Far away from the chaos unfolding above ..the kind that could strike the universe at any moment ..
the planet Earth, home of humankind, rested quietly at one corner of the vast cosmos.
At least for now, it was relatively safe from the devastating consequences of the First High One’s return.
Still, peace was an illusion. The situation across the stars was far from stable.
The war had reached its final stage, and everyone knew that the next battle would decide everything.
The Ultras had gathered every remaining force, retreating from all advanced fronts and abandoning territories they had once bled to defend.
That withdrawal allowed the Empire to advance deeper into their lands than ever before ..
until they stood only a few dozen miles away from Kaeld, the capital of the Ultras and the heart of their civilization.
The fall of Caelid would mark the official end of the Ultras.
Even if some of their resistance survived elsewhere,
the fall of their capital would signify the beginning of the end.
The Ultras had suffered catastrophic losses.
Never before had imperial forces penetrated their continent so deeply.
By now, the Empire controlled nearly half the continent—a vast territory by any measure.
Under normal circumstances, such expansion would have brought immense gain,
but the lands of the Ultras were barren, drained of all life ..
a dead realm where nothing grew.
Owning it was almost meaningless; the Empire gained nothing from its conquest.
The only cities of true value were the Four Cities of High Blood,
which still maintained a civilization advanced enough to rival the Empire’s own.
Of these four, the Empire had managed to capture only Shezklar.
The remaining three remained untouched—
but that was about to change.
For the imperial army now stood at the center of the continent, before Caelid itself.
The Ultras had gathered every warrior they could muster there,
preparing for a final battle that would eclipse all previous wars.
They would fight for their capital ..
for their home ..
and they would defend it no matter the cost.
The imperial army, on the other hand, would attack with the same resolve:
to bring Caelid down, no matter the price.
Everyone knew what was coming.
The next battle would be the bloodiest yet ..
there was no question of that.
One of the key reasons the Ultras would fight so fiercely
was the fact that Caelid was full of civilians ..their families, their loved ones.
Many of them were too weak to fight, even after being injected with demonic blood.
Some humans survived the transformation process...
but their strength didn’t always grow.
On paper, the Ultras appeared to have the advantage.
They had mobilized nearly 100,000 soldiers ..
their entire remaining force.
The Empire, by contrast, had fewer.
After years of war, battles with the Church,
and the withdrawal of divisions to defend their own territories,
their numbers had dwindled to around 40,000 on the main front.
From the start, the Ultras had always outnumbered them ..
their harsh lives had turned nearly every one of them into a fighter.
The Empire’s people, on the other hand,
had lived in comfort, protected from the brutality of constant war.
In short: 100,000 against 40,000.
A numerical advantage of more than double for the Ultras.
But numbers meant nothing here.
Everyone knew the Empire still held the upper hand ..
because of who fought for them.
Monsters whose names alone inspired dread:
Frey Starlight. Snow Lionheart.
Weeks earlier, the Ultras had tried to kill themة..
setting a trap that should have ended both of their lives.
But the two had escaped with ease.
Now, after all this time,
both had recovered completely ..
ready to unleash their full power.
And even without Frey and Snow,
the Empire still held terrifying forces:
Emperor Maekar Valerion and Sir Alon Valerion,
both moving under the command of Prince Aegon Valerion’s grand strategy.
The Ultras knew these monsters would soon descend upon them.
Whether they could withstand the assault ..
that would determine the fate of the entire war.
Within the imperial encampments clustered near Caelid,
the armies had finally united.
There, Frey met with his comrades once more.
He and Snow had returned together, joining Daemon and the others.
Their allies had been furious at Frey’s disappearance ..
leaving them behind to face the horrors of the war alone ..
but seeing him return unharmed, and with Snow beside him,
their anger soon faded.
Afterward, the group had fought their way back,
cutting through waves of Ultras along the retreat.
But none of that posed a real threat to them.
Their strength was beyond ordinary measure.
At last, the entire imperial force reunited.
Other divisions arrived soon after ..
among them the unit led by Oliver Khan,
accompanied by Ghost Umbra and Sansa Valerion.
Frey hadn’t seen them since before the battle with the Church.
So much had changed since then.
He had fought S-class and SSS-class beings more than once ..
his duel against Zibar being the most brutal of them all.
Now, when the soldiers lifted their eyes to the sky,
they could still see it ..
the fractured moon, split cleanly in two,
its pale light still shining upon the world,
forever scarred.
Everyone knew the truth:
that wound in the heavens was carved by Frey Starlight’s blade,
and no one else’s.
During his fight with Zibar,
he had unleashed a shockwave so powerful
that every living being on the planet had felt it.
That cursed aura was terrifying ..
yet unmistakably familiar to those who had traveled with him long enough.
There was no doubt.
Frey had done it.
That single act had placed him on a level beyond understanding ..
a level few could even begin to comprehend.
And yet, Ghost and Sansa greeted him as if nothing had changed.
Ghost remained his usual cold, detached self.
He had fought too long in Frey’s shadow to feel awe anymore;
his silent presence naturally gravitated back to Frey’s side.
Sansa, at first, tried to maintain her usual calm ..
the direct, confident demeanor she had always shown.
But it quickly crumbled.
What emerged instead
was something closer to who she had been before her transformation into a demon.
And in that moment, Frey realized ..
she had been thinking of him all this time,
ever since he’d pushed her away...
and left without her.
Seeing Uriel Platini unconsciously lingering close to him didn’t help matters at all.
Whenever Frey checked his Affection System, the result was always the same:
> Sansa Valerion
Current Affection Points: 100
Her points had never dropped ..
they had always remained the highest of all.
That meant she truly loved him.
Something she herself had only come to understand once she’d been away from him.
Their old relationship had never been built on the right foundation.
It was born out of mutual need, not choice.
After Sansa’s transformation into a demon, every human had rejected her.
Every single one—except Frey.
He alone had accepted her, unafraid of what she had become.
Naturally, that made her cling to him all the more.
She’d already been close to him before...
but now he became her anchor.
To Frey, meanwhile, Sansa had been his refuge ..
a place of quiet after the endless suffering,
after the massacres that left thousands dead by his hands.
No matter how much he changed,
no matter how monstrous he became,
Frey was still human in the end ..
a man who could crumble under the weight of everything pressing down on him.
Sansa was the one who eased that burden,
the one who allowed him to breathe again ..
at least during the brief moments they shared alone.
That had been the nature of their bond.
But it began to fracture the moment Oliver Khan accepted Sansa too ..
ready to throw away his life for her if needed.
That was when the balance shattered.
Frey was no longer the only one who could accept her.
Because now... Oliver was there.
In that moment, Frey became cold.
He pushed her away.
"If Oliver Khan is with you... then you don’t need me anymore."
He had known all too well the kind of life he lived ..
the kind of battles that awaited him.
So when he saw a chance to push Sansa away from that danger,
he took it .. without hesitation.
But that cruelty had left a deep scar on the demon girl’s heart.
For a long time afterward, she found herself questioning
what kind of bond truly connected her to the man called Frey Starlight.
Even while fighting alongside Oliver,
through countless battles against monsters like Gavid Lindman
and even V, whom she once faced herself ..
Frey never left her thoughts.
That was when she realized something important ..
something she had never told him.
She had never confessed.
She had never once gone to him and said,
"I love you."
From the very start, their relationship had begun wrongly ..
built upon mutual dependence, not true emotion.
So this time, upon seeing him again,
she wanted to tell him properly.
She wanted to make it right.
The opportunity finally came.
After the army’s reunion,
Frey and Sansa found themselves alone at night, away from the others.
They stood facing one another,
alone under the dark, barren sky beside the human encampment.
Sansa opened her mouth to speak ..
but in that crucial moment,
she found herself unable to form a single word.
Despite rehearsing the words hundreds, even thousands of times in her mind,
nothing came out.
Whenever she was nervous, she had a habit of touching her demonic horns.
Now, unconsciously, she stepped back a few paces,
her fingers brushing them as she stared at him.
At those dead, unfeeling eyes of Frey Starlight.
At the ominous aura that surrounded him.
He was changing—becoming something else entirely.
And she felt fear.
Not of him ..
but of the growing distance between them,
a gap widening with every passing day.
Conflicting emotions swirled within her.
There was so much she wanted to say...
that she ended up saying nothing at all.
Her body trembled softly as she realized
she had left him standing there, waiting, in silence.
"Frey... I..."
Her voice faltered.
She tried again, but the words refused to come.
That was when Frey moved.
He sighed—and smiled faintly.
"I don’t deserve all this... not even a fraction of it."
He said it to himself, but it only made Sansa’s heart tighten.
Ignoring her confusion, Frey stepped closer, slowly.
"For some reason... you no longer look like the demon I once knew,"
he murmured. "You look like the human Sansa again—the uncertain one.
It’s... nostalgic."
And then he reached her ...
pulling her into a tight embrace.
Why?
Because Sansa didn’t need to say anything.
He already knew.
Through the Affection System, he could see her thoughts clearly.
And they were chaotic ..
so chaotic she couldn’t hide them from him at all.
Frey understood everything ..
every detail of what she felt.
He knew how deeply she loved him.
And that knowledge stirred something inside him ..
something he hadn’t felt in a long time.
He had always ignored emotions like these,
believing they had no place in the life he lived.
But doing so had only hurt Sansa more.
Now, trembling in his arms,
she finally broke down, tears spilling uncontrollably.
Between sobs, she returned his embrace
and whispered against his ear, voice trembling:
"Frey... I love you.
I really, really love you."
Her words lingered in the air beside him.
Frey held her tighter,
his eyes softening at last.
"I know," he said quietly.