Falling through the sky, Markus watches the portal close above him.

  “I did it,” he whispers. “I saved the Earth.”

  But the words feel small in the endless silence of space.

  As he drops lower, he finally gets a clear look at the heavens—not blue, not black, but a hazy violet stretching forever. A giant, coiled ring circles the horizon like a serpent wrapping the entire planet.

  The dragon…

  Panic flares. Thinking fast, Markus snatches at a tree branch jutting from a dead hilltop. It slows him—barely—before he slams into the ground with a brutal thud that rips the air from his lungs.

  Pain explodes through his ribs. Gasping, he rolls to one side, hand trembling as it presses his chest.

  His fingers come away wet.

  Blood.

  Markus staggers upright, clutching his ribs, and looks around.

  Everything is dead.

  Not just lifeless—dead. The grass lies ashen, brittle, the color of old bone. The trees, if they can still be called trees, stand like charred skeletons, their limbs reaching upward in silent agony. No wind. No birds. No insects. Not even decay.

  Just stillness.

  He limps forward, boots crunching on gravel-like soil, and notices what might once have been a path—a trail winding between long-dead buildings—but it has long since been devoured by dust and time. The structures loom like tombstones, gray and crumbling, their windows hollow and watching.

  There is no sound except the ragged draw of his own breath.

  Whatever this place used to be, it isn’t anymore. It has been erased—not with violence, but with something slower. Hungrier. The kind of death that doesn’t just end life… it erases the memory of it.

  Markus tightens his grip on the Blade.

  He is alone in a world that has already given up.

  One building catches his eye—not because it stands tall, but because part of it is simply… missing.

  A whole wall, gone. Not crumbled. Not torn down. Just absent, as if it had never been there at all. And yet the structure holds itself together, as though the laws of time and construction agreed to look the other way.

  He steps inside, ducking beneath a broken beam.

  It looks like a bar. Or something pretending to be one.

  Tables and chairs remain in place—not overturned, not shattered, just… frozen. One chair has a cracked leg buried halfway into the floor, as if the building itself had tried to swallow it. Dust coats everything in a thick, pale film. It dulls the edges, makes the room feel fuzzy and unreal, like a dream someone else abandoned.

  Behind the counter, shelves are still stocked with bottles. Hundreds of them, untouched. Labels pristine. Liquid inside clear and unspoiled.

  He reaches for one, turning it slowly in his hand.

  “It still looks good,” Markus murmurs, holding the bottle up to the dim light. The liquid glints like trapped sunlight. Too perfect. Too untouched. It makes his skin crawl.

  He sets it back down. The clink of glass against wood rings far too loud in the silence.

  Then—

  Thud.

  He freezes.

  Another sound. Thud. Thud. Like sacks of wet meat hitting the ground.

  Markus steps outside.

  The sky is raining bodies.

  They fall like discarded dolls, limp and pale, limbs twisted at impossible angles. Each impact sends up a puff of gray dust.

  There is no blood. Only a terrible, quiet finality.

  Markus’s stomach lurches.

  Without thinking, he runs. His boots skid on the ashen ground as he ducks into the nearest building—another ruin, as still and lifeless as the rest. Everything here feels staged, like the world paused mid-breath centuries ago.

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  He finds stairs leading down to a basement. The air grows colder, stale and metallic. A single desk sits against the far wall, a lonely island in the dust. On it, a letter waits—the paper yellowed but untouched by time, as though someone wrote it yesterday and then simply… stopped existing.

  Markus approaches slowly, his hand hovering just above the envelope.

  Dear Susie,

  I regret having to write this letter, but I’ve had enough. Judge Marlion’s crimes can’t be ignored any longer.

  Just yesterday, our neighbor paid his rent late—he didn’t have the money for a bribe. Marlion sentenced him to death. Meanwhile, General Ausdin, a war criminal by every definition, walks free, still committing atrocities like nothing ever happened.

  I’m going to kill them both.

  If the vote fails and I don’t gain Berserk Mode, then I’ll surrender the Life-Giving Blade. It’s the only way to ensure they never hurt anyone again.

  Nothing else matters now. Not safety. Not power. Just justice.

  I hope you’ll understand.

  —Lemres

  Markus doesn’t have time to process the letter. The sky is screaming.

  He rushes back up the basement stairs, hoping the rain of corpses has stopped—but it hasn’t. The bodies keep falling like rotten hail, thudding against the dead earth.

  Then the wind comes.

  A deafening gust rips through the ruined street as something massive soars overhead. The Morgi Dragon—coiled like a ring around the planet—passes directly above. Its flight fractures the air. The force hits Markus like a truck, hurling him backward.

  He slams into a crumbling wall. Dust and blood fill his lungs. Before gravity can claim him for good, Markus snaps his wrist and lashes his whip out, catching the twisted metal of a streetlight. It wraps tight, jerking him to a stop.

  His ribs scream. Vision blurs. He is not flying off the planet. Not yet.

  Markus drags himself back into the hollowed-out bar, each breath a knife in his side. The world tilts. He collapses beneath a table—the wood cracked and dry, half-buried in centuries of dust—but it doesn’t matter. He curls into himself, back to the door, the Life-Giving Blade clutched weakly in one hand. The blade no longer glows.

  He waits. Not for help. Not for hope. Just for the light to leave him.

  Outside, the wind howls as another wave of bodies crashes to the ground—the dull thump of meat hitting the earth, over and over.

  His fingers loosen around the blade. His heartbeat slows.

  Lemres teleports into the crumbling bar; his boots land with a soft thud on the dust-caked floor.

  “I was wondering when you’d come crawling back,” he mutters, spotting Markus crumpled beneath the table. He steps over shattered glass and kneels, hoisting the half-conscious boy onto his back. Markus doesn’t stir.

  “I see you forgot that teleportation spell I taught you,” Lemres grumbles, adjusting his grip. “Alexia was right—you’re not much of a fighter after all.”

  As he stands, his gaze flicks skyward through the collapsed ceiling. Beyond the choking clouds and violet-black sky, he sees it—the massive, coiling ring in the heavens.

  The dragon.

  Lemres narrows his eyes. His voice drops to a cold, steady whisper.

  “Next time… I’ll kill you.”

  Without another word he vanishes in a shimmer of blue light, carrying Markus toward whatever passes for safety.

  “Markus… we were waiting for you,” Alexia says softly, kneeling beside him as golden light blooms from her hands.

  Liddle runs up, eyes wide with relief—then stops. Her smile falters.

  “Humans aren’t supposed to bleed like that,” she whispers.

  “It’s… good to see you both,” Markus manages, voice thin and raspy. Every breath sounds like it hurts.

  Liddle kneels, trembling, and takes his hand in both of hers.

  “Markus,” she whispers. Alexia’s voice breaks as she adds, “Don’t you dare. It’s over. You did it. You can rest now.”

  Markus closes his eyes, jaw tightening.

  “The dragon… it’s still out there… unstoppable…” he says.

  “Just don’t work too hard—and stay awake. We don’t need you falling into another coma,” Alexia mutters, pouring the last of her magic into his chest.

  Markus forces a weak smile. “You sure? I was hoping to break my record.”

  Alexia slaps him—hard.

  “No,” she snaps, voice trembling. “You don’t get to joke about that. Do you have any idea how much you made me worry? How much you made Liddle worry? You really thought we’d just move on if you died with your stupid plan?”

  Markus blinks slowly. Guilt washes across his face. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “You’re right.”

  Before the silence can grow too heavy, Lemres steps in, holding out a small bottle filled with glowing red liquid.

  “Here,” he says, pressing the vial into Markus’s hand. “Drink this. Should stop you from dying. We call it a health potion.”

  Markus glances down—his ring finger is gone, the pinky beside it stripped of skin like someone peeled it away. He drinks.

  Then he slumps, falling asleep, out cold.

  Lemres looks over the trio, his tone calm but resolute. “You three did great. There are still some loose Morgi creatures on Earth, so I’ll help with the cleanup.”

  “I’ll come too,” Alexia says, rising to her feet. “Once we finish, I’ll come back and keep healing Markus.”

  Liddle lowers her gaze to Markus. Her voice is quiet but firm. “Mind if I stay with him? I… I can’t leave. Not when he’s like this. He needs me.”

  Lemres nods and gestures toward the counter. “There are five more healing potions. Make sure he takes another one in about four hours. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Liddle whispers.

  With a shimmer of blue light, Lemres and Alexia step through the portal, leaving the room in a soft, magic-lit silence.

  Liddle moves gently, pulling out the couch into a bed to give Markus a more comfortable place to rest. Once she settles him onto it, she lies down beside him, facing him.

  “Thank you for everything,” she murmurs. “I hope you can find the kind of peace you gave me.”

  Markus stirs faintly, lips parting. “Liddle…?”

  She rests a hand on his forehead. “It’s okay,” she whispers. “We’ll take it from here. We were so worried.”

  Her voice softens to a sleepy murmur. “Mind if we rest together?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she yawns and curls up beside him, drifting to sleep against his chest—safe, at last.