[He’d arrived]

Kael stood in the hollow skeleton of what once was the great ducal House.

Everything… was gone.

Not ruined. Not broken.

Erased.

The once-proud pillars lay scattered like shattered bones.

Walls melted into heaps of blackened rubble. Fires coughed and sputtered weakly in the corners where life had once breathed.

There were no screams. No groans. No voices.

No one.

Renold.

The physician.

Cerin, Rael.

Veyran.

Aerik.

Even the Duchess.

All gone.

Blasted into dust—like they had never existed.

Kael stood swaying. Cold sweat ran down his spine.

He clenched his jaw to stop it from trembling, but it didn't help.

He looked at his hand—twisted slightly at the wrist, bones cracked.

His fingers twitched, numb.

Without Venom, he realized, he'd be nothing more than another corpse among the ashes.

Kael sighed, a thin, bitter breath through bloodied lips.

"…Good," he muttered to himself.

"That I already sent Riven and Lira away yesterday."

His eyes lingered on the ruins—the shattered bones of the once-mighty house, now nothing more than scorched rubble and lingering echoes.

A groan.

He spun.

Selene.

She lay crumpled near the edge of the ruin, blood smeared across her chin, hair tangled with soot and rubble. He stumbled to her, falling to his knees beside her.

"Selene! Are you—"

She gave a faint nod, blood threading from the side of her mouth.

"Go… Kael… I'm fine," she whispered hoarsely.

Kael swallowed hard, his throat dry as dust.

Her eyes fluttered but stayed open.

She was alive.

He turned again—and then he saw him.

A figure, alone, standing in the heart of the ruined courtyard.

Upright.

Unbowed.

Unscorched.

The Duke.

His father.

Kael didn't even feel surprised.

Not really.

Of course he had survived.

He was Rank 4.

A monster wearing the shape of a man.

The Duke turned his head slightly, eyes narrowing as they found Kael.

Not a word passed his lips.

He didn't need to speak.

Kael had survived, too.

And now they were alone.

The smoke curled around them like the breath of some dying god.

Kael didn't speak at first.

Blood crusted his lips, his coat hung in tatters, and the faint hiss of Venom still echoed in his skull.

Across from him, his father stood—battered, scorched, armor cracked, but alive.

Rank 4 did not die so easily.

The Duke raised a single brow, eyes gleaming through soot.

"So, you survived, Kael... hmm."

Kael said nothing.

The Duke chuckled—a deep, broken sound that didn't carry joy, only grim satisfaction.

"Well… should I call you Kael?

Or ...Devil, now?"

A long silence stretched between them.

Only the crackling of charred wood and the faint moan of wind through the ruins gave testament to time still moving.

Kael's lips curled faintly.

"How long have you known?"

The Duke tilted his head, eyes narrowing with something that might have been pride—or warning.

"Since the first time that thing showed its face.

Every time it appeared, you were gone.

At first, I thought you were just working with it—another fool lured by power."

He took a step forward, boots crunching over ash and bone.

"But now... they're all dead. All of them. And yet you walk out of that blast without so much as losing a finger."

He laughed again, harsher this time, like gravel in his throat.

The air hung thick with dust and death.

The Duke's laughter rasped again—harsher this time, like gravel in his throat.

"Well, it doesn't matter. You're going to die today."

Silence.

Selene, crumpled on the ground, blood on her lips and soot in her hair, turned her head toward Kael.

Finally, she thought, her heart sinking.

So this is it. Her gaze fixed on him. What will you do now, Kael?

Yue hovered a few paces behind—silent, still.

Not a word from her since the blast.

But her mind was a storm.

There's no spell in his arsenal that can match the Duke. Not now. Not like this.

Her cold fingers curled slightly.

Even with Venom, this is checkmate... isn't it?

Kael stood motionless.

Expressionless.

Burns traced the edges of his clothes.

His right hand twitched slightly—whether from pain or restraint, no one could tell.

Then—

He laughed.

"hahaha...."

Not loudly. Not madly.

A low, almost amused chuckle, like he'd just remembered the punchline of a joke meant only for himself.

The Duke's brows lifted, confusion flickering through the cracks of his pride.

"You're laughing? Not even going to beg for mercy?"

The courtyard seemed to tilt on its axis—something subtle, unspoken shifting in the broken air.

Yue leaned forward, eyes narrowing.

Selene's breath caught.

Kael's eyes rose slowly to meet his father's, and in that gaze—calm, steady, empty of fear—there was something that didn't belong to this world.

"No," Kael said quietly. "I don't beg."

The world paused.

Kael slowly lifted both of his hands.

Yue's eyes narrowed.

Selene tensed.

Even the Duke leaned forward, instinct sharpening.

This was it.

The devil's move.

Some final spell?

A secret pact?

Yue's mind raced—flame thrower?

No, he can't cast that.

A spatial escape?

Summon?

Plot armor?!

Every possible outcome spun in her head like a frantic wheel.

Then—

Kael brought both hands to his mouth.

The moment was thick with dread.

The ash still swirled around them, corpses still warm.

And then, Kael did something none of them—not even the devil in him—had prepared for.

He cupped his hands and screamed:

"UUUNNNNNNNNNCCCCCLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEE!"

The echo bounced off the broken stone and burned wood like a ghost laughing through the ruins.

Silence.

Absolute silence.

Even the birds, long returned after the blast, stopped mid-chirp.

Yue blinked. Once. Twice.

Then flatly, in a voice devoid of all emotion, she muttered,

"What...?"

Selene stared, mouth slightly ajar, blood still crusted on her lip.

"Ah???..." she whispered, genuinely unsure if she had hallucinated everything.

Even the Duke, bloodied and towering, paused mid-step.

His sword lowered just slightly.

His brow furrowed as he said with dry disbelief,

"What in the hells is this supposed to be?"

But then—

Silence.

The kind that doesn't belong in a world still standing.

The kind that makes birds stop mid-flight and the air itself freeze.

Even the smoke, curling over shattered stones, seemed to pause.

The wind moved, but it moved around something—someone—yet to arrive.

Right in front of Kael, autumn leaves whipped up from the ground, spinning and snapping through the air.

They slammed together, rushing faster and faster until they snapped into a solid human shape

Da-dum

He'd arrived.

Da-dum

The Divine General.