Dax's eyes blinked, not once but twice.

As that small gesture happened, Nyra's heart clutched tight, like it might stop altogether. Her mind raced—burning with the weight of pain, yet overflowing with sheer happiness she could hardly contain.

Dax was alive. Breathing.

Those two blinks were more than a movement. They were a miracle. A message. Proof that he hadn't slipped away, that fate hadn't stolen him yet.

Hope rushed through her body, traced like fire through every vein, like lightning crawling across a stormed sky. Her knees weakened under its force, but she didn't care. Her chest ached, but it wasn't from despair anymore—it was from joy too big for her to hold.

She wanted to scream, to laugh, to cry all at once. The blood, the wounds, the fear of losing him—it all blurred into nothing. Those eyes, even barely opening, even flickering in weakness, were brighter than the whole battlefield around her.

In that fragile moment, Dax wasn't just alive—he was everything.

Laugh or cry—Nyra had a choice.But her heart made it for her. She chose to cry.

Her breath came heavy, ragged, as she hugged the half-unconscious Dax. Her face pressed against his chest, a chest soaked and dripping with blood. The warmth was fading, but it was still there. She didn't care. She didn't care if it was lava instead of blood, burning her skin to ash—she would still hold him. Because Dax was alive. And for Nyra, that was the whole world.

Her tears ran down, mixing with his blood, painting her face with both grief and relief. In that moment, nothing else mattered. Not the war, not the chaos, not the gods or demons fighting around them. It was just Dax, and the fragile beat of his heart that told her he hadn't left her yet.

In the main hall, Nova Makai stood, his eyes locked with Vaslimo. Two storms facing each other, tension cutting the air sharper than any blade. The painted warriors clashed with the chaos Vaslimo summoned, filling the hall with thunderous echoes. But even amid that madness, the world seemed to freeze for Ana.

Ana, who had been lost in her emptiness, finally came to her senses. Something awkward, something strange—unwanted—stirred inside her. Her heart wasn't empty anymore. It trembled. It burned. It screamed with a weight she hadn't felt in years.

It was like the last breaths of Aazin and Ryzin—their souls, their voices, their unfinished dreams—had clung to her. Like they had left behind an echo, a mark that refused to let her remain hollow. The memory of them pressed down on her chest, dragging her deeper, whispering in her ear.

For the first time, Ana felt pain—not from wounds, not from battle—but from loss. From love unspoken. From a friendship broken.Her vacant heart… was no longer vacant.

Ana couldn't decide. Which path should she take now?Would she raise her sword against the kids? Or walk away, carve her own road from this moment onward? Her heart screamed, No more fights, but her mind was chained in a dilemma. The abyss forest she once carried inside her soul—vanished, gone like smoke. All that remained was the weight of her own confusion.

And then came another worry. Her friends. Aazin. Ryzin. Their faces haunted her, dragging her deeper into a memory she never wanted to touch again.

She remembered something—long ago, when Aazin and Ryzin were still children. Back on the ship. There was an old man there, someone everyone respected, someone even Draven bowed his head to.

The memory hit sharp. A small wooden ship rocking endlessly in the middle of the ocean. The sky above was painted black, clouds rolling like monsters, growling with thunder. Waves slapped against the hull, restless, impatient, as if the sea itself wanted to sink the ship before the ritual could begin.

The ship was no ordinary vessel. Red velvet sheets hung along the walls, damp with saltwater. Skulls of animals—and worse, of men—were nailed to the edges, grinning down like spectators, hollow eyes watching. Every plank of wood reeked of dried blood and old incense.

The old man walked in. His hair tied in a topknot, his wrinkled hands clutching a crooked stick. His back was bent with age, but his aura weighed heavily—so heavy that silence drowned the room. Even the storm outside seemed to pause when his feet touched the deck.

Ana had been there that day, small and wide-eyed. She saw how he pulled Aazin and Ryzin inside, placing them before an altar carved from black stone. Strange symbols were etched deep into it, glowing faintly red, pulsing like veins. The air was suffocating, thick, alive with whispers she couldn't trace.

Then the old man brought out a black bowl. Its surface was cracked, yet inside it shimmered as though it held shadows themselves. He raised a sharp knife—its blade jagged, stained with old rust and blood—and without hesitation, he drew it across the boys' arms.

Their cries echoed through the ship, thin and piercing, but he did not flinch. He caught their blood, mixed it in the bowl. The liquid swirled on its own, twisting, alive, forming shapes that clawed at the edges of the vessel.

Then came the chanting. He opened a black tome, the pages older than anyone alive, and his voice tore through the air. Words not meant for humans. Words that bent the air, that slithered like snakes around their ears, sharp and twisted, burning into the skull.

The ship itself breathed with them. The velvet sheets flapped, though there was no wind. The skulls rattled against the wood, clattering their teeth as if laughing. The sea outside roared, and yet inside—it was only those words.

And then it happened. For the first time, Ana saw it.Aazin and Ryzin's small bodies shook, their eyes rolling white, their skin cracking with black lines as if something inside them wanted to crawl out. Their voices were gone, swallowed in a scream too deep to be human.

Their catastrophe form.Born not of nature. Not of will.But of curse.

Ryzin fell like a snapped mast, body tumbling through frost-burned air. Blood spattered the snow in slow, angry drops. Even as he slid, even as the world blurred at the edges, he kept talking—spitting words like a dying command.

"For all time, I have never seen an enemy like you that strong. Don't get so pumped up. Now, now, what is coming after you is none other than my leaders. No one can touch Vaiven, and if they touch, they are done for. Your mother, father, and your friends will all pay this rent for killing us. You can't protect urself, AAurenRyuki.

His voice trembled, but it held. He fumbled with something at his side—a small red button, slick with his blood. Fingers shaking, he pressed it. The button clicked, a sound as small and final as a coffin lid.

And then, as the cold cut deeper and the fight roared on around them, Ryzin forced one last sentence through cracked lips:

"Auren Ryuki, see you in hell soon."

He exhaled once and died.

Auren watched it all with the flat calm of someone who had been staring into voids for too long. His eyes narrowed—not with fury, not with triumph, but with a chill that ran bone-deep. The words burned, the threat hung in the air, but his face didn't shatter; it folded into something harder. He let the sound of the hall and the storm wash over him, a distant tide.

Pain finally took him—too much of it. He slumped, collapsing into the cold snow, body heavy. The world tilted. He lay there, chest heaving, breath ragged and loud in the white silence. For a long minute, he simply rested, letting the cold bite and the blood warm his skin, breathing hard, each pull of air a promise or a warning—he didn't know which.

Auren's head turned slowly, heavy like stone, his neck stiff with pain. His eyes dragged toward the left—toward the temple. There, through the mist of cold and the drifting snowfall, stood the great snake statue. Its scales carved in eternal stillness, its stone fangs sharp and merciless. Yet the sunlight pierced the clouded sky just enough to kiss its crown, faintly glowing, like the heavens themselves were bowing to it.

Auren blinked. Once. Twice. Not a prayer—but it felt like one. A blink of respect. A blink of quiet admiration.

His lips moved, cracked and bloodied, voice raw but steady. Lying in the snow, body broken yet spirit still burning, he spoke toward that silent serpent:

"So… you are the mother snake. The one holding this world on your head. Creation, preservation, destruction… all flowing from you. Balance itself."

His breath left him in a long sigh, white mist rising into the frozen air. He coughed, spat blood into the snow, but his smile—small, faint, weary—stayed.

"Thanks to this madness… this cursed adventure… I got to know something like it. Something greater. Maybe that's enough."

The statue remained still, yet the faint glow shimmered stronger, as if listening. As if answering.

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