The sky trembled as the Cosmic Punch was loaded. Lucien soared above the shattered remains of Izu Ōshima, divine fire flaring from his limbs like a supernova barely contained. His muscles screamed with every motion he made, his vision blurred at the edges, but he didn't care about all that. Not now. Not when the final blow was in motion.
With a roar that split the heavens, he drove his fist forward—Cosmic Punch.
The world cracked open.
His knuckles slammed into Frostjaw Reiken's chest. For an instant, silence reigned in the whole world. Then the monster's body exploded outward in a shockwave of ice and blood and light, a perfect sphere of annihilation blooming from the impact point. A hole, wide enough to swallow a battleship, tore through Reiken's chest. The ice-beast's roar faltered, gurgled, then died entirely as its upper torso convulsed and fell backward in slow motion.
The punch didn't stop there.
The sheer force of Lucien his final move rippled across the entire island, cleaving through mountain ridges and boiling entire lakes into steam. The ocean buckled under the pressure, and a tsunami reared up around the rim of Japan, waves more than a fifty meters high. Cities across the coast went dark. Earthquake sensors across the country erupted in alarm: magnitude 8.1. Tremors were felt as far as Taiwan and the Russian Far East. Entire tectonic plates seemed to groan beneath the strain of one teenager's wrath.
Lucien hovered in the air, chest heaving, eyes burning, fatigued.
It was finally done. Frostjaw Reiken—one of the strongest monsters to be ever born on this earth—was dead.
Or so he thought.
A moment passed. Then another. And then—
"WOOOOOOOOH!"
From the mainland, from ships across the world, from drones capturing every second of the battle live, the cheers rose like a tidal wave. Civilians screamed in joy. Broadcasters declared the impossible victory. Social media exploded with hashtags like #LucienSavesJapan and #CosmicGod.
Lucien exhaled slowly. His body was shaking with adrenaline. His cosmic reserves were drained down to dust. That punch… had taken everything he had left.
He turned away from the smoking crater, ready to descend and join the others. Maybe rest. Maybe cry in the arms of his loved ones.
But then—He heard it.
It sounded like cracking glaciers. Wet bones slithering against each other. And then… laughter.
Lucien stopped mid-air. His head snapped back toward the crater. The cheers faltered. Something was wrong.
Inside the gaping wound of Frostjaw Reiken's chest… movement.
"No no no. This can´t be…" Lucien whispered.
From the ruined mess of flesh and shattered core, blue light began to pulse again. The frost spread backward—inward—as if time itself reversed. Frozen veins reformed. Bone and sinew regrew. The entire upper half of Frostjaw Reiken regenerated in less then seconds.
A new scary and dark face. A larger body. Sharper fangs. More spikes. And worst of all—A second pair of glowing cores where the first had once been.
Lucien's eyes widened. "That fucking punch was… it wasn't enough?"
Frostjaw Reiken stood tall once more, twice the size he'd been before. Where his arms had once ended in claws, they now twisted into jagged weapons of glacial energy. His eyes, now four instead of two, locked on Lucien with savage intelligence.
The beast wasn't just alive. He had evolved again.
Lucien's breath caught up to him. That was my strongest attack. My limit. Even with my powers, even with Cosmic Punch, that was the peak of what I could do.
And yet, Reiken had survived that attack.
Below, the sea churned as the others arrived. Rylen touched down first, his armor torn and bloodied but his eyes wide with disbelief. Jason followed after, his kinetic gloves resting on his hands, scorched from fighting the Level 3 spawns. Emiluna hovered down with her healing glowing, her hands trembling with fear. Karu, Kagetsu, Ayumu, Cho, Lisa, Kisuke—each one stood beside Lucien now, battered but alive.
They had done it. They had destroyed the last of the ten mini-Reikens summoned during the earlier battle.
But this…This was something else entirely.
Reiken turned to them now, his form blocking out the horizon behind him, his aura a swirling tempest of deathly cold and corrupted magic. His very presence dropped the temperature by 40 degrees in seconds. Lucien's breath turned to frost mid-air.
"He's… not a monster anymore," whispered Karu. "He's a force of nature. A walking extinction event."
Lucien clenched his fists. "How? How did he survive that? That punch had the potential to destroy everything it touches!"
Jason stepped forward. "We need to regroup now. We can't take him like this. Not now."
But before anyone could act, Reiken lifted his claw and slammed it into the ocean. The resulting ice wave swept across the Pacific, freezing everything in a radius of hundreds of kilometers. Now instead of the Pacific Ocean being 30 percent frozen it is now 50 percent. Ships, birds, entire ecosystems flash-frozen in a second.
Kagetsu stumbled back. "He's creating another ice age."
Lucien stared helplessly. His regeneration had stopped. His invisibility was gone. Purgeflame, flight, x-ray vision, telekinesis—all weakened. He was running on fumes.
This isn't just a fight anymore. This is the end of the world and we can´t do nothing about it.
And then—
A sonic boom tore through the clouds.
Something streaked across the sky. Faster than anything they'd ever seen. A golden flash—then impact.
The air exploded. The ice cracked. Even Reiken flinched for a second.
From the sky descended a man.
Black hair forward, a white skin and brown eyes. Black and gold Nightguard armor. Cape flowing behind him. Built like a machine. 6 ´ 5 and 260 pounds full of muscle. There was a confident smile on his face when he arrived.
Lucien narrowed his eyes.
"Who—?"
But before he could finish, Karu gasped.
"No way."
Rylen's mouth dropped open.
"It's really him."
The man landed softly on the ice, hands in his pockets, unfazed by the storm that was formed around him.
Archer Irving. The strongest Nightguard on Earth. Rank 1. Division 0. The World's Last Shield. The Greatest Swordsman to ever exist. The true one man army.
He had crossed the entire Pacific Ocean… in under a second.
And he had come for Frostjaw Reiken.
Karu sprinted forward and threw his arms around Archer's body, laughing, breathless with relief. Rylen followed after him, clapping a firm hand on the man's shoulder. Jason gave a low whistle. Even Kagetsu, stoic and bloodied, cracked a small smile towards a superior man. The team had seen legends before, but never one descend like a god.
"You made it," Karu said, breathless.
"Of course I did," Archer replied, voice deep and composed. "Couldn't let you kids have all the fun."
He turned to Lucien, scanning him from head to toe—his torn clothes, bruised body, divine aura flickering like a dying star. Archer approached slowly, then crouched beside him.
"You must be the guy im looking for. Lucien right?
Lucien narrowed his eyes, trying to stay conscious. "I guess… you're here to arrest me too?"
Archer shook his head, amused. "No. I came because I saw what you did. That punch… I felt it from across the Pacific. And when that thing stood back up, I didn't hesitate. I flew straight here."
Lucien blinked. "Wait—you crossed the entire ocean…?"
"In under a second," Archer said with a grin. "Didn't want to miss the big party."
He offered a hand. Lucien hesitated, then took it.
As Archer lifted him to his feet, he added, "You fought well Lucien remember that. Better than most veterans I've known. I don't know what you are exactly… but I know this: you're not the threat to our world and those politicians and higher ups in Japan are losers. You're part of the solution. So let's finish this, together."
Lucien's chest tightened—not from pain, but from something deeper. A crack of hope. Trust. Belief.
His powers were drained. No invulnerability. No full regeneration. No flight. His telekinesis was faint sparks. His Purgeflame, flickering embers. But he stood tall, battered yet defiant.
And behind him—his family.
Karu, with his aura and his basic elements powers.
Rylen, Soul baldes blazing in his palm.
Jason, fists wrapped in kinetic flame.
Emiluna, her healing light glowing like dawn.
Kagetsu, Ayumu, Kisuke, Cho, Lisa—all hardened, all alive, all ready to fight.
This wasn't just a squad anymore. It was a legion. Eleven warriors and one god-forged outlier. United against an evolved horror.
Across the battlefield, Frostjaw Reiken loomed.
Now three times his original size, his skin crystallized with a core of glacial magma beneath it. His eyes—twin abysses—glowed with a new light, not blue, but violet. Chaotic, unstable. He exhaled, and every breath threatened to turn air into daggers of absolute zero.
The sky above him cracked with auroras. Not the beautiful kind—but ripples of dark magic and soul-twisting static. Even time itself seemed to tremble around his form. He wasn't a monster anymore.
He was becoming a god of extinction.
Lucien stepped forward, breath shallow. "This thing… it evolves every time it dies. It doesn't just adapt—it improves on the spot."
Archer nodded. "Then we don't let it survive this time."
They formed a line on what remained of the island—now barely a platform of jagged rock, ice, and fractured steel. The ocean was frozen around them, caught in the frozen storm Reiken emitted from every pore. But the team held fast, each one glowing with their unique essence.
A moment of silence passed.
Then Cho grinned. "We're really doing this, huh?"
"Always," Lisa said.
Kisuke cracked his knuckles. "Just don't get in my way guys."
Kagetsu's voice was calm. "Formation Gamma?"
Ayumu smirked. "Make it Omega. We finish it here."
Emiluna clasped Lucien's hand for a moment. "We stand together."
Rylen closed his eyes and activated his second Soul blades—burning twice as bright now. "We're ending this right here, right now."
Archer's gaze locked on Reiken. "Let's put him in the ground."
Lucien clenched his fists. His divine spark, though weak, still burned.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, the last line between humanity and oblivion.
The air grew still.
Then Frostjaw Reiken roared—and the final battle began.