Smoke rolls across the shattered outskirts of Kasumori, thick enough to taste.
Ash clings to armor. Blood scents the wind. Not the metallic clean smell of a wound—
No. This is scorched earth. Burned dreams. The stink of a world being erased.
Ren stands on cracked concrete, chest heaving, sweat mixing with dust.
His right gauntlet hums with faint MSE, trembling around his fist.
Behind him, New Babel's elite squad regroups, breaths sharp and uneven.
And in front
Guruth's corpse slams into the street like a thunderstone.
Except… it doesn't stay dead.
Three heads—wolf, lion, serpent—gnash and regenerate in bursts of dark MSE.
Three voices echo in layered tones:
"MORTALS. YOU. ARE. DELAYING. INEVITABLE. EXTINCTION."
It rises, bodies piled beneath its claws Elite MSE operatives who won't stand again.
Ren feels bile rise.
So this is real war.
A soldier staggers forward Takahiro, the shield-bearer, his arm a ruined stump.
"T-Team leader… I c-can—"
His words never finish.
Guruth's lion head lunges bite like a guillotine
And Takahiro doesn't exist anymore.
Ren freezes. His breath fractures.
That was a human.
That was someone with a home, with jokes, with dinner plans…
Gone like he never mattered.
A spark ignites in Ren's chest fear turning to fury.
Akira steps beside him without looking his way, katana dripping demon ichor.
"Keep your head straight. Grieve later. Live now."
Ground trembles
An earthquake? No.
A roar like molten iron splitting the sky.
From smoke emerges Thektor, the Iron Warthusk of Ruin.
Armored plates glint like temple stone under hellfire light.
Tusks scrape the ground, carving sparks.
Every step ripples the asphalt like boiling tar.
MSE pressure slams the battlefield.
Elite fighters buckle.
Ren stumbles.
Sakura gasps behind him.
Mei's seals flutter in her shaking hands.
Kenta stands firm.
He has to. Someone must.
"Formation! Push forward, don't give ground! MOVE!"
A thunder shout of MSE as three elites leap
blades and spears radiating violent aura.
They strike Guruth together.
Coordinated. Trained. Heroes.
But gods don't care about teamwork.
Guruth's serpent head whips, jaws like an executioner's coil—snapping one man in half mid-swing.
The wolf head catches another, crushes spine with casual cruelty.
A spear hits Guruth's eye—bravery, precision—
yet does nothing to slow the monster.
Ren can't breathe.
This isn't a heroic fight.
This is attrition.
Survival grinding against annihilation.
Kenta exhales—long, heavy. His face stone-calm, soldier-truth etched in it.
He steps forward.
"Ren. Watch. This is what a protector looks like."
His prosthetic arm hisses—seals glow—
then explode in sparks. The limb falls. Torn off by recoil.
Kenta doesn't scream. He doesn't even flinch.
He chooses to step forward anyway.
"LIMIT OUTPUT."
His voice cracks the air like scripture.
MSE erupts—white, gold, raw star-fire whipping in coils.
Ren's vision blurs. Wind slams his body.
Even Akira shields his eyes.
Kenta's aura becomes a pillar
a sun descending to earth.
Guruth charges, all three heads shrieking void-hate.
Kenta meets him head-on.
Kenta's remaining hand forms a spear of MSE, trembling with power so dense it feels like reality grinding at its edges.
"For humanity."
His words sink like sacred weight.
His body fractures with energy backlash.
Skin splitting. Blood boiling.
Spirit blazing brighter than flesh can hold.
He drives forward
A nuclear heartbeat.
Impact.
A sound like worlds cracking.
A flash that blinds gods.
Guruth's form shatters, heads torn apart in holy fury.
Chunks of divine flesh rain, turning to dust before hitting ground.
Silence hits harder than the blast.
Kenta collapses to one knee.
Steam rises off him.
His soul flickers like a candle in storm winds.
Ren's voice breaks:
"Kenta-san!"
Kenta smiles—slow, tired, proud.
"Not done yet. …Thektor remains."
His body wavers.
He stands anyway.
Shoulders square.
Warrior against apocalypse.
The battlefield shakes again—
Thektor lowers massive tusks, molten saliva burning holes in pavement.
It roars an avalanche of malice.
And then
BOOM it charges.
Kenta braces
But his body bucks, staggering—he used too much.
Akira shoots forward.
Ren screams—
"NO!"
Ren's aura ignites without permission.
Not controlled.
Not refined.
Pure, raw spirit violence—fear and loyalty and rage braided into light.
His fist burns star-white.
Ground cracks beneath his foot as he launches.
Meteor Knuckle and Thektor collide mid-charge.
A shockwave rips the battlefield apart
dust, metal, shattered earth blasting outward.
Ren is flung back, spine rattling.
Thektor slides, armored plates dented
But nowhere near dead.
Yet it stopped.
And that means something.
Ren coughs blood, stands, trembling.
Akira places a hand on his back, stabilizing him.
"You're getting there."
Ren's voice shakes:
"Not fast enough."
Akira's jaw clenches.
"…Then don't stop."
Kenta kneels, body fading, but his spirit stands taller than any god.
The Elite squad numbers have thinned.
Some forms lie motionless, some screaming for medics, others silent and gone.
Mei weeps quietly as she seals a fatal wound that won't close.
Sakura whispers prayers she's not sure anyone hears anymore.
Ren's hands shake.
Not from fear—
From fury.
"Ares… we're coming for you."
The road ahead is darker than ever.
But they stand.
They still stand.
Smoke rolls across the shattered outskirts of Kasumori, thick enough to taste.
Ash clings to armor. Blood scents the wind. Not the metallic clean smell of a wound—
No. This is scorched earth. Burned dreams. The stink of a world being erased.
Ren stands on cracked concrete, chest heaving, sweat mixing with dust.
His right gauntlet hums with faint MSE, trembling around his fist.
Behind him, New Babel's elite squad regroups, breaths sharp and uneven.
And in front
Guruth's corpse slams into the street like a thunderstone.
Except… it doesn't stay dead.
Three heads—wolf, lion, serpent—gnash and regenerate in bursts of dark MSE.
Three voices echo in layered tones:
"MORTALS. YOU. ARE. DELAYING. INEVITABLE. EXTINCTION."
It rises, bodies piled beneath its claws Elite MSE operatives who won't stand again.
Ren feels bile rise.
So this is real war.
A soldier staggers forward Takahiro, the shield-bearer, his arm a ruined stump.
"T-Team leader… I c-can—"
His words never finish.
Guruth's lion head lunges bite like a guillotine
And Takahiro doesn't exist anymore.
Ren freezes. His breath fractures.
That was a human.
That was someone with a home, with jokes, with dinner plans…
Gone like he never mattered.
A spark ignites in Ren's chest fear turning to fury.
Akira steps beside him without looking his way, katana dripping demon ichor.
"Keep your head straight. Grieve later. Live now."
Ground trembles
An earthquake? No.
A roar like molten iron splitting the sky.
From smoke emerges Thektor, the Iron Warthusk of Ruin.
Armored plates glint like temple stone under hellfire light.
Tusks scrape the ground, carving sparks.
Every step ripples the asphalt like boiling tar.
MSE pressure slams the battlefield.
Elite fighters buckle.
Ren stumbles.
Sakura gasps behind him.
Mei's seals flutter in her shaking hands.
Kenta stands firm.
He has to. Someone must.
"Formation! Push forward, don't give ground! MOVE!"
A thunder shout of MSE as three elites leap
blades and spears radiating violent aura.
They strike Guruth together.
Coordinated. Trained. Heroes.
But gods don't care about teamwork.
Guruth's serpent head whips, jaws like an executioner's coil—snapping one man in half mid-swing.
The wolf head catches another, crushes spine with casual cruelty.
A spear hits Guruth's eye—bravery, precision—
yet does nothing to slow the monster.
Ren can't breathe.
This isn't a heroic fight.
This is attrition.
Survival grinding against annihilation.
Kenta exhales—long, heavy. His face stone-calm, soldier-truth etched in it.
He steps forward.
"Ren. Watch. This is what a protector looks like."
His prosthetic arm hisses—seals glow—
then explode in sparks. The limb falls. Torn off by recoil.
Kenta doesn't scream. He doesn't even flinch.
He chooses to step forward anyway.
"LIMIT OUTPUT."
His voice cracks the air like scripture.
MSE erupts—white, gold, raw star-fire whipping in coils.
Ren's vision blurs. Wind slams his body.
Even Akira shields his eyes.
Kenta's aura becomes a pillar
a sun descending to earth.
Guruth charges, all three heads shrieking void-hate.
Kenta meets him head-on.
Kenta's remaining hand forms a spear of MSE, trembling with power so dense it feels like reality grinding at its edges.
"For humanity."
His words sink like sacred weight.
His body fractures with energy backlash.
Skin splitting. Blood boiling.
Spirit blazing brighter than flesh can hold.
He drives forward
A nuclear heartbeat.
Impact.
A sound like worlds cracking.
A flash that blinds gods.
Guruth's form shatters, heads torn apart in holy fury.
Chunks of divine flesh rain, turning to dust before hitting ground.
Silence hits harder than the blast.
Kenta collapses to one knee.
Steam rises off him.
His soul flickers like a candle in storm winds.
Ren's voice breaks:
"Kenta-san!"
Kenta smiles—slow, tired, proud.
"Not done yet. …Thektor remains."
His body wavers.
He stands anyway.
Shoulders square.
Warrior against apocalypse.
The battlefield shakes again—
Thektor lowers massive tusks, molten saliva burning holes in pavement.
It roars an avalanche of malice.
And then
BOOM it charges.
Kenta braces
But his body bucks, staggering—he used too much.
Akira shoots forward.
Ren screams—
"NO!"
Ren's aura ignites without permission.
Not controlled.
Not refined.
Pure, raw spirit violence—fear and loyalty and rage braided into light.
His fist burns star-white.
Ground cracks beneath his foot as he launches.
Meteor Knuckle and Thektor collide mid-charge.
A shockwave rips the battlefield apart
dust, metal, shattered earth blasting outward.
Ren is flung back, spine rattling.
Thektor slides, armored plates dented
But nowhere near dead.
Yet it stopped.
And that means something.
Ren coughs blood, stands, trembling.
Akira places a hand on his back, stabilizing him.
"You're getting there."
Ren's voice shakes:
"Not fast enough."
Akira's jaw clenches.
"…Then don't stop."
Kenta kneels, body fading, but his spirit stands taller than any god.
The Elite squad numbers have thinned.
Some forms lie motionless, some screaming for medics, others silent and gone.
Mei weeps quietly as she seals a fatal wound that won't close.
Sakura whispers prayers she's not sure anyone hears anymore.
Ren's hands shake.
Not from fear—
From fury.
"Ares… we're coming for you."
The road ahead is darker than ever.
But they stand.
They still stand.
Ash still hangs in the air like frozen snowfall grey, soft, deceptively peaceful. But the peace is a lie. The city of Kasumori shudders beneath the weight of clashing divinity and human fury.
The ground where Guruth and Thektor fell still burns. Craters glow faint red, heat distorting the smoky night. Corpses of Naraka spawn melt into foul vapor, but the bodies of fallen humans remain solid, real, reminders etched in blood.
Nothing about this battlefield can be explained away.
This is not a heroic playground.
This is the line between existence and extinction.
And then Ares walks through the dust.
He does not rush.
He does not posture.
He simply exists and the world remembers fear.
Each step echoes like a temple bell struck by divine judgment. Gold-red sparks drip from the spear resting on his shoulder, staining the cracked asphalt with molten hate.
Ares gazes across the broken squad. Not with rage with curiosity, as though dissecting insects that unexpectedly bit the hand that crushes them.
"You killed my hounds."
No anger. No emotion.
Just a god acknowledging a fact never meant to exist.
Kenta stands despite his broken body one arm gone, spirit channels cracked and bleeding aura like torn veins spilling light. But his eyes burn with soldier fire, the kind that refuses surrender even when the body is ash.
Ren sees him and something deep within snaps not fear, not grief, but clarity. A spark that feels ancient, like remembering something his blood always knew.
Ares notes that spark and smirks.
"How adorable. A mortal finding resolve."
His spear flicks once a casual motion but the air detonates.
Three elites vanish in the blast. Not thrown, not wounded simply removed, existence peeled away. Their voices stop mid-breath, like someone cut the thread between life and sound.
Ren's heart lurches.
Not again.
Not like this.
Ares rolls his neck slowly, divine joints cracking like heaven's bones flexing after eons of stillness.
"Let me help you understand scale."
He steps
and the world blurs.
Suddenly he stands in front of Ren.
No sound of movement. No buildup. Just arrival, like reality didn't notice the change until too late.
Ren sees a fist before he feels it.
Then pain.
Then nothing.
He flies backward, body folding, the wind ripped from his lungs. Concrete bites his spine as he slams into a burned-out sedan, metal collapsing around him like soft clay.
His vision flickers but he stays conscious. Barely.
Ares turns to Kenta.
"You stand tall for a corpse."
Kenta tries to raise his knife. Only manages halfway. His body shakes, but his spirit doesn't.
"Someone has to teach you gods what a man looks like."
Ares chuckles a low, disappointed sound.
"I know what men look like. That is why I end you."
He moves spear thrust forward
Akira intercepts.
The broken katana meets god-steel and screams, metal crying as MSE grinds against divine essence. Akira's body strains, wind pressure spiraling around him like furious serpents.
Ares looks at him like a teacher noticing a child holding a sword improperly.
"Persistence. Fascinating. Futile."
He flicks the blade aside. It snaps. Akira staggers, blood splattering from his mouth.
But he stands again. Blade stump lifted like it still matters.
"Ren," Akira spits through clenched teeth, "get. Up."
Ren's fingers twitch.
And then he rises.
Slow, painful, shaking but upright.
Ares turns to him again.
"You look like a child trying to walk in his father's armor."
Ren wipes blood from his lip, steadying his breath. "Then maybe you should stop underestimating kids."
His aura sparks not controlled, not shaped raw and real, spirit bleeding emotion.
Ares's eyes sharpen. "Ah. A spark."
Ren clenches his fist, thinking of Babel. Of the screams. Of his brother. Of Kenta refusing to kneel. Of Akira stepping in front of a god with nothing but shattered steel and stubbornness.
"I'm tired… of watching people die."
His voice cracks. Power doesn't it surges.
"Akira," he says quietly. "Brace."
Akira meets his eyes sees the fire there and steps aside, gathering his own storm.
Ren lowers his stance, left foot sliding back, fist coiled at his hip.
The air thickens. Electricity hums. The world seems to hold its breath.
"Comet…"
Ares smirks, amused again. "Childish names for childish hope."
Ren doesn't care.
"KNUCKLE!!"
He launches.
The earth explodes under his feet asphalt and rubble bursting outward like a landmine. Ren's fist ignites, white-gold aura spiraling outward like celestial flame.
He slams into Ares's jaw not as a warrior, but as a star called into being through sheer refusal to die quietly.
The shockwave knocks debris into orbit, buildings rippling outward.
Ares's head whips back.
Eyes widen not pain, but surprise.
Ren keeps going.
He rides the momentum, leaps skyward, aura trailing comet-fire.
Ares floats upward from the force not willingly, dragged by raw impact.
Ren appears above him nothing elegant, nothing trained just spirit turned weapon.
"Meteor… JAB!!!"
Fist to gut.
Ares's body bends a god's body, forced by mortal will.
He plummets, crashing through three ruined towers, each one collapsing in a chain of thunder and smoke.
The city breathes wrong.
As if shocked to witness a god fall.
Ren crashes down seconds later, knees shaking, lungs burning fire. He nearly collapses but catches himself.
Ares rises from rubble, dust falling from divine armor, eyes glowing murder.
Not amused now.
Not curious.
Hungry.
"You drew blood."
He touches his lip a smear of gold. Looks at it like it's unfamiliar.
"Very well. I will remember you."
Akira's wind flares, voice low and razor-edged.
"You'll remember more than that."
Wind coils around him dragon shape forming, air screaming like talons carving the sky.
"Tempest"
The dragon roars behind him, wings unfurling from swirling storm-pressure.
"DRAGON!!!"
Akira blitzes, wind ripping trenches through concrete as he dives toward Ares like a storm given flesh.
Ares meets him mid-swing, spear parrying the wind-dragon strike. Energy detonates — shockwaves shredding street signs, snapping power poles, blowing dust across the battlefield like a sandstorm.
Screams of air and divine steel collide.
Ares pushes back barely dragging through the earth.
For the first time, Ren sees it:
A god forced to defend.
Akira's roar cuts through the chaos, pure rage and discipline intertwined.
Kenta, barely breathing, smiles through blood.
"That's it…
Show him… what humans are."
Ren wipes his mouth and grins, feral and alive.
"Let's finish this."
Ares stands straight, spear humming, aura burning heaven-red like a battlefield sunset.
The god of war actually laughs — low, dark, thrilled.
"So be it."
Kasumori trembles.
Three warriors broken, battered, human stand against him.
Ren's flame.
Akira's storm.
Kenta's unbreakable stance.
Ares spins his spear once, ground cracking, clouds bleeding light.
Ren raises his fists, stance steady, spirit unyielding.
"This is the power of human resolve."