[Location: The Surface – The Void Shrine]

[Time: 71 Hours, 50 Minutes into the War]

Time soon passed, and silence of the severed wound didn't last.

The Second Prince screamed, retreating into the heart of his Corrupted Buddha.

The Void Shrine rumbled, shaking the broken earth as the Prince drew upon the very life force of the Abyss to heal the unhealable cut on his chest.

However Damien didn't chase him, in face even if he wanted to, he couldn't.

He hovered in the air, his chest heaving.

CRACK.

A sound like breaking porcelain echoed from his own body.

Damien looked down at his hand, Lyra's hand.

The skin along the forearm had split open. There was no blood, only a blinding, golden light leaking from the fissures. The vessel was failing.

[System Alert: Host Body Critical.]

[Vessel Integrity: 3%.]

[Trans-Dimensional Link Stability: 10 Minutes Remaining.]

"Ten minutes," Damien whispered, his voice raspy.

The sheer output of the Shadow Dragon Kingdom and the King's Severance had burned through Lyra's mortal limits.

If he pushed her any harder, she wouldn't just die; her soul would burn away, leaving nothing to resurrect.

'I'm sorry, Lyra,' Damien thought, guilt washing over him. 'I pushed you too far.'

Suddenly, a warmth bloomed in the back of his mind, a warmth that wasn't his own.

'Master...'

It was a faint, mental whisper. Lyra's consciousness, suppressed deep within the possession, surfaced for a fleeting second.

'Do not stop,' Lyra's voice was weak, but fiercely loyal.

'My life belongs you ever since you saved the elves back then. Use me. Burn me to ash if you must... just win.'

Hearing this, Damien grit his teeth behind the mask.

"Stupid girl. I didn't come back to sacrifice my friends."

He looked up.

The Prince had stopped screaming.

The Void Shrine was collapsing in on itself. The Corrupted Buddha was crumbling, its mass swirling into a singularity above the Prince's head.

He was condensing his entire Domain into one final attack.

"ZERO!" the Prince roared, his voice distorted by pain and madness.

"Although I don't know what you did, but as payment! I will erase EVERYTHING!"

A sphere of absolute nothingness began to grow above the buddha's head, a Void Nova if you will.

Within a few seconds, it began to expand. It was growing fast, so fast that if it detonated, it wouldn't just kill Damien. It would wipe out the Dwarven Kingdom, the Elven Forests, and everything within a thousand miles.

Damien calculated the mana cost.

To stop that Nova, he would need an attack stronger than the King's Severance. He would most likley need to detonate his own cores.

'If I do that,' Damien realized, staring at the flashing red timer.

'I won't have enough energy to maintain the link.'

'I might kill him. But if it doesn't work? Right now im using lyra's body, im not sure if detonating it while im in the abyss would work? And even if it does? Would lyra survive?.'

Thinking of this, his eyes struggled with thoughts

After a few seconds, not being able to come up with a good decision, he light out a sigh, as his eyes slowly shone with a determined light

"Figures," Damien let out a dry, self-deprecating laugh.

"The one time I try to be the good guy, I get the bad ending."

Yes he had made his choice.

Looking at the darkned skies and the ground below, Damien raised his hand. He looked at the Magitech Broadcast Rune broadcasting this event one last time.

The static now cleared on millions of screens across the world.

The people of Elias, Dwarves, Humans, Elves, sensing this gaze leaned in.

They saw the masked figure floating in front of a black sun. They saw the golden light leaking from his cracking skin.

They expected a boast. They expected the arrogant "Honoured One" to declare victory.

But when Zero spoke, the distortion was gone. The arrogance was gone.

He sounded tired. He sounded young.

"Hey," Damien said softly.

He reached up and pulled the spectral mask off his face.

The world gasped. Underneath the mask was the face of Lyra, but the eyes... one gold, one black. The eyes of Damien Voss.

"You see, I never wanted to be a hero," Damien confessed to the silent continent.

"I didn't want to save the world. I hate responsibility. I hate working overtime."

He looked at the camera, but his eyes seemed to look past it, toward the people he knew were watching.

"I just wanted to be greedy," he smiled sadly.

"I wanted to hoard everything. My money. My secrets. My people."

In the Dwarven mech, Alaric and Leona stared at the screen, tears streaming down their faces.

"I just wanted to keep the people I liked alive," Damien whispered. "That's all."

The Void Nova behind him pulsed. It was ready.

Damien took a deep breath.

"Isabelle," he said, his voice breaking slightly. "I'm sorry. I might be late for dinner."

"Mum. Dad. Sorry that I never could rescue you."

He looked at the Prince, then back at the world.

"Everyone... look away. I'm going to be a little reckless."

With a smile Damien faced turned to face the Second Prince and the expanding black sun.

"System," Damien commanded.

[Yes, Host?]

"Divert all power from the Trans-Dimensional Link. Shut down the return protocol. Pour everything into the Will Core."

[Warning: This will sever the connection. Host Soul will be forcibly ejected to the Abyss. Reconnection will be impossible.]

"Do it."

[...Acknowledged.]

The golden thread connecting him to the surface began to burn.

Damien felt a surge of power unlike anything he had ever felt.

It was the fuel of his own existence.

He flared his aura. The gold light became blinding white.

"You want to erase my world?" Damien roared, flying straight at the Void Nova.

He raised both hands.

"Then you'll have to erase ME first!"

He prepared to die.

But as he closed his eyes to unleash the final explosion, he felt something strange.

It started as a tickle on his skin. Then a warmth. Then a flood.

It wasn't heat. It wasn't pain.

It was... hope.

Specks of light began to rise from the ground below. From the bunker. From the mountains. From the distant cities.

Millions of tiny, white lights floated up from the earth, rushing toward the lone figure in the sky.

[System Alert: External Will Resonance Detected.]

[The Hopes of the Era are converging on you.]

Damien opened his eyes.

Unlike what he had expected, the world wasn't looking away. Instead the world was pushing him forward.

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