"What…?" Max said, the single word leaving his mouth slowly as the meaning of what he had just heard settled over him like a sudden and suffocating weight. For him, the idea was completely unbelievable, something so far removed from anything he had expected that it felt almost unreal to even consider. His sister… his sister was the direct descendant of the Sierra Family?
"I'm… stunned… I can't believe it…" Max said again, his voice quieter now, as if the shock had hollowed out the strength behind his words. It was a moment of pure disbelief, the kind that left a person staring forward while their mind struggled desperately to keep up with reality. Several seconds passed before either father or brother managed to say anything else.
For Alma, however, the shock ran even deeper than what Max was experiencing, because for him the revelation did not stop at disbelief. With the shock came something colder and more dangerous.
Fear.
"You're… the daughter of Sabas and Vanesa Sierra…" Alma said softly, the names leaving his mouth with careful deliberation.
If the world were ever to find out that Alma had adopted Jasmine, then it would only be a matter of time before the Sierra Family of Mexico learned about it as well. The Sierra Family were not simply influential figures in their country; in many ways they operated as its shadow government, an unseen force that shaped the nation from behind the curtain of official power. The United States had no Families of its own—despite the fact that the only realistic candidates capable of establishing themselves there would have been the Sierra Family or the Sora Family—and that absence was not an accident, but a deliberate decision born from the exact same fear that now crept into Alma's mind: the fear of allowing a single lineage to control the direction of an entire nation.
America was barely seventy years into its founding, still young and still attempting to establish stability and authority over its own land. The successors of the forefathers had understood what would happen if one of the great Families were allowed to take root there, and so they made a careful choice. They claimed only the land that the Sierra Family had once inhabited, but they refused to adopt the family itself into their new nation. Had they done so, America would have met the same fate as countless other countries whose governments ultimately answered to the will of ancient bloodlines rather than their own people.
Japan, however, was an entirely different matter. The island nation, which existed geographically attached to New York while extending far into the Atlantic Ocean, had been ruled by the Sora Family for many centuries. As far back as the Heian Era, the Sora Family had dominated nearly every aspect of the country's power structure. Yet even among these powerful lineages there existed a strange anomaly, because unlike the Sierra Family or the Sora Family, the Uzochi Family had remained hidden ever since its discovery, its existence known only to a small handful of individuals.
Only one person in all of recorded history had ever been identified as the host of one of the three cosmic beings, and the knowledge of which being that person had carried had died along with him.
"Wait… you know who my parents are?" Jasmine asked, surprised, receiving a slow nod from Alma. "But how?"
"Do you remember my master who taught me martial arts, Jiang Shun?" Alma asked calmly. "He was the one who told me about the different celestial bodies associated with each family, those abstract beings."
"So you don't actually know them personally?" Jasmine asked cautiously.
Alma shook his head.
That small confirmation eased the tension that had begun tightening in Jasmine's chest. The fact that Alma did not personally know her parents meant he had no real affiliation with them and, more importantly, no understanding of the cruelty that defined them.
"I'm sure you've already figured it out by now, Dad…" Jasmine said slowly. "But I am next in line to become the Reality Minister. In fact… I already am."
The statement struck both Alma and Max with the force of a sudden revelation.
"That's… unbelievable…" Max said, his face twisted with confusion and disbelief.
"Yes," Alma said quietly, slowly regaining his composure after the initial shock. "It is."
"Wait, Max, how do you know my parents?" Jasmine asked, turning toward him.
"My mother told me about the Sierra Family before she died," Max said after a moment of hesitation. "She warned me not to get involved with anything they did, and she told me never to be friends with anyone from that family that I knew. She said it would be a bad thing for me… actually, she said it would be a bad thing for anyone who even knew someone from the Sierra Family."
"Oh…" Jasmine said softly, lowering her head.
"But you're far from them, Jasmine," Max said quickly, trying to reassure her even though her head remained lowered. "I know you aren't like them at all. The fact that you're here proves that."
"I tried everything to please them," Jasmine said quietly, her voice trembling as tears began to threaten the corners of her eyes. "I listened to everything they told me—no, everything they commanded me to do—and when it became too much, when it was long after my collapse, do you know what they did?"
The tears began to fall slowly.
"They punished me for not following 'simple' orders."
She lifted her gaze and looked directly into Alma's eyes, and in that look lived fear, trauma, and despair. In return, Alma's eyes held compassion, strength, and a quiet promise of protection.
"Those people you saved me from in the alleyway… my parents sent them after me," Jasmine continued, her voice trembling. "They were supposed to 'teach' me a lesson. They would beat me until I bled, and they liked to target the parts of my body that made me a woman… they liked to please themselves."
Her body tensed as the memories forced their way back into her mind, and she instinctively wrapped her arms around herself as if trying to shield her own body from the past.
Alma slowly lowered his head, his fists tightening until his knuckles whitened, his teeth grinding together as anger and grief collided within him.
Jasmine stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him, and the tension in his body disappeared almost instantly.
"Jasmine… I had no idea you went through all of that…" Alma said softly as he returned the embrace.
The moment his arms closed around her, Jasmine broke completely. Years of suppressed memories surged forward all at once, the beatings, the lessons, the fear she felt before they began, the pain she endured during them, and the dreadful anticipation that followed as she wondered when the next one would come. All of it flooded back at once as she clung to Alma, screaming into his chest as the emotions she had buried for so long finally escaped.
In her heart there was no uncertainty anymore.
Alma had become her father.
Her first and only father.
Her anchor.
Someone she could not afford to lose, someone she would never willingly let go, a constant presence in a world that had once felt frozen around her.
"Please… don't go, Father!" Jasmine cried, tightening her grip around him.
Alma felt tears gathering in his own eyes as he held her. Seeing the daughter he cherished reduced to such a fragile, broken state—knowing she had endured horrors that even grown adults struggled to survive—felt like a blade being driven into his heart.
"Do not worry, my sweet girl," Alma said softly, tightening his embrace. "I will not go anywhere. I will always be here, even when you want to push me away, even when you need me the most. I will always be the person you can come to when you need to release your emotions. I am as present as my love."
Across the room, Max turned his head away, unable to continue watching as tears slipped freely down his face. His own life had been difficult, but he could not imagine enduring what Jasmine had suffered, especially at such a young age. From the moment she was born, Jasmine had lived with abuse.
"Father… please promise me one thing…" Jasmine said after a moment, slowly pulling away from the embrace and looking up at Alma with desperate seriousness.
"What is it?" Alma asked gently.
"Do not go after the Sierra Family."
Alma stared at her for a moment, briefly confused by the request, but after a moment he nodded. "I understand. I will not. But may I ask why?"
"Because…" Jasmine said as she straightened herself. "They are my responsibility. They are my curse… but they are also my origin."
She took a steady breath.
"When I get older, I will return to Mexico and remove everything that makes the Sierra Family what it is now. I will rebuild it from the ground up. That will be… no, that is my duty… as the Reality Minister."
Alma looked at her for a long moment before nodding again, a small but proud smile forming on his face.
"So be it," he said gently. "I will see to it that I keep your promise. Well done."
"However," Alma began slowly, his voice carrying the weight of someone speaking from experience rather than philosophy alone. "Revenge is not a path you should allow yourself to remain on for long, because the only thing waiting at the end of it is an empty chest you once believed was overflowing with satisfaction. The vision of that victory feels so wonderful while you chase it that it blinds you to the cost of the actions required to reach it, and when you finally arrive at the end of that road, you will discover that the end of revenge is also the end of something within yourself." He paused briefly before finishing quietly. "Believe me… I know what that void feels like."
Jasmine smiled faintly and nodded, though the smile carried a quiet heaviness to it, and as she did she felt a hand gently rest on her shoulder. Turning slightly, she saw that it was Max standing beside her, his eyes still red from the tears he had tried—and failed—to hide.
"What you just said," Max began slowly, his voice uneven with emotion, "about re-experiencing everything that was already hard enough for you to survive in the first place, just so you could tell us about it… and then calmly saying that you plan to face it all again and solve it yourself…" He shook his head slightly. "That takes a kind of courage I don't think I could ever have. You should be proud of yourself."
Jasmine stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him in a brief hug. "Thank you," she said softly. "That really means a lot coming from you."
After a moment she stepped back, then turned toward Alma again, her expression shifting slightly as if something important still remained unsaid.
"But telling you two this wasn't just for that one reason," Jasmine said.
Alma nodded immediately, as if he had already reached the same conclusion.
"I understand," he said simply.
"Huh?" Max said, looking between the two of them in confusion.
"Wait… you do?" Jasmine asked, raising an eyebrow. "What gave it away?"
"A couple of months ago," Alma explained calmly, "I began feeling a strange connection with you. It was something I had never experienced before, yet at the same time it felt strangely familiar… almost as if we shared the same blood. It wasn't a normal awareness of someone's presence either; I could sense your existence on a much deeper level than that of anyone else around me."
Jasmine's expression shifted slightly with recognition.
"Oh… then you've already felt it," she said.
"I believe so," Alma replied.
"The Reality Being," they both said at the exact same moment.
"The what, now??" Max asked loudly, completely lost.
"The Reality Being," Jasmine explained, turning slightly toward him, "is one of the three Cosmic Beings and serves as the overseer of everything that occurs within this universe. It is said—actually, it has even stated itself—that it created everything that exists here, from time itself to the smallest atom, and literally every concept or object that exists between those two extremes. Among the three Cosmic Beings, it is considered the most powerful, existing on its own level above the others."
"An extremely dangerous force," Alma added quietly.
Max stared at her with wide eyes, his mind clearly struggling to keep up with the scale of what he was hearing. "You have that inside you?? I thought hearing about someone having a dragon sealed inside their body was crazy, but this?? That's like cramming an entire universe into one tiny human body! That's completely absurd!"
"It isn't like that," Jasmine said quickly, though a trace of irritation slipped into her voice as she continued. "The Reality Being and I share the same body. It reduces its size—without losing any of its power—so that it can inhabit me. The easiest way to imagine it is like having a second voice inside your head, or a second tongue that speaks independently from your own thoughts."
She paused before continuing, her tone growing more serious.
"However… that power has started changing. Instead of remaining stable, it has begun to grow constantly, becoming stronger and harder for me to contain with each passing day." She folded her arms slightly as she thought about it. "And recently, I've been having these dreams once every week. In them, I have a conversation with either my mother or my father, and then those men—the same ones who used to hurt me—walk into the room, and that's when the dream suddenly ends."
"But how does that connect to the Reality Being?" Max asked, still trying to piece everything together.
"Because the faces of my parents aren't there," Jasmine said quietly. "They're replaced by something else… a cosmic void filled with stars, galaxies, and black holes."
She looked down briefly before finishing the thought.
"In other words, the faces of my parents… are the face of the Reality Being. And I'm scared that if I ever let that power out completely, something terrible will happen."
Alma considered her words carefully before responding. "Have you looked into the experiences of the previous hosts?" he asked. "What happened to them?"
"I don't know," Jasmine admitted. "From the books my mother forced me to study, neither of the hosts before me ever described having dreams like these, and if they did, they never recorded it anywhere. There's also no mention of their power suddenly growing the way mine is."
She hesitated before continuing.
"It feels like I'm a bottle with the cap tightly sealed… and someone keeps pouring more and more into it. The filling is slow, but eventually the bottle will reach its limit, and if the pouring continues after that point…"
"You'll pop," Alma finished quietly.
"Yeah," Jasmine said simply.
"I'm guessing your parents never taught you how to control or release that power properly," Alma said.
Jasmine shook her head.
"That's why I wanted to ask you," she said, looking directly at him. "How do I control it? How do I control this cursed power?"
Alma looked at her with deep contemplation. She had come to him because he was the only person she trusted enough to ask, yet the truth was that he barely understood the nature of his own abilities. In theory, he could learn how to control his own power first and then help Jasmine afterward—but that depended entirely on the assumption that their abilities functioned in the same way.
And there were even greater risks.
If Jasmine attempted to control the Reality Being incorrectly, she might accidentally direct its power into something catastrophic, creating devastation in ways none of them could predict. It could also awaken something deeper within that power and cause consequences none of them were prepared to face.
The number of unknown variables was enormous.
The idea itself was reckless.
Possibly even foolish.
Above all else, however, it was dangerous.
"I can't help you with that right now," Alma said at last. "Neither of us understands how to control these powers properly, and if we attempt something incorrectly, the consequences could be severe."
"Yeah," Jasmine said quietly. "I'm really confused about all of this. I don't know what I'm supposed to do… and lately I've had this constant feeling that something is about to happen."
She looked down slightly.
"Something bad."
"Well, whatever it is that decides to show itself," he said, "whatever problem tries to appear in front of us, and whatever form that danger takes, you can count on me to deal with it." Alma placed a hand on her shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Because I am... after all…" he then pointed his thumb toward himself with a confident grin, his smile widening. "The Strongest in this world."
Jasmine couldn't help but smile back at him. The confidence in his voice filled her with a quiet sense of hope, pushing away the fear that had been slowly building inside her and replacing it with something far stronger: the belief that, no matter what happened, she would not have to face it alone.
"Yeah..." Jasmine said, excitement entering her voice. "You are."
---
February 4th, 2033. Elsewhere, inside the United States.
Weston Cooper, Amelia Spring, and Montana Bristol were all panting heavily in the aftermath of their training session. Weston still crouched on one knee as he struggled to steady his breathing, Amelia lying flat on the ground with her arms and legs spread out in complete exhaustion, and Montana resting on both knees with her head tilted upward as she exhaled slowly. All three of them drenched in sweat, visibly drained, yet carrying a quiet, unspoken satisfaction that came only from pushing themselves beyond what they were normally capable of enduring.
It had been nearly two months since they had begun training in this manner, meeting three times a week without exception to fight each other repeatedly in order to sharpen their instincts, refine their combat intuition, improve body coordination, and most importantly deepen their familiarity with their Mythical Beasts, which were not merely sources of power but living forces that demanded alignment rather than simple control.
However, despite all of their relentless effort and repeated near-limit exchanges, only their physical prowess and the raw abilities granted directly by their Mythical Beasts had shown consistent improvement, and while their bonds with their beasts were not failing in any sense, they were still severely limited in terms of what could actually be unlocked from them at their current stage.
The truth of it was that acquiring new abilities was not a gradual process, nor something that could be reached through simple repetition or steady understanding, but instead required a very specific and unstable combination of conditions that had to occur all at once. Beginning with a drastic and sudden shift in mindset that could not be allowed time to evolve, hesitate, or rationalize itself, because the moment awareness interfered, the connection would collapse before it ever formed.
That mindset had to be unpredictable even to the user themselves, something raw and immediate that bypassed thought entirely, while at the same time the body had to physically meet the expectations of the Mythical Beast, as though it were being forced to become a vessel capable of withstanding power far beyond its natural limitations, because the Monarch within them could not awaken fully in a body that could not survive its presence.
And beneath all of that, beneath even strength and compatibility, lay the most frightening requirement of all, which was the willingness to abandon restraint entirely and give in to the most unfiltered, unstable aspects of human nature. Only by confronting the deepest parts of oneself could the perfect connection ever be established, and only by understanding exactly what one truly was could that power be brought to the surface.
Weston was the first to rise, pushing himself up despite still being out of breath, his eyes moving slowly between Amelia and Montana as he tried to gather his composure, before finally speaking in a rough but steady tone. "Good work… you two… oof…"
"Thanks… you… too…" Montana responded while forcing herself up from one knee into a standing position, still breathing heavily between each word as her chest rose and fell with lingering fatigue.
Amelia rose more slowly than the others, her body aching with deep soreness that lingered in her muscles like a dull weight, until vines began to grow subtly from her hair and release a soft yellow mist that drifted through the air before immediately dissolving her fatigue and easing the soreness from her body, after which she stood fully upright and extended those same vines outward to wrap briefly around Weston and Montana.
"Alright… time to rejuvenate," she said with a faint, calm smile.
The same yellow mist that had surrounded her now spread over Weston and Montana as well, instantly washing away exhaustion, pain, and soreness as if their bodies had been reset to a state of full recovery in a matter of seconds.
"Thank you," Weston said as he walked toward his bag resting on a nearby bench and retrieved an ice-cold bottle of water, exhaling slightly as he did so.
"No problem," Amelia replied with a soft smile directed toward him.
"Where are Anastasia and Ora at?" Montana asked after a brief moment of silence, breaking the calm atmosphere as she lifted her bottle of water, her eyes scanning the area as if expecting them to appear. "They're usually the first ones here every week."
"I think Anastasia stayed home all day to read that new book she bought," Weston answered while taking a sip of water, "and Ora is… well, you know him, probably off fighting more Beasts of Ruin, or getting lost in that gacha game again," he added with a hint of irritation, clearly annoyed that their otherwise consistent training streak had been interrupted by personal habits and distractions.
"And Tanner? Is he off goofing around?" Montana asked afterward, tilting her head slightly.
"He told me he got caught up in family affairs, so he couldn't come," Amelia said calmly, which earned a quiet sigh from Weston as he looked away for a moment.
He understood that everyone had their own lives and their own reasons for being absent, but that understanding did not change the fact that, to him, training and preparation held a far higher priority than anything else, especially in a world where Beasts of Ruin continued to grow more dangerous, because from his perspective, strength and survival were not matters of preference or leisure but matters of necessity that outweighed comfort, freedom, or personal satisfaction.
Weston sighed again before finally speaking. "Well, whatever the case, this is enough training for today. We'll pick it up Sunday," he said as he adjusted his bag and began to turn away.
"Sunday… or someday," Montana added with a small, amused smile, clearly pleased with her own joke.
Weston barely reacted to the joke, only exhaling through his nose as if choosing not to give it the attention it asked for. "Yeah, yeah," he said dismissively, though not unkindly, before his expression grew a shade more serious as his gaze shifted between the two girls. "But I'm serious, okay? Out of you and Ora, you two are on the cusp of awakening a great power."
Montana's smile softened into something more measured, less playful but still unconvinced at the edges. "Thanks, I guess?" she replied, her voice carrying that same half-amused skepticism as her eyes narrowed slightly. "How do you know it, if even I don't?"
Weston paused for a moment, as if considering how much of the truth could even be put into words without sounding absolute, before answering with quiet certainty. "Because I'm the Centaur Monarch," he said, his voice steady in a way that made it sound less like pride and more like fact, "I have the ability to sense everything, and although it's very faint, I can feel it in you both—your potential, the pressure of it, the way it sits just beneath the surface. You two are very strong, indeed… I suppose it's because you've both carried the weight of being Monarchs longer than most of us have."
Montana hummed softly in response, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, letting the thought drift away without committing to it, as if it were something she'd decide later—or not at all.
Weston adjusted his bag and gave them a final glance, his expression easing back into something more familiar. "Well, see you girls later," he said before turning to leave.
"Okay. See you later, Weston," Amelia said, lifting a hand in a casual wave. "Me and Montana will continue."
Weston gave a brief wave over his shoulder as he walked away, leaving the area behind.
As soon as he was gone, the atmosphere shifted almost imperceptibly, becoming quieter, heavier in focus, as Amelia and Montana turned their attention fully back to each other without hesitation.
Amelia closed the distance first, moving forward with controlled precision, while Montana drew her spear in response and immediately unleashed a torrent of water-filled bubbles toward her, each one exploding violently as it neared impact. Amelia was forced to react quickly as thick roots erupted from the ground to block the closest detonations while spiked branches shot outward to intercept and pop the farther ones before redirecting toward Montana.
Montana cut through them cleanly without slowing her movement, planting the butt of her spear into the ground before thrusting forward to release a rising wave of water that surged upward toward Amelia with overwhelming force.
Amelia leapt back to create distance, landing lightly before bringing her hands together as a massive root burst upward from beneath the ground, piercing directly through the wave and splitting it apart. However, the water did not dissipate and instead flowed around the obstruction and began converging toward her from both sides.
Amelia's eyes sharpened as she recognized the pattern and prepared to retreat underground to let the waves collapse into each other, but Montana moved instantly to counter her intention, striking at the exact position Amelia's head would have dropped to and forcing her to remain exposed above ground.
The waves closed in rapidly, and Amelia responded by slamming her foot into the earth, causing roots beneath her to erupt outward and form rising platforms of soil and wood that lifted her position just enough to adjust her footing, while at the same time a thin root snapped around Montana's ankle and hurled her forcefully into a nearby abandoned building.
Amelia exhaled sharply, wiping blood from her cheek where Montana had managed to graze her during the exchange, just as Montana stepped out from the rubble with a visibly frustrated expression that carried irritation and intensity rather than calm focus.
"You're holding back," Montana shouted, her voice cutting through the battlefield as she raised her spear high into the sky, her frustration boiling over. "Am I not worth the whole you? Give me everything you have."
A beam erupted from the tip of her spear and pierced the sky, rapidly shifting the atmosphere into a deep blue hue that gradually faded into a pale, unnatural tone that signaled the activation of something far more dangerous than before.
Amelia did not hesitate, immediately bracing herself as she encased her body in Impenetrable Iron Wood, and within that defensive barrier she lowered her head slightly, her hands tightening as she prepared herself for what was coming.
"Scatter Shot," Montana said.
Thousands of pressurized water droplets descended from above like a collapsing storm, spreading across the battlefield before converging violently onto Amelia's position. Each impact compounding into the next until the entire area became a crushing field of constant, unavoidable force.
It was an unstoppable force of penetration colliding against an immovable object of defense, and in that moment it was clear... that something would eventually give.
Cracks began forming within the Iron Wood as the pressure mounted relentlessly, while Montana herself trembled under the strain of maintaining the technique, and that was when the ground beneath her suddenly erupted as Amelia burst upward from below and seized her by the throat, slamming her into the ground with brutal force before mounting her and striking repeatedly.
Montana reacted instantly by sliding her spear horizontally between them to create separation before forcing Amelia upward with a surge of force that launched her into the air, where roots immediately extended to catch her descent and redirect her landing.
Montana stabbed her spear into the ground and carved a circular motion through it, releasing a ring of water that erupted outward around her, and then she spoke with cold precision, "Offensive Defense: Ice Turret," as she struck the water barrier repeatedly to launch blocks of ice and sharpened icicles in rapid succession toward Amelia.
Amelia reinforced her Impenetrable Iron Wood as the ice projectiles collided with devastating force, shaking the surrounding structures and echoing like thunder through the battlefield, while she held her stance and felt the barrier itself begin to crack under the overwhelming pressure coming from every direction at once.
And yet, despite everything, the Iron Wood still held.
But then Montana appeared within it.
'She used the pressure coming from every direction to disguise the exact point of her entry, compressing the battlefield into a layered field of force that masked even the smallest movement. And because I had come from the ground earlier, she must have realized that the earth itself was the only blind angle left to exploit, the only place she could realistically catch me slipping. What a quick thinker.' Amelia thought.
Montana twisted her body mid-motion and drove a brutal kick into the back of the Dryad Monarch, the impact sending her crashing straight through the Iron Wall before continuing through several layers of collapsed structures beyond it. Amelia's body tore through the broken architecture until she slammed into the remains of a destroyed car, flipping it violently on impact and sending it tumbling into other wrecked vehicles, before she finally came to a halt face-down in the debris-strewn ground.
Amelia exhaled sharply and released a cloud of yellow mist, Purifying Pollen, while simultaneously channeling Regenerative Iron Wood through her body, the energy knitting together her fatigue and injuries in an instant as she forced herself upright again. The moment she rose, she looked up and gasped, narrowly avoiding Montana as she became a high-speed projectile that cut through the air at speeds exceeding Mach 5, the mere displacement of her movement warping the atmosphere around her. When Montana struck the ground instead, the impact detonated outward, shaking the entire area and toppling already fractured buildings like they were made of sand.
Amelia raised Impenetrable Iron Wood in front of her, forming a hardened barrier that rejected not only impact but pressure itself, sealing off every force and wind attempting to reach her. Montana reappeared from beneath the ground moments later, but this time Amelia anticipated the movement, reacting instantly as roots erupted from the earth and seized Montana mid-motion, slamming her out of the Iron Wood's perimeter and hurling her into the shattered remains of the surrounding debris.
Amelia panted heavily, coughing as residual particles clawed into her lungs, and as she looked downward, she noticed a massive shadow expanding across the ground beneath her. She looked up just in time to raise her defenses, blocking a massive slab of concrete that Montana had already thrown, the structure shattering violently against the surface of her Iron Wood barrier.
Montana followed up without hesitation, releasing thousands of bubble-like projectiles that filled the entire battlefield with volatile, explosive spheres of danger. She then rushed straight through them, triggering a cascading chain reaction as each bubble detonated in sequence, the explosions rolling toward Amelia like an advancing tide that tightened with every step.
Amelia hardened her stance and reshaped Iron Wood, shifting it from a dome of protection into layered armor that wrapped tightly around her body, then dashed forward directly through the detonating field instead of away from it. Montana raised a brow, clearly not expecting such a direct response, and halted abruptly in place.
She drove her spear into the ground and forced it forward, unleashing another wave of force that expanded outward into a massive front covering nearly five hundred yards, far denser and more destructive than before, while beneath her feet the earth split open into a widening whirlpool that swallowed the terrain within a twenty-foot radius.
Amelia immediately burrowed underground to evade the expanding wave, trusting Iron Wood to absorb what it could while she avoided the brunt of both the exploding bubbles and the incoming surge layered above them.
But Montana had already predicted that exact response. She lifted her spear skyward, and a concentrated beam of water erupted upward, piercing into the atmosphere like a rising pillar of pressure.
As Amelia emerged near the edge of the whirlpool's displacement, she saw Montana standing above her with the spear held high, the water beam still roaring from its tip.
'Oh, no...' Amelia thought.
"Scatter Shot." Montana said, and in response, the beam fractured into countless pressurized droplets that began to fall like a storm of condensed death.
The droplets obliterated everything outside the whirlpool's untouched core, carving destruction into the ground in rapid succession as they descended with extreme precision and force.
Amelia screamed as Iron Wood shattered under the pressure, the Scatter Shot tearing through her defenses and drilling into her body in relentless succession. Her flesh ruptured under the assault, her blood spilling into the soil as her form was riddled with punctures and impact wounds, and only then did she activate Regenerative Iron Wood alongside Purifying Pollen in a desperate attempt to keep herself alive.
Montana gave her no room to recover. She hurled her spear forward, and it pierced Amelia's chest cleanly, driving her backward and pinning her to the ground through sheer force as the weapon locked her in place. Amelia coughed violently on her own blood while trying to grasp the spear embedded in her torso, but Montana was already moving again, leaping into the air and driving both feet into the base of the spear, forcing it deeper and causing the ground beneath them to erupt as it fully passed through Amelia's body.
Montana landed smoothly, her eyes locked on Amelia's collapsing form as it lay nearly motionless in the ruins. She hadn't intended to kill her, only to push her to the absolute edge, and she believed Amelia would still recover from this level of damage as she always did.
But she wasn't breathing.
Montana stepped forward immediately, tension breaking through her composure, when she suddenly felt a deep vibration ripple through the ground beneath her. She jumped back from Amelia's body at once, but roots erupted from below and seized her mid-air, dragging her downward as sharp branches pierced her body and one of them snapped her right arm with brutal force.
Montana tore herself free by flooding the area with pressurized water, another whirlpool forming beneath her as she surged back to the surface, only to find Amelia standing again, holding a glowing sphere of red energy pressed against her chest.
'Is that... her heart...?' Montana thought.
The sacrifice required for this newly awakened ability was the complete destruction of Amelia Spring's heart, not by external force or attack, but by voluntary collapse through intent, a consensual destruction that triggered the instant activation of something far beyond her previous limits.
The sphere pulsed with red light, then shifted to green, then yellow, before all three colors began to merge and rotate within it as if reality itself were being condensed into a single point of life and death. Montana could feel it immediately, the purity of it, and yet it carried a pressure that made her spine tighten as a grin slowly returned to her face.
"Finally..." Montana said, as her spear flew back into her hand and she stepped fully out of the dissolving whirlpool beneath her.
"You give me YOU." Montana said.
She lifted her spear again as water surged upward from its tip. "This is fine... in my current state, I can only use this one more time."
Her expression twisted into something wild, something unstable, as laughter began to slip through her voice.
"SO GIVE ME YOUR ALL!! AMELIA!!!" Montana said, and the sky itself answered as pressurized droplets began to fall once again. "SCATTER SHOT!!"
"Splintering Meadows..! Final Photosynthesis!!" Amelia said, as the sphere of energy in her chest detonated into a blinding eruption of light.
---
Weston descended the fractured staircases at a measured pace, his footsteps grinding softly against cracked concrete as each step echoed faintly through the hollow shell of the building, the sound stretching out into a suffocating silence that seemed to swallow everything whole. Beyond the narrow confines of the stairwell, the world expanded into a desolate sprawl of abandoned structures, stretching for miles in every direction, their skeletal remains warped and broken, their windows hollow and lifeless, as if the very idea of human presence had long since been erased from this place.
Though his body had not yet reached the point of exhaustion—his breathing steady, his limbs still responsive—his mind was burdened by a far heavier strain, one that lingered with every step he took, refusing to loosen its grip. His thoughts circled relentlessly around Montana, Tanner, and Amelia, before extending further to Ora and Anastasia, each name carrying with it a growing sense of unease. Their strength, once dependable, now felt dangerously insufficient, like a foundation that had begun to crack under pressure. There had been a time when things were different, when Ora, Montana, and Anastasia could handle the most dangerous missions without hesitation, their combined power more than enough to hold the line, while Emmanuel, a force beyond them all, only needed to intervene on rare occasions. Back then, their strength had been enough, and the balance they maintained had felt unshakable.
Now, that balance no longer existed.
What they possessed in the present felt like a remnant of a past that no longer applied, a version of strength that had not adapted to the sudden and violent shift in the world around them. Without Alma, without Emmanuel, the collapse of America would not be a distant threat but an inevitability that had simply been delayed, and once that fall began, the rest of the world would follow shortly after. The weight of that reality pressed heavily against Weston's thoughts, settling deep within him in a way that could not be ignored or reasoned away.
His pursuit of power had never been for himself, nor had it been driven by any desire to dominate or control others. It was something far simpler, and far heavier. He wanted to stand beside them. He wanted to stand beside Alma and Emmanuel, not beneath them, not behind them, but alongside them, sharing even a fraction of the burden they carried so effortlessly. If he could lessen that weight, even slightly, then perhaps the outcome they all feared could be delayed, or even prevented entirely.
As Weston took another step downward, that thought was interrupted by something far more immediate. A presence pressed down from above, subtle at first, but impossible to ignore once felt, threading through the still air of the stairwell and settling over him with quiet intensity. His gaze lifted instinctively, his awareness sharpening as he took in the narrow vertical corridor surrounding him, the broken staircases stretching both upward and downward between towering, ruined structures. Standing atop the roof directly above him, framed against the dull, lifeless sky, was the unmistakable form of Ora True, his muscular figure perfectly still, as if carved into the edge of the world itself.
Weston only glanced at him for a moment before realization struck. He was late.
"Hey! You're late to our training session!" Weston called upward, his voice cutting through the silence with a forced casualness that did little to hide the underlying urgency. "Montana and Amelia are still there, so if you hurry, you might be able to catch them before they finish!"
Ora did not respond.
He did not move, nor did he acknowledge Weston's voice in any visible way, remaining completely still as though the words had never reached him at all. A flicker of confusion crossed Weston's face, his brows drawing together beneath the white sack covering his head as he took a step forward, his voice rising slightly.
"Hey! Are you okay?!"
For a moment, there was nothing. Then, finally, Ora spoke.
"I can say it over and over again," Ora said, his voice low and distant, his gaze fixed on the open palm of his hand as though searching for something within it. "'Give me your all!' 'Don't hold back! Let's fight and have a good time!'"
There was a pause, brief but heavy.
"But where has that gotten anyone?" His fingers curled slowly as he continued. "A little motivation, sure. Maybe some improvement if you're lucky. Small results that look meaningful at first glance."
His tone sharpened, just enough to cut.
"But from where I'm standing... your methods are painfully inadequate for someone who claims to be chasing strength."
The words struck harder than expected.
Weston's grip loosened, his bag slipping from his shoulder and hitting the ground with a dull thud as frustration surged up through him, immediate and unfiltered.
"And what is that supposed to mean?" he shot back.
Ora stepped forward, then dropped from the rooftop, landing directly in front of Weston with a controlled impact that cracked the ground beneath his feet, his presence now overwhelming in its proximity.
"There is no urgency in what you're doing," Ora said, his voice steady, unwavering. "Only repetition. Only empty words. There is no dread driving you, no anguish forcing you forward, no fear pushing you past your limits."
He lifted his gaze.
"And yet you expect to grow stronger without ever being pushed to the point where failure actually matters. Where failure means your life ends, or it moves on. You don't even bleed."
Weston's jaw tightened. "What are you suggesting? That we fight to the death?"
"No," Ora replied immediately. "But you should get as close to it as possible."
The air between them grew heavier.
"On my way here, I saw Montana and Amelia," Ora continued. "And unlike what you've been preaching, they understand."
A slight shift in his stance.
"They're not fighting to improve. They're not fighting to prove anything."
A pause.
"They're fighting to win."
Weston blinked. "They're what...? I didn't tell them to do that."
"And you didn't tell them not to," Ora answered without hesitation. "Because they figured it out on their own. Talent doesn't matter. Potential doesn't matter. None of it means anything if it's never tested under real pressure."
He stepped closer.
"They understand that a forced life-or-death situation produces real results. Not sparring matches where people walk away smiling, congratulating each other as if it meant something. 'You've gotten stronger!' 'I almost had you, better luck next time!'"
His voice lowered.
"You don't grow from that. You grow when something is trying to kill you."
Weston's eyes widened slightly beneath the sack.
"You need a threat," Ora finished. "Not a friend."
The words lingered, heavy and unavoidable.
"Why do you think the Dragon Monarch is so strong," Ora continued. "He has seen death more times than he can count. He has survived battles where failure meant the end. That is what shaped him."
A brief pause.
"And Emmanuel. Do you think his strength came from nowhere? The strongest people around you are not random. They are examples. They are proof of what it takes."
He looked directly at Weston.
"And even if we never reach that level, we can sure as Hell get a lot closer."
Silence followed, tense and suffocating.
Then Ora spoke again.
"What kind of fighter are you?"
Weston hesitated. "What?"
"Range," Ora clarified. "Long? Mid? Short?"
"…Long range."
"Wrong." The answer came instantly from Ora.
Weston frowned. "Huh?"
"You are strongest wherever your opponent is weakest," Ora said. "If they fight at long range, you close the distance. If they fight up close, you create space. If they can do both, you adapt faster than they can switch."
His gaze sharpened.
"Limiting yourself to one style is a weakness. And unless someone is always there to cover that weakness for you, it will get you killed. Even then, it's risky."
Weston opened his mouth to respond, but the words were halted as Ora moved.
The shift was sudden and precise, and Weston barely ducked in time as the attack tore through the air just above his head.
"Woah! Watch it!" Weston shouted.
But Ora did not stop. He never intended to.
Ora's leg swept through the air with brutal precision, a wide, controlled arc meant to tear through Weston's guard, but Weston reacted instantly, springing backward with a sharp burst of movement and landing against the side of a nearby building, boots scraping against cracked concrete as he pushed off again without hesitation. The moment he moved, Ora's strike collided with empty space instead, detonating into the ground where Weston had stood a fraction of a second earlier, sending a shockwave through the ruined street that fractured the pavement and rattled the surrounding structures.
Weston continued his retreat without pause, leaping from wall to wall in rapid succession as each impact sent fragments of weakened masonry collapsing outward, dust and debris rising into the air like a growing storm around them, while Ora pursued relentlessly through the destruction, closing distance with an almost mechanical certainty. Weston finally propelled himself upward and cleared the rooftops, landing atop a taller, more stable structure, only for Ora to rise moments later on a massive slab of broken concrete, balanced effortlessly as he elevated himself back into view, arms resting at his sides as he looked down at Weston from above like a predator studying prey.
Weston clicked his tongue, frustration tightening in his chest as his senses tracked Ora's position. 'What's wrong with this guy… is he testing me?' he thought, shifting his stance just in time to avoid a sudden drop of force that nearly crushed the space he had been standing in a heartbeat earlier.
"If all you do is run, you'll tire out eventually," Ora said calmly as he stepped forward into a run across the rooftop, his voice carrying easily through the open air despite the speed he was building. "And when that happens… what will you do? Fight me."
Weston exhaled sharply, lifting his right hand toward his face as energy condensed in an instant, forming a glowing light-blue sword that hummed faintly with unstable power. His grip tightened immediately as if anchoring himself through it, and without wasting a single breath, he dragged the blade across the rooftop in a sweeping motion that tore through the structure beneath them, splitting the surface wide open as the entire roof gave way and collapsed beneath their weight.
Both Weston and Ora dropped through the crumbling building, falling through broken floors and shattered beams before landing hard on the level below, dust erupting around them on impact. Ora recovered first, already moving the moment his feet touched ground, rushing forward with intent as Weston mirrored the motion without hesitation, meeting him head-on.
Their clash erupted instantly in tight quarters, Weston driving his blade forward in sharp, controlled thrusts and slashes, only for Ora to twist and evade each one with minimal movement, reading the rhythm of the attacks as though it were predictable. In a sudden shift, Ora caught Weston's arm mid-motion and redirected his entire body into the wall, forcing the sword to stab into the concrete surface where it lodged deep, trapping it momentarily. Weston attempted to pull it free, but the blade refused to budge, embedded too tightly, and in that brief opening Ora moved to strike, drawing back his fist for a clean hit to Weston's back.
But the sword vanished just before impact.
The instant Ora's punch committed forward, Weston's weapon dissolved and reformed a fraction of a second later as he twisted free, slashing downward at the floor beneath Ora's feet and breaking his footing open just before the strike could land.
As the structure gave way and Ora began to fall, a faint thought crossed his mind, slow and almost amused despite the situation. 'He tricked me…' he realized as the air swallowed him. "How fun."
Weston wasted no time following up, launching himself out of the collapsing building and into open air as his sword vanished mid-motion and seamlessly transformed into his signature bow, the weapon forming in his grip as if it had always been there. He drew the string back in a single smooth motion, a glowing arrow of matching light-blue energy manifesting along the tension line, and released it toward the structure below.
The impact detonated violently on contact, erupting into a massive explosion that ripped through the building's core and sent shockwaves through the surrounding ruins, toppling nearby structures and scattering debris outward in a chaotic wave that launched Weston backward through the air.
He managed to catch a surviving light pole mid-fall, gripping it tightly as it groaned under his weight, but the weakened structure immediately gave way, bending and tipping until it collapsed completely, dragging Weston down with it. He rolled upon landing and pushed himself back to his feet without delay, head locking immediately onto the battlefield where Ora had fallen moments earlier.
From within the dense, rising cloud of dust and shattered concrete, something began to move.
Not a figure.
A mass.
An entire building, ripped free from its base and hurled forward through the smoke like a projectile.
"WHAT!?!?" Weston shouted, his voice cutting through the chaos as pressure waves slammed into him, forcing him to brace instinctively while already pulling his bowstring back with urgent speed.
Three arrows formed instantly, glowing and sharp, and were released in rapid succession, each one striking the incoming structure at precise points and tearing through its mass until the entire building fractured apart mid-flight, reduced to collapsing chunks of stone and twisted rebar that rained down uselessly into the ruins below.
But even as the debris scattered… Ora was already descending behind it.
Weston released another arrow upward without hesitation, the bowstring snapping forward as the glowing shot cut through the air toward Ora with lethal precision, but before it could connect, it was violently intercepted—three sharp, projected claw-like strikes tearing through its trajectory and slicing it apart mid-flight, scattering its energy into fragments that dissolved into the wind. The interruption forced Weston to pivot instantly, leaping away in a sharp evasive motion just as Ora descended in a crushing slam where he had been standing moments earlier, the impact detonating into the ground and fracturing the earth outward in a violent shockwave that shattered stone and tore through the surrounding terrain.
Without losing momentum, Weston tapped the base of his bow against the ground, and in response, multiple glowing circular sigils rippled outward from his position, spinning rapidly as they spread across the battlefield before settling into seemingly random locations around the area. For a brief moment, they hovered in place like silent warnings, then vanished entirely from sight, leaving only uncertainty behind. Each step now carried risk, every inch of movement capable of triggering an unseen trap, turning the entire space into a field of invisible consequence where even Ora's advance could be punished if he misstepped.
But Ora did not slow down.
Instead, he stomped the ground once, a deep, resonant impact that cracked the earth beneath him, and let out a raw, animalistic roar before charging directly forward, his body cutting through the terrain without hesitation as he forced his way through the invisible danger. Weston's eyes widened as he realized Ora wasn't avoiding the traps at all—he was enduring them, triggering them one after another as explosions and bursts of force detonated around him, each step tearing into his body, yet failing to stop his momentum. Weston exhaled slowly, drawing in a steady breath as his expression sharpened, his mind narrowing until everything else fell away except Ora's advancing form.
He drew his bowstring back firmly, the energy along the weapon intensifying as the bow, the string, and the forming arrow all shifted from a cold blue glow into a burning, concentrated orange light that pulsed with compressed power. "Strike true… Specific Shot," Weston said calmly, his voice steady in a way that contrasted the destruction unfolding around them, and with that final declaration, he released the string.
The moment the arrow fired, the world seemed to split along its path. Concrete walls were stripped clean in a perfectly straight horizontal line as if erased by force rather than struck, the ground beneath it ripped open and torn apart in its wake, and the projectile itself carved a direct line of destruction straight toward Ora with unerring precision. Ora's expression shifted into something almost excited as he raised his hand and caught the arrow mid-flight, his fingers closing around it with enough force to halt its acceleration instantly, yet the sheer pressure behind it still drove him backward several feet across the broken ground.
A strained grunt escaped him as he resisted the force, muscles tightening as he fought against the overwhelming kinetic pressure, and for the first time, genuine surprise flickered through his thoughts. 'This is exactly like… no, I don't know what this is. It's stronger than anything I've ever tried to stop before,' he thought, his grip shaking slightly as he held the arrow in place.
Weston's own thoughts mirrored that shock, his gaze locked onto the scene as he processed what he was seeing. 'No wonder he's ranked the fourth strongest Monarch right now… and the seventh strongest ever,' he thought, tension building in his chest. 'This is my most powerful attack, and he didn't just stop it—he's barely been moved.'
Then, suddenly, the balance shifted.
Ora began to slide backward more aggressively, his eyes widening as the force behind the arrow intensified, dragging him through broken structures as he was launched through multiple buildings while still clutching the projectile. The arrow, however, did not remain static; it twisted unnaturally in his grasp, as if adjusting its trajectory mid-exchange, forcing him into a reactive struggle against something that refused to stay linear. Eventually, he released it, dropping lightly to the ground below, only for the arrow to recoil in midair like a living thing, curving back toward him with a high, piercing sound like boiling metal screaming through the atmosphere.
Ora struck forward into the air before it could reach him, meeting it head-on with a single explosive blow that detonated the impact point into a massive burst of debris and smoke, sending shockwaves rippling outward across the ruined landscape.
Weston stood still amid the aftermath, his head lowered slightly as he listened—not just to sound, but to movement, to pressure, to intent—feeling the battlefield rather than watching it. Then, without warning, Ora appeared directly behind him.
Weston reacted instantly, ducking beneath the incoming punch, but before he could reposition, a brutal kick struck him squarely in the back, launching him forward through the air and slamming him into a wall before bouncing him across a field of destroyed buildings, his body skipping over rubble and broken stone until he finally crashed to a stop against a fractured pillar that groaned under the impact. Pain surged through him as he pushed himself upward, only to feel Ora's presence already positioned in front of him.
"You sure are resilient," Ora said calmly, glancing down at his own right arm where his hand was now missing, torn away by the aftermath of Specific Shot. He looked back down. "I'll give you that."
Weston smirked faintly beneath the sack over his head despite the pain, forcing a thin edge into his voice. "Those are my words," he replied. "You never know when to back down… just like a pesky insect."
Ora did not react.
No expression, no response, no shift in tone. After a long, suffocating pause, he finally stepped forward and spoke with absolute certainty.
"I'm going to kill you."
The next strike came immediately.
His fist collided with Weston's chest with devastating force, collapsing his right lung instantly and ripping the breath from his body as if it had never existed, sending him flying backward before a spectral clawed projection manifested mid-air, gripping his torso and slamming him violently into the ground before hurling him through more shattered debris like a discarded object. Without slowing, Ora launched himself upward into the sky at terrifying speed, his arms crossing over his chest as his fingernails dug into his shoulders, drawing blood as he ascended.
'I hope you can withstand this, Weston… because if you don't, you will die here.' Ora thought as he rose higher and higher into the atmosphere.
At an impossible altitude—sixty thousand miles above the battlefield—Ora finally stopped, suspended in the sky as a massive projection formed behind him: a monstrous, vicious mouth shaped like a hunting beast, lined with endless rows of sharpened teeth and dripping with corrosive saliva that fell like burning rain. He looked down at the world below with cold certainty.
"Hell Guardian… Demon Projection," Ora said.
And the mouth swallowed him whole.
What emerged was something no longer entirely human—a colossal, glowing yellow electric beast with three heads, each one alive with predatory intent, its eyes burning orange as its breath distorted the air itself, warping space and pressure around it while its saliva rained downward like acid.
Hell Guardian: Demon Projection was Ora True's ultimate state, a three-minute transformation in which his durability and survivability transcended normal limits to a near-absolute degree, allowing him to withstand attacks that should have been impossible to endure, including techniques like Emmanuel Thatcher's Inverted Creature Shot, which distorted and ripped apart space. And even in the event of a fatal blow, the state would override death itself, restoring him and reverting all prior injuries sustained before activation. For those three minutes exactly, Ora True became, in all practical terms, the most durable existence on Earth.
If you were to exclude Alma Alastor, that is.
Below, Weston rose unsteadily, coughing as pain overwhelmed his senses, his chest burning, his body trembling under the weight of damage already inflicted. He could feel it now—the overwhelming pressure from the sky, like an entire world of power had locked onto him. He understood immediately what this meant. If he did not act soon, he would die.
And yet, even through that realization, something inside him cracked—not from fear alone, but from clarity.
He thought of Alma Alastor, the Dragon Monarch, of the three Beasts of Ruin now known as Humans of Ruin, of Orson, of the failure during that encounter, of Amelia having to protect him while evading them, while he could do nothing but struggle. He thought of how close they had come to dying, of how often he had relied on others to survive outcomes he should have been able to change himself.
His hand dug into the broken concrete beneath him, crushing it into dust.
'Why… am I so weak?'
It wasn't a question anymore. It was an admission.
Fear had always been there. Fear of inadequacy, fear of death, fear of not seeing, fear of being exposed as something insufficient. He had pretended otherwise for so long that even he had started to believe the illusion. But now, under pressure that stripped everything away, there was nothing left to hide behind.
He rose again.
Slowly.
Unsteadily.
But deliberately.
"No more," Weston said.
Four massive circular formations ignited around him, aligned in cardinal directions, each one unfolding upward as segments of a colossal construct began to rise from within them—parts of a bow assembling piece by piece from nothingness, drawn together as if reality itself were being rewritten into form. A line connected each of the circles, creating a larger one, linking into a single unified structure as the ground beneath him turned pitch black, like an abyss opening directly under existence itself.
Weston raised his right hand and grasped upward, as if seizing something invisible suspended above him, then pulled downward with immense force. A string resisted for a moment… then yielded.
He gripped it with both hands now, pulling it down as far as it would go, and in that instant, the sack covering his head tore free, vanishing into the void below. His eyes were revealed—completely dark, but within them, four stars burned faintly, circling a smaller central star that pulsed like a nucleus of perception itself.
A smile formed.
For the first time, he wasn't guessing, wasn't feeling, wasn't predicting.
He was seeing.
"I can see… THE STARS!!"
At the tip of the formed arrow, a sphere of darkness began to manifest, its edges lined with a faint, nearly invisible white glow, like the outline of a collapsed reality refusing to fully exist.
"SPACE PIERCER…"
Above him, the sky shattered with movement.
Ora descended like a falling lightning strike, surrounded by cascading bolts that struck the ground in chaotic patterns, tearing through the battlefield as he fell directly toward Weston with annihilating intent.
And in a voice quieter than anything he had spoken before, Weston said it.
"Void."
He released the string.
The black orb launched upward, accelerating beyond comprehension until it met Ora far above the battlefield at fifty thousand miles, and upon contact, it expanded instantly into a massive black hole that consumed surrounding clouds, air, and light, bending the sky itself into distortion as an ominous gravitational hum spread across the planet like a dying echo. Lightning struck toward it, but was absorbed without resistance, erased before impact, and the singularity continued to grow, swallowing everything in its radius until, at its peak expansion, it suddenly inverted—collapsing inward violently before detonating in a catastrophic release of energy that lit the sky brighter than the sun itself, visible even across impossible distances like a false second star born from destruction.
---
The explosion caused by Amelia Spring's Final Photosynthesis expanded far beyond the scale of any conventional destruction, dwarfing even the most catastrophic nuclear blast as it swallowed the entire region of abandoned structures and erased everything within its radius. The shockwave tore upward into the atmosphere, forming a cloud that rose nearly sixty thousand feet into the sky, before slowly beginning to settle as silence reclaimed the battlefield.
When the light faded, the world was no longer ruin, but vegetation.
Montana stood trembling, missing several limbs, an eye, torn clothes, bruised spear, and bearing a massive hole through her chest, while Amelia stood opposite her, clothes also torn, but not as badly, but still missing both arms, however still upright in defiance of everything she had endured.
"Is that good enough for you?" Amelia asked.
"Yeah..." Montana said weakly. "More than enough."
Amelia smiled faintly and immediately wrapped both of them in Regenerative Iron Wood, the living energy surging through their bodies as their wounds began to close, missing limbs regrew, and even lost vision returned in full. Purifying Pollen followed shortly after, washing over them and restoring their strength until exhaustion itself was pushed back beneath survival.
When the healing ended, the Iron Wood collapsed, revealing an expanse of lush grass and blooming flowers that stretched across what had once been a battlefield.
"Woah... did that explosion do all of this?" Montana asked, her voice quieter now, almost reverent.
"Yeah. It did. Beautiful, isn't it?" Amelia said.
Montana only nodded, too stunned to answer with words.
"Though, it does surprise me that I was affected by my own move. I thought I would be exempt from it. In fact, I believed the opposite, but I was proven wrong." Amelia said.
"You thought it wouldn't?" Montana asked, turning toward her with confusion. "I didn't even know you had that ability in the first place. How many more do you have that I don't know about?"
"None. That ability was only recently created. I guess it came from when you told me to fight you at one hundred percent." Amelia said.
"But the truth is... I was already fighting you at one hundred percent of my power. I was pushing myself, and you, to our absolute limits. It was only afterward that I unlocked this ability, and pushed both of us to the edge of death." Amelia said.
Montana looked away, her eyes returning to the field of new life stretching before them. "Well, whatever the case, we both grew from this fight. So hopefully Weston stops being so serious." She said flatly.
Amelia let out a small laugh and gently patted her on the back. "You know he won't. And for good reason. What he says about strength, about not standing above others but beside Emmanuel and the Dragon Monarch, should be our priority. If he disappears like the other Dragon Monarch did, then we will be defenseless against those unimaginable beasts."
"And with Emmanuel being forty-five years old, he won't be able to carry that burden forever. Once both of them are gone, the question becomes who protects everyone then. The strongest among those left. That is who will remain." Amelia said.
Montana gave a reluctant nod, though her gaze stayed distant.
"I understand. But Weston can at least ease up sometimes." Montana said.
"Agreed." Amelia said.
That's when Amelia and Montana saw the massive ray of light erupt across the horizon, instantly flooding their vision with unbearable brightness that burned into their eyes as both of them recoiled and shouted in pain, forced to stagger away as the world around them briefly became nothing but white. After a few minutes of disorientation, Amelia restored their sight with a careful burst of healing, and as their vision slowly returned to normal, she immediately turned her gaze upward toward the sky where the light had originated, prompting both of them to exchange a stunned, uncertain look that carried more questions than answers.
"What the Hell was that?!" Montana shouted, her voice still sharp with confusion and lingering shock.
"I have no idea..." Amelia replied more quietly, her expression tightening as she tried to process what they had just witnessed. "We should go, I think that was the direction Weston went off to." she added, already shifting her attention forward as if she could feel something pulling them toward that distant disturbance.
Without warning, thick roots erupted from beneath them and coiled tightly around their ankles, dragging both of them downward with unnatural strength as the ground itself opened up like a living mouth swallowing them whole, and within seconds they were pulled completely beneath the earth and vanished without a trace.
Meanwhile, Ora descended toward the unconscious Weston, still lingering in his Demon Projection state, the air around him heavy with residual power as he observed the battlefield that had been torn apart by Void's earlier strike. After a moment, he released the transformation, his body returning to normal as every visible injury sealed instantly, and he stepped forward with a faint, almost impressed smirk as he approached Weston's motionless form.
The sheer scale of the damage left behind by Void was something even Ora could not ignore, because while it had not been enough to kill him in that state, it had pushed the limits of what he had previously considered possible, and that alone was enough to earn a rare, genuine respect from him. He raised his hand slightly, a spectral claw forming over his regenerated fingers, and with a controlled motion he sliced the tip of his index finger, allowing a single drop of blood to fall onto Weston's body, where it immediately triggered a rapid healing response that began knitting wounds back together at an accelerated rate.
The blood of Ora True carried an unnatural potency, its cellular structure aggressively overriding disease, injury, and decay while amplifying regeneration in whatever it touched, and as a result Weston's broken state slowly began to reverse itself in real time. A few moments later, Weston stirred awake, blinking slowly as awareness returned, only to immediately realize something was wrong again when he understood that his sight had been stripped away once more, leaving him blind as he lay there sensing Ora's presence directly in front of him.
Ora did not move to attack, intimidate, or pressure him in any way, instead simply standing there in silence as if evaluating the outcome, and after a brief pause he extended a hand toward Weston in a calm, almost respectful gesture. Weston hesitated only briefly before accepting it, allowing himself to be pulled back to his feet until he was standing at full height once again.
"I lost..." Weston said quietly as he reached for his mask, retrieving it from where the Void had left it behind. "I guess I don't have what it takes."
"No, you don't." Ora replied bluntly, tilting his head slightly as he looked up toward the sky rather than at Weston. "But you've only just unlocked this power, and it's far too early to call it quits now." he continued, his tone steady and unshaken.
Weston, now masked, turned in Ora's general direction with visible confusion in his posture. "How so? I couldn't even beat you in your most powerful form."
"That's exactly why it's too early to stop," Ora answered without hesitation, finally lowering his gaze back toward him. "You possess a power capable of killing me in that form, and if all you had was a Specific Shot then I would tell you to walk away, but what you just showed me was something entirely different, something absolutely incredible, the most powerful attack I have ever witnessed, and the most beautiful one as well, because you were closer than anyone has ever been to actually killing me in that state." He placed a steady hand on Weston's shoulder as he finished speaking. "Believe that. Good job."
A faint smile formed beneath Weston's mask. "Thank you."
Then the ground suddenly ruptured nearby, opening like a rising wound in the earth as Amelia and Montana were revealed beneath the surface, climbing out while looking visibly disoriented and confused upon seeing Ora standing there.
"Ora? What are you doing here? You're late to our training session." Montana said, earning a faint smirk from him in response.
"I was just teaching Weston a few things, the same way you taught Amelia something earlier," Ora replied casually. "So how did it go? Did you unlock anything new, flower girl?" he added with a low laugh as Amelia rolled her eyes at the nickname.
"If you must know, I have indeed," Amelia said with calm confidence. "It's called Final Photosynthesis, a move that sacrifices my heart in exchange for a devastating explosion that can wipe out a large chunk of land."
"And it blooms really pretty flowers," Montana added immediately, gesturing animatedly. "I thought we were in some mystical field for a second after it went off, it was awesome."
"So what about you? Did you learn anything?" Amelia asked Weston.
"I did," Weston answered after a long pause, letting silence stretch deliberately.
"So… what is it?" Montana pressed.
Before Weston could respond, Ora cut in smoothly. "It's a power that can obliterate anything in its path, and neither of your techniques can match it or counter it, so don't bother testing it against firepower, because if you do, you will both die."
Amelia and Montana froze, staring at Weston with stunned expressions, because if Ora—of all people, the most battle-hungry Monarch they knew, the fourth strongest among them—was speaking that seriously, then whatever Weston had unlocked had to be something beyond anything they could properly imagine.
"Well, I'm starving," Weston said suddenly, breaking the tension as if it had never existed. "Do you guys want Mexican food? Or maybe a burger place?"
"No Mexican," Montana replied immediately. "I had a burrito last week and that thing messed me up BAD."
"I prefer a breakfast place," Amelia said thoughtfully. "Something relaxing after today."
"Girl, it's after noon," Montana pointed out flatly.
"Well… there's always a 24/7 place somewhere, right?" Amelia responded without missing a beat.
"Whatever works for me," Ora said as he started walking away. "I haven't eaten since breakfast, and that was at 9 AM."
Soon the group began moving together, their earlier intensity fading into casual exhaustion as they drifted back into normal conversation.
"So Mexican?" Weston asked.
"No," Montana replied instantly.
"Then breakfast?" Amelia tried.
"Enough about breakfast already," Montana groaned.
"Maybe that new steak place that opened up," Weston suggested instead, "they serve steaks at 5 PM."
Their voices gradually faded into the distance as they continued walking.
---
February 4th, 2033, 8 PM.
Alma, Jasmine, and Max walked down the streets of Washington after finishing dinner at a restaurant they had just left, the night air calm around them as the city lights reflected softly across the pavement.
"Hmm, I'm full," Jasmine said. "That was really good."
"Yeah, it was," Alma agreed. "Probably one of my favorite places here." He then glanced down at Max. "What about you?"
"It was good..." Max replied after a moment, "...but probably not as good as staying home and working on my project."
Jasmine immediately rolled her eyes at that, while Alma let out a quiet chuckle as they continued walking down the street at an easy pace.
Then Alma slowed slightly as a familiar figure exited a nearby hair salon, holding the hand of a small girl.
"Is that… the Leviathan Monarch?" he asked, already changing direction as he started walking toward them.
Jasmine and Max, still holding onto his hands, were gently pulled along as he moved.
"Come on, Emily," the woman said excitedly, adjusting the bags in her arms. "After this, we can go home and enjoy your new makeup set!"
Anastasia, the Leviathan Monarch, turned around at the sound of Alma's voice, and the moment her eyes met his, her entire body visibly froze as the bags slipped from her hands and hit the ground.
"Hey, Anastasia," Alma said calmly. "I haven't seen you in a while. How have you been?"
For a few seconds she simply stood there, swallowing nervously, unable to process him being this close.
'Holy shit… has he always been this tall? And he smells sooo… good…' she thought, her mind briefly short-circuiting.
After a moment she finally managed to speak. "Were you always this hot?"
"Excuse me?" Alma replied, visibly caught off guard, right as the small girl stepped out from the salon doorway.
The child, no older than twelve, wore a black and white outfit layered with a jacket and boots that made her look far older than her age, and Alma blinked in mild confusion at her appearance.
She looked up at him, then toward Anastasia, and smiled faintly. "Did you find yourself another boyfriend, Annie?"
Anastasia immediately panicked, grabbing her bags again as she turned toward the girl. "No, sweetie, this is uh… I wish, but this is Alma Alastor, the Dragon Monarch. He's just an acquaintance… a very close one… we're practically friends."
Alma bent down slightly and offered his hand to the girl with a warm smile. "Hey there, my name is Alma. What's yours?"
"Emily," she replied, shaking his hand lightly.
"Nice to meet you, Emily," Alma said kindly. "You're really cute. I like your jacket."
Emily smiled faintly. "You're cute too. Anastasia has a crush on you."
"Say what now?" Alma said immediately.
"Alright, that's enough," Anastasia said quickly, grabbing Emily's wrist. "We should… uh… get you back home to my sister."
"Nice meeting you, hottie—uh, Alma!" Anastasia called out awkwardly as she began walking away at a near-run.
"Goodbye! Nice meeting you and Emily!" Alma called after them, waving until they disappeared around the corner.
"What a strange girl," Max said.
"She's totally head over heels for our father," Jasmine whispered with a smirk. "Did you see how she looked at him? That was pure want, buddy boy."
Max rolled his eyes. "She's like twice as young as Dad, he won't go for her."
"How do you know? What if he likes younger women? Or stylish ones?" Jasmine teased.
"What are you two talking about over here?" Alma asked, looking down at them.
"Nothing, just the weather," Jasmine said instantly.
"Oh, well, it's going to be col—"
"Yeah, we know. Let's go home," Jasmine interrupted, already walking ahead. "I need to shower so I can get these germs off of me."
Alma grabbed Max's wrist and walked forward. "Don't get out of my sight, Jasmine!" Alma called out as he followed his daughter, Jasmine laughing while running away.