Yu sat on an overturned supply crate a safe distance from the main base on Jareoa, jaw tight while a field medic wrapped his ribs for what felt like the hundredth time.
Safe distance.
That was what Athena had called it.
Really, it just meant far enough away that if Darius and Seizen tore the world open again, Yu and what was left of his men might not die with them.
The triage line had been thrown together in a hurry—canvas sheets tied between snapped poles, wounded soldiers laid out in rows, medics moving through blood, ash, and shouting with tired hands and no time to slow down. The air stank of antiseptic, smoke, and hot iron. Every few seconds the ground still gave a low trembling shudder from the battle raging in the distance.
Yu hissed when the medic pulled the wrap tight.
"Easy," the man muttered.
"Easy died an hour ago," Yu shot back.
Talking hurt.
Breathing hurt.
Thinking hurt.
Athena came through the haze with dirt on her armor and no softness left in her face. One hand rested near her sword, the other flexing at her side like she was still half-ready to run back into the fire.
"Status," Yu said.
Athena didn't waste a second.
"Eighteen hundred of the three thousand have already regrouped and made it in. More are still arriving." Her eyes stayed hard. "We have more manpower now. More firepower too."
Yu let out a weak breath through his nose.
On any other day, that would've sounded reassuring.
On any other battlefield, hearing eighteen hundred soldiers are here with more on the way would've felt like the turn.
He gave a tired laugh that died halfway out.
"Honestly," Yu said, voice rough, "if you said that on any other day, I would've agreed with you, but—"
He stopped.
Athena frowned.
"But?"
No answer.
Yu was staring past her.
Not at the camp.
Not at the wounded.
Not at the smoke.
At the sky.
Athena turned.
And even she froze.
Far in the distance—above the burning base, above the smoke and broken towers—a staff was rising.
Not thrown.
Not lifted.
Extending.
A dark line spearing straight up into the heavens, climbing so high it looked like it wanted to pin the sky in place.
Yu's eyes widened.
His mouth parted.
His whole body shook once.
"...Is that," he whispered, "the legendary Monkey King... Wu?!"
The staff snapped back down.
And in the same heartbeat—
the world changed.
High above the battlefield, Wu's body became wrapped in surging Spirit Muti, dense and primal and alive around him like a second body. It packed over his frame, coating muscle and movement, hardening him into something ancient and terrible.
His voice thundered over Jareoa.
"Spirit Muti: Monkey Flesh!"
Then flames exploded around him.
Not small flames.
Not mortal flames.
His whole body ignited like a falling star.
A living meteor.
A red-gold comet dropping from the sky with his bo staff in both hands and murder in the angle of his descent.
His roar split the air.
"Martial Muti: Fall Wu Kong!"
Yu's heart nearly stopped.
Then instinct hit faster than thought.
He whipped around and screamed at the top of his lungs—
"TAKE COVER!"
Everything moved at once.
Soldiers dropped.
Medics threw themselves over the wounded.
Athena grabbed two nearby men and dragged them behind a shattered supply cart.
Yu hit the dirt just before impact.
And then—
Wu landed.
The explosion was monstrous.
The sound disappeared first.
Then came force.
The earth opened in the distance as fire, stone, smoke, and debris erupted out of the base in a blinding wave. The shockwave tore across Jareoa hard enough to flatten tents in the triage zone, rip tarps free from their poles, and send men skidding across dirt and rock. Trees bowed. The ground buckled. A quake rolled under them so hard it felt like the whole island had been punched in the spine.
Yu slammed into the dirt hard enough to taste blood.
Athena covered her head with one arm as debris rained around them.
The world roared.
Then rang.
Then slowly—
painfully—
started coming back.
Smoke filled everything after that.
No one moved fast.
Couldn't.
Men coughed.
Someone screamed for a medic.
Someone else kept asking if they were deaf.
The whole island seemed to groan under the aftermath.
A few minutes later, once the shaking eased and the reinforcements fully linked with the survivors, Yu forced himself back to his feet. Athena was already issuing orders, pulling what remained of the line into shape.
Yu wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
"We move," he said.
Athena looked at him once, saw there was no point arguing, and nodded.
They pushed back toward the base.
Slow at first.
Then quicker.
The closer they got, the quieter the soldiers became.
Not because they were calm.
Because the damage ahead was too big for easy words.
The base had already been wrecked.
Now it looked like a god had fallen through it.
Yu stopped dead the second they reached the main yard.
There was a crater.
Not damage.
Not broken ground.
A crater.
Massive. Blackened. Violent. Scooped out of the base itself with shattered earth radiating in every direction. Buildings had been flattened or ripped apart. The drill ground was gone. The old lanes had become cracks and scars spreading out from the impact point.
Yu stared.
For a second, he forgot the pain.
Forgot his men.
Forgot to breathe.
Athena narrowed her eyes through the smoke.
Then pointed.
"There."
Yu followed her hand.
Seizen.
The Black Prince lay on the ruined ground, down but not dead, black-red remnants of aura still fading off him like embers refusing to die.
Athena's voice cracked like a whip.
"Restrain him! Before he wakes up!"
A squad rushed forward immediately with seal-chains and suppression irons, moving fast despite the fear written all over them.
Yu's gaze shifted again.
That was when he saw the rest of it.
Wu stood a little beyond the crater's center, breathing hard now, shoulders rising and falling, the weight of the fight finally visible on him. In one arm he held an unconscious Musashi. With the other, he supported Darius, who looked half-dead on his feet.
And then the rest of them were there.
Athena first.
Then Lisa.
Then Mustafa.
Then Yu himself, limping the last few steps with the rest of the surviving squad closing in behind them.
"Captain!"
"Darius!"
"Easy—easy!"
"Medic!"
Lisa got to him fast, hands already checking for blood loss and internal collapse. Mustafa came in on the other side, helping take Darius's weight so he didn't fold straight to the dirt. Athena dropped beside Musashi immediately, checking his breathing, jaw tight but controlled. Yu stood in front of them all for half a second, chest heaving, trying to make sense of how any of them were still alive.
Darius barely managed to lift his head.
His eyes found Wu.
With the last of his strength, he raised a shaking hand and rested it on the Monkey King's shoulder.
"Thank you," he breathed. "My friend."
Wu smiled.
Tired.
"Anytime."
Lightning still crackled faintly around the Sun-Iron Ring's contract pull.
Darius swallowed blood and forced the words out.
"Crown returns to the branch."
A bolt of lightning slammed down where Wu stood.
For an instant the whole yard flashed white.
Then the Monkey King was gone.
Only scorched ground and fading ozone remained.
Yu stepped forward, staring at the devastation, at the broken yard, at Seizen in chains, at Darius barely standing.
For one rare moment, all the sharpness in him dropped away.
"Good work," Yu said quietly.
Then, after a beat—
"We'll handle things from here."
His eyes went from Darius to Seizen and back again.
"How did you manage to win against a Shinshō?"
Darius heard him.
He did.
But by then the edges of the world were already going soft.
His body sagged.
His vision blurred.
And inside, where no one else could hear—
We didn't win.
The thought came clear.
Cold.
Sharp.
He wanted to come here and get caught.
The noise around him dimmed.
The medics.
The soldiers.
Athena's orders.
Yu's voice.
Lisa calling for pressure wraps.
Mustafa telling somebody to move.
All of it felt farther away now.
He could've beaten us at any time.
Darius felt himself tipping.
Falling.
But he wanted something else.
Then, right before the dark took him, his eyes slid past the soldiers restraining Seizen.
Just for a second.
Just enough.
The Black Prince's eyes were open a sliver.
Faint red.
Watching.
And smiling.
Small.
Brief.
No one else noticed.
Then Darius hit the ground.
Black.