The Superior Rebirth: A Hero's Awakening

The Final Shadow

Both fighters now found themselves crashing hard onto the ground, rejected by the realm of shadows.

Heinrich slowly forced himself to his feet, his once-elegant attire now reduced to rags. His right hand trembled as he clutched it—bones twisted, muscles shredded and warped like crumpled paper. Every movement sparked waves of agony that surged through his battered frame. The Shadow Realm had torn into him, its chaotic currents wrenching his body like a cruel tide. He wanted to scream but bit his lip hard, determined to keep an air of control.

"It seems this fight has finally come to an end," he muttered, sweat running down his face from the pain. "Wouldn't you agree, Adam?"

Adam, sprawled across the cracked earth in the distance, barely had the strength to push himself up with his scorched, broken arms. The damage from Heinrich's earlier assault had burned not just his limbs but most of his body. His left eye was shut, blind, and useless. The right one flickered with blurry vision as consciousness threatened to fade.

He sucked in ragged breaths, fury simmering beneath his wounds.

"Where did you bastards take my son," he growled, his lone eye burning with quiet rage.

"Your son?" Heinrich mocked, eyes glinting with amusement. "Ooh! You mean that hawk-eyed little brat? Is that who you're talking about?"

"Who else," Adam replied coldly.

Suddenly, soldiers appeared behind Heinrich, dressed in strange uniforms foreign to the era—machines of war slung across their backs, unlike anything seen before in the young industrial age.

"Commander!" one called out, eyes wide at Heinrich's condition. "You need medical attention!"

Heinrich gave a pained chuckle. "No need. Just tell me... have you found the rest of the Lantern Society?"

"Yes, sir. All accounted for."

"Good. Those fools were a persistent thorn in His Majesty's side."

Adam's body stilled. His comrades. The ones he'd fought to save. The ones he'd tried to protect by transporting them away into his shadows.

Gone.

He dropped his head. Silent. Powerless.

Heinrich caught the expression. He knew it well: defeat. A broken heart sealed in a broken body. And it made him smile. He remembered what Percival had told him before all this:

Kill them both together.

With that in mind, he turned. "Did you bring the person I asked for?"

The soldiers exchanged uneasy glances before one stepped forward. "Y-yes, sir."

"Bring him. Now."

A few soldiers disappeared behind the formation, then returned with a figure.

A boy.

Young, no older than Xavier. His long orange hair caught the moon's light like flames at dusk. His eyes were dim, hollow, yet within them burned embers of something fierce. Something sharp. Like a hawk.

Adam recognized that look.

The face, though tired, thin, and bruised, carried a ghost of familiarity. A gentleness that reminded him of Miria.

The boy standing before him...

Was Caelan.

His son.

The child taken from him at just three years old. The one he and Miria had never stopped praying for. The reason he never gave up.

But now... now Caelan stood before him with a wooden arm. Crude. Cheaply made. As though no one cared enough to build him something better.