It was at the precise moment when hope had thinned to a fragile thread—when even the most steadfast defenders of Malaysia had begun fighting on instinct alone rather than belief—that the sky changed.
At first, the shift was subtle.
The dark red clouds choking the heavens throughout the day began to ripple, disturbed by something unseen. The air vibrated—not with mana, nor with the familiar pressure of S-ranked combat, but with something heavier.
Something deeper.
It felt as though reality itself had taken a breath and forgotten how to exhale.
Then the sky split.
Not cracked.
Not torn.
Split.
A clean, impossible fracture opened across the firmament, stretching from horizon to horizon like a wound carved into existence itself. Light bled from the opening—cold, silvery, and absolute. The storm clouds were shoved aside effortlessly, reduced to drifting mist before an object so enormous that perspective itself seemed to fail.
The Ultimate Ark had arrived.
Gasps rippled across every battlefield.
Soldiers froze mid-charge.
Superhumans halted with powers half-formed in their hands.
Even the explosions—the violent heartbeat of the war—began to fade into silence, as though the world itself had been ordered to stop.
The Ark did not descend hurriedly.
It arrived.
Its colossal hull was a fusion of ancient majesty and impossible technology, layered with glowing runes and angular plating that seemed to devour light rather than reflect it. Massive cannons lined its flanks, each one large enough to erase entire city blocks, dormant yet unmistakably alive. Smaller escort crafts hovered around the vessel in disciplined formation, their mana signatures sharp and terrifyingly controlled.
Wherever the Ultimate Ark appeared, destruction was never far behind.
By now, almost everyone on Earth understood that truth.
And standing at the very edge of the Ark's forward platform—
Was a single figure.
Sky Fist.
He did not float.
He did not fly.
He simply stood—as though gravity itself had chosen him as its anchor.
The battlefield below lost its color.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Flames dimmed.
Lightning faltered.
Shadows themselves seemed reluctant to cling to the ground.
Every eye—human, superhuman, soldier, invader—was drawn upward, compelled by a presence so overwhelming that all other struggles suddenly felt insignificant.
Sky Fist's gaze swept slowly across the land.
Indonesia's advancing superhuman legions.
Thailand's strike formations.
Malaysia's battered defenders.
None escaped his attention.
Behind him, the platform shifted as more figures stepped forward.
Xuan the Time Merchant stood at his right hand, calm and composed, her eyes glowing faintly as time itself warped subtly around her presence. Beside and behind her stood Ultimatum's raid team—veterans who had survived demon kings, the Great Gate, and battles that should have broken humanity entirely.
Clara the Spear Master.
Garuda the Sky King.
Elise the Ice Empress.
Malik the Meteor Rush.
And more.
All S-ranked.
All untouched by exhaustion.
All ready for war.
Behind them, visible through the Ark's open hangars, stood more than a hundred elite superhumans—Ultimatum's core force—fully armed and fully prepared. Layered mana shields shimmered faintly around the Ark itself, stacked so densely that even combined national firepower would struggle to scratch its surface.
Below, Rafi the Detonator stood frozen atop a shattered highway, his hands trembling—not from fear, but from awe.
Sanjay the Xenoblast felt it too.
That familiar pressure.
The reminder every superhuman eventually encountered.
No matter how powerful you became—
There was always a ceiling.
And Sky Fist stood above it.
Then he spoke.
His voice did not boom.
It did not echo.
It simply existed—carried effortlessly across the land as though the world itself wished to hear him.
"This war ends here."
The words were simple.
Absolute.
No threat.
No flourish.
Only fact.
He lifted one hand—not glowing, not clenched—and pointed toward the sky above Malaysia.
"I want the leaders of all forces involved," he continued calmly, "on this ship within one hour."
A pause followed.
Those few seconds felt longer than the entire war.
"Those who do not comply," Sky Fist finished, "perish."
That was all.
No further explanation.
No negotiation.
Yet the weight of the declaration pressed down harder than any explosion or spell ever had.
Because everyone knew—
He could do it.
With Ultimatum standing behind him and the Ultimate Ark poised above the battlefield like a divine executioner's blade, destroying several nations would not be difficult.
It would be easy.
Nobody understood what kind of power amplified his voice, yet every word rang clearly across Malaysia.
From Perlis to Sabah.
From burning cities to collapsing evacuation shelters.
Every civilian.
Every soldier.
Every superhuman.
All of them heard Sky Fist as clearly as though he stood beside them.
His words echoed directly inside their minds.
Panic erupted immediately—not on the battlefield, but inside command centers.
Indonesian generals barked frantic orders into communication channels already collapsing beneath overload.
Thai ministers demanded reassurances no one could provide.
Guildmasters argued, calculated, pleaded.
But calculation failed against inevitability.
One by one, invading forces began to withdraw.
Not retreat.
Withdraw.
The distinction mattered.
Superhumans disengaged mid-battle, abandoning clashes they had dominated only moments earlier. Entire formations dissolved into chaos as officers scrambled to secure evacuation routes and personal survival.
The war that had seemed unstoppable less than an hour ago collapsed inward beneath the sheer gravitational weight of Sky Fist's presence.
Malaysian defenders watched in stunned silence as enemies who had overwhelmed them moments earlier suddenly fled.
Rafi slowly dropped to one knee atop the ruined highway.
Exhaustion finally caught him.
Sanjay released a breath he felt he had been holding since the Great Gate itself.
"It's over," someone whispered nearby.
Not because Malaysia had won.
But because he had arrived.
High above the battlefield, on the deck of the Ultimate Ark, Xuan allowed herself the faintest exhale.
Even she—the Time Merchant, second strongest within Ultimatum—felt small standing beside Sky Fist in this moment.
She glanced sideways at him.
He had not moved.
Had not changed expression.
As though ending a multinational war required no more effort than correcting a minor inconvenience.
Then she remembered.
The person standing beside her was not the real Sky Fist.
The real one was probably still relaxing somewhere far away, enjoying the performance while the rest of Ultimatum orchestrated this entire spectacle according to his absurd plans.
Xuan's lips twitched faintly in annoyance before she returned her attention to the battlefield below.
Clara stood nearby with narrowed eyes, already evaluating possible betrayals, contingencies, and hidden threats that might emerge once negotiations began. Even now, her grip on her spear remained steady.
Elise stood silent beside the railing, frost mist curling around her boots. Her composure—normally flawless—had been shaken by the sheer scale of what they were witnessing.
Ming and the other elite members swallowed hard.
They had fought demon kings.
They had survived hell itself.
But this—
This was something else entirely.
Across the world, live broadcasts interrupted scheduled programming.
Screens lit up from New York to Tokyo.
From Moscow to Dubai.
Every major news network captured the same impossible image.
The Ultimate Ark blotting out the sky.
Sky Fist standing at its edge like judgment made flesh.
Humanity watched in collective silence.
And for the first time since the Great Gates first appeared—
People remembered what absolute power looked like.
Not rumors.
Not legends.
Reality.
A force so overwhelming that nations halted wars rather than risk provoking it.
The countdown had begun.
One hour.
Whether the world chose submission, negotiation, or annihilation remained uncertain.
But one truth had already become undeniable.
A miracle had descended from the heavens.
And it stood calmly upon the edge of a skyship—
Waiting.