[: 3rd POV :]

After months of relentless pursuit, Daniel stood upon a mountain ridge overlooking the shining sprawl of the Human Continent’s capital, Lunaria, the heart of the Human Continent.

The city gleamed under the pale light of dusk, its towers and spires glistening like blades of glass.

Yet beneath that beauty, Daniel could sense it, the stench of corruption, the faint pulse of something vile lurking beneath the capital.

He had spent six months tearing through the remnants of the Zero Organisation.

From frozen wastelands to deserts drowned in blood, he had hunted them without rest. Each base had fallen, each abomination purged, until only one remained.

And it was here.

In the most public, guarded, and sacred place of all, the Grand Colosseum of Lunaria, the symbol of human pride and unity.

Daniel’s eyes narrowed as his system interface flickered before him.

[: Remaining Target: 1 :]

[: Location: Lunaria – Grand Colosseum :]

"...The last one." His voice was a low murmur, barely above the whispering wind.

The irony wasn’t lost on him.

A den of monsters hiding beneath a place where crowds cheered for honour and glory.

He could already imagine it, thousands of civilians unknowingly walking above cages of horror, above the screams of enslaved lives.

He clenched his fists.

The faint hum of void energy rippled through his veins, black mist coiling around his arms.

"Even here... you’ve buried your filth."

He gazed down at the city, his mind flickering through the memories of the months before, the countless slaves freed, the children trembling in fear, the ruins left in his wake.

He hadn’t done it for praise, nor for vengeance.

But somewhere deep within, every shattered base brought him closer to an answer, closer to her.

His mother.

He wasn’t doing this to find his mother, but he was going to finish something that he had started before reuniting with her.

Moreover, he was separated at birth because of them in the first place.

The faintest ache pulsed through his chest.

For years, he had buried that feeling beneath the weight of survival, but now, standing before the final Chapter of this hunt, he could feel it again, the pull of something familiar, faint yet unyielding.

"...You’re here too, aren’t you?"

He didn’t know who he was speaking to, perhaps the ones who hunted the Organisation alongside him, perhaps fate itself.

A gust of wind brushed past him, carrying the distant sound of cheers from the Colosseum.

The people were celebrating some tournament, oblivious to the abyss waiting below.

Daniel stepped forward, void matter spiralling around his feet as the mountain ridge began to fracture beneath his pressure.

"Zero Organisation..."

His eyes glowed a deep violet, flickers of destructive energy pulsing within them.

"This ends here."

With a single step, his form dissolved into shadows, the world folding around him as he vanished.

And in that fleeting instant, the winds seemed to tremble, as if the heavens themselves understood that the final hunt had begun.

Beneath the Colosseum of Lunaria, where the echoes of cheering crowds met the silence of death, Daniel’s reckoning awaited.

On the other hand, the Grand Colosseum of Lunaria roared like a living storm.

Tens of thousands of voices echoed through its marble corridors, a tidal wave of cheers, laughter, and thunderous applause that shook the very ground.

Mana-lights flared across the arena’s ceiling, painting the air in brilliant shades of gold and crimson.

The energy of the crowd was intoxicating, merchants waving banners, nobles shouting their bets, and adventurers pounding their chests in excitement as the announcer’s amplified voice boomed across the vast structure.

"Round five! The undefeated A-Rank duo from the East, The Crimson Fangs! Versus the famed S-Rank gladiator of the North, Valen the Stormbreaker!"

The crowd exploded in a frenzy.

"Ten thousand on the Fangs!" shouted one man, slamming a pouch of coins onto the betting counter.

"You’re mad! Stormbreaker will crush them like insects!" another yelled, clutching a gleaming ticket.

Below, the gates opened.

A gust of dust and mana filled the air as three figures stepped into the light.

The Crimson Fangs, two lean warriors clad in red-enchanted armour, twirled their twin blades with synchronised precision, their eyes gleaming with killing intent.

Across from them stood Valen, a towering figure wreathed in lightning.

His silver hair crackled with static, his greatsword humming as if alive.

"BEGIN!"

A thunderclap split the air.

Valen surged forward, his sword carving through the dust like a flash of blue fire.

The Crimson Fangs split apart, their movements fast and fluid, dancing through the lightning storm with deadly grace.

The clash of steel, the bursts of magic, the shockwaves, each strike drew wild cries from the stands.

"Look at that speed!"

"He dodged Valen’s Heaven’s Break!"

"No way! The Fangs are countering—together!"

For a heartbeat, silence fell.

Then, an explosion.

One of the Fangs was thrown against the wall, smoke and sparks trailing his body.

The crowd gasped, then erupted again when the surviving Fang spun through the smoke and sliced Valen’s shoulder, forcing the giant to one knee.

"UNBELIEVABLE! The Crimson Fangs take the victory!" the announcer cried.

Coins clattered as some spectators groaned in despair while others whooped with joy, holding their winnings high.

"I told you! I told you the Fangs would win!"

"Argh, that was luck! Valen slipped!"

The next round followed in moments.

Silver Lion, Ardeen, an S-Rank juggernaut with an indestructible spear, against Moonveil, Seris, an elusive assassin whose daggers shimmered like ghostlight.

Their battle was a dance of precision and brutality, steel and shadow weaving across the arena floor.

Every dodge, every blow drew waves of excitement.

The spectators screamed until their throats were raw, completely consumed by the spectacle.

To them, this was the peak of glory, strength, fame, and power on full display.

And yet, none knew that beneath their cheers, far below the Colosseum floor, something dark and ancient was stirring, an ending drawing near, unseen by those who laughed above

Beneath the thunderous roar of the Colosseum, far below where the banners fluttered and the crowds cheered, the last embers of the Zero Organisation burned fitfully in a vaulted chamber of iron and mildew.

Corridors tunnelled like veins into the city’s foundations, and within those passages a man stood over a map stained with blood and ash, his fingers trembling as he tapped the last coordinates.

He had been a pillar of the Organisation once, one of the architects who prided himself that no secret could be scrubbed from his record.

Now, all his lines led to a void.

"Why are they falling?" he growled, voice like oil on rust.

He stabbed a gauntleted finger into the map until the paper tore.

"Bases gone. Cells silent. Contacts cut as if the world swallowed them. Who does this to us and walks away?"

A courier trembled at his elbow, eyes hollow.

"Pillar Lysandros, sir... reports keep coming from all borders. Bases dissolving into nothingness. Some survivors whisper of a single figure, someone who appears like a shadow and leaves salvation in his wake’’

’’They call him... the Abyssal Butcher."

The name landed in the room like a blade.

Lysandros spat a curse so foul it seemed to make the stone shiver.

"A butcher?"

He slammed a fist so hard the table cracked.

"If that creature has been systematically severing our limbs for months, then we are right on the brink’’

’’We cannot, must not be erased."

There was an ugly edge to his panic that had nothing to do with fear of death; it was the dread of impotence.

The Organisation’s entire lattice of influence had been his life’s work.

To watch it unravel with no clear enemy to strike back at was to be stripped of meaning.

However, a few days ago, something impossible happened.

His prayer had been answered, and then the air condensed into a voice—ancient, patient, and full of terrible promise.

"My lamb," the voice intoned, and the stone throne-room seemed to answer. "The Apostles will come."

Lysandros went very still.

For a long moment, he thought it a hallucination.

He had heard rumours of divine audiences, tales from the fanatics who worshipped forces older than kings, but never a direct address.

He had never expected the Sovereigns themselves would notice them.

He stepped forward, heart pounding in a new rhythm.

"Who speaks?" he demanded.

The answer arrived like a black sun blooming in his vision.

Images and sensations flooded the chamber, distance collapsing, galaxies tearing, a presence like a blade through a calm sea.

The voice did not need a mouth to speak.

It was not a transmission, it was an edict felt in marrow.

’’Prepare a bridge’’ the thought-voice impressed upon him.

Prepare the conduit. I will gift you the hour when my Apostles descend. Make a gateway worthy of their entry’’

Lysandros laughed then, a sound that had no humour in it, only a manic clarity.

"At last."

He bowed his head to emptiness, but his eyes shone with a terrible light.

For the first time since the systematic losses had begun, he felt he could breathe.

The Sovereign’s attention meant power, and power meant survival.

He had one decision to make, and it screamed with both strategy and audacity.

The ruined temple deep within the frontier might be sacred to them, but it had been compromised.

There was a place no one would suspect, a place where tides of blood and the breath of a hundred thousand souls could be braided into a single, shimmering anchor.

"The Colosseum," he said aloud, tasting the word.

’’It’s a perfect place where thousands of people gather’’

He outlined his plan in terse orders.

Ever since that day, he had been preparing silently where no one had caught him.

He laid down the colesseum with ancient geometry laced with stolen sigil fragments.

Leyline-scrapers to feed the conduit, and a blindfold of false maintenance alarms across the surface markers.

Sacrifices were optional; the blood of the Organisation’s followers would do for now.

He commanded the engineers to hollow an access node directly beneath the central pillar of the Colosseum, to anchor the doorway to the realm of the Apocalypse.

He ordered wards that would cloak the energy signature long enough for the Apostles to step through the tear.

"Make the linkway perfect," he hissed, eyes glassy.

"Make it sing with the life of Lunaria. Let their adoration become our gate."

A murmur of assent crawled through the gathered core.

Some of them, broken men, fanatics, those who had risen through cruelty, bowed their heads in grim devotion.

For them, this was salvation.

If the Sovereign’s Apostles came, they would not be crushed alone.

"Finally...’’ Lysandros whispered, moving like a shadow to the execution table where his engineers waited.

"When the Apostles fall through, we will be waiting. We will greet them with a throne built from the bones of our enemies."

He looked up, imagining the dark angels stepping down into the city’s belly.

The image steadied him.

The panic that had hollowed his chest began to harden into something like hubris.

The Sovereign had noticed them.

The Sovereign would send Apostles.

The last base, hidden beneath all that pride and cheer, would become a junction that could tilt the war.

If he succeeded, the Organisation would rise again; if he failed, he would be ground to dust and forgotten.

"Signal the operatives," he ordered.

"Seal the ground. Open the wards quietly. Let no one know until the sky breaks."

Outside, the Colosseum’s crowd kept roaring, bright and innocent, utterly unaware that the city’s underground had already opened to a coming storm.