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"—!"
A streak of deep crimson light tore across the heavens like a meteor falling from the edge of the cosmos.
For an instant, time seemed to freeze.
The blue sky split cleanly in two, divided by a thin scarlet line as though the world itself had been cut open.
Solid branches collapsed into dust beneath the crushing force of the energy, disintegrating into particles too small for the eye to see.
From above, the vast Sandalwood Forest once a sweeping oval of green now looked like a massive pie with a wedge violently carved from its heart.
Within that enormous, cone-shaped scar, every trace of life had vanished.
No grass.
No seed.
Only overturned, ashen soil lay where vibrant growth once thrived.
At the center of that devastation lay Xerneas.
Its blue-black body was broken and motionless.
The sovereign of natural life.
The Legendary that once stood at the pinnacle of the Pokémon world.
It had fallen.
Kael stood silently at the apex of the scar he had carved, eyes locked onto the distant body. Only after confirming that no spark of life remained did the sharpness in his gaze soften.
"…It's over."
His voice drifted faintly through the air.
He lifted his right hand.
Across the dark-violet skin once impervious to any mortal weapon tiny crimson motes floated outward like fireflies escaping into the night.
In that moment, he remembered the dim prison cell.
The way Ralts had dissolved into light.
"So this is how it feels."
That final strike his unprecedented Sacred Sword had consumed everything.
All stored energy.
All life essence.
Under such extreme release, death did not come in an ordinary way. The torrent of high-density energy had restructured his body in an instant, transforming it into something akin to an elemental existence.
But that state could not last.
Without life force to sustain it, there was only one outcome.
Dissolution.
To become pure energy.
To return to nature.
Death was not unfamiliar to Kael.
As a Caterpie at the beginning.
As Ampharos in another world.
He had tasted it before.
Death had always been like a shot of bitter espresso harsh, concentrated, unpleasant. Some might grow accustomed to it.
Most would not.
But now—
He tasted something else hidden beneath that bitterness.
A faint sweetness.
Perhaps it was self-deception.
But Kael felt that his death carried meaning.
A quiet elevation of the soul.
A shimmer of something luminous rippling in the void.
His thoughts slowed.
Fading.
Like sinking into a boundless abyss of shadow.
"It's here…"
A vast, indistinct resonance echoed faintly in his ears.
He understood.
The world's Gaia consciousness was seeing him off.
There was no regret in his eyes.
No hesitation.
No attachment.
He accepted his end as calmly as a breeze dissolving into open sky.
A faint smile lingered at his lips as he cast one final glance across the world.
Then—
Everything was swallowed by brilliant white light.
"The chapter of life has reached its closing line."
Kael's towering form remained standing for a moment longer.
Scarlet motes drifted away from him in growing numbers.
His dark-violet silhouette grew translucent, like a reflection trembling on the surface of a fragile bubble.
Five seconds.
Perhaps ten.
Then the imposing figure, once radiating overwhelming pressure, scattered into drifting light.
And vanished.
The forest—already ravaged—fell back into its heavy stillness.
Silent.
Still.
"…thump."
"…thump."
Suddenly—
A faint heartbeat echoed across the empty clearing.
At the center of the carved scar, the blue-black body that Kael had confirmed dead twitched.
Kael had ended countless lives.
He was intimately familiar with the scent of death.
That was why he had known, at a glance, that Nightmare Xerneas was truly gone.
And in a sense—
It was.
His Sacred Sword, infused with the essence of his own life, had obliterated the corrupted soul at a fundamental level. The nightmare spirit controlling Xerneas had been erased completely.
What remained—
Was something else.
Deep within that broken vessel, a sliver of original will stirred.
The true consciousness of Xerneas.
Its closed eyes slowly opened.
Gone was the madness.
Gone was the cruelty.
In their place shone rationality.
Compassion.
And overwhelming guilt.
Once consumed by Nightmare Seeds, Xerneas had become the antithesis of its nature a destroyer of life.
Though Kael had stopped the devastation before it spread too far, the damage already done weighed heavily upon the Legendary's heart.
It would atone.
For itself.
For life.
For nature.
Unshakable resolve filled its gaze.
The fragment of consciousness that could have attempted to restore its failing body instead gathered inward.
It drew upon the essence of its long existence—every ounce of accumulated spiritual power.
At the cost of its body.
Its soul.
Its very being.
It compressed that power into a single needle of pure will.
A spike capable of piercing anything.
Guided by an instinct beyond thought, it thrust that needle outward—
Toward the hidden void beyond space and time.
Before that spiritual thrust—
Distance meant nothing.
Time meant nothing.
Even the fabric of reality itself seemed fragile.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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For early access to advanced chapters on P-atreon:
P-atreon/iamxeno
(Just remove the - hyphen to access normally)
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