High above the battlefield, beneath the scarlet heavens,
a crimson eye opened in the void ..
vast, malevolent, and unblinking.
It gazed upon the Souls of all living beings beneath it,
a presence both mesmerizing and terrifying.
With a single glance from that eye,
the wounds Frey had inflicted upon Wesker vanished instantly,
as though he had never been harmed at all.
At the same time,
those who met the gaze of that eye began to die where they stood ..
their Souls unraveling into nothingness.
"That was a fine strike," Wesker said calmly,
lifting his head toward the sky.
"I assume it’s the same one that defeated Zibar...
and shattered the moon itself."
Indeed, Frey Starlight had reached an astonishing level ..
even without officially breaching the SSS rank.
Such was the result of wielding a body carrying the potential
of a warrior as great as Nameless himself.
But before Wesker, even that power was not enough.
Frey realized it the moment he saw the battlefield below ..
the Imperial forces were being annihilated.
If this continued, the war would end in catastrophe.
It was almost laughable ..
how Wesker had reversed the entire tide of war
with nothing but his presence,
turning victory into despair.
Everything he’d done so far had been to corner Frey Starlight ..
but his true motives remained unknown.
He was a being of overwhelming terror,
one who broke his enemies mentally
long before destroying them physically.
And against such a foe...
what could Frey possibly do?
Every time his eyes met Wesker’s,
and that monstrous crimson eye above him,
he felt nothing but despair ..
a despair deeper than anything he’d felt,
even during his battle against Zibar.
Yet, just as Frey was about to collapse beneath that weight,
something stirred.
A blinding surge of power burst forth
from above the crimson eye ..
a light pure and divine.
"Judgment of Light!"
Snow Lionheart’s voice thundered across the heavens.
A beam of brilliance tore through the red sky,
piercing the eye from within and shattering it apart.
Light engulfed the darkness.
And within seconds, Snow emerged—
his body clad in the radiant armor of the Anointed War State.
He descended from the center of the explosion,
majestic and awe-inspiring,
his blade Vermithor gleaming like a star.
Wesker reacted swiftly,
forming a surge of dark aura around his hand,
meeting Snow’s descending strike head-on.
The two forces collided,
light and darkness locked in a cataclysmic struggle.
Though the gap in their strength was vast,
Snow held his ground,
his body radiating waves of blinding energy.
"This is... the Soul of Light,"
Wesker muttered, recognizing it at once.
"Get up, Frey! Now isn’t the time to fall!" Snow shouted,
pushing forward even as Wesker’s darkness pressed him back.
"The enemy’s right in front of us .. we fight or we die!"
He swung again, unleashing a flurry of holy strikes,
his aura of light clashing against the abyss.
"The gap between us is enormous," Snow shouted,
raising Vermithor toward the heavens,
"but it’s not hopeless!"
More divine power flowed into him.
"The Soul of Light is the natural counter to demons ..
it burns them from within!"
Indeed, the Soul of Light had once wounded Agaroth himself
in the ancient past.
Though Snow was no longer as powerful as he had been
when known as the Pure Vessel,
he still believed he could injure Wesker ..
if Frey could create the opening.
And that was the message he sent to his friend.
"We fight—to the very last breath!"
BOOOOOOM!
The sky erupted with explosions as Snow dove again,
his light colliding with Wesker’s shadow,
leaving trails of white and black tearing across the heavens.
"If we win, so be it! If we lose—then let it be!
We’ll die fighting! We’ll die trying!"
There was no other way.
No escape from the Fourth Seat of the Upper Demons.
Frey understood that now.
While his friend fought valiantly,
Wesker quickly began to overpower him.
"You truly are a hero, Snow,"
Wesker said, parrying Vermithor with a grin.
"To be honest, I always thought of you as just another human ...
stronger than most, perhaps,
but hardly worthy of admiration compared to Frey."
He smiled, a flicker of interest in his tone.
"But you’ve surprised me in the end.
I couldn’t read your fate at all.
I assumed it was because Frey Starlight stood near you...
but no .. that wasn’t the reason."
Wesker extended his hand.
A strange power began to form around it.
"You’re not human, are you?
You’re a Lightbearer ..
one who holds the stronger half of the Soul of Light.
And that changes everything."
He raised his hand higher.
"Hand of Death."
The moment the words left Wesker’s lips,
Snow felt something seize his chest ..
a cold, crushing hand gripping his heart.
Before he could react,
his heart burst within his chest,
blood seeping instantly through the cracks of his golden helm.
His light flickered.
And his body began to fall.
"You carry a power akin to the First Lord of Light,"
Wesker said, smiling faintly.
"That makes you dangerous."
Over his shoulder, a dark spear materialized,
its tip pulsing with void energy.
"Unlike Frey Starlight,
I have no reason to let a threat like you live.
Die, Snow."
The spear launched with terrifying speed ..
a blur that tore the air apart.
Snow’s heart was already destroyed;
that alone should have ended him.
But Wesker wanted certainty ..
to obliterate the body entirely.
The spear struck true ..
but at the last instant,
Snow’s form dissolved into shards of pure light,
stunning even Wesker himself.
The weapon passed harmlessly through,
as the fragments of light swirled together,
reforming once more into Snow Lionheart,
standing tall in his shining armor,
Vermithor blazing in his hand.
In a burst of motion faster than sight,
he unleashed a thunderous slash toward Wesker ..
who caught it just in time,
shielding himself with a wall of dark aura.
Light and darkness clashed again and again,
their collision tearing through the air with cataclysmic force.
In the end, the light failed to pierce through ..
but it generated enough pressure to make even Wesker pause,
his crimson eyes flickering with genuine curiosity.
Across from him, through the cracks of his golden helm,
Snow Lionheart’s eyes glowed with fierce resolve.
"Wesker... or perhaps I should call you—Aegon."
Suspended in the sky, radiant aura surging behind him,
Snow gathered his power once more.
"You haven’t changed at all. Even now, after revealing your monstrous power,
you’re still the same filthy, deceitful rat.
You can crush my heart again if you wish—
it won’t matter."
"Because what resides within me
surpasses the very concept of blood.
Something purer... far beyond it."
Snow’s body erupted with light,
his will burning hotter than ever as he pressed beyond his limits.
"I am the Pure Vessel."
The instant he spoke those words,
he vanished ..
reappearing before Wesker at the speed of light,
striking with lethal precision.
His swordplay was divine ..
flawless, fluid, and blindingly fast.
The White Knight of Humanity was no mere soldier.
He had spent his entire life mastering this path,
seeking to reclaim the self that history had forgotten.
It was said that Lightbearers and Demons were eternally bound ..
each the antithesis of the other.
One embodied radiance; the other, shadow.
And among the Lightbearers,
Snow Lionheart had been born the purest ..
the strongest of them all.
The Pure Vessel.
His power existed solely to destroy demons.
Against them, his limits shattered ..
unleashing the true might of the Soul of Light.
Now, he shone brighter than ever before,
displaying a strength far greater
than when he had once faced Gepetto’s puppet
and lost to that masked stranger.
The power surge was tremendous,
and his duel with Wesker became a spectacle of gods ..
light against shadow,
heaven against abyss.
Clad in golden armor,
Snow looked less like a man
and more like a celestial knight descended to deliver mankind’s salvation.
Yet the terrifying truth was undeniable:
even with this overwhelming power,
even with every strike amplified by the Soul of Light,
Snow failed to wound Wesker even once.