Her voice dropped to barely above a whisper.

"He was strong. Really, truly, impossibly strong."

Vyrra's eyes showed haunted memory.

"And worse—far worse—those he killed would rise again and fight for him against their will. Our own people, turned into puppets, attacking us."

Her voice cracked noticeably on the last words.

Leon listened to everything with complete seriousness, though growing confusion was building in his mind.

The information I learned from those books earlier has already diverged massively from this account. Which version is accurate?

Ira also appeared genuinely shocked by these revelations, but Korvek seemed to be holding himself together stoically, though his jaw was clenched tight.

Ira suddenly chimed in without even noticing herself speaking aloud, so absorbed was she in the terrible story:

"Then what happened, Aunt Vyrra?!"

Her curiosity was overwhelming. The way her aunt was describing these events made it clear the intruder had been catastrophically dangerous for everyone.

Archon Vyrra continued, her voice steady but pained.

"By the time the two deities and our strongest Pyrrhans and the most powerful individuals from the other three rifts finally intervened together—forming a unified force to eliminate this existential threat—"

She closed her eyes briefly.

"—he already commanded an army of hundreds of thousands of dead, still fighting for him against their will. One full third of that cursed army consisted of our own people."

Her voice filled with barely suppressed rage.

"The remainder were our allies from the other portals, also enslaved after death."

Vyrra's fist slammed on the table.

BANG!

"Enraged beyond measure, we knew we had to kill that threat at absolutely any cost, no matter the sacrifice required."

Her expression became haunted.

"However, even our strongest warriors started falling one after another in battle. Each death only added to his army—they would rise without choice, raised from death and making him progressively stronger and more unstoppable."

She spoke with cold horror.

"He himself possessed overwhelming individual power. Combined with his ever-growing army of enslaved dead, he seemed genuinely unstoppable by any conventional means."

Vyrra took a shuddering breath.

"In that desperate, dire situation, with defeat and extinction looming, the two deities made a critical decision: they would engage the monster in direct combat alone, joined only by our Pyrrhan leader—the one who had ascended three thousand years prior."

Her voice became mechanical, reciting facts to distance herself from emotion.

"Meanwhile, the remaining Pyrrhans and outsiders made their own parallel decision. The outsiders volunteered to sacrifice themselves willingly to permanently seal and close their respective rifts to this realm forever. They would use our secret arts—techniques powered by our special racial fire which directly targets and manipulates mana itself."

She looked at Leon directly.

"The seal was cast successfully through enormous sacrifice from the outsiders, who gave their lives to save their own worlds from a threat that could have destroyed entire planes of existence by continuously growing his army of controlled dead."

Her breath hitched slightly, as if the memory was pulling something painful from deep inside her lungs.

"So many lives were lost that day. Thousands upon thousands."

A dry, metallic scent hung faintly in the air—like ancient ash that had never fully settled.Even the stone beneath them seemed to hold the memory of heat and loss, just barely warm to the touch.

She paused for several long seconds to take a deep, steadying breath.

Then she continued, her entire being radiating profound sadness, her body shaking slightly as she relived the memory.

"And the battle itself—the confrontation between our greatest powers and that monster—"

Another pause.

"—we were barely holding him back, even with everything we had. His power seemed limitless."

Vyrra's voice dropped to a whisper.

"So without any warning, before anyone could have possibly stopped her or realized her intent, the great Phoenix sacrificed her entire life force in a devastating suicide attack designed to finish the threat once and for all."

Ira gasped, her hand covering her mouth.

"However—"

Ira asked with terrible anxiety, not wanting to hear the answer:

"However what, Aunt Vyrra?!"

The Archon continued relentlessly.

"However, though he was grievously injured by the Phoenix's ultimate sacrifice, he survived even that attack—an assault for which the great Phoenix had given her divine life to execute."

Her voice filled with bitter anger.

"The Red Dragon, enraged beyond anything I had ever witnessed, tried desperately with everything in his considerable power to kill that damned monster before it could escape. But it fled successfully."

Vyrra's eyes blazed.

"And not only did it escape—it took the dead body of the great Phoenix with it, attempting to add even a deity to his army of controlled dead."

She added quickly:

"However, the Red Dragon was able to extract and reclaim her divine core in the final moments before the monster vanished, preventing complete desecration."

Her expression became confused and troubled.

"I don't know exactly what happened after that initial grief. But the enraged deity made a shocking decision: he chose to absorb the Phoenix's divine core into himself."

She looked meaningfully at Leon.

"This was absolutely surprising given how much they had cared for each other as eternal companions. Their bond was legendary."

Vyrra gestured toward the ceiling of the cave.

"You see that sun outside, which has been descending closer and closer to the surface over the past two centuries? That is where the Red Dragon currently resides. He entered a deep slumber immediately after absorbing the core."

Her voice became ominous.

"Once he awakens, even I cannot predict with certainty what will happen. But one thing I know absolutely: no matter what state he's in, he will attempt to enter that fourth portal in search of killing the one who murdered his beloved Phoenix. He will pursue that goal even if accomplishing it requires completely destroying this realm in the process."

She added grimly:

"I've known him long enough to predict his behavior easily. He was always extremely hot-headed and driven by emotion rather than strategy."

Leon felt ice forming in his stomach as he began piecing together implications.

Oh no. Oh shit.

He could already guess with terrible certainty who the Pyrrhan individual was that had broken the natural order and created fundamental instability in the realm three thousand years ago.

Ira had also clearly come to the same realization. She'd been uncertain before—her father had told her casually that her aunt was exceptionally strong, that even a hundred of him together couldn't defeat her, which Ira had dismissed as obvious exaggeration since she'd never witnessed her aunt fighting at full strength.

But now I'm not so sure. She really might be that person from three thousand years ago. She's seen everything. She's lived through it all.

Leon decided to voice his conclusion directly rather than dance around it:

"So you were one of the three individuals who directly fought that outsider monster alongside the deities, weren't you?"

Archon Vyrra didn't attempt to hide anything at all. She confirmed it plainly:

"Yes. That was me."

Leon felt his blood run cold.

I'm in deep shit right now.

The air felt colder suddenly, though the fire pits hadn't dimmed. It was as if the warmth of the cave withdrew instinctively from the truth.

Someone so overwhelmingly powerful that they had killed a divine Phoenix and injured a Dragon deity—someone who had slaughtered hundreds of thousands across this realm and multiple connected worlds—and even after enormous coordinated sacrifice, that being had still escaped while stealing a deity's corpse.

That monster will surely return eventually. And I'm trapped here.

Terrible understanding crashed over him.

Does that mean I'll have to face it when it comes back? Am I going to die here?

His chest tightened, and a slow, creeping nausea pooled in his gut—like the world had tilted just slightly under him, off balance and inescapable.

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