Chapter Twenty-Seven:

  “Blood and Tears”

  Kagemura burned.

  Flames devoured shattered rooftops. Smoke coiled upward in thick plumes, veiling the sky in ash and sorrow. The streets were broken. The bridges crumbled. Lanterns once meant to guide had been crushed beneath Corrupted feet.

  The group pressed on through what remained.

  Akira moved first. As a Corrupted brute lunged from the wreckage, he sidestepped, blade arcing low to sever it at the knees. It shrieked, toppling forward—only for Rai to lift it midair with a snap of her war fan. Haru vaulted off a crumbling ledge, daggers flashing as he drove steel into the exposed chest.

  The creature convulsed. Then dissolved.

  Kaori lunged next, fangs bared, crashing into one of the crawlers. There was a sickening crunch, a spray of black blood—and then silence as the corpse twitched and stilled.

  John and Yumi fought together. She moved fast, her foxfire flaring wide to intercept a leaping beast. It burst apart midair, the embers of its body crawling back toward the ground, trying to reform.

  John’s blade came down hard, cleaving the center mass. The thing screamed once—and was no more.

  They kept moving.

  Every corner birthed new horrors. Creatures with spine-like limbs, molten cores, and twitching skulls. One screamed with a voice like torn metal, sending blood from Kaori’s nose in a sudden stream.

  Rai gritted her teeth and threw her fan like a blade. It sliced through the shrieker’s throat and dropped it mid-howl.

  Another creature burst from the rubble, all limbs and angles. It went for Haru. Akira met it halfway, katana driving through its spine—but the beast held, coiling around the blade. Haru jumped in, daggers punching through flesh, carving deep. Kaori was next, tearing into it with claws.

  It died screaming.

  Then the smoke parted.

  Vassoth stepped through the fire.

  His spear dragged behind him, caked with blood. His form towered, dark and unnatural, his presence alone enough to unmake breath.

  “So,” he said, his attention fixed on John, “did you return to die properly?”

  John’s jaw clenched. “What did you say?”

  Vassoth smiled, slow and cruel. “You don’t even know what you are. Shame. Master Sterling tried to erase you. Yet here you are.”

  Yumi advanced a pace, fire brimming behind her eyes. “Whatever he was, it’s who he chooses to be that matters now.”

  John steadied his grip on Twin Fangs.

  Her words anchored him.

  Vassoth raised his spear. “Pretty speeches won’t save you.”

  “Maybe not,” John said. “But they remind me who I am.”

  Haru raised his daggers. “Let’s finish this.”

  “Together,” Rai echoed.

  The charge began.

  Steel clashed with darkness. Wind slammed into Corruption. Fire seared flesh twisted by hate. Akira’s katana danced in silver arcs. Kaori tore open weak points. Haru carved through the gaps. Rai controlled the battlefield with every flick of her fan.

  John and Yumi fought as one—his blades flowing with hers, each covering where the other couldn’t reach.

  “You think your bond makes you strong?” Vassoth snarled. “You’ve seen nothing yet.”

  His body began to change.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Corruption burst from within. His skin cracked. Wings tore from his back, skeletal and blazing. His spear twisted into a length of bone and blackened sinew, pulsing like it had a heartbeat of its own. Red light bled from his eyes.

  Kaori stumbled back. “What is that?”

  Rai didn’t answer. She was already moving.

  Vassoth’s scream shook the air.

  And the battle became something worse.

  Vassoth descended like a storm.

  Each strike shattered stone, ripped wind from the air, broke formations. His wings beat the smoke into spirals, his weapon lashing out with inhuman speed and weight. Every breath he took twisted the world around him.

  Rai’s strongest gusts barely slowed him.

  Kaori slammed into a wall, coughing blood. Haru’s arm bled where a glancing blow had carved a line through armor. Akira dodged, then countered, his blade seeking weakness—but Vassoth moved like he was built of prophecy and fire.

  John met him strike for strike. Twin Fangs sparked and screamed with each impact. Yumi stayed close, her foxfire flashing between defensive arcs and punishing bursts of flame.

  And still—it wasn’t enough.

  Then it happened.

  Vassoth’s spear curved mid-strike, veering toward Akira’s exposed back.

  Yumi moved before thought could catch her.

  She shoved Akira aside and took the hit.

  The world stopped.

  The spear tore through her chest and drove her to the ground. Foxfire scattered, shrieking.

  “YUMI!”

  John was already there, dropping beside her, catching her before she fully collapsed. Her blood spilled into the scorched earth.

  “No no no no—Yumi, stay with me—”

  She smiled, lips stained red. “Still… warm,” she whispered.

  Akira sprinted toward them, a Phoenix Feather already in hand.

  A blast of Corruption struck him mid-run, hurling him across the field. The feather skidded from his grasp, vanishing into smoke.

  “Don’t you dare leave me,” John whispered, voice broken.

  Yumi touched his cheek, her hand trembling. “Remember… the promise?”

  He nodded, tears falling freely.

  “You said… you’d never stop trying.”

  Her voice grew smaller.

  “I’m sorry… I have to break it first.”

  Her tails stilled.

  Her foxfire flickered… and died.

  She was gone.

  The light in John’s eyes hollowed. His scream tore through the battlefield, wordless and raw.

  Rain fell, soft and unrelenting, washing over John's face until his tears vanished into it—indistinguishable from the drops that soaked the earth, mingling with Yumi’s blood in the dirt between his fingers.

  A hush swept the ruins. Even Vassoth hesitated.

  The sky split open.

  Shinryu stirred.

  From the heart of the mountain, roots uncoiled. Light exploded into the clouds. And then—she rose.

  Jade-scaled. Antler-crowned. Eyes vast with sorrow.

  Shinryu, the Divine Dragon of the Veil.

  Her gaze met John’s.

  “Where her blood fell for love, and your tears joined it, I felt the world stir beneath me. That is why I woke.”

  He could barely breathe. “Bring her back.”

  “Her fate is sealed,” Shinryu answered. “But her sacrifice will not be in vain.”

  Shinryu coiled herself down from the clouds, vast and shimmering, and wrapped her body tightly around Vassoth like a divine constrictor. The air went still. Then—she squeezed.

  Vassoth screamed.

  His wings blackened, his spear turned to ash in his hands. His body cracked and peeled, light bursting from within like a failing star.

  “You think this ends anything?” he rasped. “Sterling comes… hours from now… This region will be ash—”

  With a sound like mountains groaning, his body cracked, then shattered. Black and violet light burst outward in a million radiant flecks, scattering into the smoke like the last breath of a nightmare.

  Silence returned.

  John knelt beside the place where Yumi had faded. Smoke curled from his fingers. He didn’t move.

  Not even when the wind shifted.

  Not even when Shinryu bowed her great head… and vanished into light.

  Only when her warmth left the world did John speak.

  “I remember.”

  His voice was hollow.

  “But I don’t know if I can forgive.”

  The battlefield lay stunned, caught in the stillness after the storm.

  Smoke drifted in slow spirals across the ruins of Kagemura. The rain had stopped, but the scent of scorched earth lingered, heavy with loss. Bodies lay strewn across broken stone, some still smoldering, others already turning to dust. Where Vassoth had stood, only scattered flecks of dark light remained, fading like sparks into the morning gray.

  No one spoke.

  John knelt where Yumi had fallen, fingers still curled in the mud, clinging to the memory of her warmth. Her foxfire was gone. Her laugh, her touch, the shape she’d taken beside him in the quiet hours—they were memory now. Sacred, and unreachable.

  Behind him, Akira stood silently, his blade sheathed, his face drawn and hollow with grief. Rai knelt nearby, hands pressed to the earth as if grounding herself. Kaori limped through the smoke, eyes sweeping the rubble for signs of movement. Haru crouched at a fallen pillar, head bowed.

  No monsters stirred. No corruption crept. Scattered among the rubble, a few surviving Players and villagers began to rise—some limping, others clutching wounds, all changed. The world had paused in reverence—or shock.

  RW padded toward John, flame dimmed to a faint glimmer. She said nothing.

  There was nothing to say.

  Mistress Tsubaki emerged slowly from the shadows of the shrine, her robes damp with rain. Others followed—wounded villagers, fighters who had survived by inches. Their expressions were not of celebration. Only mourning. Only awe.

  John finally stood.

  He turned to face what remained: his allies, his people, the survivors of the Thousand Isles. Rain-matted hair clung to his face. His eyes, bloodshot and sunken, looked through them more than at them.

  “We won,” he said, barely more than a breath.

  No one cheered.

  Because victory had cost them everything.

  Then—just at the edge of hearing—a slow, rhythmic thrum beneath the earth.

  RW’s ears perked. “It's not over,” she whispered.

  Far out on the horizon, the sky darkened again.

  A black line of airships.

  Thousands.

  And at their center—draped in silver flame and voidlight—a single figure stepped onto the prow of the lead vessel.

  Sterling had arrived.

  The final war had only just begun.