My Edict of Severance struck home. It was not a physical blow, but a conceptual one, aimed at the unstable seam of Alyssara's grafted divinity. There was no explosion, no thunderous roar. Just a profound, terrible silence as the Grey, fueled by Harmony's truth, unraveled the core of her power.

Alyssara's jade eyes, which had been blazing with divine, furious light, widened in shock. The overwhelming pressure in the sanctum, her "Complete Control," vanished in an instant, like a plug being pulled. The crimson light in her silks faded. The stolen power of Lust and Fantasy, now severed from the anchor of her will, dissipated like smoke. She stood motionless for a beat, a look of simple, human confusion on her face, before her knees buckled.

She fell, her body hitting the cold, alien floor with a frail, mortal weight it had never seemed to possess before. The woman who had warped reality, the Crimson Empress, the Scarlet Calamity, was now nothing more than a dying ember.

I stood over her, my new divine power settling into me, feeling cold and heavy. My breath was ragged in my chest. I had done it. I had won. My hand, the one that delivered the conceptual strike, trembled, not from exhaustion, but from the sickening, agonizing finality of the act.

"I told you, didn't I?" Alyssara's voice, now weak, human, rasped from the floor. "You surpassed me," she confirmed, her breath shallow but steady. A trickle of blood, dark and real, escaped her lips.

I knelt beside her, my mind a storm of conflicting triumph and a grief so profound it threatened to drown me.

And then, before I could react, her hand, weak but impossibly fast, shot out and gripped the front of my collar, pulling me down with a final, desperate surge of strength. We fell together, me catching myself over her, her body now frail beneath mine, her chest rising and falling in shallow, painful rasps.

"But you can't kill me, can you?" Alyssara whispered, a sad, terrible amusement curling at the edges of her lips, her voice a ragged breath against my cheek. She saw the hesitation, the horror in my eyes.

I didn't respond. I couldn't. My breath was heavy, choking me. My limbs trembled, not from the fight, but from this, from what I'd done, from who she was.

She was beneath me, her chest rising and falling just a hair's breadth from mine. I could see everything—the profound exhaustion in her jade eyes, the delicate, frantic flutter of her pulse at her throat, the stubborn, defiant pride that had never quite left her expression. Even in her final, weakest moment, she refused to look small.

She was my enemy. Humanity's enemy. The Divine threat, stronger than Demon Lords, the one who had to die.

I—

I had to kill her. My hand, still humming with the cold, quiet power of my new Divinity, hovered over her heart, ready to deliver the final, physical blow, to ensure it was truly over.

"Arthur," she said, her fingers, weak and trembling, brushing against my cheek. A gesture so small, so impossibly gentle, yet it struck me with the force of a physical blow, threatening to undo everything.

"...Emma," I said, the name tearing itself from my throat. It was not a question. It was not a new realization. It was an admission. A final, grieving acknowledgment of the person I had just, necessarily, murdered.

"Yes, my Arthur," she said, her voice impossibly gentle, the voice I remembered from a life before this one. Her lips, stained red from the internal backlash of her power collapsing, curled into something soft. Something fond.

"You got so strong," she murmured. My fists clenched, crushing the cold, alien material of the floor beside her head. My fingers brushed against strands of her pink hair, as fine as silk, as achingly familiar as home.

My vision blurred.

"I… I am proud of you, Arthur," she said. Then, her voice hardened, a final echo of her desperate, controlling will. "Stab me."

It was not a plea. It was not a request. It was a command.

"I can't be saved," she continued, her voice resolute, though fragile. "The stolen power... it's unbound. It's… consuming me anyway. I… can't love you properly. Not like this. Kill me."

"Don't say that, Emma," I whispered, hating the weak, broken sound of my own voice.

Alyssara… Emma… chuckled, a wet, rattling sound, and for a fleeting, impossible moment, she was the girl I had loved before all of this—before regressions, before war, before betrayal, before the crushing weight of worlds had settled onto our shoulders.

"You're still... the weak, kind boy... I loved," she said, her voice cracking. "I'm sorry… we couldn't find our happiness... in our past life."

"That was all my fault," I admitted, the confession torn from my gut. "I wasn't strong enough. Not then."

"But you... are strong enough... now," she said, her eyes holding mine, filled with a painful, final clarity.

I looked at her, really looked at her, and finally realized my cheeks were wet. A single drop of water, my tear, fell onto her face, mingling with the blood at the corner of her mouth.

"Kill me," she said again, her voice a fragile breath.

I had to kill her. I had killed her. She was just dying too slowly. The first girl I had ever loved. The girl who had been my light, my hope, in a world long since turned to ash.

Only then. Only then would this truly be over. Only then would my future, my real family, be safe.

"In the end," Alyssara whispered, her free hand coming up, her forehead pressing weakly against mine, a gesture of impossible, agonizing intimacy. "I am just… so sorry… I couldn't be by your side, Arthur."

Then her lips parted. She gasped, a small, sharp intake of air. Her jade eyes, which had held mine, widened for a second, then softened, losing their divine light, their focus, their very life.

And we kissed. Or perhaps, her lips simply met mine as her last bit of strength failed, a final, accidental touch of impossible intimacy. She held me. Tight. Or as tight as her fading strength allowed, a final, reflexive grasp.

For one single, agonizing heartbeat, I could believe we were somewhere else—somewhere untouched by war and duty and blood. Somewhere we could have been happy.

Then, her grip loosened. Her hand slid from my collar. Her strength, her life, her very presence, faded completely.

"...Emma?" I said, my voice thick, though I already knew.

"Emma?" I said again, a hollow question to the silence, despite knowing the answer.

I laid her down gently, my hands cradling her head.

She was smiling. Even now. Even in the end.

And so, the day came when the Crimson Empress, the Scarlet Calamity, Alyssara Velcroix, died.

And I was the one who killed her.

I remained there for a long time, kneeling over her body, the silence of the sanctum absolute. The weight of my new Divinity felt cold and heavy, a victory that tasted only of ash. I had done it. I had surpassed OG Arthur. I had become Divine. I had defeated one of the universe's most powerful beings. And I had never felt more broken.

Slowly, deliberately, I closed her eyes, giving her a peace in death she could never find in her obsessive, tormented life. I looked at her face, the face of Emma, for one last time.

'Thank you, Emma,' I thought, the single quote a final, quiet farewell, a eulogy spoken only in my soul. 'For the happiness we almost had. For the memory that, in the end, reminded me of what was real.'

I had to let her go. Not just her body, but the ghost I had carried for two lifetimes. My past was a tragedy, but my present was waiting. Stella. Luna. Cecilia. Rachel. Seraphina. Rose. Reika. They were my reality now. They were the ones I had done this for.

With a final, weary breath, I stood up, my new divine power settling into my limbs, cold and certain. I turned my back on the body of the first girl I ever loved, and on the ghost of the man I used to be. The past was behind me, finally and truly.

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