Sniffia darted through the battlefield on all fours, claws raking the earth, her silver-furred body a blur against the cracked terrain. Towering vines—like sentient tree limbs—whipped through the air, trying to entangle her, to crush her. She dodged left, right, twisted midair, and ducked low. But one vine snagged her leg. A sickening crack echoed as her ankle snapped—and mutated.
The vine's touch was infectious.
Her limb pulsed, grotesquely stretching with writhing bark-like patterns. But Sniffia didn't stop. Her regeneration kicked in—her veins glowing gold—and she snarled through the pain, tearing herself free as the corrupted skin peeled off like burning parchment.
Beside her, Luna charged with a scream, her massive, fiery-red arm swinging at Dryad with pulverizing force.
But Dryad vanished—teleporting just before impact, his armored figure blurring like shattered glass. He reappeared behind Luna. Another swing. Gone again.
"STOP RUNNING!" Luna roared.
Dryad reappeared behind Sniffia this time, arm raised to strike—but she reacted, spinning around Luna's giant arm mid-swing, twisting her body in midair with beastly grace. Using Luna's bicep like a springboard, she launched herself straight toward the point Dryad had just reappeared.
Clang!
Her claws sliced through his shoulder.
A trail of glowing sap arced into the air as he snarled and staggered backward.
Both girls landed in a crouch. The battlefield beneath them rumbled—craters cracking like eggshells—and Dryad teleported again, this time in front of them, raising his shield high as massive, distant landmasses began to tear apart. The gravity distorted around them, light bending in the air. The vines thickened—no longer just roots, but tendrils of some ancient world-spine, pulsating with planetary anguish.
The tendrils lashed out again—this time binding their wrists, ankles, even throats.
Sniffia roared, her silver fur glowing like lightning. From her roar, a blast of raw spirit energy exploded outward, turning the vines around her to ash.
Luna, gritting her teeth, flexed and tore the vines with brute strength, ripping the corrupted forest matter like paper soaked in acid.
Then… silence fell.
Dryad slammed to the ground, his face dragging across the stone, sap oozing like blood from the gash on his cheek.
Luna stood frozen, fists clenched at her sides. Her chest rose and fell.
"Dryad… you've gone too far already," she shouted, voice trembling. "Please—stop all of this!"
He growled and steadied his massive shield. His eyes—once bright with loyalty—now pulsed with hollow green void.
Sniffia called across the battlefield, voice cracking, "He's not your Dryad anymore! Look around you!"
Luna's lips trembled. "Then why does this feel… wrong?" she whispered. "He's… not fighting like himself…"
And then—everything shifted.
Behind them… space itself rippled.
Sniffia's ears flattened against her skull. Luna's heart skipped a beat as, behind them, a glowing green pillar erupted—rising violently into the sky and piercing the clouds like a vengeful spear.
An ancient, impossible presence was emerging—something even the planet seemed to dread.
They couldn't move.
Their muscles froze, locked in an ancestral terror.
A scent like molten ozone and death.
They turned—barely—only their eyes moving.
Behind them stood Peirce.
But not as Sniffia recalled him. It was not the same ambiance she had remembered of Peirce when he entered this particular state of trance.
He radiated a dark matter aura, the air warping with every step he took. A sickly, glowing green semblance leaked from his form like a dying star's aura. His eyes—shallow, hollow—burned with emerald rage, and tears rolled silently down his cheeks, every drop burning into the earth and leaving holes that smoked like acid comets.
Sniffia's breath hitched.
She perceived the formidable essence that enveloped her. It was not merely Peirce; it bore a striking resemblance to the very Dragon Presence she had once encountered in the forbidden mountains during their pursuit of Peirce—the one said to have vanquished Jared and his men, including herself.
Luna trembled. Her vision blurred. "… King Randall... in flames… but more…"
Then, with a blink, Peirce moved.
A shockwave thundered as he vanished.
The girls dodged instinctively as something blurred past them, fast as a meteor.
Dryad swung his shield to block—but too late.
Peirce's uppercut connected.
Dryad's body vanished in a flash of green and blood.
He reappeared midair—but the punch had already hit him, as if time itself bowed to Peirce's grief-fueled fury. His jaw bent sideways, teeth shattered, blood and sap spraying from his mouth.
He tried to teleport again—once, twice, a dozen times—to reduce the blow's effect.
But Peirce kept appearing ahead of him.
Every time he landed, another strike awaited him.
One blow slammed Dryad through a floating island. Another shattered a mountain peak into fragments. One final kick from Peirce sent him spiraling through the sky, slamming into a storm cloud so hard it broke apart—revealing space beyond the atmosphere.
Planets trembled.
Tectonic plates shifted.
A ring of moons hovered around the battlefield like silent witnesses, high above the shattered sky. Then—one by one—they began to fracture, their radiant edges splintering under the invisible pressure of Peirce's rage. The very cosmos felt it. Fury, sorrow, and something unnameable swelled from him like a storm trying to rewrite the rules of the world.
Peirce and Dryad collided mid-air—no words, no warning. The world blinked, and they were gone from the sky.
Dryad reappeared first, teleporting instinctively, his body slamming into the soil of the Forest of Giants. The ground beneath him groaned with ancient weight. Towering redwood-like trees surrounded them, thick vines twisted with bioluminescent sap glowing like veins. The very earth pulsed with breath.
Dryad emerged again from his teleportation in a stumble, blood smeared down his temple, chest heaving. He barely had time to orient himself before Peirce followed.
Desperate, Dryad swung his large metallic shield, its roots crackling with embedded energy.
Peirce caught it—with one hand. Effortless. Cold.
With a grunt, he slammed the shield into the forest floor. The impact cracked the earth, sending a pulse that tore through the roots and gouged a newborn ravine through the sacred woods. Trees toppled in groaning surrender and an unholy wind howled from the broken fissure like a beast finally free.
Peirce's voice was soft when he spoke. Too soft for the destruction he wrought.
"You have taken him from me."
His hand trembled as he pressed the shield deeper into the soil—not from weakness, but from restraint. From grief.
Above them, clouds began to coil unnaturally, forming a spiraling vortex overhead. Lightning traced symbols in the sky no one could read.
"Chai… my soul is tired…"
Dryad tried to respond—lips parting, a flicker of memory flashing in his lost eyes. But Peirce struck him with a crushing blow before any words could escape. Dryad flew backward, his bark-armor peeling off in brittle shards, his body spinning until it hit the ground with a sickening crack.
He lay sprawled, breath shallow, his chest barely rising. And then he saw him. Peirce. Walking forward slowly, shadowed in moonlight, his green glowing aura so heavy it seemed to bend time.
There was a darkness inside Peirce now. It pulled at Dryad like gravity. Not the absence of light, but the devouring of meaning. A silent promise that everything you are will vanish if you look too long.
"Where am I?! Who are you?! Why am I here?!" Dryad screamed in fear, broke into panicked shrieks as he scrambled away. "I don't know! I don't know what I did!"
But Peirce didn't stop. His fist curled tight, his arms shaking—not with exertion, but with the need to not kill. Yet everything around him begged for release.
From the edge of the ruined grove, Sniffia stood still as stone. Her yellow eyes squinted. Her claws flexed. Her breath came shallow. Rage twisted inside her, tangled with helplessness.
Beside her, Luna let out a trembling breath.
"Damn it… Dryad's back. He's awake. But Peirce—Peirce doesn't see him anymore. He's too far gone."
Suddenly, a howl shattered the tension.
From the shadows burst a silver blur—massive, feral, beautiful in a way only war-scarred things can be. It was Sniffia's mother, fully transformed into her legendary form: the Silver-Maned Wolf, muscles rippling beneath a pelt scorched with healed scars, some still glowing faintly from old burns and battles long buried.
She crashed into Peirce with a snarl that tore leaves from trees. Her massive body coiled around him, fangs gritting against his burning skin. Steam hissed where her body touched his. Her scars lit up again, freshly burned from his heat. Still, she held tighter.
At the same moment, Lazarus dove in with twin glowing shadow-wrist reapers, which materialized into a phantom arm of pure night. It whipped around Peirce's midsection, bracing him as Lazarus skidded backward, his boots tearing trenches in the cracked forest floor.
Then, from behind, Luna's elder sisters lunged—each clutching the glowing phantom arm. With brute force and gritted teeth, they tried to pull Peirce back from the brink.
"He's not breaking!" Lazarus growled.
"He's dragging us like leaves!"
Luna and Sniffia moved to join them, fire lacing their bones, but Luna's elder sister's sharp gaze and Sniffia's mother's stern voice halted them both..
"NO! It's too dangerous for you to approach!"
Peirce let out a guttural roar, dragging both Lazarus, the Aurorae and the Wolf deeper into the forest towards fear-stricken Dryad, the air around Peirce warping from raw heat and sorrow, until—
Dante appeared.
The wind didn't announce him—he was the wind.
In an instant, he swept Dryad from the ground, holding him like a wounded child, and placed him in Luna's arms with delicate speed before vanishing again—only to reappear right in front of Peirce, palm raised to calm him, though even his eyes showed fear.
And still…
"PEIRCE!!!"
They all shouted.
Peirce paused. His breath hitched. His fists twitched, still clenched.
Then—
A voice.
A real one.
Soft. Familiar. Steady as the first rain after drought.
"Peirce…"
The world stopped turning.
Peirce's eyes widened. His body sagged under the weight of that one name.
He turned.
Standing between the broken trees, barefoot, bloodied—but alive—was Node.
He held the same blade that had been lodged in his chest. His hair veiled his face, soaked in sweat and blood, but he brushed it aside slowly.
And he smiled.
"I'm alright."
The vortex in the sky faltered. The ground sighed. The ring of moons above shimmered again.
"Stop your actions before you bring about the destruction of the world… Overpowered idiot."
Peirce's knees gave way.
The fist that had been poised to bring ruin slowly… lowered.
And the last tear fell.