CHAPTER 1140: FORCE OF NATURE.

It blurred again, faster this time, the world cracking around them as two identical forces collided.

Roselle fired into the melee, but the bullets bent around the energy field. "We can’t touch them!"

Steve shouted, "If we overload the relay, it might destabilize its feed!"

"Do it," Cain barked, locking blades once more.

Steve tore the relay from his back and slammed a manual override into the power cell. The lights across the cavern flared, then snapped into chaos.

The mirror-clone froze for an instant.

Cain drove {Eidwyrm} through its chest, forcing the blade deeper until it shattered into shards of light. The fragments disintegrated, scattering into the monolith, which began to collapse inward—imploding with a deafening, metallic scream.

The light vanished. Silence swallowed the ruin.

Cain dropped to one knee, breathing hard. His hand trembled as he looked at the cracks still glowing faintly under the rubble.

Susan approached slowly. "Did we win?"

Cain stared at the fading light. "We stopped one version of it."

Hunter reloaded, scanning the perimeter. "Then how many versions are there?"

Cain rose, dragging {Eidwyrm} across the ground. "As many as it needs," he said flatly. "And next time, it won’t copy me. It’ll copy all of us."

The tunnel rumbled again, faintly this time—like something below was laughing.

The battlefield hadn’t cooled. It just shifted.

Cain stepped over the ruins of the southern trench, boots sinking into what used to be the Daelmonts’ last defense line. The air stank of burnt oil and human ash. Even with the storm long gone, the ground still steamed where mana had carved through earth like molten glass.

He dragged his blade behind him. The weight didn’t slow him—it grounded him. His breath came steady, fogging the air in short bursts. Ahead, the remains of a convoy burned in silence, the flames starved of oxygen but too stubborn to die.

Susan appeared out of the haze, one arm wrapped tight in a makeshift sling. Her eyes were hard, unblinking. "You shouldn’t be walking alone."

Cain didn’t look at her. "No one left to walk with."

"There will be. If you stop treating every survivor like a liability."

He said nothing. He only watched as the embers dimmed across the field.

From the ridge, Roselle’s voice cut through the quiet. "We’ve got movement! South ridge, near the old refinery!"

Cain’s focus sharpened instantly. The enemy should’ve been crushed hours ago. He motioned for her to hold position and moved with lethal calm toward the refinery’s shadow.

The building loomed like a carcass—steel ribs twisted open, pipes spilling blackened coolant into the soil. Inside, faint steps echoed.

He slipped in through a breach, blade angled low. His footsteps were soundless on the soot-coated floor. Then a whisper—metal scraping metal.

A figure lunged from the dark. Cain parried on instinct. Sparks flew, briefly lighting up a blood-soaked mask. The strike was wild but powerful. Cain drove his elbow into the attacker’s ribs, then slammed him against a wall. The mask cracked, revealing a man barely older than twenty, trembling, eyes wide with something between fear and devotion.

"Who sent you?" Cain asked.

The man coughed blood, laughing weakly. "Does it matter? You burned the world either way."

Cain’s expression didn’t change. "Answer."

The soldier’s smirk faltered. "You think you’re different from them?"

Cain’s blade pierced his throat before he could say more. The body slid down the wall, blood smearing the rust.

Behind him, Susan stepped in quietly. "He was one of ours," she said.

Cain didn’t turn. "Not anymore."

"Does that help you sleep?"

He finally looked back, eyes sharp enough to cut. "Sleep’s for people who still dream."

A moment of silence passed between them before Roselle’s voice came again through the comm-link: "Command’s gone dark. All lines cut. If we stay here, we die here."

Cain sheathed his blade and started for the exit. "Then we move north. The Daelmont remnants will regroup at the docks. That’s where we finish it."

Susan caught up, her voice quieter now. "You think killing the last of them ends this?"

"No," Cain said. "But it keeps it from starting again."

As they left the refinery, the distant thunder of artillery rolled over the horizon. A second wave—new forces, unmarked banners. Cain paused, staring at the incoming flashes of light breaking through the clouds.

Roselle muttered, "You’ve got to be kidding me."

Cain’s grip tightened on his sword. "It never ends. But neither do we."

The night trembled as the first shells landed, painting the horizon in blood and fire. Cain didn’t flinch. He only stepped forward, into the storm, as if the war itself was daring him to outlast it.

The ground trembled as Cain rose from the rubble, dust and smoke swirling around him like spirits of the dead. His breathing was steady, measured — but his eyes burned with a quiet fury. The last strike had torn a crater through the battlefield, and the air shimmered with heat and Ki residue.

Across from him, Baldur grinned wide, blood streaking his cheek, his colossal chest heaving like a furnace. "Finally," the Ox King growled. "You’re starting to look alive."

Cain’s grip tightened on Eidwyrm. "You talk too much."

He shot forward, every step cracking the ground beneath him. Baldur met him head-on, their weapons colliding with a sound that split the sky. Each impact sent ripples through the field, shockwaves tearing banners, tossing corpses, and shattering the remnants of magic barriers that still flickered from earlier spells.

Cain ducked under a wide swing, twisting his wrist — Eidwyrm’s edge kissed flesh, slicing across Baldur’s abdomen. The Ox King barely flinched. He slammed a massive knee into Cain’s chest, sending him crashing back through a fractured wall of hardened earth.

The moment he hit the ground, Cain rolled, avoiding a descending strike that obliterated the ground where he’d just lain. Shards of stone exploded upward, cutting his cheek as he sprang to his feet. His blade flashed again — quick, efficient, merciless.

Baldur blocked, but the force of the exchange drove both men deeper into the mud. The rain hissed against molten blood, steam rising in ghostly veils.

Then Cain smiled — not out of confidence, but instinct. He could feel Baldur’s rhythm now, every movement like the beat of a war drum. Predictable. Heavy. Brutal.