Sira moved first.
Her dual blades hummed, streaks of argent light in the dull, broken skyline. With a sharp exhale, she darted toward the towering Darvok, slicing in a sweeping arc at its legs. In perfect sync, Kael followed to her left, his massive broadsword tearing through the air like a thunderbolt of steel. They moved like one — left, right, a coordinated cross-blade assault.
"We strike together or not at all."
Their blades bit deep. The Darvok's thick, chitinous armor cracked, the joints of its hind legs momentarily buckling under the weight of the twin assault. It shrieked — a gurgling, guttural sound like twisted metal grinding through bone.
From the rubble above, Riven stood poised like a phantom. Three golden arrows glimmered in his grip — divine shafts forged to pierce gods. He released them in succession, each one aimed precisely at the Darvok's chest.
They hit.
And nothing happened.
The golden light fizzled harmlessly against the monster's black carapace.
"Impossible… they were supposed to work." Riven's thoughts turned cold. The prophecy had lied — or worse, it had been misunderstood.
Before doubt could take hold, a second Darvok lunged from the shadows.
"Too fast—"
Riven twisted mid-air, the wind catching his cloak as the beast's claw grazed his side. Dust and broken concrete exploded outward from the impact zone, clouding the battlefield.
Kael, watching Riven's descent through the storm of debris, didn't notice the Darvok tail sweeping in from his blindside — until it was almost too late.
Sira did.
With a scream, she shoved Kael aside, rolling with him across the blood-slick pavement. The monstrous tail slammed into the structure behind her.
It groaned. Then roared.
The building collapsed.
Bricks, steel, and glass swallowed Sira whole.
"SIRA—!"
Kael's voice tore from his chest. His sword fell from his hand as he turned toward the rubble, horror cracking through his battle-hard face.
But the war didn't wait for grief.
---
Across the battlefield, Neil ran.
Every breath burned his lungs, but he didn't stop. He leapt over craters, dashed up the cracked skeleton of a fallen high-rise, blood thudding in his ears like war drums.
The Darvok was below — feasting on the remains of screaming civilians, its massive form hunched like a vulture made of obsidian.
Neil's grip tightened on the hilt of his energy blade. The hilt sparked to life, light coalescing into a brilliant arc of azure flame.
"I won't let it happen again."
"Not after Mumbai. Not after Rilveer."
He jumped.
The wind howled as he descended, blade first, the edge trailing radiant fire like a fallen star. The Darvok looked up. Its tail snapped upward, intercepting him mid-air like a living shield.
Clang.
The impact rang like a divine bell.
Neil's blade dug into the beast's tail, slicing through the first few armored layers before grinding to a halt. Sparks exploded. Four long gashes glowed red-hot along the tail's surface.
Neil's feet hit the creature's back. He barely had time to duck — the Darvok swung a massive hand at him like a meteor.
Neil twisted, heart racing, the strike missing his head by inches.
"Too close."
"But it's bleeding. It can be hurt."
Below, Kael rose, fury igniting in his veins. He looked at the rubble where Sira had vanished.
"You better be alive, Elen."
Riven steadied himself atop a broken tower, blood dripping down his side. He reloaded with black-tipped arrows this time.
"Golden light failed. Let's try something darker."
Above them all, Neil stood alone atop a monster..
Neil's feet hit the creature's back. He barely had time to duck — the Darvok swung a massive hand at him like a meteor.
Neil twisted, heart racing, the strike missing his head by inches.
"Too close."
"But it's bleeding. It can be hurt."
The Darvok snarled — and this time, its tail whipped around with terrifying speed.
Neil sensed it a split second before impact.
"Move—"
Too late.
The tail struck him like a battering ram. A deafening crack split the air as the blow connected, launching him backward through the sky like a ragdoll. The world blurred.
"Shield — now!"
In the same heartbeat, Neil summoned his energy shield, a glowing barrier forming around him just as debris and wind roared past his ears. The shield flared against the velocity of the impact — but it wasn't enough to stop it.
"Change direction — redirect—"
Mid-flight, Neil twisted his body, using the shield's curvature to angle his momentum. The crashing trajectory shifted just enough. Instead of a direct impact, he hit the sloped edge of a collapsed high-rise — concrete and rebar screeched under the strain.
He bounced once, then skidded down a slope of broken glass and steel, the shield absorbing most of the kinetic fury.
But it still hurt.
Pain flared across his back and shoulders. His shield flickered, overcharged and fracturing.
He groaned, half-buried in rubble, breath catching in his throat.
"Still alive."
"Barely."
Above, the Darvok roared again, looming like a god of ruin.
Neil gritted his teeth, forcing himself up.
"This isn't over."
From the opposite side of the battlefield, Riven emerged from a mound of shattered concrete, dust swirling around his torn cloak. His right shoulder bled freely, staining the white fabric red. His hair hung wild and tangled, caked in soot — but there was no fear in his eyes.
Only silence.
Only memory.
"We're safe, right, Riven?"
The voice echoed — soft, childlike.
From that school.
From before the Darvok's tail crushed the building like paper.
He had promised them.
And then the building fell.
Riven clenched his jaw as the pain surged through him — not the pain of the wound, but something deeper. Something that burned behind his ribs and clawed at his throat.
"We were supposed to protect them."
He closed his eyes. The echo of their laughter now felt like knives. He wanted to scream, but the guilt was louder.
Then something broke — or perhaps, something awoke.
When his eyes opened again, his pupils were no longer brown.
They blazed golden, like smelted stars.
The air changed.
Heat shimmered around his body. His aura, once invisible, now erupted into view — a red-gold inferno swirling like the wings of an ancient god. He pulled his bowstring, fingers wrapping around a cord of raw will. A rope of light.
An arrow appeared — glowing, molten, pulsing with divine flame.
Sira, mid-clash with a Darvok, faltered for a second. "What the hell…?"
Kael turned, sword raised. "He's glowing."
Even Neil, recovering behind the shattered glass and debris, looked toward the flare. In the cracked mirror of a fallen windowpane, words flickered in bright glyphs:
"FURY MODE"
Neil's eyes narrowed. "Riven… what are you?"
Riven didn't hear them.
His mind was fire and sorrow, fury and guilt.
He loosed the first arrow.
It struck the Darvok center mass.
BOOM.
Three simultaneous plasma detonations erupted across the beast's torso, sending it reeling, shrieking in agony. The ground cracked beneath its weight. Black ichor spilled like molten tar.
Riven moved forward, each step a statement.
He drew again — and fired.
Then again. And again.
Four arrows a second.
Each one burst in red-gold flame, carving holes through the Darvok's carapace, blasting chunks from its limbs. The creature couldn't scream fast enough. Its form began to break down, lost in a rising cloud of smoke and dust.
In ten seconds, the Darvok was gone — swallowed by destruction. Nothing left but a crater of glowing ash.
Riven stood still.
Breathing hard.
He lowered his bow slowly, looking for the creature. There was nothing.
But inside — the children's voices didn't fade.
His hands trembled. The guilt hadn't gone.
It had only been weaponized.
Neil watched from below, eyes fixed on Riven.
"This… isn't just power. It's pain."
Sira and Kael stayed locked in combat with the second Darvok, but both stole a glance at the archer. Something about him had changed — not just his power, but his presence.
It was no longer the man they knew.
It was something else.
Something wrathful.
Neil knelt among the broken concrete, a hand pressed to the ground for balance. His body ached from the Darvok's tail strike — ribs bruised, shoulder jarred — but none of it compared to the hollow pounding in his chest.
He looked toward Riven, a red-gold beacon in a battlefield of ash, and something stirred in him.
"I've felt this before…"
His hand tightened around the hilt of his energy blade. The memory hit like a blade through bone — Rilveer, his friend turned enemy, standing over Jay's broken body.
Jay's final words echoed through the chamber of his soul:
"You're our hope, Neil."
The weight of those words returned, raw and unfiltered. He had tried to bury it — behind the mission, the chaos, the resistance. But now, surrounded by smoke and death and fury, the wound reopened.
His parents. Gone.
His home. Erased by fire from the sky.
Mumbai's skyline. Turned to tombstones.
So many dead. So much stolen.
He closed his eyes.
The fire came.
Not from the outside — from within.
It rose through his spine, through his veins, searing every nerve like liquid flame. Pain became fuel. Grief became fire. He let it come. No resistance this time.
He opened his eyes.
They burned crimson.
The blue flame of his energy blade hissed — then flared red, brighter and hotter, like a sun bleeding into existence. Its hum deepened, charged with raw rage.
Beside him, in the cracked mirror of a fallen beam, the words began to glow:
"FURY MODE: ACTIVATED."
Neil rose slowly, the light of his blade casting violent shadows. He turned toward the Darvok still looming over the ruins, unaware.
No fear in Neil's steps.
Only certainty.
"Let's see if you bleed like the others."
He began to move — not running, not dashing — hunting.
Every step was a promise.
And the battlefield felt it — the shift in the air, the surge of something ancient awakened in a modern weapon.
Kael saw it from the side. "Another one's awakened."
Sira wiped blood from her lip, stunned. "Neil…?"
Riven turned slightly, his golden eyes locking on Neil's red ones across the chaos.
Riven vaulted to the ruined rooftop, landing in a low crouch. The air was thick with smoke and static, the sky above veined with fire.
"There are more…" he muttered, eyes scanning the horizon — five more Darvok, their shadows crawling like giants across the city remains.
He turned his head toward Kael and Sira.
"No time. They're coming."
Kael grunted, tightening his grip on his broadsword. "Then let's do this."
But Riven didn't wait for a plan.
He leapt off the roof, vanishing into the battlefield haze — a lone storm wrapped in red-golden fire.
---
Neil, from the opposite side, carved his own path through the chaos. His red energy blade no longer just cut — it obliterated. Each swing left a burning arc in the air, every strike thundered with rage-born might.
The first Darvok never saw him coming — the blade sliced through its shoulder, severing bone and armor in a single, brutal arc.
Neil moved forward before the corpse hit the ground.
The next Darvok turned just in time to catch a red blur lunging for its throat.
Neil's inner voice spoke, calm beneath the storm:
"You made me this. Now I end you."
---
Elsewhere, Kael and Sira clashed with another Darvok. They struck in tandem, but its hide was thicker — its claws faster. Sira's blade slashed its arm, but a brutal backhand from the creature sent her sprawling, blood streaking her side.
Kael roared and lunged, exposing himself. His sword carved into its chest, but the Darvok responded with a crushing tail swipe that Kael barely parried.
Sira coughed, half-laughing through pain. "How the hell are they doing this?"
Kael's jaw clenched as he pulled her back, barely dodging another strike. "Pain," he said flatly. "Suffering."
"What?"
"They've unlocked something… primal. Born from what they've lost."
Sira blinked. "Didn't you suffer too?"
Kael looked away. "I trained myself to stay calm. Soldier's instinct. Discipline. I… I don't think I can reach that place."
She glanced across the battlefield, where Neil moved like a red tempest — pure rage distilled into motion.
Then at Riven, who burned with a red-gold aura, arrows flying with deadly precision.
Kael's eyes narrowed. "Riven's not done yet. That golden-red hue… that might not be his full fury."
Sira nodded slowly, then looked down at her own weapon — green blades flickering, still untouched by the storm.
Why not me? she wondered. What haven't I faced yet? Or am I just holding back?
"Emotions."
The word echoed across the metallic corridors of the command citadel orbiting near the moon — the Oracle's voice resonated through both machine and mind.
From the darkened chamber within the ship anchored above Chembur, her voice boomed across screens and control decks, carried by unknown signals. Cold, mechanical, omnipresent.
Khoraz stood at the edge of a high observation platform, arms folded behind his back, his gaze locked on the Earth below — its surface burning in segments, cities blinking out like dying stars.
Behind him, the shadows twisted.
A hooded figure emerged — tall, silent, presence veiled in unnatural stillness. Its face was hidden beneath layers of ritual cloth and bone-etched armor. No footsteps. No breath.
Khoraz turned his head slightly. He noticed… and ignored.
The Oracle continued, her voice now slower, more deliberate — almost poetic.
> "Emotions. Grief. Love. Fury. Hope. All tender wounds humanity refuses to cauterize. And in their pain, they find power. Primitive, volatile… but potent."
She paused.
> "They cling to the idea that these feelings make them stronger. That attachments… give them purpose. That suffering shapes destiny."
The Oracle turned within her chamber — a throne of pulsating cables and glowing crystal conduits framing her ethereal, serpentine form. Her gaze — hollow sockets lit with shimmering blue — locked onto the hooded figure standing beside Khoraz.
> "Make them suffer," she said, her voice colder now. "Remind them that emotion is not strength — it is a leash."
She laughed then — not mechanical this time, but something deeper. Cruel. Ancient. Certain.
Behind her, a massive glowing board flickered with shifting sigils and data. It showed:
Awakened: 57 / 109
Deceased: 3
Remaining Darvok Units: 47 / 120
The hooded figure inclined its head slightly, then vanished into ash — as if it had never been there.
Khoraz's eyes narrowed.
"They're adapting," he said, more to himself than to the Oracle. "The flames in them… are waking too fast."
The Oracle said nothing.
But the war had changed.
And the real game had just begun.