A wild blaze swallowed Greenwood Forest whole. Wherever Raz stepped, fire followed, crawling over roots and trunks like a living thing. Ancient trees screamed as their sap boiled, the essence that fed the forest flaking away under the heat, thinning with every breath of smoke.

Creatures scattered in blind panic. Some burrowed into the earth, others fled beyond the treeline, abandoning the only home they had ever known. Above it all, the madman known as the Sun God laughed and ranted, his voice carrying through the smoke like a curse.

"Where are you, dirty woodland fairy?" Raz roared, flames coiling tighter around his body. "Don't you see your home burning?"

He turned in a slow circle, arms spread as if presenting the destruction. "Ohh, are you scared? Going to run away and hide just like you did last time?"

His grin twisted, cruel and deliberate. "That reminds me. Where's the corpse of that serpent you call a wife? Maybe I can help you with further cremation."

Each word had been chosen with care, honed to slice into Enzo's chest and twist. Raz wanted pain. He wanted rage. He wanted the forest guardian to crumble beneath the weight of fury.

But the man standing now, the man Enzo had become, had long severed himself from Kilgar's past. Those old wounds no longer bled. They were scars, silent and unyielding, hardened into something cold and unshakable.

For a fleeting moment, a distant pity flickered in him, a shadow of what could have been. Then it was gone. Nothing else followed. Not fear. Not anger. Not sorrow. Only the steady, unbroken calm of a man who had long since left himself behind.

The forest burned around him, the flames licking the sky with hungry tongues, yet Enzo remained unmoved, a solitary figure amidst chaos, untouched by the rage meant to consume him.

Hidden deep within the inferno, he lay perfectly still, breath slow, presence buried beneath ash and heat.

Raz continued to rage and howl, unaware.

The forest burned.

And Enzo waited patiently for an opportunity.

Meanwhile.

Far away, Lady Victoria had just concluded her battle with a divine being of the Red Sun Legion. The air around her still trembled from the aftermath as she tore through the skies, wings cutting through clouds as she rushed toward Greenwood Forest. Even from a distance, the glow of the inferno was impossible to miss, a wound of fire carved into the land.

Before she could arrive, the battle had already begun.

From within the blaze itself, Enzo struck.

Raz barely sensed it before steel and intent collided with his divinity. Enzo moved like a ghost born of ash and smoke, his presence flickering in and out of existence as the flames bent around him. His abilities embodied the assassin and the hunter, refined for moments like this.

In one on one combat, Enzo was lethal.

He could strike from afar or appear at critical angles, targeting weaknesses others could not even perceive. Every movement was calculated, every retreat deliberate, preserving a survival rate that bordered on unnatural.

Unfortunately.

No amount of precision changed the truth. Enzo was still a tyrant facing a true god.

Banished by the Monarch, stripped of several layers of protection, his body was already beginning to fail him. Cracks formed beneath his strength, subtle at first, then impossible to ignore as pain flooded his senses.

[Warning: You are losing control of this avatar. Mission must be completed in 30 minutes.]

The message rang like a death sentence.

So this was the depth of the Monarch of Life. With a single lazy wave of his hand, Raz shattered Enzo's momentum, forcing his voyage toward its end far sooner than planned.

Failure meant death.

"Fuck!" Enzo cursed, unleashing violent winds of slashes that tore through the blaze. By now, the flames themselves were no longer an obstacle. Desperation pushed him further as he summoned Victoria's puppet along with the bat shipon, sending both crashing toward Raz.

The shipon was torn apart in seconds, its form shredded like paper.

Victoria's puppet fared only slightly better, barely managing to hold her ground as divine fire scorched her frame.

"What do I do now?" Enzo thought, panic seeping in as the seconds slipped away.

Then a voice answered him.

"Leave it to me."

From within Enzo's shadow, a young man with pale skin stepped forward, his presence unfamiliar and unsettling, as if the darkness itself had decided to speak.

Yuno Al'K

The moment he realized the one fighting Raz wielded the void cutters, a chill ran down Enzo's spine. Something about it was off, a silent alarm that screamed danger. Without hesitation, he anchored his shadow to Enzo's, probing, connecting, trying to understand what exactly he was facing.

Then, as if summoned by the growing chaos, Yuno appeared. His presence was sudden, precise, and impossible to ignore.

"Don't be afraid, I'm with Lady Victoria," Yuno said, his lips curling into a faint smirk. His eyes, sharp and unblinking, lingered on the massive coffin strapped to Enzo's back. There was awe there, a flicker of disbelief at the weight of the relics he saw.

"Void Coffin… void cutters… you must be Enzo, yes?" Yuno finally spoke, his voice calm but edged with curiosity. Tales of the young night creature from Galafray had reached him long ago, and yet the figure before him did not immediately match those stories. Still, something deep within Yuno told him he had found who he sought.

"Yes," Enzo replied, his tone precise, no hesitation in his affirmation. He knew Lady Victoria had adopted several clans of night creatures after her campaigns in Galafray; allies like this appearing was not unexpected. But there was something about this one that struck a chord, something that reminded him of Asher, his night creature avatar.

"Good. Then this will be worth it," Yuno said, and from his hand, a massive scythe materialized, gleaming with dark intent.

"Give me a few minutes. Then you can come in," Yuno added, sweeping his gaze over the battlefield. Shadows thickened, curling and stretching, forming a sphere of utter darkness that swallowed Raz from sight.

Before Enzo could respond, Yuno vanished into the consuming shadow. Within the impenetrable darkness, a storm of attacks erupted—swift, precise, and utterly invisible to anyone but Enzo. His eyes widened. In raw battle intelligence and skill, this intruder far outclassed him. Every movement, every strike, displayed a mastery that Enzo could only respect.

Yet, there was no intent to kill. Each attack seemed deliberate, designed to extract something rather than end a life.

And then it happened. With terrifying precision, Yunos barrage culminated. The chest of his target split open as if it were soft clay, and from within, a core was ripped free. Yuno's shadowed presence seemed to pulse in silent acknowledgment.

And just like that, Yuno vanished, carrying with him both the sphere of darkness and the divine core that had belonged to Raz. The battlefield seemed to shiver in his absence, the lingering shadows twisting as if mourning the lost presence.

But before he fully disappeared, a whisper reached Enzo, sharp and intimate, threading through his mind and stirring something deep within him.

"It's one thing to kill an immortal being," Yunos voice echoed softly, "it's another to do so without suffering the backlash. I'll take the fall, dark hunter of the primordials. If I'm alive when you rise, I will be at your command."

Yuno's words had been caution enough. The backlash that would strike Enzo once the monarch realized the weapon in his grasp could kill his sun was immediate, inevitable. Yet Enzo's mind was steady; he did not flinch. His gaze drifted instead to Victoria, her figure cutting across the distance with lethal speed.

He had come to help Enzo, but behind her, moving like a shadow, was her father, following closely, ever-watchful. Gritting his teeth, Enzo muttered under his breath,

"That's another ending without a proper goodbye."

He let the thought pass and turned his focus back to the spoils of the battle. With practiced precision, he pressed the blades against each other, letting sparks fly as steel met steel, then drove the edge clean through Raz's head. The strike was so exact, so final, it seemed to carve itself into the fabric of reality.

The head fell to the floor, and for a heartbeat, the monarch showed no reaction. Then…

"No!!!"

The cry tore through the void as the will of the Sun God began to drain from his domain, a soundless sigh marking the real death of an immortal being. Anger flared in the monarch, his powers lashing out to seize Enzo, to punish him. But Enzo did not flinch. His gaze found Victoria, and he gave her a small, thankful smile.

Then, in an instant, the body shattered, erupting into pillars of blinding light and cascading sparks, fragments of divine energy scattering like falling stars.

[Mission Objective Complete][The Hunter of Shade, you walked into the kingdom of the Monarch of Life and took his favorite son. Glorious. You have killed a god.]

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.