END OF THE FUTURE ARC PART FIVE

In the frozen hellscape of the Demon Realm—where rivers of fire had hardened into black glass and the crimson sky had surrendered to an endless void of pitch—Hannah charged the frost giant in her newly awakened berserker form. Her speed had transcended mortal limits; each step blurred into afterimages, almost like teleportation, leaving trails of frost-cracked air in her wake.

The giant swung its colossal axe with terrifying precision and force, the blade screaming through the blizzard. Hannah danced between the strikes, her body moving on pure instinct, the bone armor shifting like living scales. On the final swing, her towering astral berserker projection surged forward—hulking arms of raw rage catching the axe mid-descent with a thunderous clash that cracked the ground beneath them.

The giant roared, veins of ice pulsing across its blue skin, and poured more strength into the weapon, trying to cleave through her. Hannah extended her hand; a sleek katana materialized from thin air—black steel etched with faint crimson veins, summoned from the berserker's endless fury. She swung in a perfect arc toward the giant's torso.

The giant intercepted with one of its four massive arms. The blade bit deep, severing flesh and bone, but the limb had already served its purpose—absorbing the momentum and saving the giant's core. The tusk-like arm fell away in a spray of frozen blood.

Seizing the opening, the giant hammered its opposite arm into Hannah's side. The impact launched her like a cannonball, crashing through jagged rock formations in a storm of debris and ice shards. She skidded across the frozen ground, bones rattling, but before she could rise, the giant was already upon her—axe descending again.

The astral berserker intercepted, its own blade locking against the axe in a shower of sparks. Hannah seized the moment—coating her katana in destructive purple kantar and unleashing a crescent slash that tore across the giant's torso. The wound didn't regenerate. Instead, the severed chunk of flesh simply vanished—erased from existence in a silent, violet flash.

The giant's scream shattered the air, a defensive bellow that shook the realm's foundations. Hannah remained unfazed, dashing straight for its chest to finish it.

The giant raised its axe defensively. Hannah's blade clashed against it; the projection's sword blocked the counter. In retaliation, the berserker projection swung again—severing the hand gripping the axe. Blood gushed in torrents from the stump. The temperature plunged further; ice spread across the giant's wounds like armor, sealing the stumps into crystalline replacements and freezing the gash in its torso shut.

The giant opened its maw and exhaled a torrent of arctic wind. Hannah froze solid in an instant—body encased in unbreakable ice. The giant seized her frozen form and squeezed. Cracks spiderwebbed across the ice, then the entire construct shattered into countless glittering fragments.

The giant's monstrous laugh echoed through the blizzard—deep, evil, triumphant.

But before it could savor the victory, a massive sphere of purple kantar energy slammed into its back. The explosion lit the darkness like a dying star.

When the smoke cleared, Hannah stood unharmed, mask glinting under the black sky. Her voice came out otherworldly, layered with the berserker's rage.

“I may not be able to read your moves beforehand because you don’t use kantar… but that also makes you more likely to fall for tricks like kantar clones. You can’t sense kantar—so you can’t tell the fake from the real.”

The giant was badly wounded: deep gashes across its back and shoulders, bottom arms mangled, wounds refusing to heal. The destructive nature of Hannah’s kantar had left them raw and open; all it could do was coat them in ice to slow the bleeding.

Hannah gritted her teeth behind the mask. If this were any ordinary foe, that blast would have erased it entirely. But even with the berserker's Old World power leveling the field, the giant's durability was monstrous—her kantar couldn't fully erase it.

The giant charged again.

Hannah met it head-on. Their clashes became blurs too fast for the eye to follow—only sparks and shockwaves visible. They leaped apart to regain footing.

Hannah landed panting heavily. Her arm muscles bulged unnaturally, veins glowing purple; her entire body trembled with strain. She knew the time limit on this form was approaching fast.

The giant showed no fatigue—only wounds weakening it.

It dashed forward. Hannah coated her arm in kantar and grabbed the axe mid-swing. She activated her erasure technique; the axe didn't vanish, but cracks spiderwebbed across its surface. With a surge of amplified strength, she shattered it into uncountable fragments.

“I’m going to end this as quickly as possible,” she said, voice echoing with demonic resolve.

She went all out. Speed beyond anything she had shown before. Consecutive kantar-coated punches hammered the giant's chest, each impact cratering blue flesh. She summoned her katana back, brimming with purple aura, and drove it straight through the giant's heart.

The giant roared, punched her away, and yanked the blade free. The sword looked like a toothpick in its grip. It hurled it like a dart—traveling so fast Hannah barely had time to react.

The astral berserker intercepted, its blade knocking the katana aside. The weapon embedded in a distant rock formation with a crack of thunder.

The giant followed with a massive punch. The projection blocked again, giving Hannah time to recall her katana. She curved her body, sliding up the giant's arm with blinding speed, aiming to slice its neck.

The katana shattered on impact.

Hannah gritted her teeth. Dammit… it tensed its muscles at the last second. This thing really is something else.

The giant exploited her airborne position—limited movement—and backhanded her into the ground. She crashed hard, berserker state collapsing. Bruised, bloodied, kantar depleted, she lay motionless.

The giant loomed over her, ready to pummel her deeper into the ice.

Darkness took her again.

She awoke in the familiar lightless void of her kantar realm. Olethros stood before her.

Hannah grabbed her shoulders, shaking violently. “Why did you stop me? I was so close! Allow me to access the berserker powers again, dammit!”

Olethros looked at her with quiet concern. “Using that transformation already took away a piece of your soul. Your body can’t even handle it. If I let you use it again, your body will give out on you before your soul does.”

Hannah’s frustration boiled over. “So what—I should just let that monster pummel me to death?” Her voice dropped, quieter now. “I have to do something, Olethros… or this might be the end.”

Olethros sighed. “You’re out of kantar already. Even if I allowed it again, you’d lose yourself completely and die—turning into a full berserker. That would only make things more complicated for the others.”

Hannah backed away as the truth dawned. She sank to the ground, voice barely a whisper. “So this is it? This is the end?”

Olethros could only nod. The silence stretched, heavy and final.

“We played all our cards,” Olethros said softly. “A being from the Old World is simply stronger than what we can handle alone. The bright side is that we’ve weakened it. It will be easier for the others to dispatch. We’ve done our very best. This is the end of the road for us… It’s been a pleasure working beside you, Khali.”

Hannah sat in the dark, accepting her fate. She sighed. “I guess it really is over. It’s been a pleasure working with you too, Olethros. I just hope Shu and the others can handle it from here. I don’t have any regrets… I just wish I could tell Shu that I loved him one last time.”

In the real world, the giant raised its remaining arm for the final blow.

A great sword flashed—cutting the arm clean off.

A familiar figure in a long black leather coat appeared, hair now completely white, face still carrying that relaxed, lazy smirk.

“A frost giant?” Leon said with mock surprise. “Are we in Norse mythology? I wonder where Odin is.”

Hannah, clinging to consciousness, saw the back of the man and managed a weak smile. “Thanks, Leon… you saved my ass.”

She fell back unconscious, blood pooling beneath her.

Leon smirked over his shoulder. “It’s no big deal. We’re all a team in this, right?”

He turned to face the giant, eyes glinting. “Alright, big blue mammoth… time to cut you down to size.”