On the other side, in the palace, Queen Aphrolite entered the royal hall where the king sat alone, pleased with the decision he had made and for placing his trust in Alistair. The moment Aphrolite entered, his smile widened in delight.
"My queen, you won't believe what kind of decision I've made! But I promise you, it's in favor of the kingdom!" said the king, awaiting a question from his wife, but was instead met with an annoyed and disgusted face.
"I've already heard. An alliance with witches? Have you lost your mind? You want to make peace with those who've been our enemies for centuries?"
"You already heard? But on the bright side, we might benefit from the witches. They'll bring rain, improve the weather, and help us with many medical issues," said the king with a confident smile, trying to convince the queen.
"I said no!" the queen shouted with a commanding and fierce tone.
"…Very well, if that's what you want, I'll refuse. Anything for my darling," said the king, as a pink glow lit up in his eyes.
"This is usually how it goes. I can't believe Alistair actually asked me…" thought Aphrolite to herself in satisfaction, then an idea crossed her mind.
"Tell me, who suggested the idea?"
"Umm… it was Lords Alistair Crowley, Ephraim Nethercott, and Arabella Medici," said the king in a voice filled with obedience.
"I see… And do you plan to let them go unpunished? Such ideas are heretical. They'll likely incite a rebellion and pose a threat to your throne. Wouldn't it be better to get rid of them? Don't you think so?" the queen asked, pretending to contemplate, though her plan had been in motion since the moment she stepped into the room.
"You're right. It will be announced immediately that these three are heretics who deserve impalement!"
"A wise decision," said the queen with a satisfied tone and a light smile.
———
Outside the kingdom, Alistair arrived at the city minutes later, walking with slow steps and lifeless eyes, dried from excessive crying. He noticed how the roads and shops, which were once vibrant and full of people, were now empty. Newspapers floated in the air, and the weather was cold—but he didn't care. As long as the queen was in her palace, nothing else mattered.
That's when Alistair finally approached and realized why no one was around. Near a stone platform he had never seen before, a massive crowd had gathered to watch what was being displayed above. At the top, there were two massive crosses side by side. On them were Arabella and Ephraim, bound by coarse, unbreakable metal chains. Near each of them stood three knights, each holding a long spear with a sharp blade, while the king stood nearby.
"W-What is this?" Alistair stood among the crowd, his eyes widening in horror.
Then, the king shouted, his voice echoing throughout the kingdom, stirring excitement in everyone:
"O people of my great kingdom! Some of you may have heard rumors that I am forming an alliance with witches!... That news is false! And these heretics are the ones who spread such vile rumors in an attempt to stir rebellion and usurp the holy family's throne!"
The king paused briefly, letting his words sink in before adding:
"What kind of punishment suits heretics like these?!"
"Burn them!" someone shouted from the crowd, followed by many others.
"Impale them!" another screamed.
"Feed them to pigs!" a third shouted. Then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth—each one suggesting a new way to kill them.
"Ephraim…" Arabella whispered softly, showing no panic about the current situation. Ephraim was the same.
"Yes, Arabella?"
"I don't know who to blame… Should I blame Alistair for proposing this idea? Or you for supporting him? Or myself for bringing Alistair here?" Arabella asked in confusion and disbelief.
"I don't know… But Alistair is connected to all of this. Maybe blaming him is the best option," Ephraim said with a faint sarcastic chuckle.
"What do you think he would've done?"
"I honestly don't know how that man thinks… but… what do you say we blame the gods—those who wrote our fate—and become the heretics they want us to be?" Ephraim said, in a tone both serious and joking at the same time.
"What a wise choice… damn the gods," Arabella said, attempting to match his heretical tone, but her voice came out cold and hollow.
"damn the gods," Ephraim added.
"Look, my great people! They're cursing the gods before our very eyes!" said the king dramatically. The crowd roared in rage, their screams rising louder.
"Death to them!"
"Kill these damned traitors!"
The king nodded to the knights, giving them the signal to begin. Each knight stood on three sides, gripping their spears tightly and aiming at their targets. Arabella and Ephraim tried to reach out with their hands—just their fingertips to touch each other—but the spears swiftly pierced their bodies, breaking through bone and stabbing their hearts, stealing life from them. The crowd screamed with excitement, as if they had won a great battle.
"…What is this? Why? Why? Why?... Why do you humans commit sins, even though you know it's wrong?... Not just humans—witches and all forms of life… Why?" Alistair thought to himself as tears slowly fell from his eyes.
Then the knights grabbed torches and lit the corpses of Arabella and Ephraim as the crowd cheered in pride and madness.
"Does a person really deserve life if they don't value it in others?… If there's no inevitable end that everyone fears… no one will ever value life again… I'm done… I'm done trying to be a messenger of peace… I'm done with dreams!" Alistair thought to himself. The color of his tears turned red, as if he were crying blood—and that's when the others noticed him.
"Huh? Isn't that Alistair, one of the three heretics?" someone said.
"Yes… We've caught the third one this quickly!" another added.
"I'm not a messiah who will die for your sins… I'm the one who will purify you all from your sins… That's why… All of you… please die…!" Alistair said coldly. Then, a faint white light glimmered in the square around his pupils.
"…Empyreal Entelechy…"
The atmosphere in the kingdom changed—it seemed to be covered by a membrane that prevented anything from entering or leaving. The sky turned a pale yellow while the moon glowed with a velvety purple light. The ground transformed into a desert of thick, sinking sand, making movement difficult. All buildings disappeared from view—only massive black iron stakes could be seen in the distance.
"What is this place?!" the king shouted in terror, finding himself buried waist-deep in the sand. It wasn't quicksand—just densely packed sand.
In the sky, a shadow loomed in front of the moon, making the queen shiver—she was inside the strange place too. The entire population of the kingdom was trapped in it.
"What nonsense is this? The husband floats before the moon and the wife before the sun… Anyway, how did he escape my spell?" the queen wondered in fear. Then, in the sky, hundreds—if not thousands—of black iron stakes manifested, filling the sky.
"My God!" someone screamed in horror and tried to run, but the sand slowed everyone down.
"I am the 'Purge Herald,' Alistair Crowley… the harbinger of death to all living beings… the embodiment of death and purity… and for that reason… I have decided that the human race in this kingdom does not deserve life because of their sins… I will do the world a favor by purging it of your kind!"
The next second, the stakes shot down at unbelievable speed, raining upon everyone. In the next heartbeat, all that could be heard were screams of pain, agony, and sobbing—drowning out even the sounds of flesh being torn, pierced, and blood splattering, until the entire sand turned red, forming a lake of blood where the dead floated.
"No!"
"My God, save us!"
"I don't want to die!"
"Mom!"
The king was running with all his might, stumbling with every step. The stakes were crashing behind him with a deafening, terrifying sound that sent shivers through his body. He ran among corpses until one of the wounded, pinned to the ground by a massive stake through his chest, grabbed his leg.
"…P-Please… save me…!"
The king trembled harder, shook himself free, and kicked the dying man's hand with all his strength.
"Let go of me!" the king shouted, but it was too late. A stake pierced through his back, creating a massive hole in his chest. He looked down at the cavity in his body, blood pouring like a waterfall. He bled from his mouth, his eyes reddened from the hemorrhage. He fell to the ground, barely able to move his eyes to look up at Alistair's shadow floating in front of the moon, his trembling hands raised.
"No… I don't… want to die—" the king whispered with the last of his strength, but several more iron stakes slammed into his body with tremendous force, scattering the sand and creating a dust cloud. When it cleared, his body was mutilated and torn apart—his back ripped open, guts spilling out, blood flowing rapidly to join the sea of death.
Far from that area, the queen was hiding, holding her daughter's hand. The stakes were falling around them, but before they could reach her, they struck something invisible and veered off course. Ivara held the queen's hand with all her strength, trembling in fear and looking around her. Wherever her eyes looked, dozens of people were falling dead — men, women, and children. She leaned to hide behind Aphrolite's back out of sheer terror.
"It's good that my magic is working here, otherwise we'd both be dead… But this won't last. Sooner or later, something worse will happen… We'll have to fight," thought Aphrolite to herself before turning to her daughter and holding her by the shoulders.
"Ivara, can you help me one last time? I promise, once we survive this, I'll let you do whatever you want with me for the rest of your life," said the queen in a nervous tone that sounded desperate.
"O-Okay!" Ivara said, still confused and scared, but her heart was pounding strongly — not from fear, but from love.
"We must fight in order to live, and your mother has a plan that might work," said the queen, her voice trembling but with a hint of confidence, then added:
"Can you… die for me? Just this one time? I promise I'll bring you back to life once we win!"
———
Outside Noah's nightmare, morning had arrived, marking the beginning of a new day. In Sector 6, Room 202, with the rise of the dawn sun, Luo Yan was lying on her wide bed, surrounded by stuffed animals. That's when she slowly opened her eyes. She sat up straight, yawned, and stretched lazily, then looked at the wall in front of her.
"...Agatha...?" Luo Yan whispered to herself, puzzled and confused, like someone repeating a foreign word they just heard but didn't understand.
At that moment, Luo Yan's phone alarm rang in its annoying tone meant to wake her up, but luckily, she had woken up just a bit earlier. She reached for her phone and turned off the alarm before tossing it beside her.
"...What was I just saying? ...Who cares? Anyway, the joint investigation starts today, doesn't it? ...Maybe I should visit Noah before that," Luo Yan thought to herself, then yawned again.
"I hope there's good news."
———
In Noah's nightmare, in the kingdom that had turned into a desert surrounded by gigantic black stakes the size of buildings, the rain of stakes had finally stopped — but only with the death of every human. The ground was dyed with the blood of the guilty and carved with the black stakes embedded in their bodies. At that moment, Alistair began to float down, descending until his feet touched the sticky, blood-soaked earth.
He raised his head, and he could see Princess Ivara and Queen Aphrolite still alive, holding each other's hands tightly like a mother and daughter. Normally, if Alistair saw a witch holding her daughter's hand that way, he might feel a little mercy for them — but that scene only made him angry.
"That bitch… after killing Agatha, how dare she act kindly to anyone?! I want to kill her! I must kill her! I will kill her!"
Aphrolite turned to Ivara, raising her hands to hold her by her cheeks.
"I promise... it will be quick," said Aphrolite in a calm, reassuring tone, and Ivara nodded her head.
Suddenly, Aphrolite closed the distance between her and Ivara and kissed her on the lips. Ivara's cheeks turned red with intensity. Then, her face went pale. A white orb emerged from her body, moving as if it had a soul, leaving Ivara's body and entering Aphrolite's, being slowly absorbed. After it was done, Aphrolite pulled away from the kiss and released her daughter, who suddenly fell to the ground — a lifeless corpse.
Then Aphrolite turned to Alistair, looking directly into his eyes and at the trail of blood that had flowed from them due to his crying.
Alistair looked at Ivara's lifeless body on the ground, then shifted his gaze to Aphrolite and said in a disgusted tone:
"How disgusting—"
Aphrolite winked, and immediately, half of Alistair's body exploded, blood and flesh splattering everywhere. Everything above his midsection had completely disappeared, erased from existence — yet, somehow, his lower half was still standing, not yet fallen.
"I became this powerful only because I combined love with seduction… I no longer need to give commands; the world acts on its own in ways that benefit us… Doesn't that… make me a goddess?! But… it's unfortunate I'll have to separate from Ivara and revive her..." said the queen with a tone full of excitement mixed with sorrow, then looked at Alistair's corpse — or rather, what remained of it.
"Clearly, his Empyreal Entelechy isn't complete, or else he'd have had a high chance of defeating me. What a loss… if only you had waited a little longer and become much stronger, it might've made a difference," the queen said mockingly, then turned to look at the sky behind her.
"Anyway… why hasn't his Empyreal Entelechy shattered yet? It's supposed to break when the user dies, right?"
Aphrolite's eyes widened in confusion and anxiety. She turned around — only to see that Alistair's body was still moving. His skeleton was rapidly reconstructing itself, covered by layers of nerves, then muscles and flesh, then his skin. His face returned to its original, unmarred form, his eyes regenerated into their sockets, once again void of life, and his hair, eyelashes, and eyebrows regrew.
"I-It's impossible?! Has he come back to life?!" Aphrolite thought in shock, and for the first time in her life, she felt fear.
At that moment, Alistair pointed his hand at her, and black iron stakes appeared around him in the air, ready to launch. Aphrolite expected this, so she tried to jump back and move away to avoid the attack — but she felt something holding her in place. She looked down to see that metallic chains had emerged from beneath the sand and tightly bound both her legs, preventing her from moving. Even the world refused to respond to her will.
"You said the world would act on its own for your sake because of love, right?" Alistair whispered, and immediately, one of the stakes shot forward at incredible speed, piercing Aphrolite in the chest. Blood splattered, staining the ground — but to her shock, she felt no pain at all.
"The world wouldn't dare move in my presence… out of fear."
Aphrolite gritted her teeth in annoyance and anger, then grabbed the stake embedded in her body and forcefully pulled it out, throwing it to the ground.
"I don't care if the world fears you or any other crap you might say! You're dead... Oh Death, collapse and kill this one who opposes me!" Aphrolite shouted desperately.
"No. I won't."
Aphrolite's eyes widened in shock and disbelief. Was this lunatic speaking in Death's name now? Had he lost his mind?
"You're speaking to Death now. Death is the person standing in front of you... and he is also your fate."
Aphrolite bit her lip and then waved her hand in one last desperate attempt to fold space and open a path to escape — but nothing opened.
"I-It's impossible!" the queen whispered in terror. That's when the rest of the iron stakes pierced her body, shredding her flesh and ravaging her from the inside, tearing her guts and intestines and puncturing her lung. Aphrolite fell to the ground, bleeding heavily. This time she felt the pain — an unbearable, excruciating pain. And just as she was about to scream, a black stake fell from the sky and impaled her throat, leaving a wide hole like that made by a nail, preventing her from making any sound — only a hideous gurgle and bubbles popping in the blood and air.
Aphrolite couldn't move due to the stakes pinning her firmly to the ground. Even the slightest movement shifted the stakes and caused intense pain. But she could still hear Alistair's footsteps approaching her. Her heart pounded faster, her eyes filled with tears, and her heart felt like it was about to explode from the sheer terror and horror she felt — as if Death itself was approaching with slow steps, cold steps that made the dead tremble.
Then he stood over her, looking down at her, placing his foot on the stake in her throat and pressing down harder. Aphrolite bit her lower lip hard until it bled, trying to resist the pain. Then Alistair leaned forward, one foot on the stake, staring at her with lifeless eyes.
"I'm not here to give you a long speech about how much I hate you. You made me kill Agatha, and crying about it won't bring her back. But I wish... I just wish I could leave you here in this place forever — visit you every day just to see your suffering expression, give you enough food to keep you alive, and every day… I'd cut off a piece of your body and feed it to the pigs. But what's the point of doing that without Agatha…?" said Alistair, then gave Aphrolite a faint smile before a final pillar descended from the sky and crushed her head to pieces.
Alistair stepped back after making sure Aphrolite was dead — and everyone else as well. Then he fell to his knees from exhaustion, his hands today stained with more blood than ever before. He raised his head to see the violet moon glowing in the yellow sky.
"I am... Alistair Crowley... 'The purge herlad'... I was born to cleanse this world of its sins..." said Alistair to himself, then added in a cold but satisfied voice:
"But… there's still one thing that needs to be purified..." Alistair whispered to himself, then using his index and middle fingers, pointed them at his chest where his heart was and thrust with all his strength, piercing his chest. His hand entered his ribcage, and blood spilled from his mouth. Then, with force, he pulled out his heart and looked once more at the moon.
"...What a peaceful scene to die to… Isn't it, Agatha?" Alistair said before crushing his heart into pieces. Then, the light faded from his eyes, and he collapsed to the ground — dead.
ACT III: THE END