He was supposed to be dead.
That was the last thing he remembered clearly. Not pain. Not fear. Just the certainty of it.
He had died.
So why was he still thinking?
"...What?"
There was nothing around him. No sound, no body, no sense of direction. Just a vast, empty stillness that didn't feel like darkness so much as the absence of everything.
"I died."
The words didn't echo. They didn't go anywhere. They simply existed, the same way he did.
"Then why am I still here?"
No answer came.
Of course not.
The memory returned slowly.
Ash in the air with the sound of something collapsing too far away to matter.
People disappearing mid-step.
Six hours of it.
Six hours of running, bleeding, watching familiar faces vanish like they had never existed in the first place.
Arie had learned quickly.
You don't stop moving in Babilon.
That lesson had cost three lives before the rest of them understood it.
The Retainer had already been dying.
A massive, ruined thing dragging itself across the ash, refusing to accept what it had become. Its breath warped the air around it, its existence wrong in a way that was difficult to look at for too long.
It should have been finished.
Arie knew what a dead thing looked like.
He kept moving anyway.
Only fools trusted what looked dead in a place like that.
"Move to the northeast and secure the flank, Rosh."
Rosh moved immediately.
Reliable, as always.
Arie had noticed something then.
A slight delay. Not enough to call out. Not enough to matter in the moment.
He had almost dismissed it.
The pillars were holding.
Four of them were arranged in a perfect square, glowing gold against the grey.
It was demi's work.
They had spent hours building that array while the rest of them fought to keep the Retainer occupied. Without it, the creature's breath would have filled the entire arena. With it, the rot broke apart harmlessly against the barrier.
Everything depended on those pillars.
"LEFT LEG!"
The call came from somewhere above.
Arie was already moving.
He struck the joint cleanly, felt something deep within the structure give way, and then the Retainer collapsed under its own weight. The impact shook the ground hard enough to throw dust into the air like a curtain.
For a brief moment, through the noise and the ash, something unfamiliar moved through his chest.
It's over. That feeling.
The one that made you believe the suffering had meant something.
Then one of the pillars shattered.
The sound was unmistakable, sharp, clean and deliberate.
Arie turned.
Rosh stood beside the northeast pillar.
Or what remained of it.
Fragments of gold fading into dust at his feet. His gauntlet still raised from the strike.
Arie stared at him.
Rosh met his gaze without expression.
There was no anger, hesitation or guilt.
Just calm.
Like this had already been decided long ago.
"...Rosh."
The Retainer inhaled.
Arie didn't need to look at it to know what came next.
Without the full array, there was nothing left to contain it.
He looked at the others.
Demi. Rosh.
The rest of them.
All positioned safely at the edges of the arena, watching and waiting.
Understanding settled in quietly.
Not shock. Not even anger.
Just clarity.
Then the rot came.
A black-green wave tearing across the ground, dissolving everything it touched. It moved too fast, too wide, flooding the arena with nothing left to stop it.
Arie ran.
Not away—there was no away left to run to.
Just sideways. Just buying seconds.
It caught his heel.
The cold was immediate and unnatural, something that didn't just touch his body but seemed to reach deeper than that.
His legs faltered.
He reached inward.
To the thing he had only touched once before.
The last card.
The one with a cost he had never asked about.
Does it matter?
Five domains.
The Mahadev.
The end that had kept him moving all this time.
Does it matter what it takes?
He almost laughed.
"No," he said quietly.
It didn't.
He pulled.
With everything he had left.
The world stopped.
Not darkness. Something older than that.
A stillness so complete it erased everything else.
No body. No pain. No sound.
Faces drifted past him.
Every one of them.
He watched.Waited to feel something. Anything.
Nothing came however.
Then a quiet voice spoke without direction.
"Regression complete."
Silence followed.
"You have lost your heart."