The water quaked beneath the feet of the various groups as the Ashen Waters did not relent, instead howling as the black mist formed a spiraling vortex, twisting around the fractured cliffs like a storm.

From its depths rose shapes that made the Gold Rank horrors look almost pitiful. Their arrival was heralded by a low, bone-deep thrumming that set the very stones to trembling.

Fade felt it in her teeth, and in her Soul. A rainbow colored aura slowly expanding in her eyes as she stared at the events going on ahead, noticing how the black waters heaved, and then exploded viciously.

The first of the new creatures emerged with a roar that split the air.

A colossus of jagged crystal and rotting flesh dragged itself up the basin wall, each step splintering stone like wet clay.

Its body was a patchwork of violet scales and ossified plates, eyes burning with a cold amethyst glow. The pressure it exuded alone nearly drove Fade to her knees.

Amethyst Rank!

Her breath caught. Even her most elite guards would probably be destroyed against such a monster, and she barely had the mana left to stand.

The colossus opened its maw and exhaled a hurricane of corrosive mist, and before she could even react, Albedo moved.

One instant he stood before her, pistols still steaming from the last kill. The next, he was already above the monster, silhouette framed against the crimson haze of his own flames.

~BOOOOOM!~

A vortex of Crimson Apocalypse Fire crashed down like a meteor.

The colossus screamed as violet scales blistered and cracked under the impossible heat. Albedo landed atop its skull in a spray of molten crystal, Havoc and Ruin roaring in perfect unison.

~BANG~BANG~BANG!~

Each shot folded space, collapsing the monster's internal structure. The beast writhed in agony, its violet glow flickering like a dying star. Albedo leapt clear an instant before the creature imploded, sucked into a singularity of its own collapsing core.

Fade stared, wide-eyed. 'That…'That was execution.' she thought to herself as she watched Albedo continue moving across the battlefield.

From the boiling river surged more. A two-headed eel, each maw bristling with obsidian teeth, whipped across the basin in a blur of black lightning.

A spider the size of a siege tower clambered onto the ridge, its crystalline legs stabbing into basalt with shrieks of tearing stone.

Shadow-scaled wraiths poured from fissures in the cliffs, their forms flickering between water and smoke.

Each radiated Amethyst pressure, some more powerful than others, but each of them seeking to devour everything and everyone.

Albedo hit the ground running, a crimson storm contained within flesh and steel.

His pistols sang an unending rhythm, gravity folding, fire screaming. The air warped around him as he unleashed barrages of intense flames with every step, turning the slick basalt into a field of glowing veins.

He met the two-headed eel mid-lunge, twisting beneath its lightning strike and firing off Ruin.

~CRACK!~

The first head detonated in a shower of violet ichor and Havoc followed with a round so dense it dragged the second head sideways, collapsing its skull inward like wet clay.

The spider shrieked, rearing back to unleash a storm of crystal shards, but Albedo raised a single hand.

Crimson Apocalypse Flames roared outward in a spiraling cyclone, catching the shards mid-flight.

Every projectile melted into harmless vapor before reaching the elves.

Then he stepped forward and fired once.

The spider's heart collapsed into a singularity of burning violet, the creature convulsing before its immense body tumbled back into the river with a hiss like boiling iron.

Fade could only watch.

Her body ached with fatigue, but her eyes refused to close, the rainbow coloring in her eyes growing more intense as she watched Albedo closely.

Every motion he made was impossibly precise, perfectly timed, no wasted movement, no hesitation. He fought like the storm itself, a force of inevitability given human form.

'Is this what freedom looks like?'

Fade thought to herself as she watched him.

Her own life had been one of measured duty, political councils, arranged futures, every step dictated by the chains of royal blood. With every passing day, she could sense the light in her eyes dimming as her future became wrapped in thicker and thicker chains.

However, as she watched Albedo, she realized something. This Human didn't answer to anyone. Fade could see how Albedo carved his own path through the abyss and those around him.

When she first saw him and Lilian interact, Fade was shocked at his brazen behaviour, as if he wasn't worried about retaliation from the Demons for being in a relationship with their heiress.

However, as she watched him battle now, she could tell Albedo didn't care for what others thought, he did what he wanted, and Fade wished she had that kind of mentality.

As she watched him, the Elven Princess felt a pang of something sharp and unfamiliar.

Not just admiration, but longing.

~BANG!~

A huge explosion pulled her from these thoughts as she looked to the left, spotting the monsters relentless assault towards the other people who arrived with Albedo.

A sudden tremor split the ridge beneath Miranda's barrier. A geyser of black water erupted, and a crystalline wraith burst through, fast, too fast. Its spear-like limb punched through the edge of the barrier, grazing Morgana's shoulder.

"Morgana!" Elara cried.

The shadow-mage hissed in pain, dark blood streaking her cloak, but she retaliated with a wave of living shadow that devoured the wraith's arm.

Zeus bellowed, golden axe cleaving through a serpent that had breached their flank, but acid sprayed across his chest in retaliation. He snarled as steam rose from sizzling armor.

"Hold the line!" Lucian shouted, his emerald blade intercepting another strike. His Transcendence Gift let him adapt, but even he staggered from the sheer force of the Amethyst pressure.

Fade's breath hitched as she saw what was happening.

They were being injured.

Even this unstoppable group was bleeding.

Only Albedo remained unbroken.

He slid between the creatures like a phantom of fire and gravity, intercepting every monster that threatened his allies.

When Zeus stumbled, a crimson inferno erupted across the ridge, obliterating the serpents before they could strike again. When Morgana faltered, a gravitational round collapsed the wraith threatening her into a dense sphere that dropped harmlessly into the water.

The cost showed only in flashes, smoke rising from his shoulders where corrosive mist burned through his coat, a thin line of blood along his jaw where a shard had grazed him. But he did not slow.

How can he still move like that? Fade thought, awe and disbelief twisting inside her.

Another monstrous sea-monster surfaced from the deepest trench, taller than the cliffs themselves. Its roar drowned the river, a sound so deep it rattled the bones. Violet sigils burned along its sides, each pulse distorting the air.

Even Albedo paused.

He raised his head, Source Code flickering in his eyes, endless layers of purple equations spiraling like galaxies. His lips moved, whispering a single word Fade could not hear.

Then he vanished.

One heartbeat he was beside her.

The next, he was a comet of crimson flame streaking up the leviathan's side.

~BOOOOOOOM!~

The sky burned.

Crimson Apocalypse Fire erupted in a storm that tore the clouds apart, a pillar of annihilation that swallowed the leviathan whole. Its death-scream echoed across the basin, a sound of ancient rage cut violently short.

Fade's heart pounded.

She wanted to fight beside him, to feel that kind of power, to stand unchained in defiance of the abyss.

But she couldn't.

All she could do was clutch her sword for balance and whisper, too softly for anyone to hear:

"…I wish I were free."

The words were lost in the roar of Albedo's flames.

When the final sea-monster fell, the basin was a furnace of boiling mist and shattered stone.

The river recoiled, its surface writhing in silent fury before retreating back into the abyss.

Slowly, the oppressive weight of Amethyst mana faded, leaving only the hiss of evaporating acid and the crackle of cooling stone.

Albedo stood at the center of the ruin, Havoc and Ruin still smoking, his platinum hair singed at the edges by his own flames. He exhaled slowly, eyes still burning with faint violet light as the Source Code receded.

Zeus leaned on his axe, chest heaving. Morgana clutched her wounded shoulder but managed a defiant smirk. Veronica lowered her gravitational field with a tired flick of her wrist. Miranda's barrier shimmered faintly before dissolving.

Fade could not speak.

Her heart raced with a tangle of gratitude and something deeper—something that made her chest ache.

This man, this impossible warrior, had just saved her people from certain death.

But more than that, he had shown her a world beyond duty, a world where power meant freedom.

She tightened her grip on her crescent blade and silently vowed:

'One day, I'll break my chains too.'

For now, she could only watch the man who burned like a dying star… and wonder how far he would go before the world itself tried to stop him.

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