The battle between the Crypter's servant and the Chaldean servants raged with an intensity felt never before by the Armored Riders. This level of combat was something that could truly only be replicated by heroic spirits who fought so long ago, and had the backing of the Throne of Heroes behind them.

"Get ready, Nobunaga!" Musashi clashed swords with the opposing servant, sparks flying in every direction. Despite having two swords compared to Nobunaga's one, Musashi wasn't fast enough to break through her defenses, although Nobunaga wasn't having much luck getting through Musashi's either. Musashi ducked down below Nobu's sword, taking a quick slash at her leg. Although it barely grazed Nobunaga, the force behind it was enough to knock her off balance, which Musashi used as an opportunity to go in for the kill.

However, from behind her, Musashi heard a click.

Instinctively, she dodged out of the way, but the guns behind her followed her trail, blasting her right in the side. Musashi fell to the ground, swords laying beside her. Nobunaga got back up, wiping the dust off of herself.

"Tch… what a feeble attempt. If you are going to come after my life, do so with full knowledge that you will die!"

The Demon King surrounded herself with guns, preparing for Okita to return to the battlefield. Okita had just barely recovered enough to get herself back in the fight, determined to end it quickly. The wind around her began to pick up, signifying the start of her most powerful attack. Her Noble Phantasm. Nobunaga quickly picked up on this, beginning her counter attack quickly. After all, even a servant as strong as Nobunaga couldn't tank an Anti-Unit Noble Phantasm like Okita's.

"First step, silence… Second step, infinite suffering… Third step, a sword absolute!"

"Burn the gods and Buddha of the three realms to ashes…"

"Mumyou, Sandanzuki!" "『The Hajun Reborn・Demon King of the Three Thousand Great Thousand Heavens』!"

The other two servants couldn't even see what had happened, with Okita disappearing into a cloud of dust that Nobunaga's Noble Phantasm created, bombarding the ground. The wind that had picked up around Okita became visible for the briefest of moments, showing the path that the swordswoman took as she performed her most powerful attack - straight through the dust to Nobunaga.

Okita, having pierced through the dust, stood with her back facing her opponent. A grimace fell across Nobunaga's face as she fell down on one knee, her weapons vanishing around her.

"Okita!" Tomoe began to run over to her companion. "You did it!"

A shadow fell over Okita's eyes, as she began to fall to the ground as well. She caught herself with her sword, falling back to the same level as her rival. However, across her face spread a grin, knowing that she was able to protect her Master at the very least, as well as the others around her.

"Tch… don't think this is the end-" Nobunaga ironically began to cough up blood mid sentence. "This isn't… enough to kill someone like me!"

Nobunaga began to vanish back into her spirit form, retreating to where she couldn't be harmed further. Okita followed closely behind, vanishing back into her spirit form.

Shit, Okita's down… we need to take this guy down quickly!
Ritsuka commanded his group to push back against Mitsuzane, but his power over the fruits of Helheim kept them back. Mitsuzane clearly had the upper hand in this battle, and it was taking everything within the Rider's powers to keep him from blowing them all away. Musashi and Tomoe rushed over to join in the fight, drawing their blades and slicing away at the vines coming from every direction.

The vines began to overwhelm the group, with Elementary Inves being summoned in by Mitsuzane as he continued his assault. Takatora, seeing no other option, pulled out one last Lockseed, one very familiar to the other Riders.

KACHIDOKI

Mitsuzane stopped for a brief second, recognizing the power that Takatora's Lockseed held.

SOIYA!

KACHIDOKI ARMS!

IZA SHUTSUJIN! EI! EI! OH!

The Kachidoki Armor fell onto Armored Rider Zangetsu, leveling him up into his most powerful state.

The battle between brothers began, as even Musashi and Tomoe began to fall back to Ritsuka in recognition of this battle of honor. Their blades clashed first, creating sparks and a shockwave powerful enough to even be felt by the servants. Mitsuzane went for a clean sweep, taking out Takatora's legs from under him. He tried to bring his blade down on him but Takatora parried, knocking him back and then backflipping to create distance. They circled each other for a brief second, before Mitsuzane took the offensive once again. He dashed forward, bringing his halberd around and swinging at Takatora, who blocked with the Hinawadaidai DJ-juu.

"Why are you doing this Mitsuzane?!" Takatora screamed through his mask, trying to reach what was once his brother.

"You would never understand, brother! You could never… you don't understand what's happening!" Mitsuzane pushed Takatora back, forcing him to his knees. Using Redyue's Halberd, he disarms Takatora. "This… whole situation. This whole damn time! I've been alone! Every single one of you abandoned me when I needed you! And with Kouta gone… I made a deal, you see? This Lockseed… it damn near killed me. I overused the powers of the Overlords too much and it backfired. And then… this lady… as I was on the brink of death, she came to me. She told me that she would give me limitless power! The things that she showed me were incredible… and this servant. Oda Nobunaga, she is just as strong as any of the Overlords!"

Mitsuzane began maniacally laughing. Takatora, seeing an opportunity, stood up and dashed towards Mitsuzane blade first. He was stopped when Mitsuzane countered though, a wave of energy surrounding him and knocking Takatora back.

"All of Zawame City is mine for the taking now! I will take this Lostbelt and beat all the others! I will come out on top!"

Ritsuka's eyes widened at this, realizing what Mitsuzane knew, or rather didn't know.

"Mitsuzane!" Ritsuka called out, "You don't know anything about the other Lostbelts, do you?!"

"What is there to know, I will destroy them all eventually anyways! No one can stop us!"

Ritsuka smirked. "Mitsuzane… there are only 3 Lostbelts left now!"

Mitsuzane stopped laughing, trying to process what Ritsuka said.

"What do you mean 3?! This is one of 8 Lostbelts, you can't seriously be telling me that 5 of them were destroyed already!"

"Not only did we take them down, but we've taken down enemies far stronger than you before. We've faced down the Gods of Olympus and won! We won't back down from someone like you… someone so out of their mind, you'll destroy this Lostbelt on your own eventually."

"Gods of… arrrggh! It doesn't matter! I'm stronger than any puny god! I have the power of all the Overlords on my side! The power of Helheim is mine to control!"

Mitsuzane flinched, falling to his knees. Takatora instantly turned around, regrouping with the Chaldeans.

"It's his armor, it's backfiring on him again. I thank you for stalling him long enough, but we must retreat now before he ends this battle!"

"Hello? Ritsuka?"

Holmes voiced echoed through Ritsuka's comm unit. The Shadow Border had been out of contact since they left earlier that day, which meant that whatever they needed to talk to them about had to be important. The Chaldeans had helped take the injured Riders back to their base, where the other members of the Beat Rider groups helped to treat them all.

"Holmes, what's up?" Ritsuka turned his attention back to the Shadow Border.

"We wanted to update you on something that we've been tracking since a bit after you left the Shadow Border."

"And what's that?"

"A high energy reading has been appearing on our sensor, a couple minutes ago we were finally able to pinpoint its location. The reason why it took so long is well… it appears as though it's coming from a neighboring dimension, or at least a world connected to this one. It's quite odd, as it seems as though the signal is right on top of this Lostbelt, and yet it's not."

"Could it have something to do with those cracks that the uh… Inves (?) were falling through?"

"It's possible, and it seems to be the most likely scenario. This is an extremely high energy source though, and it appears to be rapidly fading in and out, almost as if it's a battle raging in this other dimension. But this energy reading… if it's big enough to be reading this high from a different dimension, this must be some cataclysmic battle going on. I'd like for you to try to gain access to this place and investigate and try to figure out what's going on."

"Alright, I'll ask the locals if they know anything. Their powers seem to be linked to this, so they might be able to get us there."

Ritsuka went back to the room where the injured Riders were being treated to try and talk to Takatora. Noticing the Chaldean coming toward him, Takatora sat up in his bed.

"Ritsuka, what's going on?"

"Hey Takatora, I was just in contact with our base and they wanted me to investigate something that they found."

"Investigate?"

"Yeah, they said something about an energy reading from a neighboring dimension… I think it might have something to do with that place the Inves are coming from. I was hoping you could help us get to that place… after all, it seems like your powers are connected to it in some way."
"Well you're certainly right about that. Our powers are directly derived from the Forest of Helheim, and so are the Inves. You happened to come to the right person… myself and Ryoma worked with links to the forest during our time with the Yggdrasil organization."

Takatora paused, pulling out his Lockseed. He examined it for a brief second before continuing.

"With that said… we've lost our connection to the Forest. Outside of summoning our armor, we can no longer access the Forest through the Lockseeds, almost as if there's some power trying to keep us out."

"So what you're saying is there's no way to get us to the Forest of Helheim?"

"Not quite. There is one last option we have if you need to get there… but it won't be easy to get to."

Ritsuka smirked at this. "We've done the impossible before, so we'll just do it again!"

"Hmph," Takatora chuckled at Ritsuka's bravado, "I like your spunk, kid. Alright then, there's no guarantee that this will still work, but we used to have a link to Helheim at the Yggdrasil Tower, one that functions separately from the Lockseeds. There's a slim chance that there may still be a way to activate it if enough power was forced through it… but I can't guarantee anything. I honestly don't even know if the tree is still there… it's possible that Mitchy tore it down to attempt to lock us out of gaining more power."

"Well, we have the greatest scientist in the world, Leonardo Da Vinci, on our team!" Ritsuka turned to Da Vinci, who was on the other side of the room helping to treat some of the other Riders. "I'm sure she'll be able to help us get this portal up and running, no matter how busted up things are there."

"Da Vinci, eh? Well, it's not every day you get to work with a scientist who supposedly died hundreds of years ago… This would also give us a chance to pull whatever is left from the labs at the Yggdrasil labs, and gather more Lockseeds."

"Mash! Da Vinci! Tomoe! Musashi! We're headed out!"

Takatora, being supported by Mash as he was still recovering, took the Chaldeans to the site of the former Yggdrasil Tower - however as the Chaldeans had figured out shortly after arriving in the Lostbelt, the tower had been overtaken, used as a base for the Fantasy Tree.

"Takatora, are you sure that we'll still be able to access the tower with it in this shape?" Mash asked inquisitively.

"Don't worry, all of the stuff we need is beneath the surface."

Takatora led them to the entrance of a stairwell, which led to a service path to the bottom of the Yggdrasil Tower. They descended into the darkness, almost feeling their way through the dimly lit path. When they reached the end of the path, Takatora felt around, pressing into a hidden button on one of the walls. It opened up yet another stairwell back up to the main tower, where the tree linked to Helheim was. The once grand room which was the culmination of years of research had been overrun by the fruits of the Forest. The tree however, still stood tall.

"Wow…" Da Vinci ran her hands along some of the equipment around the room. "Some of this tech is incredible! And all of this was used to help bridge the gap between here and Helheim?"
"Yeah, but as I feared, it doesn't look like it's in usable shape with all of these vines around… the system itself looks like it was just about trashed too. I'm not sure if we can use this after all…"

"Oh nonsense! You have some of the strongest warriors here who can take care of all these vines in no time - and you have me to take care of these systems! If you give me a little bit of help, I can get this back up and running in no time!"

They all got to work, with the warriors Musashi and Tomoe tearing around the facility taking down the vines while Takatora and Da Vinci helped get the facility systems back up and running. Ritsuka and Mash could only watch in wonder as they all worked so efficiently, both of them staying as far back as possible to try and not get in the way at all.

It took about 5 minutes for the vines to be completely cleared, but Da Vinci and Takatora were still hard at work.

"Ahh! These systems are way too complicated! Who set these up?" Da Vinci exclaimed in frustration.

"That would be Ryoma… he's too smart for his own good."

"Hmph, smart my ass, any reasonable genius wouldn't have such complex systems. Aaaand that… should… do it!" Da Vinci stood back up, having finally connected the last wires. "Systems should be back up and running at minimum capacity."
"Minimum?" Ritsuka asked.

"Yeah, we don't want to attract too much attention to ourselves by making a spectacle out of this. It'll be big enough for you and Mash to go through, with Tomoe and Musashi being able to follow along in spirit form. Takatora and I will stay here to help you get back in case something goes wrong on the other side." Da Vinci strolled over to a big switch, flipping it on. The power in the room flared up, lights turning on and a crack opening up in front of the massive tree. "Well? Get going, you four!"

Ritsuka nodded confidently, grabbing Mash's hand and running through the crack. Tomoe and Musashi disappeared, fading back into their spirit forms and following through the crack as well.

Back in the Forest of Helheim, the cataclysmic battle raged on, creating a major earthquake that shook everything within a 100 meter radius.

"You know we can't keep this up forever… you should give up now, and I'll consider letting you go to whatever backwater planet you chose."

"I can't do that. I won't allow you to destroy Earth for your own gain. I will keep you here for as long as it is necessary… although I sense that time may be drawing close."

The two divine spirits clashed once more, shockwaves resonating throughout the Forest. The second figure was right, this battle would soon be over, for soon the Chaldeans will arrive. And when that happens, the entire Lostbelt will change.

A/N: Hey there again! Hopefully you enjoyed this chapter. Not much to say about this one other than we are reaching a major turning point in the story soon, where the Chaldeans will meet the source of this "cataclysmic battle". In all honestly I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to make this story, I'd like to make it fairly long but we shall see.