still meant Vince's blood would stain the soil here forever.

"Where is my master?" he roared again, voice cracking with both demand and plea.

Alaric's eyes went cold. "Master? Are you talking about that Man… We don't know. If we did, we'd have killed him already." He almost sounded apologetic then that, too, vanished beneath a smile edged with cruelty. "But you who are you and that man relationships"

"I am his disciple!!!", Juno shouted while punching a lot of voidborn.

Alaric said with a glare on his eyes "Disciple huh… No wonder, I feel familiar at your strength" then he calm down and said again "you'll lead us to answer or at least entertain us while we hunt" smirking.

A massive wave of voidborn surged larger, smarter; the twins' influence knitting them into formations. Juno braced for the hit. Ceyla, reading the pattern, slammed a lightning seal into the ground, buying time. Khael roared and surged like a living gale, scales flashing, cutting lanes for villagers to flee toward Matthew's shelters.

Something in the fight changed then: the twins' shadow-command tightened, the voidborn became coordinated, and the war turned into a chessboard where every piece moved with terrible purpose. Juno found himself at the center of one such pattern, each hit a necessity, each breath a ledger with debts that demanded payment.

(Hold. Protect. Survive.) he thought, teeth gritted.

But in the corner of his vision he saw Khael not merely fighting, but watching, measuring, ready to close the distance. Juno felt that same iron steadiness pulse through him, like a tether—an assurance that, if he broke, someone would catch the fall.

Selene glanced past the fighters toward the tree line, where the twins had vanished once before. "They hide well," she said softly. "But we will unmake them."

Alaric's voice dropped so close to Juno's ear that it felt like a blade's edge. "You can fight for a man, Taishin, until you have no fight left. But what then? What will you be when the gate closes?"

Juno's reply was a single, burning truth. "I'll be what I always am." He slammed both palms into the ground, and a tremor rolled outward an impact that knocked a wall of voidborn sideways like reeds. "I'll be still standing."

The twins watched, their faces shadows of something unreadable. For a second Alaric's eyes softened not with mercy, but with that dangerous respect that only predators afford to those who survive their teeth.

The battle was far from over. The twins had not shown their full hand; Vince's fate still hung like a rumor in the smoke. But on that scorched plain between bone and shadow, between resolve and hunger, Juno stood his ground, gate burning, muscles screaming, and a dozen villagers' lives tied to the stubborn rhythm of his fists.

To be continue

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