"NOOOOOOO!"

Severus's scream unleashed chaos. His Grace-constructed soul emanated uncontrolled rage, boiling cursed blood unconsciously conjured by glowing red glyphs that surrounded him. The very air in the courtyard heated in an instant, and Tristessa felt all that warmth scorching the skin of her face and evaporating her tears.

"I-I'm so sorry…!" she wanted to scream, her lips drying in that invisible hell that grew by the second. Her voice directed towards the gallows, where she saw the blood of the Mercer-Archeos dripping from the edge, beginning to bubble and threatening to rise and go towards the floating glyphs. "I-I didn't mean to…!"

No one was listening to her. Not the dead nor the living. Not while that blood elf pointed his cane at Aurelia.

"ANX PLASMOS!" he bellowed, the tears he shed also boiling, his face embodying an avatar of fury everlasting. "DIE!"

The crimson glyphs collapsed, and all those threads of blood that flowed from every pore of his hands transmuted into bloody spears that flew at dizzying speed toward the violet-eyed woman.

As fast as bullets, the soldiers couldn't even react and run to protect their Lady... But Aurelia was thousands of times faster than them or the blood spears.

With her [Divinity of Air Haste] and reflexes enhanced by magical energy, Aurelia disappeared from the platform. And all the spears passed through the empty space she left in her place, and crashed against the opposite wall, cracking the surface and causing a large cloud of dust and particulate blood.

"ERAMISAPTOR!"

Severus saw her appear several meters away from the platform, halting her own momentum by planting the soles of her shoes against the stone floor as if it was wet earth. Driven mad by the loss of his only friends, he was willing to cast Bloodflame to kill that woman. Even if he had to burn the Lords' Castle to the ground, he would do it.

"BURN, AURELIA! FIREON PLASMO…!"

"Do you think I'll let you finish casting that spell, you idiot elf?"

Like a bolt of lightning, propelled by her Divinity, Aurelia leaped toward Severus, her glaive gathering impulse and ready to blitz him.

"TERRUM!"

Just in time, the blood elf canceled the initial spell and managed to conjure a wall of earth in front of him. It only served to slow the She-Dragoon's attack: the glaive's blow shattered the wall into thousands of tiny pieces of earth, and Severus was violently thrown backward. The impact had fractured both of his legs, pieces of his femurs protruding through skin and flesh, and he was dragged across the floor until he hit the wall, receiving the full force of the inertia on his back.

"Ugh...!"

Tristessa saw the elf open his eyes and mouth as wide as he could, feeling all the sudden and brutal pain from the vertebrae in his back and his ribs breaking.

"Severus!"

She managed to yell his name, her voice reaching him with no barrier in between. The elf tried to raise his head, those eyes as sapphires met hers for the first time in that loop… And in a split second, those eyes were crushed by Aurelia's right foot, which brought with it tremendous power from a new impulse of her Divinity.

Then all that remained from the blood elf's face was a massive amount of blood spraying in all directions and facial bones shattering like glass.

"NOOO, SEVERUS!"

It was her turn to scream. To scream with all her might, unable to tear her eyes away from Aurelia lowering the foot with which she had smashed Severus's head against the wall. Small spasms were making his fingers tremble, but there was no doubt that he was dead. The girl's soul felt it, calling to the elf's from the void.

"Severus Malak Drakan… Such a pathetic way to die," the She-Dragoon spat, wiping the sole of her boot with part of her victim's torn black shirt in disgust. She treated the elf's corpse like a floor rag, wiping off all the viscous blood and shards of bone and embedded teeth. "You should have stayed in your hole and kept playing with beginner's thaumaturgy…"

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!" Tristessa shrieked, seething with rage. The ambient temperature was dropping as quickly as it had risen, but she still felt the heat on her face. Fury and pain combined perfectly at the sight of this woman disrespecting that lifeless body. "DON'T TOUCH HIM!"

One of the soldiers couldn't tolerate this disrespect for the Lady of the Dominion and approached Tristessa's side to slap her hard.

"Agh, fuck!"

Her cheek burning and a with a fresh cut, she saw Aurelia approaching. Her steps were slow, but they echoed in her ears like the tolling of a cemetery bells announcing the farewell of the departed.

"Tristessa Irandell… Stranger. In the name of the glorious Empire of the Night's Watch, I…"

But before Aurelia could conclude her judgment, several sounds of gunfire far surpassed her voice.

"…!"

The Ruler of End-World jumped back and dodged the projectiles aimed at her. Instead, the two soldiers were shot in the head, their eyes going blank as they lost consciousness and fell like jointed dolls to the ground. The same happened to the vast majority of the guards, hit by the non-lethal shots of the gunslinger who had entered the courtyard through the north entrance and forced his way through to reduce the security forces' presence.

"Everyone stay still, especially you, Lady Eramisaptor!" warned the man wearing a leather hat, his face half covered by a bandana. He pointed his left revolver at Aurelia and his right at the guards at the west entrance, the only ones still conscious, who took their hands off their swords, fearing for their Lady's life. "With all due respect, your internal security is a mess."

"Yes, I can see that, gunslinger… Or should I call you an outlaw, Auron Casimir?" she asked, her brow furrowing in irritation as she turned to face him. "If you're here to rescue the Mercer-Archeos, you're too late."

"…it's a tragedy. That so many have to die for the sins of others," he said quietly, his gaze as clear as a sunset passing briefly over the decapitated corpses of the family and Severus, behind the woman he was threatening with his weapons. "But no, I didn't come for them. I came for her."

He tilted his head to the side, in Tristessa's direction, who couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"Auron…" she whispered his name, doubting if this was really happening.

First Severus, his desperate arrival and Death… And now Auron?

All that was needed was one more thing -one more presence- for Tristessa's soul to blossom like a rose full of thorns, a symbol of tragic and bittersweet longing…

A certain someone who, like the strings of fate pulling, emerged from the shadows of the west corridor.

"Hic… Hey, is this the courtyard? I got lost again, fuck…" It was a silver-haired woman, wearing beautiful white-plated armor and a black cloak that reached her heels. In her right hand, she held a bottle full of foaming lager, and in the other, she dragged the unconscious body of a soldier by her hair. "This rude bitch wouldn't give me directions."

The newcomer threw the soldier between the two guarding the sides of the entrance, stunned by the sight of their companion's bruised and swollen face as the attacker indulged herself in a drink from the bottle.

"You drunken wretch, are you out of your mind?!"

"Damn you, Silver..."

The two men drew their swords and attacked, but the woman dodged one of the slashes and blocked the other with her forearm, luckily protected by plaques of armor.

"Hold this for a moment," she demanded, placing her bottle against the first soldier's chest and then headbutting him hard, breaking his nose and sinking it into his skull, guaranteeing extreme pain. As he fell backward, she retrieved her bottle before it fell beside him. "Thank you. And now it's your turn, pretty boy…"

With vertiginous speed, she punched the only soldier left in the courtyard with such uncontrolled force that it fractured his cheekbone and caused him to spit out blood and a few teeth in his upper jaw.

"Gah!"

Of course, that man fell to the ground almost fainting, groping in search of his sword or that attacker who staggered clumsily as she tried to walk straight to the center of the courtyard.

That beautiful and bizarre knightess whose cheeks were flushed and her eyes half-closed, as if she were about to fall asleep. So drunk that she was a menace to everyone and herself.

"Astoria!" Tristessa exclaimed, undecided whether she was happy or sad to see her there, almost signing her death warrant, just like with the gunslinger. "I-I don't understand… What are you two doing here?"

"I didn't think she had the guts…" Auron commented, raising an eyebrow at the wasted knightess. "You had to get drunk to do it, huh?"

"Did you finally lose your mind, Silverthorn?" Aurelia asked, distracting Tristessa by speaking in a voice so brimming with anger that she couldn't help but tremble. "Is this suppose to be a joke?"

There was something about that woman that emanated terror, as if she had suddenly been surrounded by an aura that conveyed bloodlust. Imminent danger, a sign that certain death had to be escaped.

"Joke? N-Nah, I don't think so... I mean, no one's laughing, hic…" The blonde knightess covered her mouth to avoid vomiting but ended up letting out a small burp that made her blush. "Hehe, sorry... Hey, boss! How about you let me take that missus? I won't do anything perverted to her, I swear!"

"...and why are you asking me that?" she asked, her patience hanging by a thread and her luminous soul gathering so much energy from the astral plane that Auron pointed both revolvers at her, lines of sweat running down his temples.

"Ha! Because she's a [Stranger], of course!"

Astoria burst out laughing and drank from the bottle again, her other hand resting on the hilt of her sword. Her head tilted back, a sign that she was enjoying her drink. Tristessa slowly shook her head, not understanding.

"I see… And what about you, Casimir?" Aurelia's violet eyes shifted to focus on the gunslinger, whose grip on both pistols began to tremble. "Same reason? Are you willing to turn your back on your Lady and give your life for a Stranger?"

Tristessa saw Auron take a deep breath, puffing out his chest to rid himself of fear and respond with the courage of someone determined.

"Exactly, lady. You see… I'm at a very desperate and terrifying point in my life. My time is running out. If I don't do something soon, everything I fought for, everything I sacrificed… [Melinda]…"

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The light color of Auron's eyes shone at the mention of that person, like the fire of a spirit determined to do anything. He emptied the cylinders of his revolvers and skillfully reloaded them with hollow-point bullets—anti-personnel ammunition, made to kill.

"I need the help of that lady, there's no other option! It's fate that led me to cross her path, an opportunity I'm willing to give my life for!"

"Hic, y-yes, I say the same!" Astoria shouted, so intoxicated with alcohol that it was a miracle she could still stand. But it didn't seem to be enough drunkenness for her to point the index finger of her free hand directly at the gaping Tristessa. "She's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! The Stranger will lead me to fulfill my deepest desire, I'm sure of it! My destiny, the redemption of my family! And if not, then I'd rather be dead!"

The girl with gray eyes, reddened from crying, could no longer contain her emotions. Her insides twisted at all those feelings that killed her and gave her life from within. All that hope and damnation, like good and evil combined, shaping her spirit, which submitted to a veil of stars that stretched into infinity, surrounded by a darkness that was always approaching to devour everything.

A universe of chains that bound her to a cruel destiny that always returned her to the beginning… And now, it seemed that the three of them were also bound by it, as they crossed her path one way or another.

Like an [inescapable future], to which everyone converged regardless of chaos and order. The three of them, forever united in Tristessa's destiny.

Severus, killed by the duality between love for his friends and revenge for his ancestors, the eternal conflict that existed in his tormented spirit.

Auron, his goal linked to that Melinda woman, jealously hidden among layers of greed.

Astoria, her surname a titanic weight to bear on her shoulders, eager to cleanse it.

Each with their own conflicts and desires. In a forward momentum that led them to meet Tristessa, on a collision course favored by fate...

But with a deadly obstacle in their path. Personified as a lethal, raven-haired woman wielding that magnificent glaive stained with fresh blood.

"Is that what you decided? To betray my authority...to betray the Empire, for the delusional hopes of poor wretches like yourselves?" she asked, a darkness which contrasted to perfection with the Grace her soul emanated. Like an eclipse, bright around and yet dark in the core. "You, Auron Casimir, hope to win the heart of a loved one? Or perhaps you aim for a secret and yet obvious peak, like any other of your profession, known as becoming the [King of the Gunslingers]."

Auron's grip over his revolvers -his holy weapons- trembled upon such mention.

"And you, Silverthorn? Want to bring down the legendary [Valkyrie of Darkness]? Someone who even the mightiest warrior alive, [Imperial Prince Victarion Ardor Nightbane], fought to a stalemate? You, who can't even face extreme adversity without getting intoxicated?"

Astoria bit her lower lip but kept smiling, a flash of anger crossing her reddened face.

"Dreaming fools, you two… Like the blood elf, thinking that you can actually achieve something when damnation stares at you in the eyes," she hissed at them, casting the cold of the void over them with her words. "Listen to me carefully: [a Stranger won't make your dreams come true]. It's a myth, faith of delusional imbeciles!"

"…but those dreams are the only thing that we haven't lost. Not even the Shadow Queen can take them away from us," Auron whispered in return. "Only Death."

That response was ignored by the She-Dragoon. She, whose gaze worthy of a goddess from the cold and dark confines of the Cosmos, sentenced:

"Your reasons, worthless. Your hopes, meaningless. To lay your hopes on a Stranger, thinking that she will turn the scales of our doomed existence in our favor… It doesn't matter, in the end. By the Empire of the Night's Watch, the only Shield Against the Darkness, you will all die. Here, and now…"

The Ruler of End-World spun her glaive and sliced horizontally through the air, creating an almost ethereal sound of the blade's edge cutting against the infinity.

"You will taste the justice of Aurelia Eramisaptor. I will break all your illusions, and send you all to the Abyss… Your souls tormented and severed by my glaive, [Twilight of the Terror Hand]."

There was no turning back.

Auron began to fire.

Astoria roared with laughter again.

And the young woman chained to the ground, her dark soul ablaze, burning away the last embers of hope she had so foolishly fanned, knew what was going to happen…

No one was going to survive.

Tristessa could feel it. She could see it without the need for a crystal ball or clairvoyant abilities.

Everything was doomed to fail. There was no hope of a positive outcome when the pieces on the chessboard were cornered, just a few moves away from a checkmate that would dictate the end.

She saw Death falling on everyone. She saw it in the decapitated family on the steel-reinforced platform. Those gallows flooded with blood, and whose necrotic smell was beginning to spread throughout the execution yard.

"N-no…no… S-Sev…"

Trying to call his name and failing, she saw Death on the blood elf. His body splattered against the wall, head crushed and his long, crimson hair hiding part of his shattered mouth, jaw and teeth reduced to a gory and repulsive sight. And his thaumaturgy cane was lying near his broken legs, useless to stop his own doom...

Tristessa's heart, torn and broken beyond repair, ached upon such a gruesome spectacle, forcing her to look away.

She saw Death in that disgraced knightess. She, who walked back and forth, without a defined direction and stumbling, taking long drinks from her beer bottle. Without even having unsheathed her sword. She was choking on her own drink, coughing and laughing.

"Hic… Why the long face, girl? Cheer up, hic! No night is too bad to die, you know!

Tristessa also saw Death in the gunslinger's attempts to hit his opponent. Shot after shot from two revolvers broke the stillness of the night; shot after shot that the Lady of the Dominion of End-World intercepted with her glaive with great ease, and without stopping her advance towards him.

"I refuse to let it end here! This is my last chance! The only one, lady!"

She followed the light provided by the power crystals that illuminated the courtyard from the black walls. From the direction from where she heard the gunslinger scream, and with the light, saw his desperation.

She didn't need to see under that handkerchief that covered the lower half of his face to know it: his auburn eyes, bright thanks to the light of the fire, were on the verge of surrendering to oblivion.

"Astoria!" he begged, in vain. "HELP ME!"

His cry was unanswered. In silence, the woman armed with that black metal pole with a dangerous saber at the end, deflected the last fired bullet; the last one that had remained in the chamber of the man's right revolver, leaving him vulnerable.

In the blink of an eye, she propelled herself towards him, breaking the resistance of air like a shock-wave.

The next second, she was in front of him. The blade of her glaive covered in blood, and both gunslinger's hands firmly holding the revolvers, bloody and torn, falling to the ground.

"Fool. You chose your destiny the very moment you set foot in this courtyard. Now die, outlaw."

Tristessa could not react. She could not scream; she could not do anything to try to save the man from his certain doom. She could only see his eyes lost in the blackest void, ignoring both the pain of his lacerated limbs and the presence of his future executioner positioning herself to give him the coup de grace.

"I failed you, Melinda… I couldn't…"

His words, oversaturated with pain and regret, were lost in the night, cut off vilely when the woman hit him with the glaive, having accumulated an inhuman amount of strength and power that tore him to pieces. His broken body flew through the air, spewing blood everywhere, until it landed near the excursion platform, followed by his hat that landed softly in the distance.

"A…A-Auron…," The gunslinger's name could barely leave Tristessa's compressed throat. New tears were allowed to flow freely, from those eyes that painfully turned from the man's corpse to the drunken knightess. "Ast…Astoria…!"

"Oh? It's my turn? Hic… Alright, alright…," she heard that woman growl.

The knightess threw her head back, and finished drinking the contents of the bottle without using her hands, both busy in taking her long, beautiful blonde hair and tying it into a ponytail. She then grabbed the bottle again and threw it aside, shattering it into a sea of ​​crystal shards. She spat on the ground and smiled with drool seeping through her lips; the absolute vulgarity of a woman as beautiful as her, who cared about nothing but her desire.

A desire that Death trapped it in its invisible cloak of bleakness, alongside her.

"Hehe… Now I'm ready…"

No, she wasn't. It was a lie. Lies from a drunkard who didn't see her opponent coming at high speed. She got hit by the Lady's deadly weapon with tremendous force, so impossibly fast and with such strength that she was thrown backwards, scattering across the ground and rolling while raising dirt in her wake.

"You are pathetic, Blackguard. How is it possible that such a noble and ancient family like yours has fallen so deep from grace? To think that the Silverthorn family has been reduced to this…"

The woman armed with the glaive hissed those words, with a coldness worthy of the harshest winter. The pale light from the crystals made the dark steel plates that adorned her elegant trench coat shine. The wind moved her hair as black as night, free and stained with her victim's blood, just like her impassive and beautiful face adorned with ruthless violet eyes.

"That only a drunken strumpet like you remains makes me feel more apologetic than disgusted."

The fallen knightess, miraculously, could move. Trembling, she managed to get up from the ground, with a deep cut that destroyed the primary protection of her combat trench coat and that went further, quickly dyeing the shirt she wore underneath and the sides of her suit crimson dark.

"B-bitch… That blow sobered me up!" She raised her head and Tristessa saw a face so dark and full of hate, anger and helplessness directed at that woman who stopped in front of her. This time, lines of blood began to come out of her mouth instead of saliva mixed with beer. "Say all that shit again to my face if you have the ladyballs to do it! Come on!"

The other woman not only did not adhere to her demand, but she brought her glaive directly down on the knightess' left shoulder. The blood-stained blade sank in, having broken her collarbone and cut everything in its path. Her arm was rendered useless, and between vomiting clumps of blood, she tried to find the handle of her sword with her other hand, failing completely.

Without her senses functioning properly, losing a lot of blood quickly and with no hope of fighting back, she was also doomed.

"I put you out of your misery, wretch."

The executioner, the lady who ruled the Dominion of End-World, pulled the glaive from the body of the almost unconscious knightess to gather momentum and, growling with fury, unleash it on her again, piercing her torso transversely and splitting her in two.

Her body, now lifeless, slowly fell to the ground, open so that blood and guts could flow freely.

Tears kept falling down Tristessa's cheeks. The entire family was dead, the thaumaturge and those two warriors were dead. And now Death was falling upon her, coming upon the shoulders of that merciless woman who had turned her attention to her.

Standing before the kneeling girl, that Lady was a massive, imposing shadow, a harbinger of destruction and doom.

"I will repeat what I said earlier, by protocol: in the name of the glorious Empire of the Night's Watch, I condemn you to death, Stranger." With her glaive in position, the woman was ready to finish what she had started. "Do you have any last words, child?"

Tristessa sobbed, frightened at her inevitable fate. A new failure, a new cruel ending where everything went wrong. And the worst of all was…

"I won't die… I can't…" Her murmur made her future killer wait, curious as to what she had to say. Frustration and the courage of a fool made Tristessa look up and face Death, once again. "I cannot die! I will return again and again! Do you hear me?! I WILL RETURN FROM DEATH!"

Out of nowhere, the execution yard was filled with an unnatural cold. Those words spoken by Tristessa unleashed an invisible influence, a dark providence that violated the laws of reality as they are known.

"Return…from Death?" the woman whispered, her face that had only shown icy determination until that moment crumbling upon an unavoidable authority that surpassed human understanding.

The taboo had been broken. The curiosity in the woman's eyes disappeared to make way for something horrible.

"Ha…ha ha…. HA HA HA!

The Lady of the Dominion laughed, her unhinged voice getting lost into the night, as her soul fell into a downward spiral that Tristessa knew very well. She had witnessed many others falling into that bottomless abyss called madness.

"Return from Death?! Lies of a stupid girl!" the woman shrieked, her face, which had been a bastion of impassive beauty, corrupted by a dislocated ear-to-ear grin, and bulging eyes flooded with blood that fell like tears. "Servant of the Dark Lady, I will show you Death! And you won't escape it nor return from it!"

The glaive fell with extreme violence on Tristessa's head. Shattered, a cloud of blood, guts and pulverized bone. It was fast, almost painless, and then Darkness enveloped her.

In the dark sea where souls were doomed to disappear, to vanish into nothingness, the [Golden Chains] of her cruel fate dragged her broken soul through the rivers of time and space. Against the current, backwards.

Tristessa Irandell had died. And now she was going to return to life.

To start over, once again.

"Even if we try.

We can't live forever.

I gave you my shards of sky.

But we can barely see the reflection.

We'll just live to see the essence die."

Impermanence, by Katatonia (Sky Void of Stars)

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