The city of Lysandra lay under the dying light of dusk, its silence thick with dread rather than peace. Crimson rays painted the skyline, casting long shadows over the black banners fluttering atop the high ramparts. It felt like the heavens themselves were bleeding.
Kaizen stood alone at the southern overlook, the wind tugging at his cloak. His grip on his sword's hilt was tight, as if to anchor himself from being blown away by the storm he knew was coming—not from outside, but from within.
Behind him, deep within the fortress, the surviving members of Squad Umbra were gathered in the war room. The atmosphere inside was just as strained.
"They think I've changed," Kaizen muttered under his breath. "They're not wrong."
Ever since the battle at the Abyss Gate, things had been different. People no longer looked at him with awe or hope, but with suspicion… and fear.
---
Inside the meeting hall, Captain Riven slammed his fist on the table, causing the scattered maps to jump.
"They're coming," he growled. "The Judgment Division."
Ayaka stepped forward. Her eyes were calm but her voice trembled.
"We can't let them take Kaizen. They don't understand what's inside him."
"They don't need to," Leina cut in sharply. "They only care that he's a ticking bomb. Did you see what he did to Krovar? That wasn't just a kill… it was a consumption. He ripped him apart like a beast."
Silence followed.
Then Zayne finally spoke, quieter than the others. "The question isn't whether Kaizen is dangerous. It's whether we believe he's still on our side."
Before anyone could respond, a low, distant sound echoed across the city—the Judgment Horn. Its cold, hollow cry chilled everyone in the room.
"They're here," whispered Ayaka.
---
Kaizen didn't flinch as the Judgment Division rode into view. Their horses were jet black, eyes glowing faintly. At the front was a pale-skinned woman clad in armor that shimmered like obsidian. A long cloak of black feathers trailed behind her. Her eyes were hidden behind a crystalline visor that reflected Kaizen's image back at him—fractured.
She raised a hand and spoke with a voice as cutting as a blade.
"Kaizen Ryouma, Veinborn of the Last Flame, you are summoned by the Tribunal of the Celestial Eye. Your blood shall answer for the sins etched into it."
Kaizen didn't blink. "If you're here to arrest me, I won't resist."
Ayaka stepped beside him, gripping his arm. "You don't have to go with them. Not alone."
"I do," he said quietly. "I need answers, Ayaka. Maybe they have them."
A second rider dismounted—a face Kaizen recognized instantly.
General Caldris.
Half his face was scarred from burns—wounds Kaizen himself had given him in a battle long past.
"I told them you'd be trouble," Caldris sneered. "You're a prophecy in motion. The Ashen Monarch. The Shard King's harbinger."
"You still can't let that go?" Kaizen asked bitterly.
"You lit the world on fire and expected no smoke."
Before a reply could be formed, Captain Riven arrived, flanked by a few Umbra members.
"If you take him, we go too."
"You overestimate your importance," the crystal-eyed woman said coldly. "Only the one marked by flame is summoned. The rest of you will stand aside."
Ayaka stepped forward again. "Then you'll have to summon me too."
A flicker of emotion passed behind the visor—curiosity, maybe.
"Very well," the woman said. "The Tribunal accepts your petition. But understand this: within the Hall of Blood Memory, there is no mercy. Only truth."
---
Far away, within the depths of an obsidian fortress carved into a mountain of shadow, Nerovar stirred. The runes across his chamber pulsed in rhythm with Kaizen's heartbeat.
Nerovar placed a single shard of pale bone at the center of a glowing ritual circle, and whispered.
"Kaizen…"
The shard responded—flashing with a pulse of dark red light.
"They begin to fear you. Good. Let them."
Behind him, shadowed figures emerged—warped things of bone and dark flesh, monstrous beings that bowed before him.
"Let them turn on their savior," Nerovar said. "Only when he stands alone will he understand what I am… and what he must become."
---
Back in Lysandra, Kaizen stood inside the circle drawn by the Judgment Division. Energy shimmered in the air, and the gate to the Celestial Tribunal began to hum.
Captain Riven looked him in the eyes. "You don't have to prove yourself, Kaizen. Not to them."
"I'm not doing it for them," Kaizen said. "I'm doing it for the people I lost… and for the part of me that still doesn't understand why I lived."
He looked at Ayaka. She stepped beside him without hesitation.
As the teleportation sigil activated, Kaizen and Ayaka vanished in a flash of white-blue light, swallowed by the arcane gate.
Thunder cracked across the sky.
And far to the north, in the icy lands where no sun had touched in centuries, a tower awakened from its long slumber.
Its pulse matched Kaizen's heartbeat.
The war wasn't over.
It was only beginning.