The scene shifts to the night before.

  Harry was leaning over the tactical table, the blue light of the holographic map reflecting in his glasses. He was meticulously laying out the strategy for Mode 2: Capture the Flag.

  "The Feathers work in perfect synchronization," Harry said, his voice cold.

  "And that is exactly what their greatest flaw is in a field-op like Mode 2."

  "Synchronization is a flaw?" Sera asked, her brow furrowed.

  "What makes you think so?"

  "Because we have multiple brains," Harry replied, tapping his temple.

  "They have one. In a team-wide mission, they will act like a single organism. It's predictable."

  "I’m not sure I follow," Aether said, spinning in his chair.

  "Do you know what makes a unit run in sync?" Harry asked.

  "What keeps them moving as one?"

  "Unity? Rhythm?" Aether guessed.

  "Exactly," Harry said.

  "So, you’re suggesting we go and disrupt their unity?" Steve asked, leaning against the wall.

  "No," Harry replied with a shrug.

  "That strategy only works against amateurs. Against a team like the Feathers, it would be suicide. They’d see the traps, they’d grow more wary, and we’d lose any chance of a stealthy strike."

  He paused.

  "In Mode 2, we don't disrupt their unity…

  we break their steps."

  "Care to explain?" Cassey asked.

  "While they coordinate and update each other on our positions, we will isolate their weakest links," Harry said.

  "We won't just attack them—we’ll let the other members see us do it."

  He straightened.

  "We will manufacture fear.

  We will haunt them."

  "That feels... wrong," Sera muttered.

  "Everything is fair in war," Harry replied flatly.

  "The plan is unrealistic, Harry," Lilith countered.

  "How do you separate members who stick to each other like glue in a flag mission?"

  "By exploiting their personal psychological triggers," Harry said.

  "Even in an elite team, every person has a crack in their armour."

  "We find the crack, we jam a blade in, and we listen to their conversations to gather intel.

  We turn their own coordination against them."

  "And who is going to slip in to gather that intel?" Lilith asked.

  Harry didn't answer.

  He didn't have to.

  The mist was so thick that the audience could no longer see the fighters.

  The silence of the frozen wasteland was absolute—until the sound of clashing steel rang out from the fog.

  Clang!

  A spark of orange light flickered deep within the white mist, followed by the sound of rapid, rhythmic footsteps on ice.

  The "Absolute Zero" hadn't ended the fight.

  Despite Harry having planned primarily for the complexities of Mode 2, his assassin instincts were more than enough for a duel in the dark.

  Within the swirling white abyss of the mist, the sound of clashing steel was relentless.

  Through Harry’s eyes, the world was a blur of grey. He was moving constantly, his footsteps silent on the ice, circling Aldric like a shark.

  He struck from the left.

  Then the right.

  Shifting his center of gravity to remain a ghost in the fog.

  He was trying to break the knight’s composure.

  But something was wrong.

  In the Feather camp, the tension finally snapped.

  One of the members lunged forward, slamming their hands onto the table in front of Arthur.

  "What the hell are you planning!?" they screamed.

  "You knew Harry was an assassin, and yet you let Aldric surround himself with mist?"

  "You’ve given the enemy his home turf!

  Are you crazy?"

  Arthur didn't even look up.

  He leaned back, a small, dark smirk playing on his lips.

  "Keep watching."

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Back in the arena, Harry launched a barrage of invisible strikes.

  For a man of his background, the mist should have been a death sentence for his opponent.

  Yet every time his blade sought a gap in the knight’s armour, it was met with cold, hard steel.

  Aldric wasn't even looking.

  He stood perfectly still, his sword moving with an eerie, magnetic precision.

  The scene snaps back to the battlefield.

  The freezing mist is gradually beginning to dissipate, pulled inward toward the center of the arena.

  Aldric, the Feather knight, stands at the center of the ice.

  His eyes are closed.

  His entire body is enveloped in a faint, pulsing blue glow.

  He isn't using his eyes to find Harry.

  He is using a different core entirely.

  High above the clouds, on a jagged mountain peak overlooking the military base, a hooded woman stood in the freezing wind.

  Her eyes, glowing with slit-like yellow pupils, dilated as she locked onto a specific heat signature far below.

  A slow, predatory smirk spread across her face, revealing elongated fangs.

  "Ah... my daughter," she purred, her voice a silk-wrapped threat.

  "There you are at last."

  Down in the arena, the battle had reached a fever pitch.

  Aldric stood alone in the center of the ice, his eyes closed in deep meditation.

  His blue Aura pulsed outward in rhythmic waves, a sonar-like field designed to detect the slightest ripple in the air.

  Suddenly, the sky sparked.

  Three poisoned daggers materialized out of thin air, whistling toward his neck.

  Aldric didn't move.

  His Aura flared instinctively, creating a shimmering kinetic barrier that knocked the blades aside.

  More sparks followed—daggers screamed in from the south, then the north—but each was met by the same impenetrable shield.

  Then Aldric’s eyes snapped open.

  He looked down at the fallen daggers surrounding him in a perfect cardinal circle.

  A ritual formation.

  Before he could leap away, the reality around him fractured.

  The ground shifted, and the air turned a sickly, translucent green.

  Gravity suddenly inverted, pulling his feet from the ice.

  He was no longer in the arena.

  He was inside Harry’s Space Territory.

  Aldric’s Aura surged, wrapping around his skin like a second suit of armour to filter out the toxic green mist.

  Despite the anti-gravity attempting to disorient him, he forced his body to stabilize, floating in the center of the chaos.

  "Impressive," Harry’s voice echoed from all directions at once.

  "I didn't think you could manipulate Space as well."

  "I can't," Aldric replied, his voice calm despite the surrounding madness.

  "Space is a territory that cannot be expanded through effort. I am no exception to that rule."

  "Then were you born with it?" Harry asked, his voice shimmering with curiosity.

  "No," Aldric smirked, tightening his grip on his sword.

  "Nature hates me, after all. That’s why I take pleasure in defying it."

  In the Wrapper camp, Cassey gripped the railing so hard the metal groaned.

  "How is he still alive?!" she shouted.

  "I thought if you don't have a decent Space core, you'd be crushed instantly inside an enemy's Territory!"

  She turned to Aether.

  "You said his stats were low!

  And unlike Aura, you can't just 'train' your way into a higher Space stat!"

  "That’s true," Steve interrupted, his eyes narrowed as they reflected the green glow of the arena.

  "But long ago, I met a man who could use the power of one Core to mimic the properties of another."

  "Does that mean...?" Aoi trailed off, her eyes wide.

  "I’m not sure yet," Steve replied.

  Aether leaned closer to his monitors, his face lit with pure scientific glee.

  "Look closely!" he laughed sharply.

  "He isn't actually using Space."

  "He’s using his massive Aura reserves to replicate Space properties, feeding the technique with the tiny scrap of Space core he was born with."

  "He’s literally 'faking' a high-level stat with sheer willpower.

  Talk about being crafty!"

  Back inside the emerald-tinted void, Harry’s silhouette finally appeared, flickering like a ghost.

  "I truly am amazed by how you climbed to this level, Aldric," Harry said, his daggers glowing with a dark, acidic light.

  "But my mission remains."

  "I have to win this.

  Prepare yourself."

  Just as the assassin and the knight prepared to settle their duel, the world shook.

  A massive explosion ripped through the back gate of the base, the shockwave rattling the arena's glass.

  Alarms blared instantly.

  A sea of soldiers rushed into the chaos.

  In the VIP stands, Mitsuo’s playful smirk vanished.

  His expression turned deadly serious.

  "So," he muttered,

  "it’s finally here."

  The chaos was only beginning.

  Before the dust from the first blast could settle, a second explosion tore through the Feather base in the opposite direction.

  Seconds later, a third blast rocked the Divers' quarters.

  The facility was being systematically dismantled.

  The mobilization was instant.

  The Blazers, led by a cold-eyed Rafael, bolted toward the back gate.

  The Divers were rerouted to defend the devastated Feather base.

  The Semi-Elite Battalion was dispatched to cover the Divers’ quarters.

  The emergency broadcast system shrieked over the sirens:

  [EMERGENCY: SPECIAL-GRADE THREAT 'JACK' IDENTIFIED AT BACK GATE. REQUESTING ALL SPECIAL OFFICERS.]

  [WARNING: SPACE DEFENSE SYSTEM COLLAPSED. BASE VULNERABLE TO DIMENSIONAL INTRUSION.]

  [WARNING: SPECIAL-GRADE THREAT 'SECOND PRINCE DIABLO' LOCATED NEAR DIVER BASE. SEMI-ELITES IN CRITICAL DANGER.]

  Before the combatants in the arena could react, a massive Space Territory—vastly superior to Harry’s—erupted from the center of the field.

  It swallowed the entire battleground.

  The arena was severed from the rest of the base.

  The cloaked woman from the mountain drifted down from the sky, hovering in the center of the void.

  Aoi’s parasitic tentacles reacted violently, lashing out in an unstable frenzy—as if they were trying to both flee and submit.

  "Finally..." the woman purred, her eyes locking onto Aoi.

  "I’ve found you, my daughter."

  At the back gate, the smoke cleared to reveal Jack.

  He stood amidst the wreckage, his expression smug and carefree—a dark mirror of Mitsuo’s own arrogance.

  "Ah, they really built quite a fortress here," Jack remarked.

  He didn’t turn as he sensed a powerful presence approaching.

  "So, you finally showed up, Mitsuo?"

  But as the dust settled, it wasn't Mitsuo who stood there.

  It was Rose.

  Her golden eyes burned with a calm, lethal light.

  "Apologies for not living up to your expectations," she said coolly.

  Jack chuckled, his interest clearly piqued.

  Meanwhile, at the Divers' base, the Second Demon Prince, Diablo, was casually slaughtering the Semi-Elite soldiers.

  A familiar, mocking laugh echoed through the courtyard.

  Diablo froze.

  He turned to see Mitsuo leaning against a piece of rubble.

  "Well, well," Diablo sneered.

  "Is the Primordial really going to ignore his 'brother' Jack to come play with me?"

  Mitsuo’s eye twitched.

  "Geez, I’ve told you people a thousand times—he isn't my brother."

  He straightened, his aura flaring with enough intensity to crack the pavement.

  The Demon Prince settled into a fighting stance.

  The pinnacle of humanity stood before him.

  At the Feather base, the Divers were suddenly swarmed by nightmarish, multi-tentacled creatures emerging from the shadows.

  The veterans didn’t hesitate.

  Blades and guns roared to life as they began the cull.

  Back in the isolated Space Territory, the rivalry between the Wrappers and the Feathers vanished in an instant.

  The assassin and the knight stood side-by-side.

  Their weapons were no longer aimed at each other—

  —but at the monster that had descended from the stars.

  To be continued…

  ? MYukH. All rights reserved.