While Wu and Rache were trapped within the Kraken’s dimension, Rote had been fighting hard to prevent neither Lera nor Ver from crossing over to the other side. Even as more and more damage started becoming layered onto Rote’s body, pushing him closer to his limits than it has ever been, he still held on.

He will hold on, so long as the fire of vengeance burns within him.

“Just…get…off...me!” Lera struggled, slashing a melee Wave weapon across Rote’s arms while being pinned down when suddenly, the death-grip he had on her suddenly loosened as his body eerily drifted back towards Ver who’s following them closely behind.

“WATCH OUT!” Lera shouted when the Kraken opened up her whirlpool purple right in front of Ver’s entire body. That made Rote immediately halt his advance, and all at the same time, the Cerberus emerged from within with Rache riding on his back. Rote's tensed up face relaxed as a smile perked up from behind the dirt and blood all over his face.

“Did you kill him?” Rote asked when he saw Wu emerging right behind the Cerberus before he rolled along the ground and sprinted towards Lera who hugged him briefly before checking on his wounds, “Shit.”

“You looked bad.” Rache glanced at Rote before giving him a helping hand. That was right when Ver dashed in front of him, however, the Cerberus lunged across, casting a blue platform barrier with his own Wave manipulation that stopped Ver dead in her tracks.

“Your Wave felt depleted.” The Cerberus projected silently into Rote’s mind before the Cerberus slammed its foot down, suddenly picking Ver up by her feet with strands of Wave before she was about to be thrown back like a rag-doll tied to a string, "Let's mix things up again!"

A black orb zoomed across the air, slicing through the blue lines connecting between the Cerberus’s mouthes and Ver’s body as the Kraken’s tendrils grew out before it caught Ver in a gentle landing.

“Thanks for the assist.” Ver said, winding her Sky Splitting Sword in a spiral before she slammed it forward as a multitude of blue platforms formed in front of her again. Those blue polygons that once supported the Cerberus as it soared through the air quickly reoriented as they shileded and deflected Ver's ferocious attacks before the Cerberus projected them further, pushing Ver back.

Ver held her ground for a good while, turning her sword horizontally before she suddenly ducked down as black bolts of Void domain homing missiles whooshed past her head, penetrating straight through the shields.

“I had hoped Rache would rough you up a lot more, Wu. You are pesty, I will give you that.” Rote leaped over Rache and the Cerberus before he glided towards Wu, his feet and fists glowing red before they left behind smooth-looking arcs as they traveled through the air. As he landed and smashed against Lera’s shield Casts, the first five layers of her shields shattered instantaneously while five more formed up right behind them. However, through the sheer intensity in the Wave, she could tell that Rote's gotten weaker.

"He's trapped!" Lera said when Wu bombarded him with even more shots of his Void Domain missile, leaving behind dark circles over his body as his trump card Cast finally started to have an effect on his enemy. As Rote's ability to counter against the gradient in the Wave created by the Void Domain relied on his seemingly endless supply of Wave, as that started to dwindle, so did his power.

"Rache!" Rote called for help for the first time as he struggled to swim through the relentless formations of Lera's shield Casts as she directly drew her Wave from the sea through the Cast array embedded into the ocean.

The Cerberus roared, but Wu kept his hand on the trigger while reaching another hand over, projecting a Void Domain Laser that tore a hole in the Cerberus' blue platforms, allowing Ver to finally break through. As her body crouched close to the ground, her rapid backward pushing steps sent jets of sand splattering backward while her body rocketed straight at Rache.

This is troublesome…

Rote thought as Rache leaped straight back, avoiding Ver's initial attack and landing on the back of the Cerberuswhile it spits out balls of flames that were quickly deflected by Ver, “We need to get away from here.”

“Yeah…” Rache nodded slowly, though his body remained still, “about that.”

Rote eventually broke free of Lera's shields as he ran back towards Rache with Ver still in the way. However, sensing his approach, Ver stepped laterally, forming a triangle between herself, Wu and Lera, and Rache and Rote.

“What’s the matter?” Rote asked.

“I…have a question for you.” Rache turned his head towards Rote, as everything around them seem to fade out to grey, “on that day when everything changed…where were you?”

“I was up north, away from here.” Rote said quickly, “I only headed down here as quickly as I could when I heard of what’s happened.”

“And…what happened up there?” Rache followed, his eyes hidden behind the blue bangs hanging down from his forehead.

“Why are you asking me all of this now?” Rote asked quickly before shuffling even closer to Rache, however, this distance between them seemed to widen the more he moved laterally, “what’s going on?”

“I…have been wondering about what Wu said.” Rache brushed his hair aside, and he leaned in towards Rote, “I just wanted to hear the truth from you.”

As his sparkling eyes looked into Rote, the red glow from Rote's body started to slowly dissipate, replaced instead by his usually pale skin tone. The casual smile returned to his face, and he let out a sigh before reaching both hands and placing them around Rache’s chin.

Rache appeared flustered by the movements, and he blinked a few times before eventually closing his eyes as Rote closed in.

“You want the truth? Here’s my truth.”

Their lips connected, and a volcano erupted in Rache’s mind as he felt for Rote’s warmth. Wu raised his eyebrows, and Lera looked towards him with Ver tilting her head to the side with confusion.

Rache felt for Rote’s hand through his chest. It was warm. It was hot. It was…almost superheated.

As jets of steam sizzled out from where Rote made skin contact, Rache’s eyes widened before tears and blood poured out simultaneously. He felt Rote’s fingers on one hand ripping back out through his chest muscles as he reached into his pockets and grabbed onto the Revolutionary manuscript with the other.

“I thought…I thought you loved me…” Rache struggled, his voice broken, “I thought you will be there for me after I lost everyone.”

“You are not the only one that’s lost everything.” Rote pulled back from Rache as he clenched onto the red page and pinched it with two fingers, “my pain far surpassed yours.”

“I know that.” Rache’s face became rapidly paler by the second, “but I had always wanted to share the burdens with you if you had let me in.”

“You never should have doubted me.” Rote said, pushing Rache away.

Then, he turned to face the stunned Wu, Lera, and Ver as flames of anger once again raged on within his body, "Thank you for giving me more anger...thank you for doubting me."

“I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe you.”

Rache’s voice came from all around Rote, and Rote rapidly turned around to see skies, sands, and ocean fading away alongside the sights of his enemies on the beach, leaving only him and Rache on the beach with the Cerberus standing besides the young Manifester.

“I thought what we had was real.” Rache continued, looking to the side as his lips twitched.

“Forget it.” Rote shouted, suddenly moving forward when the middle head of the Cerberus roared, revealing the invisible Wave lines between him and Rote before they were pulled taut. Rote felt tension traveling down the back of his spine, and he clenched his fist, "Forget it all, and stop what you are doing it right now."

“All the things you’ve told me.” Rache pressed, as the Cerberus pulled back his neck with tension arising all throughout Rote’s body, “are they all lies?”

“It doesn’t matter now.” Rote moved, his body darting through the air as the Cerberus’ eyes glowed with power. Then, lines of Wave expanded out from Rache’s eyes before it covered his entire face in a crack-like pattern that matched the color and contours of the Cerberus’ own blue armor.

“No. It doesn’t anymore.” Rache muttered as a gigantic crack tore open from Rote’s mid back. The landscape around him rapidly started to shift as the background of white serenity transitioned back into the crater-filled muddy beach that they had been battling on. Rote looked down at his broken torso as the Wave lines from within his body was yanked out by the Cerberus as his now-detached hip hung on loose fabric.

Then, blood exploded out as he collapsed onto the ground.

“NO!” Rote shouted, his voice becoming progressively weaker, “Cerberus! Stop…stop this now! Think about this! Think about what I have done for you! Think about what I have done to free you!”

He crawled along the ground, digging his fingers into the sand until the grains filled his nails. though the connection of Wave between his upper body and legs had already been severed. He had already lost the ability to feel pain in his lower half, yet the anger within his eyes kept him imprisoned in this world.

“The one that freed me was Rache.” The Cerberus said coldly, “and the only one that is allowed to use him is me.”

“Rache! Please!” Rote plead, dragging his body through the sand as his skin quickly started to shiver up as more of his Wave became torn away by the Cerberus, “stop him…it hurts…everything hurts…please… I need you…”

Rache knelt down beside Rote, and he placed his hand around Rote when he reached out at him.

Rote seemed relieved, and he reached towards Rache before suddenly twisting his hand, the tips of his finger now holding a sharp blade made from a condensed blade as he slashed it at Rache's neck.

Rache caught it with his bare hand.

As Rote’s Wave cut deeper into Rache’s palm, he simply held onto the darkening hand of his once friend as the Cerberus continued sucking the Wave away from his body.

“You have been fighting for far too long…” Rache said as Rote’s hair started falling out one after another, and his skin started drying up with his eyes darkening and sinking into his skull, “you may rest now…”

“The demonic dimensions must be destroyed…” he said, still trying to cut through, “once we killed them all, then…then she will be happy…he will be happy…I cannot...must not stop here...I must live on to see that day with my own eyes...”

“I wished you could have told me about them.” Rache knelt beside Rote as his strength continued dwindling, and his eyes started to lose light.

“You wouldn’t care about the crazy stories of an old man…” Rote rolled back before his breath started to lighten, “you may have stopped me here…but it’s already done. The war is underway, and he will finish what the third started…”

“Why?”

“Why else, but to pay blood with blood.” Rote said, softing his fingers and grabbing onto Rache instead, “even if I die here, it won’t matter for them. PORA on the Western continent had been ready for it for decades…This is all but a playground for them… If you resist their inevitability, you will perish here.”

Rache turned and glanced towards Wu, Lera, and Ver, who all stood around the two of them silently.

Rote let out his final breath and rolled his head to the side towards Rache.

The red glow of his Wave faded away slowly like a piece of hot metal being left in the wind, and all that remained were the echoes of his destruction.

“What was all that about?” Rache asked, standing up and wiping away the corner of his eye, “He never told me everything...but I feel like I need to know.”

“And you shall learn it.” Wu said, picking up the red page of the Revolutionary Manuscript before he sent out a pulse of Void Domain that dispelled the Void Domain shield layer.

The page glowed once, and a dark pulse shot out in all directions.

"Did you do it?” Lera glanced around, when the page hummed lightly before powering down, "It's down?"

“Down and done.” Wu smiled, showing her the deactivated page, “It’s done…”