Path of the Unmentioned: The Missing Piece-Chapter 172: The Endgame [13]

The battlefield held its breath.

Everything had gone still.

Smoke drifted over broken ground. It curled like ghosts over the bodies of the fallen.

Rain fell heavy and relentless. Soaking through armor, skin, and bone.

The sky above churned with dark clouds. It trembled as if afraid of what was about to happen next.

Rodrick stood alone.

His face was smeared with blood, his own and others’.

His body barely held itself together. Shoulders slumped. Breathing ragged. Bones cracked with every twitch.

Yet he grinned, lips trembling.

"You can’t hold it forever, can you?" he rasped, voice torn and raw. "That power... it’s killing you."

He forced himself upright. His body wobbling like a broken scarecrow in a storm.

Across the field. Kyle didn’t answer.

He couldn’t.

The storm inside him was too loud.

Lightning curled around his fingers like living snakes.

His veins glowed faint blue beneath his skin. Cracks traced across his arms, chest, neck like shattering glass. Light seeping through each fracture.

His breath came shallow. Pain burned with every pulse of mana.

But he didn’t care.

Not anymore.

Kyle’s eyes rose slowly and locked onto Rodrick’s.

And they were no longer the eyes of a boy.

They burned.

Not with fire.

But with judgment.

Something ancient and inhuman stirred behind them. Something vast and cold as the sky.

A chill went down Rodrick’s spine. His body moved on its own, one shaky step backward.

Instinct.

Fear.

Then Kyle raised his hand.

The sky answered.

Thunder cracked.

Wind howled.

Kyle’s feet left the ground. Not with speed or force. But grace.

Slowly, weightlessly, like the world itself had decided to lift him up.

His white hair drifted around him, glowing at the edges, haloed by crackling arcs of lightning.

Rain coiled around him like mist, and the storm bent in reverence.

He didn’t look like a human anymore.

He looked like the storm’s wrath given shape.

The wind picked up... then roared. Tents ripped from the earth. Trees splintered.

The very air began to freeze. Snowflakes fell. Sharp and unnatural, sticking to scorched ground, turning mud to frost.

Rodrick stumbled. His bravado cracked like thin ice.

"W-What are you doing?!" he screamed over the wind.

Kyle said nothing.

Didn’t need to.

Rodrick’s eyes darted. Desperate. Then he saw him.

Halric.

The Black Commander. Wounded but alive, lying unconscious near a shattered boulder.

If Rodrick could just reach him... kill him...

Maybe the dungeon would end.

Maybe he’d still escape.

Maybe he could keep the promise he made to her.

To Rose.

He ran.

One step. Then another. Legs failing, body trembling. Each breath was like breathing fire.

Just a little further.

Then... the sky split open.

A deafening crack echoed like the world tearing in half. The clouds above didn’t just move...

They shattered.

And from the rift between them.

A storm fell.

A massive cyclone of lightning, snow, and screaming wind twisted downward from the sky.

The Storm’s Maw.

It hit the earth like a god’s fist, carving a spiral trench deep into the battlefield. Trees vanished. Rocks shattered. Air itself bent and warped.

Rodrick looked up.

Eyes wide.

"No—NO NO NO—!"

The wind took him.

One moment he was running...

The next, gone.

Lifted off the ground, limbs flailing helplessly. His body was swallowed by the heart of the storm.

Inside, there was no ground. No sky. No direction. Just chaos.

Endless spinning.

Endless screaming.

Then came the pain.

Thousands. No, millions, of strikes all at once.

Tiny shards of ice sliced through skin. Razor-thin jets of water punched holes through muscle. Lightning exploded through his bones.

The wind didn’t blow past him...

It peeled him apart.

Piece by piece.

Rodrick tried to scream.

The storm swallowed the sound.

His hands vanished first. Then his arms. Then legs.

Each part of him stripped away like paper in a fire.

He wasn’t being killed.

He was being erased.

The last thing he saw... Through the whirl of wind and frost, was Kyle.

Floating.

Watching.

Eyes glowing like twin stars, quiet and cold.

No hate.

No rage.

Just finality.

Then... silence.

The cyclone collapsed in on itself with a blast that shook the mountains. A wave of air rippled out, snapping trees and knocking soldiers off their feet.

And where Rodrick had once stood...

Nothing.

No body.

No blood.

Not even ash.

Just a perfect sphere of scorched earth. Smooth and glass-like, wider than the crater left by [Voidstorm Ascendant].

As if the storm had carved the battlefield clean.

A silent mark.

A grave with no bones.

Above it all. Kyle hovered for a single breath more.

Then his eyes dimmed.

The glow faded.

And like a puppet with its strings cut...

He fell.

———

[Cedric’s POV]

Cedric couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Kyle... Kyle... had just obliterated Rodrick.

Not just defeated him. Not wounded. Not knocked down.

Erased him.

The Red Commander was gone. Turned into ash and scattered in the wind.

And Kyle had done it using four elements.

Lightning. Wind. Water. Ice.

Quadra-elemental.

The Power he used.

Cedric’s breath caught in his throat. His fingers curled into tight fists, still trembling from the aftermath of battle.

That wasn’t just rare... it was impossible.

Unless...

’Another Blessing Holder? Like me?’

The thought barely had time to form before something even worse happened.

Kyle started to fall.

From the sky.

Where he had floated moments ago. Glowing like a storm god. He plummeted like a stone.

His white hair rippled in the wind. The radiant glow in his hair was already fading.

That mark glowing on his cheek? Flickering like a dying candle.

His body twisted in the air, limp and lifeless.

Cedric moved before he even knew he was moving.

His legs screamed in pain, ribs aching with every step.

But he ran anyway, pushing himself forward...

And caught him.

Kyle crashed into his arms with a force that nearly knocked Cedric over. But Somehow, he held on.

Kyle’s weight felt wrong. He felt... fragile. Like something broken on the inside.

"Hey, Kyle," Cedric breathed, shaking him gently. "Can you hear me?"

No response.

His heart sank.

Then he saw them. Those glowing cracks. Running along Kyle’s skin.

Across his neck, his arms, even his chest.

They pulsed with a blue-white light. It flickered beneath the surface like lightning trapped inside a cracked gem.

Too bright. Too unstable.

Cedric’s hands shook as he called on his light magic. Golden energy flowed through his palms and into Kyle’s body.

"Come on," he whispered. "Stay with me. You can’t just—"

But the cracks didn’t fade.

They spread.

"Shit."

That was when Eleanora appeared.

She dropped beside them, knees hitting the dirt.

Her pale-blonde hair was soaked with sweat and blood. Her left arm was twisted unnaturally, clearly broken. But she didn’t care.

She reached into her ring. Pulled out a potion, and downed it in one gulp.

Then she leaned over and pressed her lips to Kyle’s, forcing the potion into him.

Still nothing.

"Again," she whispered, pulling out another. Her hands trembled. "Come on, Kyle. Please..."

Cedric stared at her.

He had never... never, seen Eleanora like this.

Not cold. Not distant.

But afraid.

Her voice shook with each word. Her eyes were wide, desperate.

This wasn’t just worry.

It was panic.

She poured more light magic into him. Stronger than anything Cedric had ever cast. It lit up the night like a star.

Still, the cracks spread.

Still, Kyle didn’t move.

"No... no, no, no," Eleanora choked out. Her voice cracked. She gritted her teeth, fighting back tears. "Don’t do this. Don’t you dare—"

Eleanora’s thoughts were a blur. She couldn’t lose him. Not him. Not like this. Not again.

Behind them. Cassian half-carried Serena over. Both were battered, barely standing.

But their eyes locked onto Kyle with identical horror.

"Is he...?" Serena started.

Cedric didn’t answer.

He didn’t know what to say.

Then, movement.

Not Kyle.

Something beside him.

A blur of black.

Before Cedric could even react. Kyle’s tachi, suddenly appeared beside them.

It floated for just a moment.

Then slammed into Kyle’s palm.

Cassian jolted. "What the—?!"

The blade didn’t stay a blade. It twisted, warped, melted down into liquid shadow. And wrapped around Kyle’s wrist.

A black bracelet.

It pulsed once.

Then it began to glow.

Black.

Deeper than night. Darker than anything Cedric had ever seen.

It pulsed again, and with it. The energy leaking out of Kyle’s body began to fade.

The light inside him stopped flickering wildly. The cracks stopped spreading.

Then...

Slowly...

They began to heal.

Inch by inch. The glowing lines faded, like ink sinking beneath water.

Kyle’s breathing steadied.

He wasn’t moving yet. But the danger was fading.

Cedric could feel it.

He blinked, shocked. "It’s... it’s absorbing the energy."

He didn’t understand how. Or why. But the bracelet, the tachi. Whatever it was.

It had stabilized Kyle’s body.

And just like that...

Kyle was breathing again.

A soft message appeared in the air above them, glowing glue against the battlefield’s ruin.

——————

Congratulations, Players

Scenario: War of Attrition – Complete

Winner: Black Legion

Rewards: Calculating...

——————

Cedric stared at it.

Then the world began to crack.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

The sky split like glass. Sharp fractures spreading across the horizon. The earth trembled beneath them.

A shatter.

A flash.

And everything around them. The battlefield. The soldiers. The mountains. The tents. It began to fall apart. Dissolving into glowing fragments, fading into the void.

The dungeon... was collapsing.

They were falling.

———

Author’s Note:

Hey readers. Newbie here!

So, what do you think of this arc? Did it feel too long? I kinda ended up stretching it more than I meant to.

Let me know your thoughts! Did you like it? Hate it? What worked for you, and what didn’t?

Also, important question: Should Kyle keep his white hair, or should I change it back to his original color?

Drop your comments. I’d love to hear from you!

———

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