They had lost her ..even though she was SSS-rank.
And now Adyr was about to be lost as well.
A warrior like Adyr could mean everything in the battles ahead.
Frey refused to allow it.
He extended the spatial formation to envelop Adyr too.
"You’re coming with me. No matter what it takes."
Adyr vanished ..saved.
Leaving only Frey in the battlefield of corpses and shadows.
Blood poured from beneath the mask.
The pressure of maintaining the ability was crushing him.
But the aura of that crimson butterfly
..the warmth she had gifted him
was the only reason he could still stand.
Wesker appeared instantly, hand reaching to tear him apart ..
But before the blow landed, Frey unleashed another wave of violet spatial force, pushing Wesker back and distorting space around them.
"Wesker... no. Aegon."
Frey’s voice trembled with fury as violet light flickered through his eyes.
"No more schemes from the shadows.
I see you clearly this time.
You stand before me ..
You are my enemy."
"From this point forward...
This is a war between humans and demons.
Between me and you."
"Only one of us will walk away alive."
The space around Frey twisted.
"Whether it’s me... or Nameless himself...
You will die on this earth.
The same earth you toyed with for years—
the same earth whose people you spat on."
"Know this, Wesker ..
here, before your wretched king’s eyes...
YOU. WILL. FALL."
With those final words ..
Frey vanished completely.
Leaving behind the armies of the Ultras, and Wesker, who hovered quietly above the battlefield.
The war between the Empire and the Ultras had ended...
The Ultras had forced the Empire out of their lands.
But they failed to exterminate them.
Which meant:
The war was far from over.
The Fourth Seat had failed to end the conflict.
A shocking outcome.
Yet, Wesker was not upset.
"Follower of Nameless... Gehrman taught you well."
He glanced at the shattered remains of Adyr’s broken vessel.
"He managed to wound me, this time."
He had known that the heroes of the past were hiding somewhere.
But he did not expect one of Nameless’s pillars to be present here.
The world had not seen them in ages, but their names remained legendary:
Number 1: Gehrman, the Perfect Vessel
Number 2: Alexander Rybak, Master of Martial Arts
Number 3: Fulghor, the Living Planet
Number 4: Adyr, the Shadow Executor
All had vanished .. except Gehrman.
Yet Adyr surfaced again, shaking the battlefield.
And Frey and Snow themselves had far exceeded every expectation.
Wesker was no longer the only one moving pieces across the board.
The Blue-Eyed One remained terrifying.
"Well... this is not entirely disappointing."
Wesker descended slowly.
And as he landed ..
His demonic form dissolved ..
replaced by the familiar face of:
Aegon Valerion.
"Everything remains within expectations."
Wesker, still wearing the form of Aegon, spoke as he turned to the Ultras.
From this point on, the war would no longer be a clash of armies—
but a direct conflict between humans and demons, and those who followed them.
In such a war, Gehrman could not intervene for long.
His vessel had already decayed far beyond repair ..
and that alone was a tremendous advantage for Wesker.
Because another monster was already drawing near.
Tearing through space itself as he descended at terrifying speed...
Clad in the Great Katarina Armor,
Zibar was returning to the battlefield ..
And this time, it was his true body, not a mere projection.
Two Upper Demons now existed on Earth at the same time.
A first in recorded history.
Which meant the battles to come would be far more brutal than anything yet seen.
---
...
---
On the opposite side of the world, within the Eastern Nightmare Lands ..
The vast Shadow Sect was alive with a commotion it had not seen in ages.
A sanctuary that had remained empty and silent for so long
had finally been filled with humans once more.
Thanks to Frey, thousands had escaped the massacre and the collapse of Caelid.
But the cost was horrifying.
Only four thousand survived.
Out of 150,000 who had marched for the Empire...
146,000 had died.
The Empire entered the war with one hundred thousand soldiers,
and fifty thousand reinforcements led by Aegon later joined.
Who would have imagined that their numbers would fall so low?
And that was not even counting the countless civilians
who perished during the Church Massacre...
In a matter of months, the war had slaughtered millions,
and many more stood on the edge of death.
Frey was the last to be transported into the Shadow Sect ..
and the moment he arrived, his consciousness collapsed.
His body had been pushed far past its limits.
Silence and despair filled the Sect.
The Empire had lost nearly everything,
and the situation within its remaining territory was unknown ..
for the demons had launched their invasion there as well.
But everyone knew one thing:
A devastating battle had taken place.
Because the heroes of the past had risen again.
This was the transition ..
from one era of mankind to the next.
The elite class gathered around Frey’s unconscious form,
while others spread through the colossal halls of the Sect.
And there ..waiting silently ..
were a group of humans who had fought from the shadows for generations.
The Readers.
Those who once observed the world, hidden and forgotten.
All of them now stood in silent anticipation ..
watching Frey, who lay on the ground, unaware of any of this.
A crimson butterfly drifted through the air, circling him softly.
Sno was the only one who could see her clearly.
He did not push her away.
He knew who she was.
He felt relief ..
even joy ..
to see even the faintest trace of her survive.
And as he watched her cling to Frey’s chest,
his mind began to connect the pieces.
Could it be?
Was Frey the one Audrey had been searching for all along?
The thought unsettled him.
He knew far less about Frey than he believed.
About his power.
His origins.
His destiny.
His connection to that woman.
There was so much unknown.
And if humanity wished to survive the coming storm ..
they would have to unravel every unknown truth.
Because the war that approached now...
Would be the most violent of all.