Talia was pinned against a fossilized bone.

Draven's blade pressed against her throat. Her daggers lost. Body covered in bleeding cuts.

Her Kinetic Eye was useless against someone who could predict her thoughts.

She was a bird with broken wings. Life measured in seconds.

"Pretty little bird," Draven said. His cruel smile wide. "Shame I have to kill you."

He pressed the blade deeper. Cold steel against skin.

From across the battlefield, Jin saw it.

He was locked in brutal combat with Garron. Their duel a rhythm of steel against bone.

CLANG! CLANG!

But in a quiet moment between blows, his gaze flickered to Talia.

He saw the blade at her throat. The triumphant look on Draven's face. The life fading from her eyes.

Something inside him made a choice.

Not strategy. Not training. Something deeper.

He let out a roar. Not of a soldier. Of a man.

Pure rage and desperate need to protect.

He abandoned his fight. Ignored the opening he was giving Garron.

He simply turned and charged.

"GET AWAY FROM HER!"

He moved with speed born of pure desperation. No longer a duelist. A missile of fury.

Draven, focused completely on the kill, heard the roar too late.

He looked up. Eyes widening as Jin's massive form closed the distance.

No time to strike Talia. Barely time to move.

Jin didn't use his sword. Didn't need to.

He slammed into Draven with his full body. A human battering ram of iron and rage.

CRUNCH!

The impact was bone and metal. Draven was thrown. Body tumbling through air. Crashing to stone a dozen feet away.

CRASH!

Talia collapsed to the ground. Gasping. Hands flying to her throat.

The thin bloody line where the blade had been was a reminder. How close she'd come to death.

But Jin's act had come at a terrible price.

"You left our fight."

A low, rough voice from behind him.

Jin turned to face Garron. Stalking toward him. Face a mask of fury.

But he was not alone.

Draven, recovering with unnatural speed, was already back on his feet. His predatory smile now a poisonous snarl.

Jin was now facing them both. A fortress and an assassin. A wall and a blade.

"Big mistake," Garron snarled. His arms and chest erupting in fresh bone armor.

"Fatal mistake," Draven added. Blade held in reverse grip. Eyes glowing with cold light.

Talia tried to push herself up. To rejoin the fight. But her body was too weak.

Venom from Draven's cuts made her movements slow. Clumsy.

She could only watch in horror as the two descended upon her savior.

The battle was not a duel. It was a dissection.

Jin was a master swordsman.

But he was outmatched. Brutally. Hopelessly.

Garron would engage him head-on. His body a living shield. Bone armor absorbing Jin's furious blows.

And in the split second that Jin's sword was deflected, Draven would strike.

A dance of death. And Jin was the only one bleeding.

Drip. Drip.

A shallow cut on his leg made him stumble.

A bone-armored punch from Garron sent him staggering back.

'I need to help him. I need to move. But I can't. My mana is still too weak. Veyrion's skill is still partially blocking me. I can only summon Edgar and he can't fight. I can't save Jin. Just like I couldn't save Talia. Just like I couldn't save Eric or Rina.'

He fought with the courage of a god. Sword a blur of silver. Gauntlets a desperate defense.

But for every blow he landed on Garron's armor, he received a dozen cuts from Draven's impossible speed.

He was being bled out. Taken apart piece by piece.

Right in front of Talia's horrified eyes.

Finally, Draven saw his opening.

As Jin was locked in a power struggle with Garron, pushing against his bone shield, Draven darted in.

His blade was not aimed to kill. Aimed to cripple.

Shnk!

It slid past Jin's guard. Plunged deep into his thigh.

Jin cried out. A raw, pained sound. His leg gave out.

He collapsed to one knee. Strength finally failing.

"Jin!" Talia screamed. Her voice breaking.

Garron stepped back. His work done.

Draven stood over Jin. Blade held ready. A look of cold victory.

"You fought well," he said. Voice empty. "But you picked the wrong side."

He raised his sword for the killing blow.

Across the battlefield, another execution was about to happen.

Lucien had won.

Lana lay in a crumpled, bleeding heap. Her staff broken. Her fury gone.

Erica was on her knees. Flames sputtered out. Body covered in deep gashes from Lucien's blood-swords.

He had taken them apart with cruel precision. Enjoying every moment of their pain.

He stood over Erica. The ruby-red sword made from Dante's blood held loosely in his hand.

He raised the blade. Tip aimed at her heart.

It was over. The team was broken. The army defeated.

Dante's reign was at an end.

Then something impossible happened.

The sky went black.

Not the darkness of night. Not clouds.

A sudden, absolute, completely unnatural emptiness.

The dim light of the battlefield was extinguished. Plunged into darkness so deep it felt like the end of everything.

A cold settled over the island. Not Masha's ice. Something deeper. Soul-chilling. Promising an eternity of nothingness.

A single, collective gasp went through the battlefield. From Dante's team and Lucien's alike.

Every fight stopped. Every head turned to the sky.

The darkness was not empty. It was moving. Living. Breathing.

An endless ceiling of shadows.

And from that ceiling, things began to descend.

At first, just a rain of black mist.

Then the mist came together. Took form.

Wings. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them.

Sun-Eater Wyverns. Scales the color of midnight. Eyes burning with cold violet light.

They descended from the sky. Silent. Screeching.

But they were not aiming for the anyone they saw.

They were aiming for Lucien's team.

A dozen of them swarmed Lucien. Their claws and teeth forcing him back from Erica.

His execution forgotten in the face of this new threat.

"What the—" Lucien stumbled back. "Where did these come from?"

But that was not all.

From the blackness, larger forms emerged.

Eight Void Drakes. Scales shimmering with starless light. Void-wings part of the darkness itself.

Granite-Hide Minotaurs. Bodies made from shadowy stone. Dropping to the ground with earth-shaking thuds.

BOOM! BOOM!

Phase Spiders. Forms flickering in and out of existence. Scuttling down giant bones.

It was an army of every creature they had ever slain right in this area from the very beginning.

A legion of the damned. Returned from the grave.

"No," Draven whispered. Staring at the horde. "This isn't possible. They're dead. We saw them die."

"They're ghosts," Garron said. Face pale. "Summons. All of them."

And on the other side of the island, where Jin knelt awaiting death, a new horror was born.

FWOOSH!

The ground erupted in a vortex of pure shadow.

A massive snake-like form rose from the stone. Seven heads turning to face Draven and Garron.

Ouroboros. The Abyssal Shadow.

Beside it, the ground melted. A hulking thirty-foot titan of black obsidian rose. Its magma core now a burning violet star.

Hephaestus. The Infernal Juggernaut.

Draven and Garron stared. Faces pale with terror greater than any they had ever caused.

No longer the hunters. No longer the wolves.

Nothing but terrified children facing two vengeful gods.

"What... what are those things?" Draven's voice shook.

Garron took a step back. His bone armor cracking. Reforming. Cracking again. "S-rank. Both of them. S-rank summons."

The black sky roiled. A new sound echoed across the battlefield.

Not a roar. Not a screech.

A single, clear, utterly commanding voice. Speaking directly in all of their minds.

Not speaking. Echoing. Resonating in their souls.

"The feast is over."

Everyone froze. Looking around. Searching for the source.

"You came to pick over corpses. To kill the wounded. To feast on the dying."

The voice was cold. Furious. Absolute.

"But the dead don't stay dead. Not here. Not for me."

All eyes turned to one figure.

Dante.

Standing. Barely. His remaining arm gripping Soul-Drinker. His shoulder stump still bleeding.

His body a ruin. His face pale. His eyes burning with absolute fury.

He raised Soul-Drinker. The black blade humming with power.

"I am the Master of the Graveyard. The Master of the Slain. And you just made a very, very big mistake."

The army of the dead roared as one.

And descended upon Lucien's team like the wrath of a forgotten god.

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