The world was ending again.
Ash hung over the twilight plains where Axis once stood. The sky split in streaks of white and crimson, the divine remnants clashing against demonic fractures. The earth bled molten gold where Aureon's essence had touched it — and black flame licked through the ruins where Ravh'Zereth's will had passed.
Sid stood at the center of that dying land.
Half his body glowed with celestial brilliance — veins of gold pulsing under his skin — while the other half burned with abyssal shadow. His reflection in the cracked air shimmered between god and daemon, mortal and myth.
He no longer knew what he was.
Only what he must do.
Far above, the gods' avatars descended like comets, cloaked in blinding halos. Behind them, the throne-worlds of Aureon's kin were visible through rifts — crystalline bastions trembling with war-song.
Opposite them, from the shattered Gate of Hal'Zirath, rose the seven demon lords. Azareth led the charge, his wings a storm of violet fire, each beat shaking the heavens. Behind him strode Bal'Morr, Kaegra the Rot Queen, Vyrmoth the Eternal Hunger — the last titans of the infernal.
Between both armies, humanity knelt and wept.
"Sid!"
Lucien's voice reached through the chaos. He stood beside Yara, both bloodied but unbroken. "If you fight them both, you'll die!"
Sid looked up, eyes burning with twin light. "Then let eternity remember why I did."
Aureon's voice rolled across the fractured skies.
"My spark was not given to destroy, but to preserve creation. Surrender, bearer — your flame defies order."
Ravh'Zereth's roar followed, an abyssal counterpoint.
"You speak of order, yet you caged me for daring to see truth! The child is mine... born of your arrogance and my wrath!"
Their words warped reality itself. Oceans lifted, continents cracked, constellations tore free and spiraled like shattered glass.
Sid stepped forward, the ground crystallizing into a reflection of the heavens beneath his feet.
"You're both wrong," he whispered.
"This world isn't yours anymore."
He raised his hand — black and gold light entwining, forming a new kind of flame. Neither divine nor demonic. Something beyond both.
The Eighth Flame.
The two primordial forces hesitated — even they could feel it. The flame was unbound by creation's law, answering to no cosmic hierarchy. Aureon's radiance dimmed; Ravh'Zereth's corruption stilled. For the first time since time began, both gods seemed afraid.
Lucien shielded his eyes. "Sid… what are you doing?!"
"Ending their war," Sid said, voice breaking with power and sorrow.
He brought the Eighth Flame down.
Light and shadow collided — not in destruction, but fusion. The sky turned silent, colorless. All matter, all sound, all divinity vanished into one still moment. Aureon and Ravh'Zereth screamed as their essences were pulled inward, their forms collapsing into the flame until nothing remained but ripples of memory.
The world was remade in silence.
When the light faded, Sid knelt in a field of ash and dawn.
The gods were gone.
The demon lords — vanished beyond the veil.
Only mortals remained, trembling under a newborn sun.
Velgrin stood at the horizon, cloak torn, eyes gleaming with unreadable satisfaction.
"Four flames lit," she murmured. "And the Eighth awakens."
Sid looked up at her. "You used me to reach this."
Velgrin smiled faintly. "No, Sid. You became it. The bridge between oblivion and eternity."
She turned, vanishing into the mist.
Only her whisper lingered: "Ascension begins."
Sid gazed at his trembling hands — divine glow fading, demonic mark burning out. Both halves dimmed to human flesh once more.
Lucien approached quietly. "What now?"
Sid rose slowly, looking at the pale horizon. "Now… we rebuild. And if the gods or demons ever return…"
He clenched his fist — a flicker of the Eighth Flame dancing in his palm.
"…they'll answer to us."
As dawn broke over the ashes of divinity, the world breathed again — fragile, imperfect, but free.