The road into Veyl Academy smelled of rain and iron. Clouds rolled low, like a ceiling ready to crash; the air buzzed with distant Shinrei tremors. Master Isen walked with a steady, almost casual gait golden hair catching the light, black-and-silver robes whispering with each step. At his side marched two Eclipse Vanguards: Kurosawa Zeke, magma coiled beneath his skin, and Raiden Kurogami, who moved with languid lightning in his bones.

"Be safe, everyone. Just be safe…" Isen murmured, more to himself than to the young men beside him.

Raiden's jaw worked. "Tsk. To think the school is blocked… we can't even teleport in. Master Isen can't use his usual tricks."

Zeke slammed a fist into his palm. "Those Sins. I'll tear them apart."

They reached the academy gate. Stone pillars loomed like old sentinels. Beyond, the air thrummed with war—distant shouts, the crack of Echo Arts, the metallic tang of blood. Then a figure stepped out of shadow.

He looked at first like a student with a poor sense of fashion: pink, wolf-cut hair, a grin that didn't reach eyes like spilled ink. But the eyes orange, red, and black swirled together, layered as if several gazes were stitched into one made every breath in the space between them feel colder.

"Your master can't step foot in the school." The man's voice slid out smooth and amused.

Zeke's lips peeled back. "You bastard—who are you to order Master Isen?"

Raiden's lazy features sharpened into alert. "You? Who are you—?"

Isen didn't step forward. He cocked his head, and for the first time the warmth in him thinned into something like caution. "Go, you two. Leave him to me. I know him."

Raiden blinked. "Are you sure, Master?"

Zeke opened his mouth to protest, but Isen's hand, light as a feather, brushed both their shoulders. There was that calm in his gaze that had quelled armies and steered nations. "Just do what I say, Zeke."

Zeke's fury didn't fade no, it brightened into obedient steel. "Okay, Master."

Isen let his usual silly grin return like a practiced mask. "Run along now." He watched them take two brisk, guarded steps down the lane, then turn and vanish toward the roar of the school like thunder splitting into lightning.

When they were gone, the smile dropped. Isen's shoulders squared. He turned his full attention to the pink-haired man.

Isen's voice was softer, worn with something that looked like memory. "It's been a long time. Lucere" It was a sentence heavy with history.

The other man returned the same tired amusement. "Hah… it's been a long time since someone said those words."

Lucere, if that was his name moved without hurry. The world seemed to lean away from him. "It's been a long time, Isen."

Isen's fingers curled at his sides. "You bastard. What are you doing here?"

Lucere shrugged, the motion casual and cruel in the same breath. "I just wanted to visit an old friend."

Isen's eyes flickered, and a ghost of the past slid across his face: a memory, a laughter half-heard, the shadow of someone named Yuna. "Are you the one who did this? Who ordered the Sins?"

Lucere's smile didn't change; it deepened like a wound getting worse. "Who knows?" He let the answer hang like a dropped coin, waiting for gravity. "Are you going to kill me, Isen?"

The question was a test and a tease. Lucere knew Isen wouldn't kill him. He knew the reasons old bonds, debts, the name Yuna strings Isen had never been able to cut.

Isen's jaw worked. The past flashed behind his calm eyes: Yuna dying, the three of them once close as children, a promise made on a rooftop as stars blinked like fragile coins.

Yuna's words surfaced not spoken now but living in the hollow of memory: "Don't kill each other… always take care of each other."

Lucere's voice went softer, venom wrapped in nostalgia. "I told you to revive her."

Isen's breath hitched, like a man who'd been pushed underwater and found air he didn't trust. "You can't revive the dead."

"Oh?" Lucere's laughter was a blade sliding loose. "Then again… you don't know how to be grateful."

Isen's hand twitched. For a flinch Isen looked older than his years: shoulders hunched against a burden only he could feel. "What did you say?"

Lucere's eyes softened for a second humanity flickering like a candle in wind and the echo of old friendship pulled the moment taut. Then the softness snapped away.

"You are the reason why she died, Isen." Lucere's words were a stone thrown through stained glass. "Master Yuna died because of you."

Isen's features collapsed in on themselves, shame and anger grappling like hungry dogs. The memory of Yuna smiling, warm, trusting cut him deeper than any blade.

Lucere took a step closer. The swirl in his eyes made the world tilt. He looked not like a man demanding revenge but like someone who had rehearsed this confrontation a thousand times and chosen every word to wound precisely.

"But I'll let bygones be bygones. That's all in the past now…." He studied the school, the distant lights, the silhouette of the battlefield. "Instead— et's watch. Who wins. Your men… or the Sins."

Isen clenched his fists until the fabric of his sleeve strained. He could feel the pull of duty of command, yanking at the back of his throat. He could see the faces of every student he'd ever trained, small and blinking in the dark.

Isen's voice was low, and for once not playful: "Lucere. Don't underestimate what protecting them costs."

Lucere's smile folded into something like pity. "I won't harm your students. Not yet. I'm curious, Isen. Let's sit back and watch…like the old times."

The words landed and did not leave. They were an invitation and a threat braided into one.

Isen did not move. He felt something like a wound reopen inside him an old friendship turned to a blade pointed at his heart. He wanted to strike. He wanted to choke the life out of Lucere for what he had done, for summoning Sins and spilling blood where the young laughed in training yards.

Instead, he let his voice come out soft and steady, wrapped in the weight of a thousand decisions made for the sake of others.

"Very well. We'll watch."

Lucere's grin widened, and for the briefest of instants, the man who'd once been a friend tilted his head as if savoring a long-forgotten taste. Around them, thunder rolled—like applause for something monstrous that had only just begun.

Meanwhile, Team Two fought tooth and nail against the endless voidborn tide, their cries and steel carving fleeting seconds out of chaos. Yet at the heart of the ruin, Greed staggered. His chains quivered, scarred by flame, light, and curse. Blood spilled from his mouth, hissing as it struck the stone.

And still—he laughed.

"Hahaha… hahahahaha!"

The sound cracked like rusted iron. He hunched forward, grin splitting wider than his wounds.

"You think this is my end? I won't die here today…"

His aura surged, chains writhing like serpents aflame.

Kaen's fire guttered, violet shadow curling at his edges as he clenched his fists tighter. (If he won't fall, then we'll make him.)

Rael's mirrored eyes scanned the field, his voice sharp as scripture.

"Kaen. Shun. His chains are unstable. This is the moment."

Shun's blade pulsed crimson-black, curse beating like a second heart.

"Then we cut him down together."

As though summoned by fate, three more Veinwalkers entered the fray. The six stood together, Shinrei sparking in clashing hues, stone, flame, storm, voidfire, curse, and law. Kaen's shadowfire licked hungrily at Greed's chains. Shun steadied his cursed blade, flames howling black-red. Rael's Judicutor wings unfurled, feathers etched with divine verdict. Kai's lightning howled, storm winds swirling. Luka's fire spiraled into radiant arcs. Damon struck his fists, and the ground itself trembled.

Six forces. One resolve.

Greed's laughter rose again, chains lashing like iron whips.

"Come then, Veinwalkers! Let's see if your plan is enough to sate my hunger!"

Kaen's voice cracked with fire and strain.

"Rael. Shun. Team One. We can't match his endless chains alone. But together….we can."

Rael's mirrored eyes gleamed with law.

"Then judgment with flame and storm. Damon anchor him. Luka split his chains. Kai strike the gap."

Shun's cursed fire screamed as he lifted his blade.

"And I'll finish it."

Then Greed's laughter faltered. His chains trembled not from strain, but from unity.

The ruin shook as the Veinwalkers charged.

Damon struck first, fists hammering into the ground. Stone erupted into jagged walls, forcing Greed's chains into narrow channels. Luka followed, her infernos flooding those channels, splitting and burning the serpentine links to ash. "Chains can't strangle what's already burning!" she shouted, her voice fierce over the roar.

Kai burst forward, lightning shrieking across his body, storm-gray eyes burning with resolve. He tore through the fiery corridor like a thunderbolt. Chains swarmed to bar him, but the storm shredded them into sparks of glowing ash.

Behind him, Rael advanced with solemn grace. His radiant wings unfurled as sigils coiled around him like scripture etched in light. "Greed of Eclipse," he declared, voice merciless. "By the balance of Shinrei… your verdict is sealed." His lumen blade.. light formed in his grasp, and with one swing, half the chains dissolved into dust.

Kaen pressed forward, violet fire bleeding from his veins as void and flame fused into a storm of hunger. He hurled it into Greed's chest, searing runes and branding the Sin with burning scars.

"If hunger defines you, then let mine consume yours!"

And last came Shun. His cursed eye flared, black tears streaking his face. His blade burned crimson and void, every strike a scream of defiance. Chains rushed to meet him, but he split them one by one, each swing igniting black flame. (I am not curse. I am Shun. And this blade is mine!) With both hands gripping the hilt, he roared and brought it down in a single, final cleave toward Greed's core.

The six attacks converged at once. Stone crushed inward, flames split, lightning carved, judgment cleaved, voidfire devoured, and the cursed blade descended.

The ruin exploded in color and silence. Chains shattered. Sigils cracked. Flames roared violet-red until consumed by light.

At the center stood Greed.

Chains fell from his body like dead serpents. His flesh cracked and burned, but his grin never wavered. He looked at them not with fear, not with hate, but with something colder.

Acceptance.

"…Hah… hahahaha…" His voice rattled with blood as he lifted his head, grin stretching wider one last time.

"So this is it. Not despair… not hunger… but defiance. Very well. I won't die here today… but you've carved your names into my chains."

The Sin of Greed smiled as his body shattered into fragments of black light, laughter echoing even as he faded.

The fragments drifted like embers through the ruined air, dissolving one by one. Silence followed. Damon's walls cracked and fell. Luka's flames dwindled to embers. Kai staggered, sparks fading from his skin. Rael's sword of judgment dissolved into glyphs of light. Kaen dropped to his knees, fists trembling as violet fire guttered out. Shun lowered his blade, its crimson edge dripping shadow like blood.

It was over.

Or so it seemed.

From the last scattering of black light, a whisper crawled through the silence. Ragged, crooked, yet gleeful.

"…I won't die…"

The voice came from nowhere and everywhere, threaded with hunger.

The air thickened, vibrating with a sound that was not laughter but longing. The fragments shivered instead of fading, trembling like coins rolling in the dark, clinking together, gathering weight.

"…I still have so many greed…"

The words struck the survivors like chains around their hearts.

The ruin dimmed as though swallowed by his echo. A phantom grin lingered in the void where his body had shattered jagged teeth, hollow eyes, carved from lightless flame.

Then came the laughter.

Slow at first. Then louder. Splintering the silence. Cracking the air like thunder.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA—!"

It belonged to no flesh. No shadow. It was hunger itself. Endless. Unkillable.

The Veinwalkers stood, battered and bloodied, staring up at the dark echo spiraling above them. Greed's body was gone. His chains were broken. But the Sin remained.

A hunger carved into the marrow of the world

one that could not be slain.

To be continue