Wind curled behind Matthew as Harmonae shimmered into shape, their duet-like forms gliding behind him, echoing their resonance in soft harmonic pulses. Sae, the dog-like echo spirit, growled low. Andromeda stomped forward with a wind-charged step, Junjun barking beside him.

Garron rolled his shoulders, the bones cracking like stones grinding together.

"You children don't understand war."

His voice thickened. Heavy. Cold.

"War… is when you give up your life the moment you step on the field."

Juno clenched his fists.

Then why am I still breathing?

The moment the warning voice cut cleanly through the air, Garron froze, chest heaving, veins glowing like molten iron beneath his skin. The dust swirled around him as if unsure whether to retreat from him or cling to his madness. His single good arm twitched, Shinrei spiraling hotter, brighter, threatening to rupture the air itself.

Juno stepped forward, chest rising and falling with deep, unmoving resolve. His knuckles clenched so tightly the bones creaked.

His voice was soft, steady, unwavering.

"I will open mine."

Matthew's breath caught.

Andromeda nearly toppled over.

Even Sae whimpered.

But Juno didn't slow.

His eyes sharpened, pupils narrowing like blades cutting through fog.

Pulse Gate… open.

A cracking sound tore through his spine like a divine hammer striking ancient stone. His pulse detonated. His heartbeat became a war drum. His skin glowed faintly, steam rising from his shoulders and neck. His muscles compressed, veins striping across his arms like blue lightning trapped beneath flesh.

Juno Arkai the boy with no affinity let his body surpass its own design.

Garron's grin fractured into ecstatic madness.

"THE 6TH GATE! GOOD! GOOD!! THEN I'LL—"

The world convulsed when he slammed his foot into the earth.

His Shinrei exploded into a molten spiral. Crimson fire warped into violet distortion. Space behind him rippled like torn cloth. Rocks twisted into spirals, trees bent inward, the ground beneath him caving as if reality itself was bowing to his insanity.

Matthew gasped.

"No… this is a Veinwalker's battlefield. This is real Rift damage—"

Andromeda's teeth chattered.

"HOLY WIND—THE OLD MAN IS BENDING SPACE!? WHY!? WHO EVEN ARE YOU!!"

Garron's skin cracked, glowing from the inside, Shinrei boiling out of him in violent geysers. His left arm still hung useless, but the rest of his body vibrated with enough power to erase villages.

Matthew swallowed, then placed his hand against his chest.

"Harmonae… don't fail me now."

The twin ribbon-bound spirits hummed behind him, their resonance trembling like strings being pulled taut across the battlefield.

His eyes hardened.

"Eclipse Gate… OPEN!"

His Shinrei sharpened.

Wind swirled around him, forming tight spirals of invisible pressure.

The ground cracked under his feet.

Andromeda inhaled deeply, his Echo Pet Junjun barking once as if warning him of what he was about to do.

The boy grinned wide wild, stupid, brave.

"FINE! IF EVERYONE'S DYING TONIGHT I'M NOT GOING LAST!! ECLIPSE GATE OPEN!!"

His hair spiked from the wind pressure, his Shinrei becoming a storm of jagged gusts. His eyes burned with youthful bravado and sheer refusal to be overshadowed.

Juno whispered under his breath, voice vibrating with the force ripping through his body.

"Stay behind me. I can match him for only… eight seconds."

Matthew nodded sharply.

Andromeda swallowed.

Sae growled, stepping forward.

Garron tilted his head, body cracking at every motion, Shinrei warping the horizon behind him into bending, shimmering distortions.

"EIGHT SECONDS?" He grinned. "THEN LET US SEE IF YOU CAN SURVIVE ONE."

He blurred.

He didn't step he displaced.

Reality folded, his form glitching into existence directly in front of Juno, fist raised.

Juno vanished.

A sonic boom obliterated the air where he once stood.

Matthew's eyes widened.

"HE'S FASTER THAN SOUND"

Andromeda screamed.

"I CAN'T SEE HIM WHAT KIND OF OLD MAN IS THIS?!"

Juno reappeared behind Garron mid-air, fist chambered, muscles trembling.

His thoughts roared.

If I miss, he will kill us all.

He slammed his punch.

Garron turned without moving his feet, spine bending like something unbound by normal anatomy. He caught Juno's fist with his single functional hand, their power detonating a crater beneath them.

Juno's bones creaked.

Garron's arm tore further apart.

Neither let go.

Garron smirked.

"GOOD—BUT NOT ENOUGH!"

He slammed his forehead forward.

Juno twisted in a burst of windless motion, narrowly dodging the skull-shattering strike, then drove his knee up straight into Garron's ribs.

The old man coughed blood… then laughed.

"YES! YES! MORE!"

Juno hissed through gritted teeth.

"Matthew! Andro—NOW!"

Matthew's Shinrei spiraled.

Andromeda leaped.

Wind detonated beneath both boys.

Matthew launched a compressed wind sphere from his palm Harmonae humming behind him like a rising choir.

"SECOND MOVEMENT!"

Andromeda twisted in the air, Junjun becoming a streak of swirling wind around his arm.

"TWISTER STRIKE JUST MADE IT UP BUT IT SOUNDS COOL!!"

Both attacks slammed into Garron's flank at the exact millisecond Juno twisted his wrist, redirecting Garron's grip.

The combo was so tight, so synchronized, it felt rehearsed by fate.

Garron's body snapped sideways.

A roar of displaced air followed.

He crashed into the earth, carving a trench across the battlefield.

Dust.

Silence.

Panting.

Matthew trembled.

"Did… did we break him?"

Andromeda dropped to one knee.

"If that didn't do it, I'm retiring and becoming a baker—"

Juno didn't answer.

His eyes stayed sharp.

His thoughts sharpened like swords.

He's not done. Rift Gate doesn't fall that easily.

The dust shifted.

Garron rose.

Barely stable.

Barely alive.

Barely human.

But he rose.

Half his face burned.

His ribcage exposed.

His Shinrei leaking like molten magma from cracks in his flesh.

Yet his smile was that of a man reborn in war.

"COME—ALL OF YOU!! ALL AT ONCE!!"

His Shinrei spiraled violently, pulling the world inward.

Matthew shouted.

"MOVE! HE'S DRAGGING US INTO A RIFT FIELD!!"

The ground bent.

The air twisted.

The colors around them inverted.

Even their shadows stretched, bending toward Garron like prey.

Juno clenched his teeth.

"Stay close."

And then

Garron disappeared again.

Juno reacted on instinct, turning so fast the air screamed.

Garron's fist erupted from the distortion

Juno met it.

Flesh met flesh.

Shockwaves ripped the sky.

Andromeda flew backward, rolling across dirt.

Matthew skid until Sae caught him.

Garron pushed harder, veins splitting.

"IS THIS YOUR LIMIT, BOY?!"

Juno's body cracked at every joint.

"NOT YET!!"

He twisted, redirecting the fist, his Pulse Gate bursting lightning-fast explosions of motion across his limbs.

He struck Garron's throat chest temple ribs stomach dozens of blows per second.

Garron's body absorbed them with horrific cracks.

Juno whispered mid-strike

My body is failing. I can feel it tearing apart.

And still…

He did not stop.

Garron roared, swinging with the strength of a falling star.

Matthew and Andromeda jumped in, their Eclipse Gates flaring.

Matthew struck first wind shaped into a blade.

Andromeda followed spiral kick bursting like a cyclone.

Juno finished pulse-driven uppercut.

Three strikes.

Perfect harmony.

Perfect timing.

All their power united

slamming into Garron's chest.

His body finally gave way, lifting off the ground, hurling across the battlefield like a comet blazing in fractured light.

He crashed into a monolith of stone.

The explosion blinded the horizon.

Silence followed.

A heavy, choking silence.

The dust settled.

Garron lay on his back, chest caving, Shinrei flickering like dying embers.

He looked up at them Juno trembling, Matthew gasping, Andromeda barely standing.

And he smiled.

A broken, proud smile.

"GOOD… GOOD… YOU THREE… ARE MONSTERS…"

His eyes dimmed.

"IF I… WERE YOUNGER… I WOULD HAVE TAKEN YOU… AS MY SQUAD…"

The Rift distortion around him collapsed.

Garron exhaled his final breath.

The madness faded.

The battlefield stilled.

Only the wind remained.

Juno fell to one knee, panting, body twitching from the Pulse Gate's brutal toll.

Matthew dropped beside him, laughing breathlessly.

Andromeda fell onto his back, shouting at the sky

"WE JUST KILLED A FORMER ECLIPSE VANGUARD—WHO LET US DO THAT?!"

But Juno only looked forward.

Toward the hill.

Toward the rising storm.

Where Khael and K stood, their auras clashing softly in the distance.

The next war had already begun.

To be continue

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