"Looks like you guys can't continue," Shadow hissed, pushing himself up. His cloak was nothing more than charred ribbons,
"Says who, Shadow?" Drakye Void spat, wiping a thick line of blood from his jaw. He forced his legs to lock, standing upright through sheer force of will. "I've got enough air in my lungs to blow that bug to hell."
"Yeah, Shadow... says who?" Reid Gedion Swallow added, his voice a low, dangerous growl. He stood between them, his hands shaking but his eyes burning with the cold light of will.
Xerxes-Vahl stood thirty paces away. He was no longer the calm, untouchable deity from before. His tattered hat was gone, revealing a pale, hairless head marked with golden geometric tattoos. Violet blood dripped from his four eyes, staining his collar.
"Never in my lifetime," Xerxes whispered, his voice vibrating with a terrifying resonance, "has anyone broken my law. You have committed a sin against the fundamental order of the universe."
He raised his hand. The golden butterflies swarmed back together, weaving through the air with a frantic, screaming energy. They didn't form a shield this time. They knitted themselves together into a New Golden Scale—larger, jagged, and glowing with a harsh, unforgiving light.
"The Law is not a suggestion," Xerxes roared. "It is the cage in which you live! Equilibrium: Universal Reset!"
The plaza vanished. In its place was a world of shifting gold and violet planes. Xerxes moved with a speed that defied physics because, in this space, he was the physics.
"He's rewriting the local constants!" Reid shouted. "Vector: Force Lock!"
Reid slammed his palms together, attempting to anchor their three bodies to a single point in space. But Xerxes was already upon them. The Commander swung a hand, and the "Weight" of the scale slammed into Drakye.
Drakye didn't just fly back; he was flattened into the ground as if a mountain had been dropped on his chest. "Hard Air: Pillar!" Drakye roared, solidifying the air beneath him to keep from being crushed. He swung a fist upward, sending a high-pressure shockwave toward Xerxes' chin.
Xerxes didn't dodge. He touched the air. "Balanced."
The shockwave didn't just stop; it turned into a gentle breeze that ruffled the Commander's hair. In the same motion, Xerxes delivered a palm strike to Drakye's ribs. The impact sounded like a cannon firing.
"Drakye!" Shadow screamed. He dissolved into a puddle of darkness, surging beneath Xerxes. "Shadow Pit: !"
The ground beneath the Commander turned into a literal hole in reality. Thousands of black, skeletal hands reached up to drag him into the dark. But the New Scale above Xerxes tipped.
"Gravity is a force. Darkness is a lack of light," Xerxes chanted. "Balance the Void with the Sun."
The Commander's tattoos flared.
A pillar of white-hot solar energy erupted from his body, vaporizing the shadow-hands instantly. Shadow was forced to reform, his skin scorched, coughing as the light burned his internal Evo-channels.
"He's predicting every move!" Reid yelled, his mind racing through millions of vector calculations per second. "He's not just balancing our attacks; he's balancing our intent! We have to use the Broken Equation again, but we have to mask the trigger!"
The three Captains moved in a desperate, synchronized dance.
They knew they only had one shot left before their bodies gave out.
Drakye took the lead, spinning into the air. He began to manipulate the air in the area
Xerxes looked up, his four eyes tracking the air movement. "A simple subtraction. Balanced." He raised his hand to nullify the wind.
But that was the distraction.
While the air was being manipulated, Shadow was feeding his entire life force into the ground. He wasn't making blades; he was making the ground "hollow."
"Now, Reid!" Shadow choked out, blood pouring from his nose.
Reid didn't use his hands. He used his feet. He jumped into the center of the vacuum, using his Vector Manipulation to accelerate the "Nothingness" Shadow had created.
"Vector: Infinite Velocity! Air: Infinite Vacuum! Shadow: Absolute Darkness!"
The three Captains screamed in unison as they linked their energy once more. The Broken Equation manifested—a small, screaming marble of violet-black energy that began to eat the Golden Scale above them.
The air screamed. The reality around Xerxes began to peel away like wet paper.
"Not again!" Xerxes shrieked, his composure finally breaking. He threw both hands toward the singularity. "I am the Law! I am the Balance! Law of Equilibrium: balanced !"
The Golden Scale tipped violently. Xerxes wasn't just trying to subtract the attack this time; he was trying to add himself to the equation. He channeled his own Zethrian core, his very soul, into the scale to force it back to zero.
The singularity touched the scale.
For a moment, time stopped. The violet-black sphere of the "Broken Equation" pressed against the golden light of the "Law." It was a battle of concepts: Chaos vs. Order.
The Captains pushed. Their veins turned black from the strain. Xerxes pushed back, his tattoos glowing so bright they began to crack his skin.
"BREAK!" Reid roared.
The singularity pulsed. A hairline fracture appeared in the center of the Golden Scale. But then, Xerxes did something no one expected. He smiled.
"To balance the broken," Xerxes whispered, "one must simply break the other side."
He didn't fight the singularity. He absorbed it. He allowed the chaos to enter his own body, using his "Perfect Balance" to distribute the infinite pressure across his entire molecular structure.
BOOM.
The explosion was silent. A wave of golden-violet light washed over Sector 1. When the dust settled, the "Broken Equation" was gone. Xerxes-Vahl stood in the center of the crater, his skin now a shimmering, metallic gold. He had balanced the unbalanceable.
The three Captains were finished. They lay on their backs, staring at the sky, unable to even lift a finger.
"The Law," Xerxes said, his voice now sounding like a choir of a thousand voices, "is absolute."
SLASH
Xerxes was split in half, by drakye void
"Looks like you finished".
Princexx and Brook finally met Valkhyre after escaping the collapsing ruins of the lab.
"Lord Valkhyre, I'm sorry we failed... The Prime Minister turned himself into a monster. His power was on another level," Princexx said, her antennas drooping as she bowed her head in shame.
"But sir, we managed to get the serum he used, and also a Xenocide engaged with him. We don't know if she survived," Brook said, holding up a small, glowing vial of violet fluid.
Valkhyre just smiled.