“There is me”

“So,” Winter growls, his voice guttural, echoing from deep within his demonic form, “you’ve chosen to mimic me. Clever… but futile.”

“No,” Yuui says, her voice calm and steady as her energy suit glows brighter. “I’m not mimicking you. This isn’t blood. This is life.”

With a sharp movement, Yuui raises her hand, the radiant energy in her suit responding instantly, crackling with power. She isn’t afraid anymore. Winter has become a blood demon, but she has something more—a force that isn’t born from death, but from the will to live.

The battlefield is now charged with opposing forces, darkness and light, death and life. Yuui and Winter stand facing each other, both transformed into something beyond human, ready for the next, final clash.

Yuui stands tall, her pure energy suit radiating light across the battlefield. Her heart, once heavy with despair, now pulses with purpose, and in her hands, she begins to gather the energy she has been channeling. The power surges through her, responding to her every thought, flowing like water into a single point.

Her hands glow brighter, the energy coalescing into a brilliant orb of pure light. It shimmers, radiating warmth and life, a perfect sphere of concentrated power. Yuui can feel the life force of her fallen comrades within it—their strength, their will, their hope—all fused into this single attack.

The orb grows, spinning faster, pulsing with the raw energy of creation itself. The ground trembles beneath her feet as the power reaches its peak, ready to be unleashed.

Winter stands across from her, his monstrous form towering, the blood demon that once seemed unstoppable. But as the orb of pure energy forms in Yuui's hands, Winter makes no move to counter her. He watches her, his red eyes glowing with a strange intensity, yet there is no panic, no fear in his expression.

Yuui’s eyes narrow, her heart racing. She expects Winter to prepare, to summon the blood cloud, to raise his monstrous defenses. But he does nothing. He simply stands there, his blood armor shifting slightly, his massive form still as a statue.

“You’re not even going to defend yourself?” Yuui mutters under her breath.

Her hands pulse, the orb of light thrumming with raw power. She has no time to second-guess his intentions. Winter is a threat that cannot be allowed to remain.

With a sharp breath, Yuui thrusts her hands forward, releasing the orb.

The pure energy shoots from her grasp with unimaginable speed, cutting through the air like a comet. The ground cracks beneath its force, and the sky above it shimmers in its wake. The orb flies straight toward Winter, its bright light illuminating everything in its path.

Winter doesn’t move.

The orb slams into his chest, the impact so powerful that the entire battlefield seems to pause for an instant, frozen in time. And then it explodes.

A blinding light consumes everything, and the explosion sends waves of energy rippling across the battlefield. The force of the blast is immense, an overwhelming surge of power that expands outward in all directions, engulfing the landscape. Rocks and debris are thrown into the air, trees bend and snap under the sheer weight of the energy wave.

Yuui braces herself as the shockwave hits her, her energy suit protecting her from the brunt of the blast. The force of the explosion radiates outward, covering a massive area, obliterating everything in its path.

When the light finally begins to fade, Yuui squints through the dust and smoke. The once-still air is filled with the remnants of the explosion, the battlefield scorched and torn apart by the sheer force of the attack. She stands panting, her chest rising and falling as she tries to steady herself.

But through the thick smoke, a silhouette begins to emerge.

Winter.

He still stands where he had been, his body unmoved, rooted in place as if the blast had never happened. His blood armor is cracked, pieces of it missing, but he is there—alive.

Yuui's breath hitches in her throat.

How could he have survived that?

How could he have taken that attack head-on and remained standing?

The blood demon’s crimson eyes flicker through the haze, and as the smoke clears, Yuui sees that his body has been badly damaged. Chunks of his blood armor are missing, and dark blood oozes from open wounds on his monstrous form. But Winter remains steady, his gaze fixed on her, unflinching.

He hasn’t tried to counter, hasn’t defended himself at all. He has taken the full brunt of her attack without so much as raising a hand.

Yuui’s heart pounds in her chest. Was this some kind of test? Had he wanted to see the full extent of her power?

Winter exhales slowly, his voice deep and guttural, yet filled with a strange, quiet satisfaction.

“Impressive… very impressive.”

Yuui's hands clench into fists, the energy around her crackling with intensity.

How could he have survived?

And why?

What is he planning?

Winter tilts his head slightly, his blood-soaked body still recovering from the devastation of her attack. His eyes gleam with something that sends a chill through her spine.

“You are strong, Yuui,” he growls, “but strength alone is not enough to defeat me.”

And then, without warning, Winter begins to rise.

Slowly, his massive form lifts from the ground, ascending into the darkened sky. His blood-red eyes glow with an eerie light as he rises, his body drifting upward as if gravity no longer has any hold over him. Yuui watches in disbelief as he floats above her, his blood armor cracked and damaged, but not defeated.

As Winter ascends, the blood cloud above him—his endless reservoir of death and destruction—begins to descend toward him, swirling like a dark, malevolent storm. Tendrils of blood reach down, wrapping around his body, seeping into his wounds.

Piece by piece, his armor begins to regenerate, the cracks sealing themselves as fresh blood molds into new, gleaming plates. His monstrous form is restored before Yuui’s eyes, more menacing than ever, the blood cloud replenishing his strength, knitting his body back together with every passing second.

Yuui’s eyes widen, her breath catches in her throat as she realizes what is happening. Winter isn’t just healing—he is ascending, becoming something even more powerful.

Hovering above her, Winter’s voice echoes across the battlefield, deep and resonant, filled with an arrogance that chills Yuui to her core.

“You see,” he says, his voice reverberating through the air, “there are mortals…”

The blood cloud thickens, swirling faster as more of it descends into him, fueling his regeneration. His wounds close, his armor gleams anew, his form radiating an almost divine power.

“…there are immortals…”

Winter’s body pulses with raw, dark energy; his blood armor now thicker, more menacing than before. His red eyes gleam like embers, watching her from above with a predatory intensity.

“…there are gods…”

The power radiating from Winter now feels suffocating, pressing down on Yuui like a tangible weight.

It was as if the very sky bowed to his will, and the earth beneath him trembled at his presence.

Winter’s voice lowered, a dark smile curling at the edge of his lips as he delivered the final, chilling truth.

“…and then, there is me.”

The words hung in the air like a death sentence, and Yuui felt her chest tighten with the weight of them. Winter wasn’t claiming to be a god. He was claiming to be something beyond even that—a force of nature, a being that transcended all categories of existence.

As Winter hovered high above the battlefield, bathed in the blood of the fallen, his form now fully regenerated, Yuui realized just how monumental her task had become.

She wasn’t just fighting a demon. She was facing something that saw itself as untouchable, beyond gods and immortals—a force that believed it could never be defeated.

Yuui’s energy crackled around her, her hands trembling as she prepared for the next clash. But in the pit of her stomach, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Winter’s words weren’t mere arrogance—they were the terrifying truth.