"A-Nox..."
Amael stared at the figure standing before him, and every instinct in him confird the sa thing at once: this was not Ernest, and it was not Sirius either.
Whatever now stood inside that body, whatever looked through those blackened eyes with such horrifying stillness, was sothing else entirely. And there was only one being he could think of who carried a presence like that.
A-Nox.
He had no idea how she had managed to enter that body, or by what ans she was speaking and acting through it, but in that mont the thod no longer mattered. She had co. Not in her true form, perhaps, not directly, but enough. Enough to make the ground beneath this eting feel cursed.
Behind him, Lisandra and Sylvia stiffened.
The mont they heard the na, shock gave way to outright horror.
A-Nox was not just any enemy. She had once been one of the sacred Guardian Goddesses of Eden, a divine being revered and feared in equal asure. Now she was counted among the Evil Gods under Lucifer Morningstar, and among those dark figures she remained one of the most dangerous. Worse still, she wanted Amael.
Amael stood motionless for a heartbeat too long, his arms still tight around Belle.
Then A-Nox took a single step forward.
And stopped.
Her head turned slightly, as if she had sensed sothing at the last instant.
-BOOOOOM!!
A violent impact crashed into her from the side and sent the body she wore flying away in a burst of force.
Before the dust had even settled, another figure dropped into place.
Vysindra.
He appeared between them at once, bruised, bloodied. His body was marked from his battle with Selene, his clothes torn, blood staining his side and shoulder, but he was still standing.
Lisandra’s eyes widened.
"W—Who is that?!"
"It’s Vysindra," Amael answered.
The answer only shocked Lisandra and Sylvia even more, but Amael barely seed to notice their reaction. His attention was already fixed on the Dragon King.
Vysindra glanced toward him and smiled faintly despite his injuries.
"So. You managed to get your mother back at last?"
"Vysindra, I need you to get out of here with my mother and those two," Amael said imdiately.
"Wait—Amael?!" Lisandra called, startled by the way he said it.
Amael turned his head just enough to look at them.
"She wants ," he said. "If I follow you, I put all of you in danger."
"You can’t seriously be thinking that!" Sylvia’s voice rose sharply, surprising even herself.
"The situation leaves no choice," Amael replied.
Vysindra frowned and looked past him.
"What are you talking about?"
Amael answered without hesitation.
"A-Nox. She’s here."
For the first ti since arriving, Vysindra looked stunned.
"What?"
"Vysindra," Amael said again, his tone turning deadly serious, "please. Take them all away. Fly as far from here as you can. Leave Central Vedelia. Leave Sancta Vedelia altogether. Get the three of them to safety."
"Why do we have to run away, Mael?!" Lisandra snapped, grabbing his arm with open anger. "She’s not even here in person! If the four of us fight together, we can beat her!"
"She’s right," Sylvia added quickly, her face strained and pleading now. "Let’s just leave together. All of us."
But Amael shook his head.
No.
He had already made the decision.
Vysindra’s gaze narrowed. "What are you really afraid of?"
Amael looked at him then, and the seriousness in his face made even the Dragon King fall silent.
"Vysindra... you have a family. A wife. A daughter. Would you gamble with their lives? Would you risk bringing sothing like this to them?"
For a mont, Vysindra said nothing.
Amael continued before anyone else could interrupt.
"A-Nox needs alive, whatever her reason is. That gives ti." He glanced toward Lisandra and Sylvia. "But only if all of you are far away first. Once I know you’re safe, I can leave too. I’ll join you afterward. Do you hear ?"
This ti, Vysindra did not argue.
A powerful gust of wind surged outward as his form shifted, his body expanding in a violent sweep of scales, horns, and shadow until the great dragon stood there once more in all his towering might.
"Y—You can’t expect us to just leave like this!" Lisandra blurted, her eyes trembling.
"I’ll be right behind you," Amael said.
Then, more quietly, he forced a smile.
"Please."
He looked at them with a pleading expression that neither of them had ever seen on his face before.
"I told you already," he said. "I asked you to prioritize my mother. I need the three of you alive. She wants alive but she would not hesitate for a second to kill any of you. Do you understand?"
Then he turned sharply.
A-Nox was already walking toward them.
Not quickly.
Not hurriedly.
Just slowly, as though none of this escape truly concerned her.
Panic flashed through Amael’s eyes.
"Leave!" He shouted, forcing Belle into Lisandra’s arms. "I’ll be behind you, I promise!"
Lisandra bit down hard on her lip, her face twisting with helpless frustration. Then, clutching Belle carefully, she jumped onto Vysindra’s back.
Sylvia stood frozen for one second longer, tears gathering in her eyes.
"You better..." She whispered, and a tear slipped down her cheek before she climbed up after them.
Vysindra spread his massive wings.
With one powerful strike against the ground, he launched into the air.
Amael turned imdiately, every nerve in him bracing for A-Nox to try and stop them.
But she did not move.
She made no attempt to chase them.
She only watched.
And then she smiled.
"Wise decision. To send them away."
"What do you want?" Amael asked, glaring at her.
"A broad question," A-Nox replied.
She took a single step forward.
At once, the pressure pouring from her presence intensified.
Amael grimaced.
Then the earth gave a violent shudder.
-CRAAACKK!!
The ground split apart beneath them with a deafening groan.
Amael’s eyes snapped toward the Holy Tree.
The trembling that had been running through Central Vedelia until now had turned far more severe. Great fractures were spreading through the earth, tearing open the land around the roots, while the entire city seed to shiver under a force too vast to contain any longer.
"W-What’s happening...?" He muttered, his eyes widening.
The feeling in the air had beco unbearable.
Sothing was wrong.
No, sothing was about to happen.
Sothing catastrophic.
The Holy Tree felt as though it was on the verge of rupturing from within, as if so ancient force trapped inside it had reached the limit of restraint. Amael’s instincts scread at him to leave Central Vedelia at once.
But that single mont of distraction was all A-Nox needed.
She appeared in front of him instantly.
Her hand shot toward his face.
Amael tried to move, and could not.
His whole body froze.
"Damn—"
He braced for impact.
But A-Nox’s hand never reached him.
It stopped an inch from his face.
Caught.
Amael looked up in shock.
Nihil was standing there.
His hand gripped A-Nox’s wrist.
"F—Father...?"
"Leave, Amael," Nihil said, his cold gaze resting on A-Nox.
A-Nox smiled.
Even wearing another body, there was sothing deeply mocking in the curve of her lips, sothing almost delighted as she looked at Nihil.
"The loyal Guardian of Eden," she said. "Aren’t you a little late?"
Her black gaze narrowed.
"Sancta Vedelia is finished. The Tree will die. Sancta Vedelia will die. Freyja will die." Her smile sharpened. "And all your dreams with it."
Nihil did not answer.
He acted.
-BOOOOOM!
With a burst of force, he drove A-Nox away at trendous speed, the two of them vanishing from Amael’s sight in a shockwave that tore across the shattered ground.
"Amael! Leave!" Nihil shouted.
But Amael did not move.
He stood there with his lips slightly parted, his thoughts no longer on the battle between Nihil and A-Nox, no longer on Central Vedelia, no longer even on the danger closing in around him.
One sentence was echoing through his mind.
Freyja will die.
The words struck sothing deep inside him.
And then, just as suddenly, an image flashed before his eyes.
A vision.
One Nevia had shown him.
He saw flas.
Smoke so thick it choked the sky itself.
Everything was burning.
Freyja was there, standing on the scorched ground, bloodied and barely alive. Her body looked as though it had already endured far more pain than it should have been able to survive, and yet she was smiling. Smiling through blood and ruin, her golden eyes glistening as she stared up at ’him’.
Her hands were cupping his cheeks.
"My love, our bond defies the Fates.
A thousand winters shall pass, yet I will carry your warmth through the frost.
Sleep now, my love, until the Ragnarok."
"...!"
Amael froze.
For a mont, he could not even think.
He did not understand what he was feeling, only that the image cut through him with such force that it left no room for reason. It felt too intimate, too painful, too real to dismiss. He had never seen Freyja to begin with.
And yet...
"No..."
The word left his mouth brokenly.
He turned and ran straight toward the crumbling Tree.
"Freyja..."
His voice caught in his throat.
He did not stop to question why. He did not stop to untangle what the vision ant or why it felt as though so buried part of him had recognized her before his mind had. He only knew one thing with certainty.
He had to reach her.
He could not leave her inside this damned Tree.
Not after everything.
Not after all she had suffered.
And not after the promise that still echoed in him, even if he no longer rember the shape of it.
He rushed inside as the Tree continued to co apart around him.
The interior was collapsing. The ground trembled beneath his feet, roots groaned and split, and chunks of sacred wood and crystal were breaking loose from above. The whole structure felt as though it were dying around him. Yet even through the chaos, Amael imdiately saw the white, throbbing core at the heart of the Tree.
He ran to it and reached out.
The instant his hand touched the surface, the world changed.
In a blink, he found himself standing in a white space.
It happened so suddenly that for one disorienting mont he could not tell whether he had been transported or swallowed. The place around him was silent, imnse, and washed in pale light, with giant roots pulsing all around like veins carrying the life of the Tree itself.
It was as though the Tree had let him in.
As though, sohow, it had recognized him.
Amael did not waste ti thinking about it.
He ran.
He ran through that white expanse as fast as he could, weaving past the enormous roots, following the pulse deeper and deeper into the core. The light around him throbbed in waves, growing stronger the farther he went, until at last he reached a circular chamber.
And stopped.
His eyes widened.
It was her.
He had never seen Freyja before, not truly, not with his own eyes, but sohow he knew at once.
She was there, sealed in place, bound within the heart of the Tree.
Amael rushed forward and reached toward her.
Then he froze.
A crack ran across her body.
A sharp, terrible sound split the chamber.
-Crack!
Amael’s breath caught.
The amber crystal core in which Freyja was embedded had begun to fracture.
Thin cracks spread across its surface, then more followed, multiplying with terrifying speed. Light burst through the breaks in rays, and the fractures did not stop at the crystal. They spread farther, crawling over Freyja’s body itself like the beginning of so irreversible ruin.
"No!!!"
-BOOOOOOM!!!
The shockwave struck him before he could react, overwhelming his senses in an instant. It felt less like being hit and more like being erased from the inside out by force and light. For a brief, terrible mont, consciousness slipped from him.
Then he was thrown out.
Amael’s body was expelled from the core brutally, hurled backward through splintering crystal and sacred fragnts. Shards tore through him as he flew, cutting into his body from all sides before he finally crashed onto the ground outside.
And there he collapsed.
Still, forcing himself through the pain, Amael slowly raised his head.
The white core was still there before him.
But it had changed.
Its glow was gone.
Completely gone.
What had once throbbed with holy light now stood hollow and emptied, like a shell abandoned by the life that had once filled it. There was nothing left in it. No pulse. No radiance. No trace of the sacred force that had sustained it monts before.
Around him, the Tree raged harder than ever.
Its roots and vines had beco wild, tightening and twisting around one another at trendous speed.
They writhed in every direction with mindless force, not like living branches obeying nature, but like sothing in agony. Or rage. The whole interior of the Tree had beco unstable, out of control, and the darkness spreading through its roots only made it feel more cursed.
Amael pushed himself forward anyway.
He barely seed aware anymore of how trapped he was inside.
Step by step, he approached the cracked core until he was standing directly before it. Then he slowly raised a trembling hand and placed it against the fractured surface.
The transparent crystal reflected his face back at him.
Bloodied and ruined.
Exhausted beyond words.
Shrapnel had taken one of his eyes, leaving blood running down that side of his face, and what remained of his expression looked hollow, drawn, and almost unrecognizable. He looked less like soone who had survived and more like soone who had simply not died yet.
"Is this my end...?" He muttered.
There was no real disbelief in his voice.
Only a tired kind of recognition.
He had seen this coming.
So part of him had known for a long ti. Maybe not the shape of it, maybe not the exact road that would bring him here, but the feeling had always existed. And now, standing before the emptied heart of the Tree, with blood on his face and ruin closing in from every side, that certainty felt impossible to deny.
His knees gave out beneath him.
Amael fell to the ground and scraped his hands against the broken surface below, his fingers dragging over dust and shattered fragnts while a hollow smile spread across his lips.
"Why...?"
His nails dug into the ground.
"WHY?!"
He slamd his fist down hard enough to crack the stone beneath him.
Tears rose into his eye. His lips trembled. His teeth chattered faintly, repressing everything from exploding.
He was not asking any one person.
He was asking everything.
Why was even the smallest piece of happiness denied to him? Why did every mont that mattered end in loss, in blood, in sothing being torn away before he could hold on to it? Why was it that every ti he reached for sothing worth living for, fate answered by crushing it in front of him?
"Darling."
The voice reached him softly.
Amael lifted his head.
Selene stood there.
His expression shifted at once into stunned confusion.
"W—What are you...?" He muttered.
He had not sensed her arrival. He had not even understood how she could have entered this place at all. The Tree was collapsing in on itself, the roots and vines spreading through every corner while darkness slowly overtook the place. This was not a place anyone should have been able to reach so easily.
But Selene was there.
Her cold crimson eyes looked down at him.
"The Tree needs a sacrifice," she said, glancing toward the broken core.
Then she stepped toward it and raised her hand.
Amael moved on instinct.
He forced himself up and caught her arm before she could touch it.
"One day, darling," she said, smiling at him, "we will reunite. That is destiny."
Amael stared at her.
"Why did you co...?" He asked.
Her expression did not change.
"I would never let you sacrifice yourself alone, darling."
For a mont, he only looked at her.
Then he spoke again, quieter this ti.
"Why did you think I would sacrifice myself?"
Selene raised her pale hand and touched his cheek.
The gesture was almost gentle.
"Because you know," she said. "Deep inside, you know this has to be done."
Amael said nothing.
Yes...
It felt like a pull.
Vysindra, Lisandra, Sylvia and his mother were still in Central Vedelia, the Tree had to be stopped.
But was it all?
He turned his gaze back toward the broken core.
And in that silence, faces rose through his mind one after another.
His mother.
Lisandra.
Sylvia.
Ephera.
All of them.
Everything he still wanted to protect.
Everything he was afraid to lose.
"Don’t be afraid," he whispered.
He reached out with his trembling hand and placed it against the broken core.
A second later, Selene’s hand ca over his.
Her fingers intertwined with his and gently pressed his palm against the fractured crystal.
At once, light burst through the cracks.
The dead core answered.
Radiance flooded through its shattered surface in white streams, filling the place so suddenly and so completely that the darkness recoiled from it. Amael slowly closed his eyes as the light swallowed everything.
At the very least, he wasn’t alone.
But accompanied by the Vampire Witch whose presence comforted him of the imminent death.
***
Outside, high above the chaos, Nihil and A-Nox had still been fighting.
Then, without warning, both of them were forced apart.
Nihil’s eyes widened.
He turned sharply toward the Tree.
It was glowing.
Brighter than before.
Brighter than it had any right to.
And then...
-BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
The detonation that followed was deafening.
The shockwave alone was powerful enough to rupture eardrums across Central Vedelia. The explosion tore outward in a vast circular wave, lifting earth, destroying streets, swallowing buildings, and obliterating everything around the Tree in a widening radius of pure force. Light erupted so blindingly that even Nihil winced and turned his face away.
For a mont, there was only whiteness.
Then the light began to fade.
A minute later, when the sight before him finally beca clear again, Nihil stood motionless in the sky.
The Tree was still standing.
But only barely, and only on a massive isolated chunk of land torn free from everything around it, separated now from the neighboring kingdoms like the remnant of a world that had been broken apart.
As for Central Vedelia...
It no longer existed.
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