The wind blew slowly across the ruined northern wasteland.
Ellie could not believe her eyes. Her brother had forced the Emperors to their knees with nothing but the crushing weight of his mana pressure. The ground itself seemed to bow beneath him. Yet as she stared, something felt wrong. Eryndor no longer felt like her brother. Something essential had been stripped away. His presence was colder, emptier, as if his soul or his humanity had begun to fade.
High above, Jae floated beside the Divine Flame of Curses, watching with growing alarm. He could see it clearly now — Eryndor's soul and heart were turning black, the darkness spreading like ink through water.
"What the hell is happening to him?" Jae asked.
The Divine Flame of Curses did not answer aloud. Inside its consciousness, a single thought formed, "So this is when his humanity starts to die away."
Every step Eryndor took pushed the remaining Emperors deeper into the frozen earth. Kai screamed in agony, orange flames flickering weakly around his body as the pressure crushed his lungs. Raizen's spear trembling in his grip. Nerissa's water collapsed into useless puddles. Sylvara's vines withered and blackened. Darius, the largest of them, was driven face-first into the ice, armor cracking like eggshell.
Eryndor stopped in front of Kai. He simply stared down at the Emperor of Flames. Foam began to spill from Kai's mouth as he struggled to breathe.
"How pitiful," Eryndor said quietly.
His newly regrown arm moved faster than light. Fingers closed around Kai's torso. With a single, casual motion, Eryndor ripped the Emperor's body into pieces. Flesh, bone, and golden fire scattered across the snow in a grotesque spray.
The remaining Emperors stared in pure terror. Tears streamed down their faces.
"Please don't kill us!" Raizen sobbed. "Please don't—please!"
Eryndor looked at them with open contempt. "Tch. These are what Emperors are? What a joke."
He raised one hand. Dark, serpentine energy coiled around his fingers.
"Hell's Judgement."
The air itself screamed. Invisible forces seized the Emperors. One by one their bodies exploded in simultaneous bursts of blood, bone, and mana. The snow for a hundred meters turned red. Steam rose from the carnage.
Jae's eyes widened above the battlefield. "He's a monster…"
Eryndor turned away from the remains and walked toward Ellie. Gentle radiant light mixed with faint black threads flowed from his hands as he began healing her wounds.
"Everything's going to be okay now," he said softly.
Ellie remained silent, still stunned by the slaughter she had witnessed. Yet relief slowly softened her expression. She and her brother had survived. The Emperors were dead.
Then a terrifying aura approached at impossible speed.
Ellie recognized it instantly — an attack she had always feared. The Blood Piercing Spear. A technique said to be impossible to block. She reacted without thinking, grabbing Eryndor and shoving him aside. The spear of condensed blood energy struck her instead.
Half of her torso vanished in a spray of red. Blood poured freely. She tried to reach for her brother, but there was nothing left to grasp.
"ELLIE!!!!!!"
Eryndor's scream tore through the wasteland. He lunged forward, trying to catch what remained of her, but her body was already collapsing. Blood soaked the snow.
A calm, mocking voice spoke from behind him.
"Tch. That was for you."
Eryndor spun. Lucifer stood there, He looked stronger, more twisted than before.
"Where is Seraphina?!" Eryndor asked.
Lucifer's smile was pure evil. "Oh, that bitch? She's right here."
His left hand, which had been hidden behind his back, swung forward. Something wet and heavy flew through the air and landed near Eryndor's feet, rolling to a stop. Seraphina's severed head stared up at him with empty eyes.
Before Eryndor could react, Lucifer's Death Blade was already at his neck, black flames licking the steel.
"Don't worry. You'll join her too."
Eryndor twisted at the last possible instant. The blade grazed his throat, leaving a thin line of blood. He landed on a thick tree branch high above the carnage.
Lucifer turned slowly, expression almost disappointed. "Tch. I missed again."
Eryndor touched the cut on his neck, eyes narrowing. This was not the same Lucifer he had beaten earlier. The mana radiating from the Emperor of Death was denser, heavier, almost suffocating. It was hard to breathe near him.
"What the hell happened to this bastard? What did he do to his body?" Eryndor Said in his consciousness.
Lucifer charged.
The battle that followed would be spoken of for generations.
Eryndor leapt from branch to branch, the forest becoming a blur of motion. Lucifer pursued with his black and red death winged speed, Death Blade carving through trunks as if they were paper. Every clash sent shockwaves that flattened trees for hundreds of meters. Eryndor countered with radiant echoes mixed with the primal force of the spectral wolf. Black and black collided again and again.
They moved so fast the northern wasteland began to die around them. Their attacks created overlapping nuclear-scale blasts. Forests ignited. Mountains cracked. The sky turned orange-red as ash and flame filled the air. Radiation of pure destructive mana flooded the area.
Eryndor never forgot Ellie. Even while dodging and countering, he carved out a moment to form a protective sphere of layered dark light around her broken body, sealing her inside a barrier that would shield her from the radiation and residual blasts. Lucifer tried to interrupt the formation, sending waves of decaying energy to shatter it, but Eryndor forced the barrier closed with sheer will.
The fight escalated.
Eryndor began to adapt to Lucifer's patterns. He slipped inside the Emperor's guard and drove a devastating punch into Lucifer's chest. The impact sent the Emperor of Death flying through three mountains.
Lucifer rose, coughing black blood. A red orb materialized in his right hand. his B
Death wings exploded from his back. He floated into the air as the corrupted ground split open. Dozens — then hundreds — of dead, twisted corpses clawed their way free.
Lucifer's voice rang out across the burning wasteland.
"With the blessing of death, I summon… the dead corpses of hell! Divergent, Divine General, The Devil!"
A colossal figure rose behind him. The Divine General stood over thirty meters tall, its body a nightmarish fusion of rotting flesh, black bone, and burning red veins. Its presence alone made the air taste of graves.
The army of corpses charged alongside their general.
Eryndor met them head-on.
He moved like a storm of light and shadow, the spectral wolf power at his side. Every punch shattered dozens of undead. Dark flames cut through the Divine General's limbs, only for them to regenerate moments later. The battlefield became a sea of destruction. Entire valleys were erased. The orange-red sky burned brighter.
Then Eryndor felt it.
His heart — the same heart Jae had watched turning black — finished its transformation. Pain exploded through his chest. He staggered, clutching at his ribs as grey patches of deathly skin began spreading across his arms and neck. The pain and the spreading paused just as suddenly as they had begun. Power flooded him in a cold, absolute surge. His mana pressure doubled. The spectral wolf grew larger, eyes burning with new hunger.
Eryndor did not understand what was happening to him, but he used the new strength without hesitation.
The fight reached its peak.
Eryndor tore through the Divine General, ripping its core free and crushing it. The army of corpses crumbled into ash. Lucifer, desperate, poured everything into one final Death Blade strike. Eryndor caught the blade with bare hands, black and black energy clashing in a continuous explosion.
Then Eryndor's fingers closed around Lucifer's throat.
He lifted the Emperor of Death into the air and began to squeeze.
"You can't kill me. You will never kill me. Even those contractors won't be able to kill me. They tried before and They failed.
Lucifer's body began to shake. A memory surfaced unbidden.
Long ago, during training with the Divine Flame of Shadows contractor, they had sat resting after a brutal session. Lucifer had asked, "My lord, has there ever been anyone who pushed you to your limits?"
The contractor had looked at the sky. "Yes. A man who doesn't exist anymore."
Lucifer's eyes had widened. "Wait, really? Who was this man?"
"A man you will wish you never meet."
Lucifer had pressed further. "If he were still here today, with the same power… who would be stronger? You or him?"
The contractor's expression had been unreadable. "If he had the same power and full control, he might cause me a lot of trouble."
"I don't care if he would cause you trouble. I wanna know if you would you lose?"
The contractor looked at Lucifer. "Don't worry. I would still win."
Even then, Lucifer had known it was a lie. The contractor's face had betrayed the truth.
Now, choking in Eryndor's grip, Lucifer finally understood.
"You were right, my lord," he whispered. "I wished I never met this man."
Eryndor's fingers tightened.
Lucifer's head burst.
Blood and black mana sprayed across the ruined ground.
Eryndor released the lifeless body and ran toward the protective sphere. He tore it open.
Ellie lay inside, eyes open, unmoving. She had lost too much blood. She was dead.
Eryndor fell to his knees beside her, hands trembling as he reached for her face.
Then her eyes glowed pure, blinding white.
The light erupted outward, engulfing everything.
Eryndor tried to cover his eyes as the white radiance stole his vision.