THE VILLAIN'S POV

At last ..after what felt like an eternity ..the darkness peeled back and revealed the result.

Having poured out everything, Frey destroyed the colossus by harnessing the SSS-class aura within him through the doubled Ignition.

Still standing, he hurled himself at Blattier below, trying to injure him as well—

—but the High Bishop turned him aside with ease and reengaged.

It happened again and again. Frey fell, over and over, suffering every kind of wound—yet each time he rose, relying wholly on his monstrous regeneration.

Little by little, the shape of the battle became clear to those watching from afar.

Aegon was the first to turn to Calistis behind him.

"Get ready, Callistis. We're leaving," the prince said, turning his back on the fight.

The move drew Snow's attention.

Moments earlier, the aftershocks nearly killed them, but the Golden World Tree had shielded them, making their spot the only place in all of Noctherra untouched by the duel.

"Where do you think you're going?" Snow asked, stunned that Aegon Valerion meant to retreat before the battle was even decided.

Aegon answered at once.

"There's no point in staying. Frey Starlight has already lost."

"What?"

Snow didn't buy it. The fight was still raging, and Frey hadn't fallen; to Snow's eyes his friend was still on his feet.

But Aegon saw much further.

"Frey's spent his entire arsenal and unleashed his strongest moves, yet he couldn't bring his opponent down. What he's doing now is nothing but futile stalling.

"Look at Blattier. He isn't even speaking anymore. He's no longer who he was—he's the result of millions of souls fused into one, and that aggregate is what's moving now. It isn't wrong to say he's no longer the bishop you knew."

As Aegon spoke, Frey was blasted away again, his body riddled with bloody craters.

He nearly hit the ground. His foe approached at an agonizing crawl, giving him time to regenerate and stand again.

"Blattier's undergone an explosive surge of power. He's using Frey to master it—he knows there are very few on this planet who can face him now, so he's drawing the fight out on purpose, testing his new strength and seeing how far he can go."

That's why he hadn't finished Frey with a single sweeping strike—opting instead to cycle through varied attacks, like the colossal giant from before.

"Frey is strong, and his reality-defying abilities are what let him slay foes above his rank. But his opponent has stepped into a realm you can't contest with tricks alone."

The souls Blattier absorbed hadn't only boosted his might; his temperament seemed altered as well.

He was calmer. Sharper.

He could steer the field for the best possible outcomes.

The current Blattier was, without question, a genuine threat to both the Empire and the Ultras—strong enough to stand against them alone.

Frey Starlight was the Empire's greatest hope, but even he could do little before SSS-class power—and that made Blattier Aegon's top priority.

Here and now, though, the prince had few options.

"Frey has lost. There's no sense staying, Snow Lionheart. I suggest you withdraw as well," Aegon said. Snow flatly refused.

"I don't understand you, Aegon. If Frey falls here, what's the point of running? With what do you plan to face Blattier?"

Snow drew Vermithor.

"I'm not fleeing and leaving him behind. I'd rather die on that field than run while he throws his life away for mine."

Snow Lionheart hadn't stepped in yet because he saw himself as a burden to Frey in this fight—but now that Frey was flagging badly, there was no reason left for Snow to stay back.

"If I push the War King's Form to its limit , I might at least open a gap…"

Fighting together and trying to survive—that was far better than running and leaving Frey to battle alone.

Aegon didn't like that plan at all.

"Frey won't die, Snow. Sure, Blattier's stronger—but that doesn't mean Frey can't escape if he wants to," the prince said, stressing a point Snow knew well. "Don't forget he can blink across continental distances whenever he chooses. I doubt Blattier can stop him."

"If he's truly cornered, he'll bail. When that happens, staying here will be the end of us." Aegon smiled, already turning to leave. "And let me remind you what he told you before he fight Blattier—he told you to get out with the saintess, didn't he? I suggest you move soon, dear Snow."

Aegon and Callistis slipped away, vanishing from sight, leaving Snow Lionheart with Uriel Blattini unconscious beside him.

"He can run whenever he wants…" Snow repeated under his breath, turning to the distant duel where Frey was still fighting.

Aegon's logic was sound. Frey could blink away the moment death loomed.

But for some reason, Snow didn't believe Frey would.

"He's used Nameless Judgement, Ignition—every lethal tool he has—and none of it worked…"

If Frey were going to run, he should have done it the moment his strongest weapons failed to reach Blattier. Yet despite that failure, he kept hurling himself forward, refusing to yield, attacking a foe who outclassed him again and again.

Nothing about the way Frey Starlight fought suggested retreat. If anything, he looked like he'd choose death first.

What Snow saw in his friend made him doubt Aegon's claim. However logical the prince sounded, reality said otherwise.

"Frey won't run. I'm sure of it." Snow was ready to bet everything on that—on his instincts and the long, hard-won understanding of the comrade he'd fought beside so many times.

So Snow Lionheart readied himself to join the battle—to try, at least, to help.

He had just set his first step toward the field when the girl behind him stirred for the first time since she'd fallen.

Startled, Snow turned. Drawn by the thunder of distant explosions, Uriel Blattini finally woke, pain written across her face.

She wore nothing but the golden coat Snow had draped over her earlier, which left much of her body exposed—skin defaced by blood-runes and by the scars the embedded tubes had left behind.

"Uriel…"

At first she was lost, unable to make sense of where she was. Snow Lionheart stood in front of her; a savage battle raged behind him. The ground trembled every heartbeat, the air itself taut with menace.

She understood none of it at first. The pain was blinding, and her last clear memory was a fading smear—being forced to begin that cursed rite that would transfer the saintess's power into her. The rite that had killed the previous saintess, Yorasha, the woman who'd been like an elder sister to her, and left Uriel naked in the spring while blood, mixed with sacred water, was pumped into her. The rite that had left her body as twisted as it was now.

Then, little by little, new memories flooded in—memories that made the poor girl lift trembling hands to her ruined face.

"What…have I done?" she whispered, terrified by what she remembered.