Landing beside Lena, Yuki’s golden eyes swept the estate grounds, taking in the scattered fighting, the smoke, the tears in the sky still spilling more devil monsters through.

"Are you hurt," she asked.

Lena barely registered the question.

"Where’s Leon. Is he okay. Have you seen him, why isn’t he here yet, is he hurt, did something happen to him—"

"Lena."

"—because I felt something earlier, something huge, and then nothing, and I don’t know if that was good or bad, and if something happened to him I need to know right now—"

"Lena." Yuki’s voice cut through it, firm but not unkind. "Deal with what’s in front of you first, Lord is alright".

Lena’s mouth stayed open for a second, words dying halfway out.

Yuki snapped her fingers.

Every single monster on the estate grounds turned to ash at once, mid-swing, mid-shriek, mid-whatever they’d been doing a half second earlier, entire bodies collapsing into fine grey dust that drifted off in the wind like it had never been anything else.

The courtyard went dead silent.

Lena stood there, rapier still raised, staring at the empty space where a monster had been about to take her arm off.

"...Did you do that," she said.

"Yeah," Yuki said, completely unbothered, already scanning the grounds for the next problem.

Julian’s sword was still buried in a monster corpse that had turned to dust around the blade, leaving it just hanging in midair before clattering to the ground. He stared at the space where hundreds of creatures had been standing seconds ago, now nothing but ash settling across the torn-up lawn.

Lily lowered her bow slowly, arrow still nocked, mouth slightly open.

Cain hadn’t moved either. His sword hung at his side, forgotten.

Every single one of them was looking at Yuki now but she didn’t even bother.

More of the twisted things poured through the portal, snapping everyone’s attention back before Lena could get another word out.

Yuki clicked her tongue.

"They’re not stopping."

"Yuki, please, just tell me—"

"Lena." Yuki’s tone stayed even, but there was an edge under it now. "I’m leaving you here for a bit. I have to end this before my master wakes up."

"Master?" Lena’s rapier dipped slightly, her focus splitting again despite herself. "You mean Leon? Where is he, is he in danger—"

"No, Lena, he’s—"

"LOOK!"

A maid’s voice cut across the courtyard, high and cracking with panic, one arm flung up toward the sky.

Every head turned.

The moon had already climbed high over the estate, pale and full, same as it had been every other night this month.

That wasn’t what she was pointing at.

It was the color that caught everyone first.

The moon, always pale silver over Everett, burned a deep azure instead, bright enough that people stopped mid-fight just to stare up at it.

Standing in the middle of that light was a figure. Small. A child’s frame.

Snow white hair, a little messy, longer than it used to be. Roughed up clothes, torn in places.

Yuki and Lena both knew who it was the second they saw him.

Neither of them got a word out before he spoke.

"Freeze."

And the world listened.

Every monster. Every soldier. Every devil still standing in the ruins of Everett.

All of it stopped at once.

...

Moments ago, on Leon’s side, the system windows kept scrolling past his vision, calm and clinical, indifferent to the devastation stretched out beneath him.

[Assessing situation]

[Currently, Everett has a fifty percent chance of winning due to the Nine Tails]

Fifty percent.

Leon’s jaw tightened at the number, small as it was, glowing pale blue in the corner of his sight.

"Then let’s change that," he muttered.

He scanned the city below, mana signatures blooming and vanishing across his vision in rapid succession, thousands of them, a living map of every fight still raging through Everett’s ruined streets.

Then he found him.

His father. Still down. Still bleeding out into the churned earth, that same pool spreading wider than it had any right to.

And standing over him, unhurried, untouched, were the two who’d put him there.

The two devils Coryn and Veth who were apparently the perpetrators had not noticed him.

Something in Leon’s chest went past anger, past the cold and controlled fury he usually operated with, into something quieter and far more absolute.

"Freeze."

The word left him flat. Final.

Space itself seemed to bend around the command, folding shut the distance between where he stood and where his father lay dying, and in the next instant he was there, standing a few feet from both devils, the city’s dead silence pressing in on every side.

[Exerting Overlord Presence]

[Ding! Overlord Presence has been upgraded to Sovereign’s Presence]

Veth felt it before he saw it.

The moment that word left the boy’s mouth, something in the air changed, pressing down on him from every direction at once, heavy enough that his knees buckled before his mind had even processed what was happening.

Coryn wasn’t doing any better.

Both of them stared up at the small white haired figure standing over Arlott’s fallen body, and for the first time since either of them had set foot on this continent, actual fear crawled up their spines.

They usually felt something slightly similar when facing Lord Zhask but still... there was no denying it, This was worse.

"Breathe," Coryn muttered to himself, more of a command than a comment, though his lungs weren’t exactly cooperating with the instruction.

Veth wasn’t faring any better beside him, his usual grin nowhere to be found, sweat already beading along his hairline despite the cold radiating off the boy in front of them.

"You two sure know how to hold your heads up," Leon said. Quiet. Almost bored.

It wasn’t a compliment.

Both of them dropped to their knees that instant, some deep animal part of them making the decision before their pride had a chance to argue.

The moment their knees hit the ground, their heads rolled off.