True horror was not that the enemy standing before you was stronger than you. True horror was that freezing moment when you realized your enemy was immortal.

  Hope gripped his scythe tightly, standing breathless on the ground melted by Ignis as he tried to analyze the situation.

  [Architect Sight]

  No matter how much he analyzed, the result was always the same. Ignis had no physical health bar. The man's body was pure va, and his will was forged from a centuries-old curse. No matter what they did, they could not damage him. The heat that vaporized water reduced anything that approached him to ash within seconds.

  "It's impossible to kill this man," Hope whispered through clenched teeth. He looked at Mira, hovering in the air and scattering lightning around her, and at Octavia, who was struggling on the ground against her own boiling blood. "Physical damage is useless. We're not strong enough to stop or destroy him."

  Octavia forced herself upright and froze her bck blood around her arms, forming a temporary shell. "So what do we do, genius boy? Sit here and wait for him to roast us?"

  "No," Hope said, as the green fmes in his eyes suddenly flickered into a darker, different tone. He looked at the long, curved bde of his scythe. "His body may be immortal. But there's a soul inside that body, suffering. The true purpose of my scythe isn't to cut flesh. If I can drive it straight into the core in his chest, I can rip his soul out of his body."

  Octavia's eyes narrowed. "Absorb his soul? That's… excessively dark magic, sweetheart. I love it."

  "But there's a problem," Hope continued, rapidly forming the pn. "Ignis's soul is centuries old. Pulling it into the scythe will take time. And during that time, I'll be completely defenseless. You need to immobilize him. Even for just a few seconds. He must not move."

  "Madness," Octavia whispered, though she was smiling. "Fine. We'll give you those few seconds."

  At that moment, completely outside the battlefield, among the shadows of the pace ruins, a silhouette moved like a fsh.

  Kai.

  His leg and ribs were injured, his body nearly torn apart. But he was not a warrior. He was a thief. And a thief's greatest weapon on a battlefield was speed. When Ignis had crushed the entire alliance, Kai had done what he did best and melted into the shadows. His goal was not to fight, but to replenish supplies.

  Forcing his agility skills, simir to Shadow Step, to their absolute limit, he infiltrated the still-standing upper floors of the pace, into the chambers of the royal alchemists. He had no time. He didn't inspect traps or locks. He directly shattered the gss cabinets with his dagger and grabbed as many of the most concentrated, highest-tier Royal Mana Potions glowing in the dark as he could.

  Within seconds, he returned, lungs burning as if they would tear apart. Sliding behind Lypin's gravity barrier at the rear of the battlefield, he knelt beside the wounded without hesitation. He poured one of the potions into the mouth of King Dagon, whose ribcage had been crushed. He forced the second down Prince Nereus's throat as silver blood covered him. The third and strongest potion he pressed to Era's lips, who y as if in a coma after Leviathan's spirit had been pulled from her body.

  "Come on, princess," Kai whispered as he slowly poured the potion down her throat. "Time to wake up."

  Era's body suddenly jolted. She took a deep, drowning breath and opened her eyes wide. Kai reflexively drew his dagger; if what had awakened was Leviathan again, he might have had to kill her on the spot. But when he looked into her eyes, he exhaled in relief. That terrifying, bottomless gold color was gone. Era's eyes were their own pure ocean blue.

  Era coughed and pushed herself upright, clutching her head. Her mind throbbed as if it had been fed through a grinder. "W-what happened?" Era asked, looking at the destruction and boiling water around her. "I… that monster took control. I don't remember anything. Where is my brother?"

  "Your brother is alive. Lying next to the Octopus King," Kai said quickly. He grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet, pointing toward the massive crimson light source bzing at the center of the battlefield. "The ocean is burning, princess. Hope needs you. And we need your ice."

  The moment Era saw Ignis's unstoppable march, she understood everything instantly. The Princess of Atntis had returned.

  Ignis moved through the remains of the colossal molten gates like an unstoppable force of nature.

  "Get ready," Hope whispered. Mira rose upward, releasing all the condensed static electricity within her small body toward the sky. The golden veins across her skin turned into a blinding white.

  [ANCIENT STORM: JUDGMENT LIGHTNING]

  At the bottom of the silent ocean, thunder erupted. A massive pilr of lightning carrying pure and absolute destructive energy shot down directly onto Ignis.

  ZAAAAP!

  Ignis's body convulsed violently. Thousands of volts overloaded his va-formed muscur system and neural network. His heavy, unstoppable steps faltered for a moment. His body went rigid, and the crimson fme in his eyes flickered.

  "Now!" Hope roared.

  Octavia smmed both hands onto the rapidly melting ground. Whatever remained of her blood, she poured all of it into a single spell.

  [INK BLOOD: IRON MAIDEN'S EMBRACE]

  From the ground beneath Ignis's feet, pitch-bck blood spears erupted, harder and thicker than steel. But these spears were not meant to impale him. They were meant to bind him. Thick, barbed tendrils of blood wrapped around Ignis's legs, waist, and shoulders within seconds.

  Ignis's body immediately began melting the blood restraints. The bck blood sizzled and evaporated, and Octavia bit her lip in pain. "Hurry, genius boy!" she shouted. "I can hold him for at most two seconds! I'm melting!"

  [Shadow Step]

  Hope lunged forward, but Ignis had already recovered from the lightning paralysis. The man's eyes fred with fury, preparing to tear apart the blood bindings around his arms with a single flex of muscle. Hope realized he wouldn't make it. He's melting them too fast! The distance is too great!

  At that exact moment, a freezing wind that solidified the water rushed past Hope. "What would you do without me, little Architect?" echoed that familiar, noble, and mocking voice.

  Hope's eyes widened with hope. Era stood with her hands extended forward, gathering all the ocean's freezing cold into a single point. Leviathan's energy might have left, but she was still Atntis's most powerful ice mage. Her face was resolute, her mana operating at full capacity.

  [ABSOLUTE ZERO: ICE DOME]

  The boiling water around them tore through the ws of physics once more and solidified instantly around Ignis. A transparent, radiant iceberg of enormous thickness imprisoned him at the exact moment he was about to move.

  The man of fmes froze like a statue at the center of the colossal ice cube.

  "Now!" Era screamed. "You have only one second! He's melting it from the inside!"

  Indeed, the very center of the ice had already begun glowing orange. Ignis's heat was sublimating absolute zero from within outward at terrifying speed.

  Hope felt time slow down. He stopped his steps and redirected all the strength in his legs into his arms and back.

  [FLAME SOUL: TWIN THRUST]

  Two massive green fmes burst from behind Hope's shoulders and elbows like rocket engines.

  With that terrifying propulsion, Hope spun through the water like a bullet. He gripped his scythe horizontally like a spear with both hands. As the ICE DOME cracked down the middle, Hope dove straight through the fracture with unbelievable momentum.

  The ice shattered. Ignis's arms spread wide like a titan breaking chains.

  But Hope was faster.

  SHLAAAK!

  The sharp, curved tip of the scythe stabbed directly into the exact center of Ignis's chest, into the heart of that blindingly radiant core. The force of the collision sent both of them sliding meters backward, and Ignis crashed onto his back among the ruins with the scythe embedded in his chest. Hope had not released the shaft; he stood directly over him, pressing his full weight onto the weapon.

  Ignis's eyes opened wide in shock. Hope's body, his scythe, and especially his eyes began bzing with a blinding green fme never seen before. The scythe was not cutting Ignis's physical body. It was slicing directly into his soul and pulling it inward.

  "My soul…" Ignis snarled, va leaking between his teeth as his body convulsed in unimaginable pain. "…I will not… allow you… to take it!"

  Ignis raised his massive burning hands into the air. He was about to grab Hope's head from both sides and crush it like a melon. Hope's hands were locked on the scythe. He was defenseless. "Lypin!" Hope shouted.

  Ignis's hands stopped mere centimeters from Hope's ears, halted in midair by an invisible force.

  [STARFALLEN: DUAL GRAVITY NAIL]

  On the other side of the battlefield, Lypin knelt on her knees, her hands csped together so tightly they bled. She applied the gravity of the deepest trench in the ocean solely onto Ignis's two arms. His limbs smmed into the marble floor, bones cracking as they were pinned down. He could not lift them.

  But this insane soul extraction was not without cost for Hope. Exposed to Lypin's immense gravity field, his own body was being crushed. Blood streamed from his nose, ears, and the corners of his eyes. Moreover, Ignis's fmes were so hot that Hope's body was being seared; his flesh was literally charring.

  "Pull…" Hope said to himself, shouting to keep from losing consciousness to the pain. "Pull his soul… PULL!"

  The green fmes began sucking the red fmes in Ignis's chest into the scythe like a vortex. Ignis felt something he had not felt in thousands of years: his existence being torn away.

  He let out a horrific scream. His voice shook the ocean, a shriek that tore at eardrums. His volcanic skin cracked, and the light beneath it dimmed. Hope screamed in agony as he drove the scythe even deeper. "END ALREADY!"

  And then… suddenly… Ignis's screams stopped. His thrashing, colossal body rexed. The muscles pinned to the ground loosened.

  Hope looked down in stunned disbelief, his face covered in blood and burns. The hatred and pain in Ignis's va-filled eyes had completely vanished. In their pce was a deep, silent peace that pierced the heart. As the scythe absorbed his soul, Ignis's mind had finally broken free from its centuries-old curse.

  Ignis slowly turned his head upward toward the pitch-bck ceiling of the ocean. But his eyes were not seeing darkness. A warm smile, reminiscent of a child's innocence, spread across his face.

  "Peace…" Ignis whispered. His voice no longer sounded like dry fire, but like a gentle breeze. As his eyes slowly closed, he shifted his gaze toward Hope. "Those cherry trees…" Ignis said in a whisper. "…can you see them too, Architect? The way the petals fall… so beautiful."

  A lump formed in Hope's throat. The hands gripping the scythe trembled. Ignis was seeing his life before the curse, that lost world from centuries ago. Ignis lifted his head once more toward the ocean's darkness. His smile widened further. "The sun…" he said, as a drop of liquid slipped from his eyes. It was a tear beneath the sea. "…it burns my skin. How… warm."

  As his soul was drawn into the scythe to its very st fragment, Ignis's head slowly fell forward. He could barely keep his eyes open. With one final breath, the colossal god of destruction spoke his st words:

  "Before dying… I wished to see the sky one st time."

  The final glimmer of light in Ignis's eyes completely faded. His volcanic skin instantly turned gray, becoming soulless ash. The blinding core in his chest went dark.

  [SYSTEM WARNING]

  [NEW SOUL ACQUIRED: WALKING SUN IGNIS]

  [SOUL LEVEL: EPIC]

  The moment Hope heard the mechanical voice of the System, the st fragment of strength in his arms vanished. He yanked the scythe out of Ignis's chest with a sharp motion, and the weapon dissolved into green sparks midair. The overwhelming exhaustion of battle, pain, and his severe injuries crashed down on him like a hammer. His legs failed, and Hope colpsed beside the extinguished body.

  "Hope!" Era rushed to his side. She dropped to her knees and carefully lifted him by the shoulders. His skin was covered in burns, and blood still trickled from his nose and eyes. "You did it," Era said, her voice trembling. She wrapped one arm around his waist and the other over his shoulder. "You idiot hero. You did it."

  "I…" Hope murmured, barely able to keep his eyes open. "I just… want to sleep."

  "You will," Era said, trying to guide him toward Lypin. "Lypin will heal you. Then you can sleep as long as you want. But please, keep your eyes open right now."

  Kai, Bianca, Octavia, and Lypin watched in deep silence as Era and Hope approached them. The man who burned the ocean was gone. The war was truly over. The immense weight of death lifted from everyone's shoulders.

  But at the bottom of the ocean, nothing ended so easily.

  As Hope and Era were about to reach Lypin, a sound came from behind them.

  A crackling noise.

  Like ice breaking. Like rocks grinding against each other. Soulless. Sickening.

  Era stopped. Hope turned his head over his shoulder with difficulty. Lypin's eyes widened in shock. Octavia took a step back.

  Ignis's gray, soulless, charred body…

  was slowly rising to its feet.

  There was no light in his eyes. The core in his chest was pitch bck. He had no soul. He was nothing but a puppet of flesh and stone. Moving without spirit.

  His direction remained the same.

  The gates of Atntis.

  And at the bottom of the ocean, his silent, dead, unstoppable march began once again.