Kanoru parries a hammer strike that sends tremors through his arms.
Before him stands a giant—
a figure clad in full-body knight armor, its surface etched with runes that pulse like a heartbeat.
Its phantasm mirrors it—
double the size, an armored titan looming over the battlefield.
They clash again, steel against steel, sparks and energy bursting from each impact.
Then Kanoru sees it—
a red light rising in the far northern sky.
His breath catches.
It's the same light.
The same twisted beam that marked the beginning of the invasion.
But it's not alone.
From the other three continents, red beams rise one after another—
a bloody trinity stretching into the heavens.
All converge—
drawn toward the blood moon, which begins to glow brighter, fiercer,
devouring the light of the sun itself.
The air stills.
Then a ripple spreads from the moon,
like a stone dropped into the surface of the sky.
A world-wide pulse.
Even the armored knight halts.
Even Kanoru, blade raised, forgets to breathe.
The whole world watches.
Some with awe.
Most with dread.
And then—
space tears.
A black hole opens, just like the one that started it all.
From its depths pour the monsters of the Grey Rose Circus—
horrors like ants, flooding the skies,
descending with shrieks and unnatural laughter.
Kanoru's heart sinks.
This…
This is their final move.
They've started the decisive battle—
a war not just for land, but for the very ownership of the world.
He can't close the portal.
But he can fight.
He can kill as many as he must.
Kanoru narrows his eyes, refocusing on the knight before him.
The being's phantasm looms, but he charges anyway—
his small body weaving under giant blows, blades dancing with precision.
He can't overpower it.
But he outmaneuvers it—
his strikes landing in the gaps of armor, his skill compensating for brute strength.
Then—
he activates the steam energy.
His blood begins to boil.
His skin turns red.
Power floods him.
And now—he's equal.
Each clash leaves wounds.
Grey cuts and cracks appear on the phantasm.
But the knight has energy to burn.
It heals. Again and again.
Kanoru knows—
he can win this.
Drag it out.
Bleed it dry.
But the world doesn't have that kind of time.
So he draws in all six alien energies.
His twin swords ignite.
One with grey flame—
the other, grey frost.
And from him, annihilation spreads.
Each strike from Kanoru now leaves behind more than a wound—
a festering mark of grey energy that clings to the phantasm like rot.
Where the grey touches, it devours.
The knight's healing slows—
each recovery takes more energy, more effort, more time.
If it doesn't heal, the grey spreads,
consuming the energy around the wound,
accelerating the knight's end with every heartbeat.
But Kanoru doesn't want to wait.
He steps back—eyes cold, breath steady.
His mind sharpens to a single thought—
"Snake Bite."
He moves.
Like lightning, he vanishes,
and when he stops—
his red sword is buried deep into the phantasm's chest.
The massive illusion shudders—
and disintegrates in an instant,
revealing the true knight behind it.
Kanoru's blade tip is already in the man's chest—
no resistance,
no vitality.
The knight doesn't even breathe.
Kanoru yanks his sword free.
The knight begins to fall.
But Kanoru lifts his hand—
and with a push of wind, he suspends the body midair.
Two blobs of water slither from his back, pulsing softly.
They drip—
one after the other—
onto the knight's lifeless body.
The blobs hiss and sizzle.
Then begin to eat.
Kanoru watches in silence
as the knight drifts down, slow and solemn,
into dissolution.
The water devours quietly.
He exhales once. Then turns.
Instead of seeking another Spirit King,
Kanoru scans the battlefield—
his eyes pass over roaring skies, shattered hills, and phantasms locked in desperate war.
Then—he sees them.
Gu Mingzhu, wrapped in her phantasm,
and Asuna, flames dancing around her blades—
both fighting side by side,
pushed back by three Spirit Lords of the Grey Rose Circus.
Kanoru narrows his eyes.
The reinforcements from the Grey Rose have arrived—
but they brought few Spirit Kings.
Most are Tier-0, Spirit Realm, or Spirit Lords.
Kanoru senses it clearly—
only a handful of Spirit King fluctuations across the continents,
and none added to this battlefield.
The Spirit Kings here are already engaged—
occupied in brutal one-on-ones.
Which means—
the rest of the army is exposed.
Kanoru makes his decision.
He'll strike the lower ranks first.
He'll protect his wives,
his people,
then the others.
He shoots forward—
a blur of red and grey.
Before the three Spirit Lords can even react,
he crashes through them.
Their phantasms rupture like glass—
bodies flung to the wind.
With practiced calm, he tosses a blob of water on each falling figure.
The water writhes, then begins to consume.
Asuna turns to him, eyes wide with concern.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
His skin glows a deep, faint red,
steam hissing softly from his pores,
his breath stills—calm but shallow—
his blood still boiling from the strain of the steam energy.
Before he can speak,
the two blobs of devouring water he left on the knight's body shoot upward,
spiraling through the air and sinking back into him.
The red skin remains,
but the fatigue vanishes.
His blood replenishes faster than the steam can consume—
his energy stabilizing, surging.
He exhales slowly, then asks,
"Are you okay?"
Gu Mingzhu blinks, still watching the ground.
"What is that blob of water?"
Below them, the remains of the three Spirit Lords writhe beneath devouring water—
their bodies eaten away,
bones dissolving in silence.
Kanoru glances down and replies,
"Power I comprehended from the Devouring Water alien energy."
Then adds,
"With it, I can sustain this forbidden state longer—
and fight with the strength of Spirit Kings above 90 runes."
As if to prove the point,
three more blobs of water finish consuming the bodies on the ground,
and rise—
returning to him, merging back into his body like liquid shadows.
Kanoru turns to them,
voice steady.
"I'll eliminate the enemies surrounding our forces.
You two—gather the army. Stay together. Protect yourselves."
Asuna frowns. "Then where will you go?"
"With this power," Kanoru says, eyes narrowing,
"and together with our Spirit Kings—
I can kill even more of theirs."
Then he moves.
A blur of red and grey tears across the battlefield.
He blasts Spirit Lords out of their phantasms—
cleaves through others in a single strike,
bisecting both projection and body.
Against those in Spirit Realm who've taken to the sky,
he drops blobs of devouring water.
One scream—then silence.
The water eats through spirit and flesh alike.
Kanoru becomes a storm—
unstoppable, consuming.
And all the while,
his body continues to grow.
The steam energy burns him from within,
but the devouring water restores him.
His cells break, reform, strengthen—
a constant cycle of destruction and rebirth.
After securing his family and followers, Kanoru lifts his gaze to the sky—
where nine terrifying auras clash in close combat.
Six belong to their side.
The other three are enemies—
one is the Clown, unmistakable.
The other two, Kanoru suspects,
must be the leaders of the Greyrose Circus.
They too have descended.
The situation worsens by the second.
Even with his grey energy,
Kanoru knows he can't challenge those three.
His energy can block their attacks momentarily—
but only momentarily.
The weakened strikes that follow would still injure him.
And once injured,
his healing body and forbidden state would turn against him.
Without the devouring water to replenish his strength,
his energy would drain rapidly.
He'd be forced out of the forbidden state—
and then he'd die.
So instead, he shifts his focus.
Carmane, in her golden eagle form,
is locked in aerial combat with a fire vulture—
its wings trailing plumes of burning ash across the sky.
Kanoru charges the vulture,
synchronizing with Carmane's strikes like a second wing.
They've fought together before—
when they killed the silver man.
Back then, he hadn't activated the forbidden state.
There was no need.
No urgency.
No incoming tide of reinforcements.
But now—he burns with steam and grey energy,
his strikes crashing with the power of a Spirit King beyond ninety runes.
And so,
together, they kill the fire vulture
in half the time it took to fell the silver man—
despite the vulture being stronger.
The moment his blade pierces the real body,
he releases a blob of devouring water,
letting it feast.
As the vulture's body begins to dissolve,
Carmane's voice touches his mind, sharp with surprise.
"When did you form a hundred runes and create a new energy?"
Kanoru watches the devouring water feast on the fire vulture, letting the minutes pass. He plans to release his forbidden state once the energy returns to him. His breath steadies, though his skin still steams faintly.
"What are you talking about?" he asks, genuinely confused.
Carmane's voice comes again, calm but serious.
"After ancestor Michael revealed the next realm of the Spirit King can be broken through using multiple elemental runes—not just a single element—everyone's been experimenting. That's the new path."
Kanoru stays silent. He hasn't met with anyone from his army in the last two months, completely unaware of this shift in understanding.
He connected multiple elemental runes only because it allowed him to push his limits faster and sharpen his control—but even after reaching a hundred, he believed that breaking into the next realm still required one hundred of the same element. That's what the old records of his predecessors had always claimed.
As realization settles, he sighs. His followers must've assumed he already knew. After all, he had broken into the Spirit King Realm with a fusion of elements. Why would anyone think he needed to be told?
"Carmane," he says, frowning, "then there are many on our side who've connected a hundred runes?"
"Yes," she replies, "more than twenty now."
"Then why are only six fighting the leaders of the Greyrose Circus?"
"Because the others only advanced in number, not in power."
"The Six Councilors—" her voice sharpens with awe, "they created new elemental energies. Stronger than the nine known elements."
Kanoru processes this, eyes narrowing.
"So those six… are stronger than ordinary Spirit Kings with a hundred runes."
And just then,
the devouring water returns—
a soft ripple of grey light slipping into his body,
reigniting the fire in his veins, steady and fierce.
Carmane barely glances at the disintegrated remains of the Spirit King they'd slain. She doesn't ask—doesn't need to. The sight of Kanoru absorbing him through the devouring water holds no surprise.
"Yes," she says calmly, "and I thought you'd already connected a hundred runes and formed a new elemental energy. That grey aura of yours—it feels like something beyond the nine elements."
Kanoru exhales slowly, feeling his strength return in full.
"No," he says. "It's a fusion of six alien energies. I haven't created anything new."
He looks to the sky where chaos still reigns.
"We should help the others."
"I'll go west," Carmane replies, her thoughts already on Cecily.
"Then I'll head east."
Without another word, Carmane soars away, her golden wings streaking through the haze. Kanoru watches for a moment, then turns toward the east. His gaze drops briefly to the armies below—his forces locked in combat but holding strong. No Spirit Kings threaten them now, and their numbers still outmatch the enemy.
He doesn't interfere.
Instead, he ascends into the sky, wind whipping past him. But as he flies, a thought lingers—he forgot to ask how Carmane reached him so quickly when the Bone Clown attacked. He hadn't even thanked her. If she hadn't come and helped him fight the Silver Man, even if he survived, his injuries would have left him crippled—useless in the battles still to come.