The air in Tashi Village had changed.

The once-bright dawn now carried a faint metallic tang, the scent of blood and storm.

Clouds rolled low above the rooftops, trembling as if the heavens themselves hesitated to breathe.

From beyond the tree line, the ground began to rumble.

A surge of Voidborns, their shrieks like nails scraping across glass — flooded out from the mist.

Behind them walked two figures, pale and scorched by vengeance.

Alaric and Selene, the fallen twins of the Hollow Nine.

Their bodies still bore the ghostly burns from their last battle with Master Vince wounds that never healed, no matter how much Void they consumed.

Their armor, blackened and cracked, seemed to breathe with every step.

Khael, standing in front of the Tashi gates with Ceyla, Juno, Andromeda, and Matthew, tightened his grip on his sword.

The crimson aura of his Shinrei flickered alive, dragonfire whispering behind his eyes.

Khael said, his tone low, the earth trembling beneath his voice, "You're back…"

The twins stopped.

Wind stirred their hair, and the Voidborns howled in answer.

Alaric raised his hand, and the creatures fell silent. His golden eyes locked onto Khael.

"This time will be the last," Alaric declared, his voice like thunder over broken mountains.

"We won't stop. Our mission ends only with death!"

Ceyla's eyes widened, and she stepped forward. "You're fighting ghosts, not truth! Can't you see what you've become?"

Selene sneered. "Don't preach to me, girl. You've never lost what we did."

The first strike came not from words, but from the heavens themselves —

a spear of black lightning that tore through the fields and split the ground between them.

Khael's sword burst alive, dragon sigils igniting down its length.

"Then so be it…" he whispered, the faint echo of a dragon's roar rumbling beneath his breath.

"We end this… here."

Behind him, Juno's fists ignited, the air shattering around his Taishin aura.

"You're not taking anyone today!"

Andromeda, ever dramatic, raised his blade and muttered, "Someone's gonna die… and it better not be me."

Even in battle, he couldn't resist "By the way, if I don't make it, tell my dog I loved him more than my homework."

No one laughed.

The ground erupted as the first wave of Voidborns charged, hundreds, then thousands.

Their screeches pierced the air, and Tashi's defenders roared back.

The desperate clash began.

The sky turned crimson.

And in the chaos, the twins' hatred and Khael's flame met once more

a battle written not for victory, but for fate.

As The storm raged above Tashi Village, a maelstrom of black clouds and crimson lightning that split the sky like tearing paper.

The ground trembled with each pulse of Shinrei. Ash, dust, and the scent of metal filled the air.

Khael stood at the center of the chaos, his dragon aura flickering wildly, the scales of his Bloodline Veins faintly visible across his arms. Behind him, the villagers huddled as Ceyla, Juno, Andromeda, and Matthew pushed back the endless tide of Voidborns.

But the twins Alaric and Selene stood untouched by the bloodshed, their silhouettes glowing faintly in the storm's hue.

Their Shinrei, once human, now pulsed with something unstable, dangerous, a fusion of soul and corruption.

Selene's voice trembled, but her eyes gleamed with terrible resolve.

"Brother…" she whispered, her tone soft yet full of pain. "There's no turning back now."

Alaric's golden eyes burned like molten sun.

"I know." He clenched his fists, veins bulging with violet light. "If we fall here, then let it be as monsters chasing a ghost."

The ground cracked beneath them and then, together, their voices roared into the heavens:

"UNLOCK — SIXTH VEIN GATE: RIFT GATE!"

The world screamed.

For a moment, time itself seemed to stutter. The wind folded inward, the air distorted, and the color bled out of the sky.

A fissure of pure Shinrei ripped open around them a radiant spiral of black and gold, consuming everything within a hundred meters.

Their bodies contorted, Shinrei bursting from their skin like burning ink. The Rift Gate — the most unstable of all Vein Gates devoured both soul and flesh in exchange for raw, unfiltered divinity.

Ceyla stepped back, eyes wide. "This pressure… it's not human anymore."

Andromeda, ever the jester, forced a smirk through the weight crushing his chest. "If they open one more gate, I'm opening my coffin instead."

Matthew, his Echo hound growling beside him.

"Stay sharp! They're losing their humanity, they'll drag everything down with them!"

Lightning crashed, shattering the heavens as Alaric's aura surged. His Shinrei twisted into a massive spectral beast a lion wrought of shadow and flame, roaring loud enough to fracture nearby stone.

Alaric shouted, "Echo Art: Riftfang Dominion!"

The spectral lion lunged forward, consuming dozens of Voidborns in one savage bite, their screams fading into silence as they were erased from existence itself.

Selene followed, her Shinrei erupting into crystalline wings of obsidian light.

"Echo Art: Abyssal Garden!" she cried.

From her shadow bloomed hundreds of black lotus flowers, each one exploding into threads of anti-light that devoured everything they touched air, earth, and flame alike.

Khael shielded his face as the wind tore past him, his dragon flaring in resistance.

"So this is the Rift Gate…" he muttered, his teeth gritting. "You're killing yourselves for power you can't control."

Selene's laugh cracked like glass pained, hollow, desperate.

"Control? That word died with our humanity!"

Alaric pointed at Khael, eyes alight with madness and sorrow.

"Dragon Knight! You bear Isen's mark, you'll die as his legacy dies!"

Khael's eyes narrowed.

He stepped forward just one step and the earth beneath him fractured like a mirror.

His Shinrei surged, the air bending to his will.

The faint echo of a dragon's roar resounded through the village.

"If this is what the Hollow Nine has made you…" he said softly, his voice trembling not with fear, but sorrow.

"…Then I'll burn through your despair myself."

Ceyla's heart pounded as she whispered, "Khael…"

Khael lifted his blade, its core pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. His Shinrei swirled, shaping into something vast something ancient.

The wind around him changed no longer wild, but resolute, filled with the presence of a being older than fear.

The twins, half-consumed by the Rift Gate, screamed in unison a cry of agony and devotion.

Alaric shouted, "For freedom!"

Selene cried, "For redemption!"

And Khael whispered back low, steady, fierce

"For peace."

The storm collapsed inward as they clashed.

A dragon's roar.

A lion's cry.

A thousand rifts in the sky bursting open.

The world of Elysera shook that night.

And even the heavens could not tell who truly fought men, monsters, or gods.

To be continue

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