Aeon awoke not in body, but in presence — kneeling beside Guts atop a jagged cliff overlooking the ruined sprawl of a once-sacred citadel. Smoke rose in columns from the blackened valley below, where the last remnants of the Band of the Hawk had perished. The eclipse had passed, but its scar lingered in the very sky — clouds twisted like torn flesh, stars buried behind crimson haze.
They were alone.
And not.
Guts' hand trembled around the hilt of his sword, the massive slab of iron heavy even in his grip. His eye was hollow, not from blindness — but from too much sight. He had seen Griffith ascend, seen the Apostles feast, and heard Casca's screams as the world broke. The Berserker armor rested at his side, dormant for now.
Aeon said nothing. He simply sat, the wind brushing the edge of his cloak, his eyes turned toward the fractured heavens.
"You said I could still fight," Guts finally muttered, jaw tight. "But they're gods. Monsters. And I—"
"You are not meant to match them in form," Aeon replied softly. "You are meant to surpass them in will."
Guts let out a bitter scoff. "Will doesn't stop fangs."
Aeon turned to him fully. For a moment, Guts saw it — not just the man, but the vastness behind the shape. The god. The traveler. The father. The shard of divinity that had walked broken worlds for the faintest hint of meaning.
Aeon's hand hovered an inch from Guts' heart. "Then let this will burn. Not as wrath… but as resolve."
A faint warmth stirred in Guts' chest. No flames. No light. Not yet. But a spark — quiet, sleeping — buried like a coal in the ashes of his pain.
And it waited.
That night, they traveled beneath a moon that looked like it had been scraped raw. The lands surrounding them were not merely wounded — they were cursed. Trees bent as if screaming, animals walked with twisted limbs, and whispers moved where no mouths lived.
"Griffith did this," Guts said, as they walked past an altar strewn with the bones of children.
"No," Aeon corrected. "You did."
Guts stopped.
"The rage that once moved you… the cries you gave to the stars… they reached me." Aeon's voice was steady, without accusation. "And I answered. I tore open the sky and struck down gods. But I didn't aim. I didn't see. I became the storm."
Guts didn't know what to say. He just kept walking. Aeon followed.
By dawn, they reached the remnants of a temple — once golden, now soaked in red. A girl's doll sat alone on the altar, untouched by blood. Guts stared at it, and something in his expression cracked.
"My daughter would've been her age," Aeon murmured, kneeling before the offering. "But I let her die in a war that wasn't hers."
Guts looked at him sideways. "What war was it?"
"The war inside me."
A silence passed. Then another.
Guts spoke again, more quietly this time. "Can you bring her back?"
"No." Aeon's voice broke slightly. "But I can make a world where she might live again."
Later that day, the wind shifted — and they saw the vanguard of Griffith's forces, riding from the southern ridge.
Twelve Apostles. Thousands of cultists. At their head, Griffith on a pale horse, draped in veils of light and chains of souls.
And at the center of it all — the Eye.
A great, black, pulsing mass in the sky, invisible to all but Aeon. The Shadow's gaze. Watching. Feeding. Thriving on despair.
"He's not just a man," Guts said, teeth clenched. "He's a vessel."
"Yes," Aeon confirmed. "And the Shadow chose him."
Guts tightened the grip on his sword.
Aeon stepped closer. "When the battle begins, hold nothing back. Not even your heart."
"I haven't got much left."
"You will."
The battlefield was a shattered ruin of stone and memory. Broken statues of old kings. Flags from forgotten orders. Aeon stood apart from the fray, his aura cloaked, his presence subtle — like a god hiding behind the curtain of mortality.
Guts met Griffith on the scorched plain. They said no words.
The battle began.
And at first — Guts lost.
Blades clashed. Bones broke. The Apostles surrounded him. Griffith moved like a shadow of light, untouched, divine. Guts' strikes landed like roars against eternity — and did nothing.
His armor cracked. Blood spilled. And just when his legs gave out and he could no longer breathe—
The coal inside him ignited.
Not as a fire of rage.
But as a flame of resolve.
Aeon's voice whispered through the air. "Now."
The brand on Guts' neck flared.
And then, the world shifted.
Guts rose. His body burned, not with pain, but with sacred fury. His blade was no longer just iron — it was conviction. Aeon's gift had taken hold.
Righteous fire coursed through him. The Apostles faltered. Griffith's expression — for the first time — wavered.
"You—what did you do?" Griffith hissed, his voice cracking beneath the false light.
"I gave him the one thing you lack," Aeon answered, stepping forward now, divine radiance bleeding through his cloak. "A soul that never surrendered."
The fight turned.
Guts howled — not like a beast, but like a man who had lost everything and still chose to rise.
His sword split the sky.
To be continued in Chapter Seventy Three…