The world flickered.

Not gradual fade but abrupt instability, reality flickering like flame caught in wind. The solid ground beneath became translucent for a single second before solidifying again.

The sky glowed between crimson-black and blackness.

The survivors who surrounded Reinhard began dissolving.

The warriors he had lifted from ash started losing, fading away. Their forms blurred at the edges first, golden light bleeding into the surrounding air and breaking apart into little lights.

Their shapes thinned and they gradually started to become streaks of pale light rather than solid figures.

One by one, they vanished completely.

The warrior with the walking stick, the first he'd saved, moved his eyes to Reinhard's eyes as his form faded.

He smiled, expression carrying gratitude words couldn't convey, and then he was gone, leaving only a faint glow that dispersed within seconds.

The others followed.

Dozens of warriors who were rescued, who were given hope, and who had reached out to others. Who had worked together, who'd built bridges from rubble, who'd formed human ladders, all dissolving into light that rose towards the sky.

Reinhard's hand tightened around Anna's. His fingers pressed against her small palm, feeling warmth that confirmed continued presence. Klein clutched his sleeve with both hands, fabric bunching in a desperate grip.

"Don't worry." Reinhard's whisper carried across the suddenly empty space. "You two stay with me."

The air quivered before the temperature shifted dramatically from oppressive heat to frigid cold in a second. The change created physical discomfort, skin tightening as moisture evaporated, then frost formed.

The endless black-red abyss beneath cracked open.

Then flames rose.

A sea of crimson-black erupted before him, not the gradual welling but explosive emergence. An orb of fire was bursting through cracks in reality, and then he saw the orb shifting.

The orb changed into a sun with black stains leaking down before then the sun split, one side almost fully sliding off. Then it formed a black crown atop with a black serpent with crimson gaze looping around, and then came the crimson chains next.

Before, crimson-black wings spread out from behind it.

It was then that Reinhard saw the images in the half-splitted sun. Faces contorted by malice, cities collapsing in waves of hatred, buildings crumbling, and darkness spreading across landscapes and consuming light wherever found.

He instinctively knew that the flames he was looking at were every sin condensed, every scream, every sin, every terrible act, every evil, and every curse, all turned into this orb of fire that swirled in front of him.

It spoke, but the words appeared in his mind.

"Reinhard."

Single word carrying weight beyond a simple address. Recognition, acknowledgment, something approaching respect, poorly concealed.

But Reinhard didn't respond, as his gaze tracked the various images flashing through the orb.

"You did well not breaking. But in the end, you will eventually crack… If not by my methods, then by time itself, just as many humans do."

And then flames seeped out of the orb, forming a vague silhouette that had a body without distinct features, simply a blank figure.

The face opened where the mouth should be but lacked edges, depth, anything suggesting physical structure. The presence wasn't a body but an idea made visible through the force of malevolent will.

"I will trap you here forever… But Reinhard, I'm curious… Why did you-"

Reinhard shook his head. "I'm not answering that because you wouldn't understand it now… I have a question of my own."

The flames twisted upward, but Reinhard took a step forward.

Klein and Anna remained behind him, shielded by his body from direct exposure to flames.

"Who are you?"

Angra Mainyu trembled before a terrifying presence spread out of it, and the orb itself seemed to tower over Reinhard's form. Everything around seemed to be obscured in crimson-black, with flames seeming to devour everything else in the realm.

Only Reinhard's small figure and the trembling forms of Klein and Anna remained.

"Did you not understand before? I am the Source Of All Evil-"

"No." Reinhard cut in, raising his hand in a gesture requesting a pause. "That's just what you encompass."

The sea of fire stuttered.

Reinhard softly asked. "I mean, who are you at your core? What lies underneath all of this?"

His hand gestured at the burning ocean, at images of suffering writhing within flames, at a presence suggesting consciousness beyond simple evil.

"Are you someone who truly believes in every evil you hold-"

"Why does it matter?" Angra Mainyu asked back instantly. "It will not change your situation."

"Maybe, but I am curious about the being who planned to trap me here forever. And why, even after watching so many humans, can I not find a single image of you seeing them change or any positive action?"

"..."

"It's as if you are incapable of that."

It's then that the presence grew even more terrifying, and then it said without any tone.

"I am what the world needs, and what the world made me. Nothing more and nothing less, for the world doesn't need-"

Reinhard nodded slowly and interjected. "So you're not actually choosing this."

The flames recoiled instinctively from Reinhard's words, before the temperature increased even more. But he didn't mind as he stepped forward, even closer to Angra Mainyu.

"Then... have you ever tried to be more?"

The orb paused before it trembled even more while the black silhouette took a step back for the first time.

"More...?" The word emerged strangled. "What more could I be? I am hatred, decay, and the end. We embodiments can never change."

Each statement was proclaimed with decreasing certainty.

Reinhard hummed before saying softly. "Only because something decided you had to be." He gestured at a now-empty area that had been filled with people working together moments before.

"Who says you must be the Source of All Evil? Who says your only path is to hate everything and end everything? And who says you only have to see the ugliness in the world?"

"Quiet! I know what you are doing, trying to garner a sense of compassion to escape. I have seen it billions of times, felt its millions of times, and know exactly why it's done." Angra Mainyu sneered.

But then, to its surprise, Reinhard nodded and said. "You're right, I am trying to escape."

"As expected-"

"But I want to take you as well."

"...What?"

Reinhard has been thinking about how he could escape this place since he first came. Even as he helped others, dealt with the realm challenges, and worked together with the warriors to save his siblings.

The question of leaving had always plagued him.

But after learning a bit more and conversing with Angra Mainyu, he had a faint idea.

"I had a dream, one where a person who was destined to follow the order and script he was apart. He wasn't a human but a being similar to you."

"The Throne Of Myth…"

Reinhard nodded and continued. "That being was meant to bring the next phase of the world before then walking to their death. He wanted to change this, but he was told by another that it was futile and that he should accept it. As the being got ready to accept it, another existence stepped in and helped that being. Now he could walk a new path instead of following…"

Angra Mainyu fell silent, but Reinhard could see the trembling on the silhouette figure in front.

"I don't know if the path he is walking was better than the previous one, but at the very least, he had a choice to do it. And I tell you this to say, if a being who is also an embodiment can make a choice and stray from their nature… Then why can't you?"

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