The world had stopped screaming.
For a long moment, there was nothing — no sound, no wind, no heartbeat. Only stillness. The kind that comes after the end of all things.
Then the ash began to fall.
It drifted from the fractured sky like gray snow, coating mountains, ruins, and oceans that no longer remembered their shape. The light had turned dim and strange — not day, not night — only an endless twilight where shadows and radiance bled together.
Sid opened his eyes to it.
He lay on cracked ground that shimmered faintly, the surface bending under his touch as if it weren't fully solid. His breaths came shallow, uneven, and every inhale burned like swallowing fire. For a moment, he couldn't tell if he was alive or only dreaming of it.
Around him stretched a broken landscape — half-real, half-memory. Cities suspended in the distance like ghostly reflections. Rivers flowing upward. The horizon folding in on itself.
"This… isn't the world anymore," he whispered hoarsely.
A voice stirred within him — Aureon's, calm but distant.
"No. You stand in the space between — where the living and divine converge. Reality bleeds, and you are at its wound."
Then another voice, dark and deep, coiled around the words like smoke.
You call this ruin? Ravh'Zereth growled. No. This is purity. The ash of gods is the soil of rebirth.
Sid gritted his teeth, forcing himself up to his knees. "Rebirth? Look around you!"
He pointed toward the floating ruins, the faint outlines of people screaming as they vanished into the gray. "They're gone. Everyone... everything... burned because you both couldn't stop fighting!"
Aureon's tone remained soft, almost mournful. "The Eighth Flame was meant to awaken when balance was chosen, not forced. Velgrin has undone the rhythm of creation. Now even I cannot predict what remains."
Sid's fingers curled into fists. "Then tell me how to stop it."
"Stop it?" Aureon's form flickered faintly before him — a tall figure of light, his eyes like stars. "You can't stop a flame born from both the divine and the abyss. You can only decide which side it consumes first."
Ravh'Zereth's laughter shook the twilight. He will choose me. He already burns with my fire. He has since the beginning.
"I'm not your weapon!" Sid shouted. "And I'm not a god either!"
The void rippled around him, responding to his fury. Cracks spread beneath his feet, revealing flashes of the real world below — battlefields drenched in blood, gods limping away, demon lords roaring in defiance.
He saw Lucien's broken sword buried in the dirt beside a crater.
He saw Yara's banner still fluttering among human survivors, barely holding.
He saw Velgrin, standing alone amid the blazing remains of the cathedral, eyes closed, smiling.
Sid's heartbeat quickened. "He's still there… Velgrin lit the Eighth Flame."
Aureon's gaze turned grave. "And the cost will be beyond all measure."
In the mortal realm, the gods' avatars were gone.
Where once towers of light stood, only fragments of radiant stone remained. The divine hosts had withdrawn, retreating into the higher planes where the rules of existence still held.
Azareth stood among the ruins, his immense form scorched, black fire leaking from the cracks in his armor-like skin. Around him, the surviving Demon Lords gathered, their bodies battered, their eyes grim.
One of them —Irethiel the Widow Queen spoke first. "Even the gods flee. Their thrones tremble. We could finish it now."
Azareth did not answer at once. He stared into the horizon, where the pillar of the Eighth Flame still burned faintly like a dying star. "No," he finally rumbled. "The war is not done. The Gate remains closed. Until Hal'Zirath walks again, none of us are free."
"And Velgrin?" another asked. "He acts beyond us."
Azareth's lip curled in disdain. "Let him. His ambition is a matchstick in the storm. When the Gate opens, even his flame will bow."
But though he said it with certainty, his gaze lingered. Deep within those burning eyes was unease — for even Azareth could feel the Eighth Flame's pull, whispering to the part of him that had once been divine.
Sid stumbled across the half-realm, the twilight wind tearing at his cloak. Every few steps, visions rippled before him — moments from the past, faces of the fallen, laughter and screams blending into one endless echo.
Lucien's words came back to him: If you lose yourself, who are we supposed to follow?
Yara's voice: Someone has to hold the light.
Nox's whisper: You were never meant to be free — only to choose the chain.
Sid pressed a trembling hand to his chest. His daemon core burned against Aureon's spark, the two forces twisting inside him like a storm. He could feel them trying to devour each other — and he was caught between.
"I won't be a vessel anymore," he muttered through clenched teeth. "I'll end this… even if it burns me too."
The half-realm trembled, as though his resolve reached beyond its boundaries. For a heartbeat, both Aureon and Ravh'Zereth fell silent — listening.
Then the horizon shimmered, and in the far distance, the faintest glow of dawn touched the fractured world. Not real dawn, not yet — but something like hope trying to remember what light felt like.
Back on the battlefield, Yara leaned on her glaive, watching the strange twilight sky. Her voice was soft, almost prayerful.
"Sid… if you're still out there… come back. We're not done fighting yet."