"That damned bitch, she cracked my core." Raz barked as he dragged himself up from the rubble, blood seeping through fractured flesh. His breath came ragged as his vision steadied, locking onto Victoria as she wove through the five legionnaires with cruel precision, her movements sharp and unyielding.

His gaze shifted, lingering briefly on Enzo. Disgust twisted his expression before he turned away. Victoria had thrown a tyrant at him like a mockery, an insult dressed as opposition. Raz felt no duty to entertain it. Survival came first.

He would leave. Heal. Return stronger.

Unfortunately, Enzo had other plans.

Shooi. Shooo.

The sharp whistle of bolts tore through the air. Two crossbow arrows punched straight through the hollow cavity where Raz's heart had shattered earlier, tearing the wound wider. Pain exploded through his chest, the force twisting his body as he staggered and dropped to one knee, fingers clawing uselessly at torn flesh.

Slowly, he lifted his head. His eyes met Enzo's, burning with unrestrained hatred.

"What? Were you expecting me to leave you just like that? Please." Enzo sneered. The crossbow dissolved into black motes as two daggers formed in his grip, bound together by a long chain. Behind him, the void coffin manifested with a heavy presence, its surface swallowing the light around it.

"You… I'll kill you!!" Raz roared as he surged forward.

He crossed the distance in a blink. Enzo barely had time to register the impact before Raz's hand crushed into his chest, hurling him through the air and into a distant wooden structure. Timber splintered as the building caved inward around him.

"Hmp."

Mid flight, Enzo twisted. The void cutters plunged into Raz's back, black steel sinking deep. Raz's expression tightened as a sudden, unnatural weakness flooded his body. His grip loosened, strength bleeding away as if drained into the blades themselves.

[You have received the second treasure of the night]

[codename: Void Cutters]

[It once stabbed the being of creation, slashed through chaos, and split open the void itself. This weapon is arrogant and stubborn, as the night it was made to be]

Enzo remembered the shock that ran through him the moment the void cutters had first settled into his hands. The weight was wrong, heavier than metal, heavier than intent. It felt alive in a way few weapons ever did.

A weapon on the level of the void coffin.

He had always known the coffin was part of a set, artifacts born before the universe learned how to breathe. Still, he never imagined another would come to him so soon, let alone one that answered his grasp without hesitation.

As for why Yuno Al'K had barely used the void cutters, the reason was simple. Alone, they were incomplete. Only when bound to the void coffin could they be acknowledged as a true treasure of the night, their hunger finally given purpose.

"Die." Enzo yanked the handles apart.

Steel tore through blood and flesh in a brutal line as both of them crashed deeper into the ruined building. Wood snapped. Stone gave way. Darkness swallowed them whole.

Am I going to die?

What the hell is this?

Get out. I have to get out.

In the suffocating dark, Raz panicked. His hands slammed into the rubble again and again, striking blindly as he tried to crush Enzo beneath the debris while clawing at the daggers buried in his back. Every second they remained there felt like his essence was being poured into an endless pit.

His divinity was being drained at a horrifying pace.

The sensation was alien and terrifying, worse than pain. It was loss. Pure and absolute. He had not felt something like this in a very long time.

Even so, strength still favored him. He was quicker. Stronger. He could still kill Enzo if he landed a clean blow.

"Peeka boo."

The voice came from nowhere.

Raz had misjudged him, still measuring Enzo against Kilgar, against ghosts of power long past. In that instant of panic, Enzo slipped through his shadow and emerged behind him, solid once more. The void cutters were already in his hands, glowing with a deep red light.

"Sun energy, quite nice." Enzo smirked.

Raz exhaled sharply as relief washed through him, the void cutters leaving his back at last. The drain eased, just enough to make him believe he had a chance.

"Have a piece of your own medicine." Enzo smiled.

He brought the blades down.

Flames erupted, swallowing the room in roaring heat as fire tore through stone and shattered beams, turning darkness into a furnace.

While they fought below, the sky above shifted.

A man bathed in living flames appeared behind Yuno Al'K, his presence pressing down like a verdict already decided.

"This interruption is frowned upon. Please leave."

He was once an underling of Raz, now sworn to the divine court of the life domain, his loyalty reforged under a higher banner.

"Is this the will of the monarch?" Yuno Al'K asked, a faint smile tugging at his lips as he pointed out the bias hanging in the air.

Victoria's father spoke often of his love for her. He proved it half the time, showering her with gifts pulled from the deepest vaults. Yet whenever knives were drawn in the dark, whenever she stood on the edge of death, his presence was always absent.

The one time Victoria sought revenge, he had sent another in his place.

"It is not my will," the man of flames replied.

The hesitation was clear. He could not say it outright. The monarch had publicly sworn neutrality in divine infighting. And yet, someone from the divine court had still appeared.

How else could he be here without silent approval?

"Good." Yuno Al'K's smile widened. "I do not mind removing my domain, since it is not your will. However, you must make me take it down."

"So be it." The man bathed in flames spoke as he tore away his robes, divine armor gleaming beneath, etched with symbols that pulsed like a living heart.

"Fun." Yuno's eyes glistened, reflecting fire and ambition as the clouds above churned. Another battle ignited in the heavens, power colliding far beyond mortal reach.

Meanwhile.

"Burn!!!!"

Two towering flame giants surged toward one another, their attacks colliding midair. The wooden building was swallowed whole as fire rolled outward, beams collapsing into embers while the two combatants tore into each other through smoke and heat.

Enzo's control over the void cutters was still crude, limited by his level. Had he been a divine being like Raz, the fire he stole would have rivaled its source. Instead, he wielded only a shadow of that power.

And Raz was adapting.

With Yuno's pressure fading, the energy that had once been cut off now flowed back into Raz. The balance tilted. Enzo felt it with every clash, every step forced backward as his opponent's flames grew denser and more violent.

Thank god she didn't let me come here without appropriate preparations, Enzo thought as the glow along his blades began to dim.

In the next instant, he vanished.

He reappeared several meters away, boots skidding across scorched ground. Enzo yanked on the chains linking the cutters to the void coffin, and an interface unfolded before his eyes, cold and precise.

[Change ability?]

[Available selections]

[1 Ice Breath 2 Red Claw 3 Burst of Wind 4 Sun Flame]

The void cutters were more than weapons. They consumed essence, stripping energy from their victims and refining it into abilities born from their domain of strength.

That was why Greenwood Forest had mattered. Why he had hunted demi god creatures drenched in verdant power and ancient traits.

Versatility.

""Red claw." Enzo spoke calmly.

The daggers answered at once, swallowed by a shifting white light streaked with violent crimson. The glow pulsed, sharp and predatory, as if something alive had been awakened within the steel.

Red claw.

An ability born from the essence of the Serpent King. Savage. Condensed. Designed to tear rather than burn.

Enzo launched himself upward, vanishing mid motion. He reappeared directly before Raz, the distance erased in a blink, and swung both blades forward.

Two arcs of crimson light ripped through the air.

Raz barely spared them a glance. Flames surged instinctively, forming a wall of roaring fire between them. For a heartbeat it held. Then the wall shuddered, split apart, and collapsed as layered claw marks tore straight through it.

"I'm not yet at my peak." Raz snarled.

His clothing was shredded, embers drifting away as red gashes spread across his chest, each one carved cleanly through divine flesh. Blood hissed where it met lingering heat.

His eyes narrowed.

"That weapon."

Raz's gaze fixed on the daggers in Enzo's hands. He had never seen them before. Yet the coffin on Enzo's back was impossible to mistake.

That thing had plagued his scientists on Galafray. Countless experiments ruined. Entire projects abandoned. Raz had believed it lost to time, erased like so many other relics.

Now it was here.

In Kilgar's hands.

Something twisted in his chest, deeper than anger.

"What's going on here?" Raz muttered.

For the first time since the battle began, genuine worry crept into his expression.

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