In Nekrom, even shadows could bleed. They could suffer, they could cry. They could be forced out of a wound, seeking to mimic the mechanisms of the organic, the tangible.

Tristessa saw, beneath the battered armor, that the Dullahan was in deep pain from the wound she inflicted through the unholy invocation of her [Divinity of Accursed Existence]. A wound that, if not fatal, was more than severe.

The convergence of everyone's efforts in that precise blow.

"Thank you..." Tristessa said to that reborn corpse. With his work done, the ashen soldier collapsed once again into his original state. Shapeless, formless, and without a trace of a tormented spirit. Allowing the girl to pass through that veil of particulate human remains and meet those tormented gray eyes inside the Discord-covered full-helm. "Got you!"

The Dullahan instantly moved her head out of harm's way, something Tristessa had predicted beforehand. She passed under her arm, moving quick and nimble like the leader of the Ghost Daggers, to attack another part of her body: her hunting dagger pierced the gaping wound on her hip, inflicted by Severus, increasing its severity and causing shadow blood to spurt out.

"AHHHHRRHH!"

"YES!"

"WELL DONE!"

Amid the agonizing screams from the dark knightess and the cheers of Astoria and Auron, an exhausted Severus finished conjuring non-elemental glyphs near the shadow barrier. The Vendra Eras thaumaturgical spell shattered the hostile defense into hundreds of occult glass pieces. And the two warriors rushed toward Tristessa, joining her in continuing to punish their enemy.

"MY NEMESIS!" Brandishing her black sword, a vengeful spirit filled with wrath, the Dullahan tried to land a vertical slash on Tristessa. Sluggish, bleeding continuously as she expelled darkness that was part of her body. Shrieking her desperate desire for all to hear, once again. "DEFEAT ME!!!"

"Dullahan… I won't do it alone," she told her, before Astoria's silhouette appeared from the side. Standing in front of her to meet her foes' curved blade with her greatsword. "We will."

CLASH!

With that metallic sound echoing like an eerie scream across the courtyard, the dark knightess' weapon split into two. It lost its solidity before the broken saber even touched the ground. Turning into shadows that fade into nothingness over the ashes.

"This is the end, Dullahan!" Astoria bellowed, unleashing a series of violent, dizzying upward and downward slashes upon her enemy. Impacts to the shoulder guards, cuts under the armpit, and the partial destruction of the arm that, now without a weapon at hand, she was forced to use for self-defense. "FALL ALREADY!"

With an arcing slash, the greatsword crashed against the black cuisses and the Dullahan shrieked, stumbling and taking several steps back. Sighing in deep pain, with chilling wails and dark blood that wouldn't stop dripping...

"Auron!"

After that cry, Astoria and Tristessa moved out of the way. Six shots of armor-piercing bullets hit the center of the Dullahan's chest and her legs, its penetrative power shattering what remained of her darksteel armor.

"May every bullet hurt your soul!" the gunslinger bellowed before emptying the cylinder of his other holy weapon in six powerful bursts. Hollow-point bullets finished the job, exposing her dark chest and going through both her legs. Shadow blood sprayed everywhere, and the grievous wounds forced her down. On her knees. "One last push, Severus!"

"ATTRACTOR!"

The ground shook, ash rose around them and burned. Heat rising along the thaumaturgy channeled by the vengeful spirit of the blood elf, ancestral wrath etched on his bleeding face. His two hands pointed at the Dullahan, generating gravity glyphs around her that activated in the blink of an eye. Trapping the nocturnal enemy in a gravity prison, making it impossible for her to turn into shadows and flee.

"ARGH!" Severus fell backward onto the mattress of ash, suffering from internal injuries as physical manifestations of his damaged soul. From under his dampened black shirt, going up through his neck and along his arms, muscles straining and getting torn; bruises and blood accumulating under the skin. Almost unconscious, but not enough to stop him from screaming at the top of his lungs the name of someone he hated and wanted to see her triumph. "TRISTESSA!"

And he wasn't the only one supporting her.

"Go ahead, Tristessa!" Astoria encouraged her, covered in sweat and blood, both her own and others', but allowing herself the luxury of breathing a sigh of relief. Her armor stained with liquid shadows and ash, her greatsword stuck in the ground; a glorious warrior, not at all dishonored. "Do your job!"

"Your time to shine again, lady!" It was Auron's turn, before he blew on the tips of his smoking revolvers and returned them to their holsters. Then a nod of his hat in her direction for good luck. "You can do it!"

The black-haired girl inhaled deeply and released it, brought to the brink of tears. Governed by light-as-feathers emotions, thanks to the encouragement of those people who meant so much to her…

Severus, having given his all and lying there on the Death-polluted soil, exhausted and on the verge of fainting, made a part of her want to use her thighs as a pillow for his head, just like when they first met. Even though he loathed her for being a Stranger, she still felt butterflies inside her chest when she stared at him. And maybe that wouldn't change.

Astoria, free from the curse that had fallen upon her. With no memory of what had happened, ready to fight and achieve victory from the very first second. The power Tristessa had always lacked in her previous loops, a majestic Queen on the game board. And that firmness, conviction, and determination, critical to ensuring the unfolding of the events that led to that very moment. Traits that made Tristessa's greedy heart tremble.

And Auron. The one who managed to keep that group together. Solid and united, despite not knowing each other. A natural leader; without him, everything would have quickly fallen apart, Tristessa was sure of that. There was a reason the Dullahan recognized him as the King of the shadowy game board… An interesting title for a Gunslinger like him, with underlying implications. A man who kept many secrets, and Tristessa wanted to gain his trust so he wouldn't have to carry those burdens alone.

Those three warriors had paved the way for her, them, and countless others, to endure unimaginable horrors. Blood, sweat, and tears had been shed so that she could walk towards the Dullahan with no other obstacle in her path.

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"Ah…ahh…argh…"

Immobilized and reduced to a fallen warrior. Her body leaned slightly forward, crestfallen, a sign of her downfall. Her cloak of Darkness remained motionless, like the wounded wings of a bird that would never fly again. Her black armor broken, exposing her body made of pure Discord, gravely wounded and bleeding shadows in such quantities that the mixture of earth and ash around her had become a great mirror reflecting the abyss.

It was the first time Tristessa had heard her breathing. Long and deep sighs coming from inside the helmet, which she still held tightly in her right hand, emanating Discord. Ragged, plagued by pain and weakness, yet capable of covering her spirit with a veil of terrifying cold.

"In the end… You cornered me, my Nemesis. Before my mothers' eyes, at last, I failed."

Tristessa heard debilitated, sinister words, and looked up. To the upper part of the wall in front of them. High above, behind the battlements corrupted with black gears and chains, there were the dark apparitions of Endrel and Margules. Watching, with patience. Unhurried by nothing and no one. Embracing each other, intoxicated by cosmic love that transcended time and space.

"What will you do? Will you stab my unprotected chest again? Will you trample my head like a wild beast? No. This will not be my Death," the Dullahan warned her, without resisting or fighting the magically amplified gravity. "You and I are one… The coin continues to spin in the air, our destinies intersecting at this very moment. Now."

"…"

Having thought about the Dullahan for so long, in the privacy of her mind palace, and seeing her magnificent dark figure depicted in imaginary photographs, Tristessa had fantasized about killing her. Driven by her frustrating anger and madness-inducing desperation, she had sought to destroy this tormentor, the bringer of so much suffering and pain.

But she had also had time to think more about that head protected by the eerie black knight helmet, permanently surrounded by the miasma of Discord. Those eyes staring at her through the visor. A very ordinary gaze for a being born from the fruit of love between angels and demons who dwelled in the darkest and most chaotic confines of the Cosmos.

"I think… I always knew the truth about you, Dullahan, ever since I saw you born in the Lake of Murky Waters," Tristessa whispered after a few seconds of meditation. Her voice didn't tremble, nor did her tongue tie at the unnatural chill surrounding that fallen knightess and emanating from her Baptism in Ruins. She crouched down and reached for her enemy's severed head. "Only I was too much of a coward to accept it."

Astoria, Auron, and a nearly fainted Severus on the ground watched in surprise as the girl pulled that severed head from the Dullahan's grasp. With ease, encountering no resistance beyond weight. A willing submission, since the weakened blood elf's gravity spell had been broken seconds ago.

This interrupted all flow of Discord and allowed Tristessa to see through the visor, broken on the right side from being hit and shot. The shadows finally dispersed, just as the tornado of Discord began to spin very slowly, extinguishing all noise in the pitch-black night.

And Tristessa saw herself inside the helmet. As if there were a mirror inside, staring back at her. Black veins covering almost every inch of skin, like the corruption that spread across the real Tristessa's chest; her gray eyes, sad and full of fear, like a little girl's…

No, like hers when she first arrived on Nekrom and met her first Death at the hands of the predators lurking inside the Sea of Trees.

"We are one. Yes, I understand that… You said it. You were born from the combination of all my fears. My failures, my defeats, my…my desire for resignation. For everything to end. And the [Baptism in Ruins], powered by my every Death and Resurrection, is what allowed your creation… Right, Endrel? Margules?"

From atop the corrupted wall, both Servants of Vel'Moran continued to embrace and rejoice in each other's presence… And they laughed. Cruel, painful laughter. Neither confirming nor denying Tristessa's accusation.

"If this was your way of making me see that each Death brought me closer to the point of no return... Well, I'd understand why you're laughing at me." She even joined in their laugh, the irony being too morbid to not do so. "Funny, that I've lost my head on more than one occasion... It must have been quite a spectacle for you two. Am I wrong? Or perhaps you're congratulating me for having defeated the fruit of your love?"

Tristessa nodded to herself, understanding that she had to draw her own conclusions in the face of the grim and unresponsive irrationality of the two supernatural entities. She turned her attention back to her other self, who stared at her without blinking from inside the black full helm. A tired, terrified look that was pitiful.

"I didn't do it alone, you know. Maybe to you, those three heroes are nothing more than pieces in a sinister chess game, but to me..." Behind her, Tristessa felt the presence of the three warriors, their expectant gazes fixed on her back. All three of them breathing. Alive. "After so many loops and so much Death, and even if I don't remember who I am, I know they are my strength. Without them, I am no one and nothing."

The Dullahan's gray eyes wept, reflecting Tristessa's, also unable to stop the tears from flowing.

"As you said, you and I are one. I didn't find support from them until I decided to stop being so pathetic and useless. Maybe I still am, but... Not as much as before, I think."

"...And how did you overcome that obstacle?" The false Tristessa asked inside the dark knight's helmet, bringing a smile to the real one.

"Saying it is easy, doing it not so much. But it consisted of…" The young woman stretched out her arms and placed the severed head where it belonged: between the Dullahan's body shoulders, joining the broken connection at her neck. A perfect match; a dark knightess made whole. "...facing my fears and trusting myself a little more."

Upon hearing those words, the enemy who had pursued her through time and space released a long, guttural sigh, representing the terrible weight she had just lifted from her shoulders.

It was accompanied by tears of melancholic happiness, knowing that the coin had finally landed.

"…I thank you. For fighting the dread of Death and Rebirth. For defeating me."

The Dullahan's last words were filled with a glimmer of peace. Her body, now restored, did not move again, but began to fade away. She collapsed into the same shadows that vanished right away, as if a breath of night wind wanted to carry them away from that world.

Until there was no trace of her left, as if that a creature like her had ever walked the earth.

"■ ■ ■…!"

Upon her child's demise, Margules released a shriek of everlasting pain that broke Tristessa's heart; a mother's sorrow, which only that exhausted girl could hear, finding solace in the arms of her angelic lover.

The tornado of Discord met its end, dispersing along with the Darkness that had swallowed Burnt Fort Hexel. The spiritual manifestations of Endrel and Margules also began to disappear into the darkness of the night, taking with them all traces of Discord and the corruption imposed on the material world.

The cruel laughter, wails of undying sadness, and moans of lust were private echoes, exclusive to Tristessa's ears, the last sounds that reverberated in that courtyard plagued by memories of Death and the suffering of souls who would never find rest.

Until only silence remained among the ashes.

The light of the stars and the Twin Moons shone with cosmic brightness above them once again, and Tristessa took her first breath, free from one of the three shackles imposed upon her.

Without the weight on her conscience of a tormentor drawn to her soul like a voracious predator. A beast of the shadows that had been the metaphysical manifestation of all the horror and psychological torture she had suffered during those harsh days in this new and dangerous world.

"At last… You were defeated. What you wanted," the girl thought, before Auron tackled her in a hug and lifted her into the air, while Astoria arrived alongside a semi-conscious and bleeding Severus, helping him walk with an arm around her shoulders. "Your wish was granted, Dullahan. I thank you, too…"

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