"So that’s where he has you sealed away?" Shiro asked, slapping her arm away again.

She didn’t answer. She just kept reaching for him—again, and again, and again—like he wasn’t actually pushing her away at all.

Eventually she gave up. Sighed. Lowered her hand.

"Why are you always so mean to me?"

Her voice came out soft. Wounded. The kind of wounded that would’ve worked on anyone who didn’t know her.

"Because you disgust me."

The words came out flat. Cold.

He turned to the others.

"Let’s go."

As he took a step, her voice came from behind him. "Sorry, Gil—can’t." Her smile hadn’t wavered once this entire conversation, which was deeply disturbing. "Your friends took something precious from me. I really do need it back." A small tilt of her head. "Other than you, of course. You’re not something I lost. You’re something I misplaced."

Shiro’s eye twitched.

"Pff."

Annoyed, Shiro moved—and in a single heartbeat, he was standing on the deck of the ship, right in front of Luca.

"Hand it over. Now."

The words came out cold. Sharper than he’d meant them to be. Frustrated in a way that had nothing to do with Luca and everything to do with the woman still smiling at him from the treeline.

Luca hesitated. Just for a second.

Then he reached into his robe and pulled it out.

A bracelet.

Gold. Old. Heavier than it should have been. The surface carved with the image of a bull—horns wide, head lowered, mid-charge. The kind of detail that hadn’t been put there by accident.

Shiro took it from him without a word. Turned.

And handed it to the woman.

"Here." He tossed the bracelet at her. "We’ll be leaving now."

"Aww." Her smile curved deeper, almost pouting. "My dear, you wouldn’t even thank me? After all the trouble I went through to help you find a body to be born into?"

His expression darkened.

"You’ve done enough damage to my life already. I would love to live an idiotic-goddess-free existence for once." A small pause. "And now I’m going to have to clean up the mess you created. You useless goddess."

Just then, the bracelet on her wrist started to groan. Low. Deep. Like something ancient waking up after a very long sleep.

Shrio didn’t flinch.

"Oh, you made him really mad now." Her smile didn’t fade—if anything, it deepened. "He’s been so upset since what you did to him last time."

Shiro sighed. The kind of sigh that belonged to a man who had been having this exact argument for several lifetimes.

"So you’re going to make this difficult."

He paused.

And then—slowly—his smile widened.

"You know very well, in your current state, you can’t win against me. Especially on this island."

Her smile didn’t falter.

"Your dearest friend can’t hold me down forever, my beloved King of Heroes." Her voice was silk and poison. "Sooner or later, I will be free. And when I am, I’ll finally be able to leave this cursed place."

Her smile widened.

"There’s just one problem, my dear," she said. "There’s someone else who isn’t affected by Enkidu’s seal."

And then he hurled the bracelet down into the dirt.

It exploded.

A thick wall of smoke burst outward from where it landed—heavy, fast, swallowing the world around him in seconds.

He looked at the ship. Then at the others.

"Get to the ship," he said quietly. "Now."

Ana moved first—toward him, not away. Richard was already shaking his head. Darius was trying to crawl up, half-conscious, looking like he’d fight standing on one knee if he had to.

Shiro didn’t let any of them argue.

He turned away from them. Toward the woman.

And without looking back, he spoke a single word into the air.

"Enkidu."

His shadow broke open at his feet.

Out of it rose the Ebony Knight—slowly, silently, the way something ancient rises when it’s finally called by its real name. Tall. Still. Armored in black that drank the sunlight.

"Take them away from here."

And in a single motion, the knight gathered them all—Ana, Richard, and Darius—into its arms and moved. Faster than any of them could process. Faster than any of them could argue.

He stood there alone.

He raised his hand.

And began the release.

Hip. Click.

Shoulder. Click.

Temple. Click.

His thumb moved slowly. Deliberately. Like a priest at an altar he’d built himself a long time ago.

Then he pressed his thumb flat against his chest.

And twisted.

Something inside him broke open. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Mana poured through his body like a dam had just cracked—cold, heavy. It surged up through his chest, his arms, his throat, his bones. Every inch of him lit up with something older than his own name.

And the island felt it.

The whole ground beneath him sank—just for a moment—as if someone had pushed the island down into the ocean with an invisible hand. The trees bent outward from the shockwave. The dirt cracked in long lines around his boots. The sky above him dimmed, like it was bracing itself.

The island was almost folding under the weight of what he’d just unleashed.

And Shiro?

He felt weightless.

Like every bone in his body had turned to feathers.

The ground shook. The trees split.

And at the same time, from the smoke, charging toward him—the Bull. Its massive body exploded out of the haze, horns lowered, hooves tearing the earth into trenches with every step. Golden armor clung to its hide—ancient, celestial, gleaming like it had been forged from solidified sunlight. Its horns were gold too, polished and curved wide, catching the light like a crown it had given itself.

The Bull of Heaven—Gugalanna—thundered toward him, eyes burning behind a gilded skull, breath rolling out like forge heat, the ground splitting beneath hooves that shone like polished sun.

Shiro didn’t dodge. Didn’t sidestep. Didn’t even flinch.

He just smiled. Taunting the beast.

The Bull slammed into him like a battering ram made of divine fury—and he caught it. Both hands locked around its golden horns, fingers digging in, feet carving trenches into the earth as the beast drove him back. The ground cracked beneath him. His boots sank inches deep. The force behind the charge could’ve leveled a city wall.

He didn’t move.

’That all you got?’

The Bull raged. Smoke coiled from its nostrils in thick, furious plumes. Its eyes burned hotter—brighter—like someone had stoked the furnace behind them. The muscles in its neck bulged as it pushed harder, trying to crush the thing standing in its way.

But the thing standing in its way was grinning.

Before the beast could turn that anger into anything useful, Shiro twisted. One sharp, violent rotation of his entire body—and he hurled the Bull of Heaven off its hooves and into the ground.

The impact shook the island.

He placed his foot on the back of its skull. Pressed down. Then grabbed both horns—and pulled.

Hard.

The sound was terrible. Wet.

The horns came free.

And in one clean motion, he drove them down into the Bull’s skull. Gold into gold. Divine into divine. The beast shuddered once—then went still.

Shiro straightened up. Dusted nothing off his hands. Wiped the golden blood from his face with the back of his sleeve—slowly, casually, like it was rain and not the ichor of a divine beast.

Then he turned to the goddess.

"Just because it was angry doesn’t mean the outcome would be any different." He tilted his head. "You foolish goddess."