Pit-pat-pit-pat
The heavy downpour echoed in his ears, closely trailed by the frantic, racing drumbeat of his own heart.
B-dum B-dum.
A tattered knight with long, disheveled hair forced himself up from the ground. He rose soaked in stagnant pools of rainwater and fresh blood.
"Ugh…..."
He grimaced, lifting his heavy head to scan the surroundings.
Red. Everything was stained red.
The buildings, the courtyard, the training grounds, and the fallen soldiers—all drenched in blood. It was the blood of his enemies, but more painfully, it was the blood of his friends, his comrades, his lover, and his family.
Death. Only the thick stench of slaughter lingered over the ruined fortress city.
'Was this necessary? Did we truly deserve this fate?'
Like the mutilated bodies of his fallen allies strewn across the stone, Kuro himself was far from whole. Every single inch of his body screamed in agony. Yet, compared to the fury, hatred, and sorrow boiling within his chest, the physical pain felt entirely trivial.
".... Kaishin."
Before him lay Kaishin, his loyal subordinate and Master of the Kutara Kishidan. His once-snow-white hair was now matted with crimson.
"What was so mortifying to you? What was so unbearable that your eyes still hold disbelief and rage, even in death?"
Kuro reached out. He gently traced a finger down Kaishin's face, closing his eyes with solemn reverence.
But Kaishin was only the beginning.
"Ouchi…."
The Master of the Bokkai Kishidan stood perfectly upright. Though headless and missing an arm, he still gripped his Bo-staff in silent defiance. Around him, the shattered corpses of self-proclaimed angels and the brave knights of the Waibu Kishidan 外部 騎士團—the Outer Circle Knight Orders—littered the devastated headquarters.
"Everyone…..."
And then, Yeon.
The Master of the Koma Kishidan. Kuro's lover.
She sat motionless, leaning against a cracked wall. A dark trail of blood marked her final moments.
Kuro approached her with dragging steps. He unclasped his cloak and draped it gently over her lifeless body, concealing the gaping wound torn through her chest armor and her heart. He lifted her chin, staring into her vacant eyes. No words came. He had everything to say, yet a profound emptiness silenced him.
Grittt
His teeth ground together so hard the sound rivaled the roaring rain. He balled his hand into a tight fist; blood began to drip from his gauntlet as his fingernails scraped violently against the metal interior. His entire frame shook—not from the cold or his wounds, but from sheer rage and defiance.
Once more, he gently traced his hand down Yeon's face, closing her eyes.
With his other hand, he gripped the hilt of his cherished sword—Kuroi Kiba, the Black Fang. It was a massive, 110-centimeter double-edged black blade, beautifully adorned with three black wolf heads across the pommel and crossguard.
A 110 cm double-edged black blade, adorned with three black wolf heads on the pommel and cross guard.
It had been less than a week since the final apocalyptic battle between the Empire of Mankind and the Gods. The Emperor had fallen. Yggdrasil, the great World Tree and the source of the empire's power, had vanished into nothingness. However, the war had not been entirely one-sided; many deities had perished in the onslaught. Only Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus survived, though they remained gravely wounded and near death.
But before their end, their remaining minions struck.
Led by Tsuki—the treacherous former master of the Hikui Kishidan, a fallen order whose members now called themselves Samurai—waves of demi-human armies and elite angels launched a desperate final assault.
The exhausted knights stood no chance.
Three thousand warriors, a thousand from each order, had stood guard under the command of Kuro, the Grandmaster of the Outer Knight Circle, also known as KuroiOkami. They fought purely as a decoy, buying precious time for the remnants of the order to retreat through secret passageways. Leading the evacuation were Kamako, Kurako, and Muromachi, the trusted adjutants and second-in-command of each respective Kishidan.
The clash was brutal—a meat grinder between mortal knights, false angels, and vicious demi-humans. The mermen, beastmen, lizardmen, and lesser angels with immature white wings had been manageable.
But the three elite warriors were entirely different. Mani and Sol, dark-skinned with massive black wings, and Metzli, pale-faced with wings of pure white. Each bore a wingspan over three meters wide. Each easily matched Kuro in raw strength, clairvoyance, Ki-manipulation, and Bukijutsu.
While Kuro had been locked in a death match against their supreme leader—Mir, a powerful Dragonkin and the son of Seiryu 靑龍, the Azure Dragon—his subordinates were slaughtered.
Kuro pulled off his dented helmet, revealing bloodshot eyes and tangled black hair. He stood alone in the ruins, right next to the massive, beheaded wyrm.
---
The courtyard fell into an ominous silence, save for the relentless rain.
The downpour fell in heavy sheets, soaking the blood-stained stone and washing over shattered armor and broken blades. The once-proud banners of the Outer Circle Knight Order lay tattered, clinging to the rubble like ghosts refusing to leave the realm of the living.
Kuro stood alone.
His black blade, Kuroi Kiba, rested heavily against his shoulder. Its edge remained as dangerously sharp as his will, miraculously unblunted by the endless combat it had endured. His cloak was gone, his armor was ruined, and his body screamed in agony. But his bloodshot eyes held no fear. There was only a terrifyingly focused, cold rage.
"So, you're finally here."
Kuro felt it before he saw them—the sudden spike in atmospheric pressure and the suffocating weight of their collective Ki and aura.
From the billowing smoke and ruin, three figures emerged.
Mani, towering and broad, his dark skin gleaming beneath the rain. His black wings stretched wide, jagged and powerful. He gripped a massive trident, each prong glowing with a volatile, divine fire.
Sol, slender and poised, her black wings curved like deadly blades. Her Katana shimmered with an eerie, pale blue light, her gaze sharp and calculating.
Metzli, pale as moonlight, her pristine white wings untouched by the surrounding carnage. She held a long golden spear, its tip humming with divine thunder. Her expression remained unreadable—neither cruel nor kind.
They were the chosen champions of the gods. Kuro was a mere mortal.
But he was no ordinary man.
They didn't speak or waste breath on taunts. They, too, were exhausted from the extensive bloodshed.
And without a word, they attacked.
---
Kuro barely had time to brace.
Mani lunged first, his trident stabbing forward with explosive momentum. Kuro deflected the prongs, but Sol was already behind him, her katana slicing cleanly toward his neck.
Kuro twisted his frame and parried the blind strike, but Metzli instantly descended from above, her golden spear aiming directly for his heart.
He rolled frantically across the stone. The spearpoint grazed his armor and tore into his flesh. Blood sprayed. He grunted, staggering backward to find his footing.
'They're perfectly coordinated. Mani's brute force, Sol's precision, Metzli's reach. I can't hold them off like this.'
Kuro blocked a lethal strike from Sol, ducked beneath Metzli's sweeping spear, and delivered a harsh kick to Mani's leg to break his stance. Yet, the divine trio recovered instantly.
Sol's blade nicked his cheek. Metzli's spear tore through his remaining shoulder armor. Mani's trident slammed heavily into his ribs, sending him skidding violently across the flooded courtyard.
Kuro coughed up a mouth of blood. His vision blurred at the edges.
'I need space. I need to break them.'
Kuro closed his eyes, gripping Kuroi Kiba with both hands. The torrential rain hissed violently against the steel as he channeled his remaining Ki.
The double-edged blade began to glow with an eerie black-blue light. The atmosphere shifted, and arcs of pitch-black lightning thundered through the sky.
Kuro snapped his eyes open. His pupils burned with a dark crimson glow.
KuroiOkami no Ikari 黑狼の怒 Black Wolf's Rage,
He slammed the blade deep into the shattered stone.
An invisible shockwave erupted, instantly silencing the area, followed a heartbeat later by a deafening explosion. The courtyard fractured into a web of deep craters. The falling rain froze mid-air, suspended by the sheer pressure. A massive dome of Ki detonated outward, laced with crackling, unnatural black lightning.
Half of the ruined fortress erupted into rubble. The divine warriors were thrown violently backward, their wings flailing and weapons scattering across the courtyard.
Kuro stood in the center of the devastation, panting heavily. His blade pulsed with a torrent of raw Ki as black lightning coiled around the steel like striking serpents.
'NOW!'
Mani recovered first. Shaking his head in a snarl, he charged through the smoke with his flaming trident raised.
"Impossible! That strike was at a demi-god level! You were supposed to be a mere grandmaster!"
Kuro met him head-on, their weapons clashing in a blinding storm of sparks. His eyes were entirely cold and emotionless.
"You're Bleeding 'Angel'."
"A minor scratch!" Mani growled, pressing his weight forward. "Just accept your fate!"
Kuro spun on his heel, flashing upward in a swift crescent arc. The trident blocked the path, but Kuro feinted mid-swing, dropping his weight to drive Kuroi Kiba directly through Mani's chest armor.
Mani gasped, coughing blood. "Impossible... you were clearly—"
"Going for the head? Sometimes, over relying on clairvoyance can work against you."
Kuro twisted the blade. Mani collapsed into the dirt, his dying face still frozen in a look of profound confusion over how his clairvoyance had failed him.
"MANII!!!!"
Sol crashed into the fray, her katana slicing through the air in elegant, lethal arcs.
Kuro blocked, parried, and dodged. Every movement was precise, desperate, and calculated.
"You're exhausted," she Taunted.
Kuro didn't falter, his gaze locked strictly on his target. "You're next."
Sol slashed downward with blinding speed. Kuro tried to parry the blade away, but Sol was persistent, gluing her katana against the spine of Kuroi Kiba to trap his weapon.
"This blade... is this Tsuki's handiwork?" Kuro frowned, recognizing the distinct craftsmanship of her weapon.
""Heh! Ironic, isn't it?" she sneered. "Your most loyal subordinate betrayed you, then forged the very weapon meant to end your life!"
Kuro gritted his teeth. His eyes grew entirely devoid of warmth as he poured a massive surge of Ki into his blade. The black lightning crackled violently, answering his rising rage.
Sol did not sit idle; she poured her own divine Ki into her katana. Intense flames ignited around them as the two powers clashed, creating a shockwave that split the sky above and the ground beneath their feet.
Kuro suddenly ducked beneath her following swing, twisted his body, and drove Kuroi Kiba upward through her abdomen.
Sol froze, the katana slipping from her limp fingers. She looked up into Kuro's cold stare.
"Hehe… to think we'd fall to a mortal…"
Giving a self-mocking smile, she collapsed onto the wet stones beside Mani.
---
Metzli descended from the sky like a falling comet, her golden spear aimed directly at Kuro's heart.
Kuro rolled aside, barely evading the impact. The ground erupted behind him in a shower of stone.
She moved with divine grace, her spear dancing through the rain like moonlight. Kuro was noticeably slower now; the bleeding wounds and sheer fatigue were finally catching up to his limbs, but his will burned brighter than ever.
"You cannot win," Metzli said softly, her voice carrying a haunting calm. "You are alone now."
Kuro coughed up another spray of blood, his lips curling into a ferocious smile fueled by bloodlust.
"I carry them with me right here." Kuro patted his chest, right over his heart. "Every. Single. One."
He closed his eyes, channeling every remaining ounce of his Ki into his weapon. The steel glowed a deep, ominous black-purple, pulsing with a volatile energy that stirred a raging storm of lightning around him.
Metzli lunged forward with equally terrifying momentum. The divine lightning gathering around her spear transformed into the roaring head of an infernal dragon.
Kuro unleashed his strike. The surging black-purple energy materialized into a colossal black wolf, howling as dense lightning danced between its fangs.
They clashed mid-air. Light against shadow. Fire against lightning.
The sheer force of the impact shattered the remaining foundation of the courtyard, splitting the heavy rainclouds in two. The downpour froze mid-air once more. Time itself seemed to grind to a halt.
Then, followed by a brief silence.
Kuro landed heavily behind her, his boots sliding on the wet stone. His black blade dripped with divine blood.
Metzli turned slowly, her eyes wide with shock. The shaft of her golden spear shattered into pieces. A thin, neat line of crimson traced across her chest.
She fell forward into the rain.
---
Kuro dropped heavily to one knee, panting for breath as he leaned his weight against the hilt of his blade.
The storm began to fade, and the heavy downpour softened into a gentle, quiet rain.
Three divine warriors lay defeated in the mud. The gods had sent their greatest angels, but the KuroiOkami had given them his answer.
He looked up at the sky, where the dense clouds finally parted to reveal a silver sliver of moonlight.
"For Yeon," he whispered into the quiet night.
And then, he forced himself to stand.