Skyler, Zoe, Roxy, Emilia, and Len stood face-to-face with Trinity once more.

He loomed amidst the storm of ruin, his figure unmoving—shrouded in a cloak the color of dried blood, His skin had gone pale, ashen, every trace of radiance gone—light siphoned clean from his body.

He did not move. He did not speak. He simply clenched his fists so tightly the veins burst against his wrists. And in that silence, his face lit with an unnatural gleam, as if even he hadn’t expected these children, playing hero, to make it this far through the abyss.

Dark energy swirled around him, a hurricane churning that bent the world’s edges.

Trinity sneered, lips curling into a jagged smile. “…So, you think you are? The saviors of the universe?”

Zoe stepped forward, her gaze the fire forged from scars. “What did you do to Gaia?!” she spat.

Trinity’s laugh ripped across the field. “You’re just a little girl who still dreams about saving the world… when you can’t even pick out matching clothes.”

Skyler didn’t wait for the insults to stretch longer. His hand twitched, his pulse hammering—then his form shattered into the spectrum of the Fifth Dimension. Lines of glowing code surged around him, It poured from his body in violet streams—the raw surge of a program rewriting itself, smashing through its own limits.

[Hacker of the Fifth Dimension]
Title appeared above his head.

• Mobility: MAX

• Attack Speed: MAX

• Evasion: SSS

His form vanished into streaks of raw force—each punch, each kick shredding the air apart, so fast the HUD filling his mind screamed ‘Critical!’ and ‘Combo x9’ across the screen. Had any strike connected, damage numbers would have exploded in blood-red across reality itself.

Trinity vaulted backward, palms cloaked in seething black aura. He swung—and the clash detonated, dimensions grinding so violently the very air warped, swelling grotesque as the impact rattled the battlefield down to their bones.

Skyler grinned—mocking, reckless. Enjoying this more than surviving.

He warped again—the world jump-cutting to a fresh scene, digital glare birthing a new stat card at his side:

[Shadow Mode: Hyper Focus]

The smile that once carried warmth twisted. His lips curled, his eyes grew sharper, predatory—danger seeping into every flicker of his gaze.

For one instant, he lifted his hand, power surging recklessly forward before his mind could scream stop. Energy burst from his palm—too much, too wild to be called a mistake.

The shockwave hurled a small pink-haired body backwards—feet torn off the ground, Zoe flung helplessly into the air.

And then the echo in his skull screamed—

What the hell are you doing… that’s Zoe!

The thought detonated inside him, echoing—thunder, a thousand overlapping voices—until his inner world shattered. His breath caught; his chest burned. Power intoxication cracked apart, glass under a hammer. He lunged, snatching Zoe mid-air. Guilt hit—tidal wave, enough to choke.

Trinity didn’t waste the moment. His arm swung wide—black energy surged out, a tidal wave of shadow.

The battlefield quaked. The HUD flickered in everyone’s vision:

[Status: Overload!]

Roxy didn’t hesitate. She flicked her wrist, summoning the Mirror Dimension—a transparent barrier snapping around Skyler and Zoe.

[Shield +7000]

The numbers blinked in her mind as the black wave slammed into her wall of glass and light.

Emilia raised her weapons—gravity cannon and heavy machine gun. Her aim was a god-tier pro-gamer, flawless and merciless. Her finger squeezed the trigger. Blue gravitational waves shot out, colliding with the dark surge mid-field.

[Effect: Anti-Gravity Field | Debuff -50% DMG]

The notification blinked in her vision, her other hand already twitching to fire again.

Meanwhile, Len vanished—his body swallowed by stealth. The status line shimmered in every mind:

[Stealth: Invisibility – 12s]

An instant later—he was behind Trinity, dagger in hand. The blade struck, aimed with unerring precision for the jugular.

[Critical! -13,000 HP]

The numbers exploded in every HUD. Trinity twisted at the last second, the blade glancing past death’s line—but tearing a gash so deep blood erupted in a jet.

Roxy seized the opening.

[Charge Skill: Spear of Infinity]

Her spear whirled, slicing the air, lunging for his heart.

But Trinity snarled—

[Reverse! Weapon Snatch]

A black hole ripped open. The spear vanished into it—only to reappear in his hand. He gripped it, twisted, and hurled it back.

But mid-flight, the weapon flared—shattering into a storm of blades, icy daggers multiplying by the hundreds.

[Ultimate! Multi-Blade Barrage – Executed by: Len]

Daggers swarmed from every angle, tearing across the arena.

Trinity lashed out—

[Dark Veil – Immunity: 5s]

A cocoon of shadow wrapped around him.

Emilia gritted her teeth and fired—

[Gravity Break! – Dispel All Shields]

The black veil cracked apart. The explosion thundered, shaking every pillar.

[Attack Speed x3]

Len reappeared, relentless, blades striking in a blur. Each thrust landed, each slash dug deep.

Trinity’s movements faltered—slowed.

[Bleeding -1500 HP/sec]

The status blinked across their HUDs, bright and red.

The cloaked man staggered, knees hitting the stone. Sweat streamed down his temple, dripping off his jaw. His lips trembled, twitching as though fighting the weight of the world.

Then his hand darted beneath his cloak—clutching something cold, metallic.

A device.
A remote.

He pressed it.

Click.

A piercing zoom-whine shrieked through the void. From thin air, something white began to take shape—its form identical to a prototype cryo-capsule. Large enough to hold a full human body inside.

Black smoke bled out of Trinity’s frame, coiling upward—souls unbound, writhing vapors rising from the flames of hell. His body collapsed onto the ground, dignity shredded to nothing.

“…What the hell is that?” Emilia hissed under her breath, gravity rifle still trained on target, suspicion hardening every line of her presence.

Roxy edged closer, footsteps cautious, her expression slipping from confidence to guarded doubt.

That black smoke! It was the same as the one that had once poured out of Len that night—the night Zoe was brought back.

Everything overlapped in a rush of memory.

His thoughts tore past each other, but inside his head, everything went flat—unmoving, the black mirror of an underground lake.

The symbol etched at the capsule’s core: a trapezoid matrix, stacked together into sharp, metallic glyphs…

— FV —

He had seen it before. On the moon. On that giant machine.
And now… the memory slammed into him, crystal-clear, enough to shake his chest.

A boy, hair messy, shirt slightly wrinkled, oil smudges staining his hands—Skyler as a child, standing at the lab’s threshold with breathless anticipation.

A scanning ray swept across his eyes—Vzzzzip!—the lab door sliding open with the kind of cinematic hum you only hear in blockbuster sci-fi, though in truth industrial doors weren’t meant to make any sound at all.

The lab stank of bitter coffee mixed with the metallic tang of molten silicon.

In one corner, Professor Valentine was bent over a workbench, hands steady as he welded micro-circuits into a mechanical arm. Sparks spat against the glass shield. Beside him sat an odd contraption, something between a surgical tool and a nest of nano-probes.

The little boy dragged his own toolbox to the table, blinking fast as though searching for excuses.

“Professor, my gloves are broken… again,” he muttered.

Valentine only lifted his head enough to flash sharp, calculating edge in his demeanor. No lecture, no sigh—just reached for a tablet, a customized model far ahead of its time.

Skyler leaned closer. On-screen, endless lines of digital circuits and incomprehensible schematics unfolded in shimmering holographic blueprints.

And in the corner, stamped—a signature of two letters, clean and sharp.

— FV —

“…What does that stand for?” the boy asked, pointing at the corner, brow raised in relentless curiosity that refused to be silenced.

The professor chuckled, rough and warm, before ruffling the kid’s already wild hair until it stood worse.

“That, kid, is the mark of me and my partner—someone as insane as I am. The only ones mad enough to start a project the rest of the world wouldn’t dare touch.”

Skyler squinted, tracing the letters with a fingertip. “V is for Valentine, right? But F… who’s F?”

The man leaned close, whisper edged with conspiracy, the bitter scent of coffee clinging to his words. “Listen carefully—this is top secret. F… is Fergo. The true president of NexaCorp.”

The boy’s features widened. His hand slapped over his mouth—UFO sighting level shock. Not from fear of leaking the secret, but because in that instant, the entire world flipped upside down.

NexaCorp—the megacorporation whose AI biodroids filled the airwaves every day. A faceless empire. Nobody had ever seen its true president. Fergo was a phantom, a myth whispered only among a handful of insiders.

And yet Skyler, the little boy with grease on his hands, had heard the name straight from one of Fergo’s closest collaborators.

That day, Valentine’s laughter boomed, drowning out the entire lab.

Skyler walked out, heart hammering, every beat the weight of launch codes to a hidden arsenal.

As he turned back, his gaze caught the logo again—FV etched across the blueprint’s corner.