Atop the cold, snowy cliff, the five of them still stood watching the sea of fire swallow the Village of Valjotoila.
Rare just stared straight down, his eyes no longer holding any hesitation.
A new conviction ignited within him.
Suddenly, from his left, Arrow stepped forward and gently patted the giant sword wielding youth's shoulder. "It's alright, Rare," Arrow said with a reassuring, faint smile.
"That place was already rotten to the core and not worth saving. Let's forge a new path."
Tora grinned widely, slinging an arm around Rare's other shoulder, making the boy stumble a bit.
"Hahaha! The archer is right! From now on, your home is with us! If anyone dares to mess with you, they'll have to deal with me!"
Scythe, who had been leaning casually against a snowy pine tree, twirled his scythe. He tried to keep a straight face, but failed completely as he threw out a joke in his signature tone. "Look on the bright side, Rare. Now you don't have to bother sweeping your village yard every morning. Everything has been flattened very... neatly? Eh... hehehe."
Hearing Scythe's dry joke, Tora burst into laughter, and even Rare couldn't help but let a small smile form on his face.
The heavy burden on his chest was truly lifted.
Behind them, No Name stood in silence. The freezing wind blew at his black suit.
Seeing the interaction of his four pawns slowly forming a strong bond, the corners of No Name's lips pulled up slightly. A faint smile, very brief, yet sincere.
"Enough... Come on, let's all go home," No Name interrupted, breaking the atmosphere.
He raised his hand, tearing the space in front of them, and opened a dark portal connected directly to the No Name Corporation headquarters.
One by one, they stepped inside, leaving behind a past that had turned to ash.
Once the portal closed inside the base, No Name wasted no time. He immediately hurried down the hallway to his private laboratory.
The steel doors hissed open and automatically closed behind him.
Inside the silent room, No Name reached into his suit pocket.
He pulled out a small crystal shard that emitted a deep, ocean blue glow. The previously dim lab was instantly filled with a calming, yet completely absolute blue aura.
"Thank goodness... thanks to the Yggdrasil Queen's power, I managed to get this," No Name muttered, staring at the crystal with sharp eyes.
His mind was thrown back to that brief moment in Valjotoila, right on the brink of destruction.
A few moments ago...
Right as Rare's last tear fell upon Excalibur and summoned a giant meteor from the torn sky, No Name felt an anomaly in his chest. The energy from the Red Stone that had merged with his bloodstream suddenly pulsed wildly.
Thump-thump... Thump-thump...
No Name's heart felt hot. A red flash lit up his eyes, and as if possessing a consciousness of its own, the red energy pulled No Name's instincts strongly toward one poin the Core of the Yggdrasil Tree, which was beginning to burn and crumble.
Realizing something was calling out to him, No Name cast the new power he had just stolen from the Queen.
"Wait—" No Name shouted, but it was too late.
"Tch... Time... Freeze," he whispered.
Instantly, the world lost its color and turned into monochrome gray.
The deafening roar of the meteor vanished. The cosmic fire enveloping the giant space rock froze just a few dozen meters above the Village of Valjotoila.
The flying wooden debris, the billowing dust, even Rare's falling tears all stood completely still, as if the universe had hit the pause button.
No Name darted through the frozen air, descending into the center of the village and plunging straight into the hollow of the half destroyed Yggdrasil Tree.
Inside, he followed the pulse of the Red Stone in his chest.
The deeper he walked down the giant root tunnel, the more absurd the air temperature felt.
Not cold from ice, but cold because the space itself felt hollow yet refreshing.
At the end of the deepest root, far beneath the soil of Valjotoila, No Name found a hidden ancient altar.
The altar was surrounded by inscriptions in a language that was likely as old as the universe itself.
And in the very center of the altar floated a blue crystal.
The stone wasn't large, but the energy around it was so dense that it made the nearby space look warped.
That was the life source of Yggdrasil, the secret to why the tree could manipulate time energy and illusions.
"Blue..." whispered No Name, recalling the words of the faceless entity in the void dimension years ago. "Red... Green... Blue..."
He stepped forward. But right as his hand was about to touch the stone, the time distortion began to crack.
Purple cracks started appearing in the monochrome air.
Without hesitation, No Name grabbed the blue stone.
An incredible cold immediately pierced the bones of his hand, as if trying to freeze his bloodstream.
But the Red Stone in his chest reacted, radiating a heat that neutralized the freezing temperature.
No Name quickly returned to his pawns and resumed time.
Time began to flow once more.
"Hurry up!" ordered No Name.
In the blink of an eye, No Name tore through the dimension and teleported his pawns to the top of the snowy mountain, right before the giant meteor struck and flattened Valjotoila into a sea of fire.
And watching his pawns staring at the destruction, he kept the blue stone safely hidden in his suit pocket without a single one of them noticing.
Back to the present...
No Name placed the Blue Stone onto an energy containment pedestal in the middle of his lab.
Two of the three keys had now been found.
Red and Blue, representing who knows what fundamental powers.
His eyes glinted under the lab lights.
The power of The Four Pawns was now perfectly formed, but his own plan had only just begun.
He smirked in the silence, ready to challenge the balance of the next world.