Merlot Nexus

As the fight begins, Astaroth made a plan in which she tells that she and Crescentia will be dealing with Shadow while telling Elsword, Aisha and Rena to deal with his Phorus. The plan went as expected, except that the trio have been captured by his cult members and were nowhere to be found, as they took them away to the cult's new secret hideout, which was an abandoned shelter, to Saros, Rosana and Crescentia's horror that they shifted their focus on saving them, in which they shared with Astaroth herself and the Nyberg siblings as well as Fabian.

By the time they arrived to the abandoned shelter, the trio were nowhere to be found except that Fawn told them that Shadow took them with him to a secret location called the Aegean Nexus, to Saros' horror, in which she told her that she went to this place before and found her necklace, whom Elsword gave to Fabian earlier during the events of Sword and Sorcery, but suddenly, she notices the latter's necklace glowing, and her star hairpin glowing as well.

Unfortunately, Crescentia saw Laban with his right ankle hanging next to a tree, asking for help, in which she ran to save him by cutting the rope that restrained his ankle and he thanked her for saving him. However, things take a turn for the worse at the Merlot Nexus, as it turns out, Elsword and Aisha were accompanying Shadow against their wishes along with their ally Eve and Laby, to the location where Sayori was hibernating and the El Shard was located, only for them to get confused about who she is, except for the fact that she was actually gone from the Nexus and had vanished from their eyes.

At the entrance of the Merlot Nexus, Elona and Seneca notices Sayori eating potato chips, and the former asked her if she's doing well, in which she completely ignored him and pretended that nothing happened while still eating it, when suddenly, Rena woke up in front of the three of them, and had no idea what happened to her allies, in which she managed to knock some sense into Sayori's head, telling her that Elsword and Aisha are being held hostage by Shadow, who wanted to use the El for his selfish gains.

Upon realizing this, Sayori threw her potato chips to the ground, but however, the people around her were gone, to search for the missing duo, along with Saros, Astaroth, Rosana and Crescentia.

By the time the five arrived to the resting place of the El Shard, Rena rushed to fight the manipulated Elsword and Aisha as well as Eve and Laby over the shard and they fought back against each other until they forgiven each other and eventually sided with her to get the El, when suddenly, Shadow pushed them out of the way, and manage to get the shard with his hands, uncontrollably laughing and exploding the entire place, submerging it underwater, causing the three of them to drown, except that Aisha saved Elsword from drowning while Rena saved Eve and Laby from drowning as well, and Shadow gaining his new form and disappearing. 

Back to the shore, everyone finally made it safe, and back at the Phosphor Temple, Shadow met Shen Tianci (沈天赐), who agreed to cooperate with him in creating a large mecha, named Code: Abaddon, that'll utilize the power of the El and is 20 meters tall, made from scrap metal, to destroy the entire universe and Elrios as a whole, and now reunited with each other, in order to stop Abaddon from destroying the universe on its own, Elsword, Aisha and Rena made plans with each other to destroy it as soon as possible.

While inside Abaddon, Shadow and Shen were fighting over the controller to move the mecha, in which the former argued with the latter, and in turn he punched him to the ground, gaining the sole control of the mecha itself. On the other hand, it went after Saros' house in her world, where Lunal and his younger half-brother Rumo, and their ally William Phoru, came to save the latter's kind from the cult, which led to the two of cult members siding against them and beating them up to the point they threw them to a prison cell, tied up next to each other.

To its surprise, Code: Abaddon saw two men, who were both waiting to destroy it the whole time, and next to the men were Elsword, Aisha and Rena, who were also waiting to destroy the mecha as well. The former of the trio asked the two men about who they are, in which the first one introduced himself as Dawn, a Rune Master, and the second one was Chung, a Comet Crusader.

Just as the battle starts, Chung launched a bullet from his cannon to break into Code: Abaddon's back, opening a new entrance, in which Aisha tells Elsword and Rena to jump on her staff, and they all flew inside its body, where Shadow started to attack them one by one until the former of the latter two taunted him by kicking him in the head and just as he was about to attack him, he dodged his attacks by counterattacking with his own sword to his anger that Shen woke up from the sounds of the battle and he tried to control everything back to normal, but it didn't take long for him to get hit by Elsword's Sandstorm skill, in which the latter told Rena to help him by finding the location where the El Shard is being held captive with her arrows.

Outside of Code: Abaddon, which was currently malfunctioning, Dawn used his Rune skills to break its right knee, and while inside the mecha, Shadow was almost losing his powers, and proceeded in kicking Elsword out of the machine, and just as he almost ran out of energy to run, and ended up resting near the bench from the events of Search for the El Thief, he was already getting weaker from time to time, and just as Abaddon was about to step on him, Aisha (who was already holding the El Shard) and Rena got shocked to believe that he was gone, when actually he told the women to jump off the mecha as well, in which the former told the latter of the two to jump in her staff once again, and reached closer to where he was, before the former gave him the El Shard, which were broken into several fragments that he began to cry until he changed his mind, choosing to get revenge on Shadow for what he had done to him.

As a result, with his eyes turning blue, Elsword resorted into telling Shadow "You're already dead now, Shadow... Goodbye!" before using his own Hyperactive skill, Absolute Judgement, on Code: Abaddon, completely destroying it for good. What was left of the mecha was its remnants of scrap metal, an unconscious Shadow, with his mask and cloak damaged, partially revealing his face, and Shen Tianci, who was also unconscious and had his sword broken. 

Shadow woke up, and told Shen to wake up, in which the latter did, and instead of siding with Elsword and the others, he wanted to take revenge on him for what he had done to him, so his allies Yueling (月铃) and Xiao (晓) walked in to side with him as well. The three also shared Shen's plan to not only take revenge on him, but on Aisha and Rena as well, so they secretly left, without them noticing.

Meanwhile, Shadow was surrounded by his former master Crescentia, who then said to his cult members that she's about to end this man's whole career, and she told Elsword, Aisha and Rena to rescue the Lindström brothers and William Phoru immediately, so they went to the prison where they're being held inside.

Inside the prison, Elsword told Aisha and Rena to disguise themselves as the members of the Phoru Cult, whilst using the disguises of Rebecca, Harbin and John just like the way they infiltrated into the Daystar Palace during the events of Phosphor Temple and Astros' Revenge, accompanied by Astaroth, and while on the way to the three hostages' prison cell, he found a leftover crowbar on the ground and picked it up, continuing on his way to save them.

By the time they arrived to Lunal, Rumo and William's prison cell, while Elsword was under the disguise of Rebecca, he freed them with a crowbar (with Aisha's fire powers in it), with them hugging him, and the former of the three men told him "Thank you, Rebecca, but we must leave this prison before the clock reaches midnight." in which the characters made it out of the prison in time before midnight.

By the time they came out of the prison, Shadow was surrounded by his Phoru cult members, who called him a traitor, along with Astaroth (who left them afterwards), Crescentia, Saros and Rosana for what happened earlier during the events of The Phoru Cult, in which William Phoru convinced the cult members to leave the former's cult, and join him in going back to Elrios, and in turn, they listened to him, and while the Phorus were walking back to their own world, Lunal and Rumo hugged and thanked their saviors for saving them when they needed help. As an effort for saving the brothers, the El Shard that was in Elsword's hands were rebuilt by the former of the two, and he was given four Shining Mystic Stones, and so did Aisha and Rena for their efforts.

To everyone's surprise, Shadow summoned an mount, and said to them "Bye bye losers. I'll be back once again, this time, stronger and faster." before he eventually disappeared with the mount from their eyes. Astaroth transformed back to Astros, and she thanked everyone for their efforts in dismantling the Phoru Cult, in which they all peacefully parted ways with each other, and on the other hand, Saros regained ownership of her house, and turned the basement that the now-disappeared Shadow built under the house into a storage room for her belongings and a place for her and Rosana to hangout whenever they had the time to meet each other.

Meanwhile, Shen Tianci, Yueling and Xiao found the cult's secret hideout in the Daystar Purgatory, and began to occupy the cottage for the first time in 2 months. This evening, while inside the cottage, the former threw pictures of Elsword's face to the table, along with Aisha and Rena's faces, in which he discussed with the two women that they'll destroy one after one, without knowing that the latter trio had grown strong against them, so they decided to form a cult with the sole purpose of assassinating them, only for them to get thrown to prison by the authorities for plotting to assassinate the heroes of the Daystar Purgatory.

While in a shared prison cell, Shen had no idea what to do next since he, Yue and Xiao were arrested at the same time in the first place, and denied any wrongdoing between them until they made plans to escape from prison, so they made makeshift dummies of themselves to trick the guards into pretending that they were in their prison cell when they weren't and by the time the guards arrived, Yue bribed them with cigarettes, in which Xiao stole the keys to their cell, allowing her, Yue and Shen to escape from prison without them noticing.

Later that night, while at the shared house, Elsword and Aisha woke up to Rena telling them that the fugitives Shen, Yue and Xiao were still on the loose after they escaped from prison this evening and were planning to kill them tonight along with the fellow allies of the fugitives, Wu (舞), a female swordsman, Erpang (二胖), a male mage and Xiaohu (小虎), a male archer and Xiao's playmate.

Upon realizing this, the former trio decided to change from their sleepwear until their normal outfits and grabbed their weapons before telling Raven, Eve and Chung to wake up and dress up into their normal outfits, team up with them, in which they all listened to them, and they stormed out of the house to confront the fugitives and their allies, otherwise known as their copycats.