As Jun'Ei's cage had exploded into fractured shards, Klax had leaped forward to catch her.

He ignored the pain as the fragments split his skin and scarred his fur. And he ignored the shouts of his companions who cried out behind him.

"Hold!" Lamphrey ordered through the chaos. "Do – do not touch him."

Tara and Fauna looked back at the ancient mage, who was doing everything in her power to stop herself from shaking.

"Look," she whispered, pointing towards the Prophet's brain as it pulsed in Klax's hands. "She is…dreaming."

Through the pain that beat at his limbs and at his heart, Klax nodded slowly, his tears staining the folds in his lost love's brain.

"She's right," he murmured. "She – she's here. She's still here…"

Fauna crept forward despite Lamphrey's warnings, but this time it was Tara that held her back.

"There's nothing we can do, Faun."

The Hopla bristled. "But we have to! We can't let her leave the world like – like this. We have to try and heal here, somehow."

Tara looked sadly at her sister, who was trying so hard to keep tears from springing to her eyes.

"It all has to mean something, Tara. Right?"

Tara looked at Klax's sagging shoulders. His entire body, once shaking with fury, was now calm and controlled. It was as though just holding what remained of Jun in his hands was enough. Even if he got here too late.

"I always knew, I think," he murmured. "I think I always knew, deep down, that…"

He couldn't say more. Outside, more flashes of dazzling light shot through the sky, destroying more sections of the castle and the island itself.

"Can you feel it?" Lamphrey asked as more sections of the ceiling crumbled down all around them. "The Archon's battle reaches its conclusion."

Both Tara and Fauna gazed at the miasma of light sparking outside – beams of concentrated power that could wipe them out and leave nothing behind. Power that not even the Greycloaks held in their hands.

"Did you know, Lamphrey?" Tara asked, turning to face the Tialax with sudden fervor.

She was surprised to find no fear in that face. Instead, she saw the sad frown of a caring grandmother looking at a child who'd just told a white lie.

"You knew it, too, Tara. There was no way the Prophet would survive this place."

In the next moment, Fauna pushed Tara away from her savagely, growled, and turned her staff in Lamphrey's direction.

"We survived," she snarled. "Despite it all. And you said yourself that she's still alive. There's still life in her. There's still will. I can feel it! And where there's life, and the will to survive, there's a way to keep going!"

Lamphrey kept her gaze firm, her eyes locked on the image of Klax rocking back and forth before the shattered vat.

"She has one wish now," she said. "And it is our duty to see it fulfilled."

Before Fauna and Tara could beat a straight answer out of the Tialax mage, a sudden seismic eruption seized the earth.

The entire ground split apart, and the world outside was bathed in a mix of lambent greens, reds, blues and purples – all twisting together in a tornado of pure, seething energy. The walls of the castle chamber simple vanished from existence as though they'd been deleted by a peeved and petty God.

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Tara stumbled, fell, and felt the entire world rumble beneath her as though it was about to crack open and swallow them all whole.

"Tara!" Fauna shouted from behind. "We have to make a run for it!"

She was already readying up a portal to take them away from this place. She struck the air with her staff and opened a tear in space large enough for them all to fit through. Lamphrey, meanwhile, simply dropped to her knees and inclined her head as though in prayer.

And as Tara was repulsed to see green tears glistening in her eyes.

"He has broken through his inhibitions," she whispered. "He is coming…for her."

Tara scoffed, wondering why the hell Ethan had wanted to bring this crazy bitch along in the first place. Instead, she crawled towards Klax, who hadn't moved a muscle since the world had started to die all around them.

"Klax!" she bellowed through more pieces of wall fell around her. "Klax – come on, man!"

The wolfman didn't budge. She activated her Rogue [Haste] skill and leaped towards him in three great bounds, employing her Uncanny Dodge ability to avoid the crumbling debris and finally grab onto the scruff of his collar.

"Leave me."

She paused, feeling her legs give way under her.

"Klax – you heard Fauna. This place is coming apart. We gotta –"

"LEAVE ME!"

His bellow summoned fire into his eyes, and he looked round at Tara like he was ready to tear her apart.

"Klax – f – for fuck's sake!" she bellowed back. "If you think I'm going to let you die a pointless fucking death in a shithole like this, you're even dumber than you look!"

The dogman grimaced, fresh tears seeping into his new scars.

Above, the rest of the ceiling started to break, slowly coming apart at the seams.

"Tara," he wheezed. "I'm done. Call me whatever you want. It's over for me."

She had half a mind to crack his head open and drag him away bleeding, but hesitated when she saw his destroyed lover's brain glowing in his hands. By this point, her pulsing had become a constant, melodious vibration. As though she was communicating.

"Tara!" Fauna screeched. "We have to go now!"

"You'd give it all up, is that it?" she snarled down at him. "Everything we've fought for. Freedom. A new world. Everything she wanted for us - you'd let it all go just because she's gone?"

The wolfman's fire left him. Now, all that was there was the sorrow in his soul.

"Tara," he said. "What do I have left to fight for now?"

"TARA!"

Another torrent of light shot through the sky, bathing all of Griffon's watch in a haze of white. Then, the roof finally caved in, and Tara looked up to see her swift death approaching.

Later, she'd deny that she was willing to let go in that moment. She'd deny it because, even though she hadn't expected it, she still wanted to be seen as someone who'd made a difference in this world. Someone who mattered. Such people never allowed themselves to succumb to despair – that's what all the old human chronicles and Hybrid oral storytelling traditions said. Heroes were those who rose up against their oppressors without fear of death.

But when the wall of Haylock's castle came tumbling down towards her, Tara's body told her something that she couldn't even admit to herself: that the end of all things, her end, wasn't just something she could accept right now. It was something that might have been preferable to what was to come. For all of them.

But that end never came.

Instead, right at the moment when Fauna screamed, a flurry of lightning crashed into the wall and turned it into nothing but a cloud of ash that floated softly down to cover her and Klax.

And just as suddenly as the world seemed like it was about to rip itself to shreds, everything became silent as a tomb.

She felt rain pelt down on her face and twitched her nose. She dropped her arms to her sides, looked down at Klax, and saw that Jun's brain was no longer glowing with light. She could feel a cold chill run up her spine, as if something was approaching that was worse than a quick death.

And then, her System showed her exactly what was coming:

Enemy Defeated: [Haylock, Blood Magus of Griffon's Watch]

Spirit Cores Gained: 6000

…no way.

The Cores had come as a result of the attacks she'd made on the Doctor and his beast before the world went to shit. His death counted as an allied victory.

Klax saw the numbers too, and for a moment his eyes bulged as he recognized that the one who had tortured and mutilated his partner had finally met his end.

But none of them expected what they saw next.

A series of booming, droning steps rang out down the end of the ruined castle chamber. The heavy steps of a creature that had more power contained within its bones than anything they, or Argwyll, had ever seen before.

Fauna was the first to see him. And even she could only stare in wonder.

Tara saw him next, marching into the room like a King returning to his dark throne. His seven eyes each glowed with a different shade of the color spectrum, three heads all indicating the different powers they held within them.

But none of those eyes gleamed with as much demonic radiance as the single orb of crimson that peeked out from the hat that sat atop the beast.

Lamphrey was the last to turn around and look at him. But Tara had a feeling that she'd known exactly what he looked like before any of them ever had.

She fell before him and clasped her hands together, whispering sacred words that she'd said many, many times before, to beings of similar size and shapes, but never with this much sheer strength that practically burst from their every pore.

"Witness his ascension," she said aloud. "Archon Ethan has risen."

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