While the front line of robot invaders is distracted by the cats and Lust, the midline soldiers launch upward, releasing waves of rockets aimed at Hell’s fighters. Wyn and three other souls coordinate with the campsite cats, channeling their amplified powers in sweeping motions to intercept and neutralize the incoming threats. Despite their efforts, the barrage intensifies, and some rockets slip through, crashing into Hell’s ranks.

  At their current strength, a single rocket impact doesn’t fully obliterate the Hell souls, but repeated hits steadily chip away at their bodies, incinerating sections with each strike. By this point, some Hell souls have already perished, their chunks scattered within the ranks.

  “Don’t stop pushing forward. We didn’t train so hard after all this time just to die in one hit like in animes and movies!” David shouts.

  Once they’re close enough to the Heaven army, Crowd lifts his team and David’s, allowing them to join Lust in the air. Together, they dodge rockets and elemental attacks as they advance, still unable to catch sight of the champions they’re seeking.

  Cateto shrinks down to evade the relentless missile barrage. Though faster in his original form, he sticks close to Wyn’s team, ready to support them. The single-browed Catita tries to hold her ground in her enlarged state but takes multiple hits to her giant face, eventually toppling over some of Hell’s souls before quickly resizing herself. Despite a scorched face, she’s not seriously injured, and a water soul immediately moves in to tend to her wounds.

  The Hell army is now split in half, one team lifted in the air by wind users as they fend off the missiles, while the other presses forward on the ground. Just before the two forces clash, a deafening explosion erupts from within Heaven’s ranks.

  “Target an opening in any area to trigger the missiles to explode from the inside!” an injured cat shouts.

  As the two armies finally collide, several Hell souls at the front leap to assault the control room’s windows with their weapons, while others crouch low, searching for weaknesses along the metallic bodies. Wyn summons a descending cyclone, guiding Mira’s whip through the air; its force proves effective, shattering the windows in a single, powerful blow.

  In close proximity, the Heaven souls can’t afford to shoot missiles, so they resort to elemental attacks instead. In one instance, a robot uses the holes in its hands to roast a fallen Hell soul with lava.

  Amid the chaos, Catota and Catutu dart forward into the ranks of the Heaven army. At the same time, the siblings enlarge themselves, causing nearby robots to topple. As they grow, some of the robots are pushed against each other, triggering a chain reaction that leads to a series of explosive detonations among those standing in between the enlarged cats. In a flash, they shrink again to evade the incoming attacks. However, this is not to say that the cats escape unharmed; they too have suffered from the collateral damage of the chain explosions, their fur singed and bodies jolted from the blast.

  Wyn’s team moves to the far right wing of the battle, trying to stay as far from other Hell souls as possible to avoid causing harm to one another. While there, James serves a defensive role, effectively blocking elemental attacks from the opposition with ice pillars. Meanwhile, Lisa utilizes her electric abilities, paralyzing the robots with electricity fused with laser shots. Yu, on the other hand, maneuvers his blade inside a water stream into the Heaven army, cutting openings behind the robots’ knee joints, causing them to collapse into each other. As for Mira, she summons fire pillars from underneath the enemies to obstruct their view.

  While his team is busy, Wyn carries Cateto with him into the air. He propels at incredible speed before launching Cateto downward with a cyclone. Before the cat lands, he enlarges himself, becoming so big that he crushes multiple robots beneath him. Wyn quickly blows Cateto back up as he shrinks, grabbing the cat and returning to regroup with his team.

  “Are you hurt?” Wyn asks Cateto.

  “I am okay. My butt does hurt quite a bit, though,” he replies.

  “Told you it wasn’t a good idea…,” Wyn says.

  A Heaven soul crawls out of her destroyed robot and darts toward James’ ice pillar. In an instant, James shatters the pillar, sending shards flying in her direction, piercing through her body. Although none hit her brain, she falls to the ground, screaming in pain.

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  “They don’t seem that strong without the robots!” James exclaims.

  Wyn joins James in defense, their combined efforts allowing Cateto to enlarge once more, ready to amplify the power of the team’s strongest member, Lisa. In a sweeping motion reminiscent of the fuckfaces, Cateto unleashes a continuous beam of electrifying laser, swirling with Mira’s fire around it. As Wyn watches from below, the beam passes overhead, chilling him at the sight; the attack reminds him all too much of Anish’s end.

  “Wyn! Focus!” James shouts.

  Wyn shakes his head, refocusing on the battle ahead. On the count of three, the duo shatters their pillars, sending shards and chunks flying toward the enemies in front. Yu then summons water from beneath the front robots, and with James' help, they freeze the robots in their tracks. This opens the door for Wyn to get flashy; he lifts rock pillars from the ground, summoning powerful cyclones that propel the pillars directly into the robots.

  Meanwhile, Cateto and Lisa take a moment to catch their breath after a grueling session of firing a powerful laser beam. With her bloodlust surging, Mira joins the boys, targeting the robots' legs with the whip.

  “Let’s try something, Yu!” Wyn calls out.

  A stream of water erupts from beneath one of the robots, followed by a fully-charged ascending cyclone that lifts it into the air. Wyn attempts to curve the cyclone, but instead ends up sweeping up other robots in a straight line, using the lifted robot as a battering ram. As the cyclone struggles to support the growing weight, it begins to falter under the pressure.

  "That wasn’t as effective as I thought!" Wyn mutters.

  “Nice idea, though,” Yu compliments.

  Just then, Mira wraps her whip around a robot’s leg, driving the metal tip into an opening. The leg catches fire, and before long, it explodes, launching a soul through the shattered window. The impact sends it rolling toward Wyn, stripped bare in an instant.

  He stares at the crawling soul, whose limbs are blown off and badly injured.

  The soul looks up, pleading, “Please, don’t kill me!”

  At this point, the far right wing of the Heaven army is in shambles, all thanks to Wyn’s team and Cateto. As Wyn continues to stare at the desperate soul in silence, his team gathers around him.

  “Hey, where are you from? My name is Dan! What’s yours?”

  No one responds, not even Cateto, who’s perched on Yu’s head, remaining silent and wanting Wyn to settle this on his own.

  “I’m from Tideland! You look like someone from my region! Where are you from? We’re all friends, right?” the injured soul says.

  “Oppa…,” Mira interjects softly.

  “Oh? You’re a Kaulligger? My bad, man! I’m so sorry! I loved K-dramas and K-pop! What were your favorites?”

  Still, Wyn remains silent, though this time, he materializes his weapons and squats down, knees bent and feet flat.

  “What are you doing? Please, we were forced to do this!”

  “And you would’ve killed us if you had the chance,” James interjects.

  “Not anymore! Please…we…we were forced into this cruel war against our will. We all just want to survive and have a happy afterlife, right? Right?”

  “And now WE ARE the survivors,” Wyn says coldly, pointing the blades at the forehead of the now-crying soul. “Kor tode na. Lub hai sabuy na.”

  Yu and Mira close their eyes, unable to bear the sight. Then the crying stops.

  “It’s them or us. Get used to it,” Wyn says, his voice steady but strained. “Now, let’s get rid of the injured ones and collect their essence. We need to grow stronger and push forward.” His voice cracks as he struggles to hold back tears.

  Wyn, James, Lisa, and Cateto proceed to turn the Heaven souls lying on the ground into essence dust.

  “They’re really weak compared to us. Based on my calculations, their essence is only in thousands each,” James remarks.

  The robots serve as a double-edged sword for the Heaven army. Once a robot explodes or becomes crippled, the souls are either injured on their way out or unable to exit at all. Even if they manage to escape, their clothes disappearing instantly in the process, they’re still too weak to stand against the heavily trained Hell souls. What they have is sheer numbers, as it seems that Heaven has sent every soul capable of using elemental abilities, whether trained or not.

  Wyn’s team continues collecting the essence. When Wyn offers to share it equally with Cateto, he refuses.

  “You souls have more use for it than I do. In the end, I must remain in Hell while you work your way through Heaven.”

  Once they’ve collected all the essence, Wyn’s team rejoins the main force to push through the enemy lines. Meanwhile, David’s team, Crowd’s team, and Lust focus on evading and countering the attacks coming from the enemy’s backline. It seems the enemy is more intent on taking out Lust than targeting the teams. Although Lust signals David and Crowd to wait for her – unable to speak despite her human form – the teams press on to the rear of the robot army. There, two figures stand apart, watching as David’s and Crowd’s teams land before them. It’s none other than Ares and Hephaestus.

  “Kor tode na. Lub hai sabuy na.” = "I'm sorry. Rest well."

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  For Lust's description, go to Chapter 7

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