The first half of the War of Darkness had ended, and the Church was the first to fall .. resetting the war to where it began: Empire versus Ultras.
The Church had been an entirely unforeseen variable, wielding colossal weapons that could have tipped the conflict decisively in its favor.
But its fall was swift and brutal.
It took only three imperial fighters to bring it down. What the world at large didn’t know, however, was that the battle on Noctera had far surpassed imagination.
The dead were counted in the millions .. the highest toll yet.
Powers that had lurked in the shadows began to step forward, one after another, and the rate at which the balance of power climbed was becoming alarmingly dangerous.
Liora, the Saint of Dawn, was the first to fall after Geppetto’s sudden appearance. He had been actively hunting those like her ... figures who had hidden themselves in the dark .. and this was only the beginning of the tragedy.
Just as the world turned upside down on the Sacred Island of Noctherra, another event shook the world elsewhere at that very moment...
There, in the Eastern Nightmare Lands .. in the cleared zone Frey Starlight had scoured after annihilating most of the nightmare creatures that dwelled there ..
the place was quiet and desolate, especially that ancient sect whose size had swelled into a great city, its walls built of jet-black stone of tremendous hardness.
The Shadow Sect was calm as ever, its ramparts standing proud against anything that dared approach...
But the enemy did not come from the earth. He came from the sky.
Under the wing of night, he descended slowly .. a cursed creature whose mere appearance would breed nightmares in anyone who saw him.
His skin was black and blistered, his eyes a deep, drowned violet.
A pair of long horns crowned his head, and a long black cloak billowed behind his back.
In parallel with the events on the Sacred Island, the Shadow Sect received a heavy guest who intended to knock upon its door—and unveil what its walls concealed.
Rank Ten, the One-Man Army: Zibar.
His eyes swept over the entire sect with idle curiosity before settling on the tall walls rising before him.
There, a old man in black sat ..his eyes closed, scored by deep scars.
A blind elder, calm even beneath the insane pressure pouring from Zibar.
Zibar narrowed his eyes, recognizing the elder before him.
"I came here expecting many variables, but I never accounted for you being one of them," Zibar said, a mocking smile tugging at his lips.
"Aren’t you the fool who once dared call himself the Sword god? Only to end up as nothing but a toy in Wesker’s hands." The more he looked at the withered elder, the wider Zibar’s smile grew.
"What’s the matter, Avalon? Haven’t you been hiding all these years, afraid of the likes of me? Or did you finally muster the courage to stand before me and die?" With a pressure that made earth and sky quake, Zibar’s voice rose beside the ears of the blind Avalon.
"Answer me, Avalon!" Zibar roared, threatening, as Avalon lifted his head toward him, staring with the empty hollows where his eyes had been.
Then, without warning, the old man unleashed all his strength, shaping a pure white sword from the Aura of Light ..
his greatest blade of all: Colinal.
"I’ve lived my whole life eaten away by fear... and I’m still afraid, even now. I know I’m not your equal, demon."
Between light and darkness, there was a clear divide.
Avalon had reached Stage Two of SSS .. Pulse of Chaos .
This stage brought a violent surge of power that slipped free of control and turned utterly chaotic. It granted many and varied abilities to those who reached it, but in exchange it was a brutally difficult level .. surpassing it required mastering that chaos completely.
Avalon had been stuck there for many years, and he knew it was his limit.
Zibar, however, had surpassed it long ago.
"The peak of Stage Three .. Origin Revelation "
"Correct," Zibar said with a smile. "That’s the level this incarnation reflects."
His words, and the pressure radiating from him, removed all doubt.
This copy present on Earth represented at least 80% percent of the original’s power .. that much was now obvious.
Avalon understood that the one before him was no ordinary foe, but the bearer of one of Agaroth’s Six Souls.
That alone placed Zibar at the summit of power.
"Tell me," Zibar asked, advancing slowly, "how would you like to die, Avalon?"
He spoke with scorn. Zibar fully intended to kill Avalon, even if the latter was one of Wesker’s playthings.
The old man weathered the demon’s pressure without moving an inch.
"You can answer that yourself," he said. "You’re the one who dies today, damned demon!"
Letting out a feral howl, Avalon erased the distance in a single step and loosed a thunderous slash aimed at the demon’s neck.
Colinal was swift and terrifying; in mere heartbeats it struck, detonating with a blast that shook the void.
But the blade never reached Zibar’s throat; he caught it with one hand.
"Pathetic," Zibar sneered, thrusting his free hand toward Avalon.
But Avalon instantly warped the Aura of Light, forming thousands of colossal swords around them .. swords that hurtled forth to engulf them both.
Zibar unfurled a dark halo around his body at once, and the blades shattered one after another like glass the instant they touched him.
"Is that all you’ve got?" Zibar sounded irritated this time; Avalon’s colossal strike had done nothing but blind him with light...
But that was exactly what the old man had banked on.
"Now!!"
Avalon’s shout rang wide, and from behind that vast curtain of light... Zibar felt it coming.
Guarding with his free hand, he received the colossal scythe that struck him out of nowhere.
The momentum of the blow sent the demon hurtling, smashing him toward the ground before he rebounded across it, carving a trail of devastation behind him.
"..."
Staring up, Zibar’s eyes fixed on the wrath-faced statue that had appeared from nothing to attack him.
"A black statue... this drags up unpleasant memories I thought I buried long ago," Zibar said with a smile, then slammed the ground beneath him and lunged toward Angri.
"Let’s see how sturdy your craftsmanship is!"
Gathering a terrifying quantity of Aura around his fist, Zibar threw a ruinous punch at Angry .. too fast for his opponent to react.
But at the last instant, Zibar halted and moved his hands with deft precision to parry what came from right and left.
On his right stood a strange man wielding a spear; on his left, a cursed, hunched old man with a sword.
Their weapons ground violently against Zibar’s fists. He held them off with skill—only to be slammed a heartbeat later by a coordinated assault from Angri and Avalon, forcing him to give ground.
"Four against one... funny that I, of all people, should be outnumbered," Zibar laughed, unfazed by the arrival of more enemies.
He didn’t finish laughing before a roaring black arrow plunged from the sky, exploding against him and everything beneath.
Zibar recoiled instantly, catching the arrow in his left hand after deflecting it—only to be met by dozens more, screaming toward him from every direction.
"Hah!!"
Mouth opening, Zibar unleashed a torrent of Aura that swallowed the arrows and ground them to dust.
And the moment he did, the ground vanished beneath him as the maw of a colossal beast .. hundreds of meters across at least .. erupted upward.
It threatened to swallow him whole, a thing wrought entirely of pure Aura.