Sythris could no longer tell where she was. Her arms were battered, and the once-shining blue armor and cape that had marked her as a knight were now torn and riddled with damage. Blood and deep scratches covered what had once been a beautiful face.
All around the area, the crash of the King from the sky had created utter destruction. Although everything had already been nearly destroyed by Sebastian's cross-summoning and the earlier fights, now it was all dirt and mist. The first rays of dawn pierced through them, revealing countless specks of dust trying to escape the area.
The floor that had once defined the area for visualizing the golden castles was now uneven, like a barren stone platform, and the golden castle could be seen burning in the distance.
Sythris felt weak; she could not circulate anything.
She muttered as she looked ahead, seeing a giant, marvelous emerald sword piercing the burning golden castle. "Am… am I in a storybook or something?"
She could not perceive how this seemingly ordinary kingdom had become the stage for such high levels of war. She looked at Veer, only to see him in a similar state. At least he had survived.
Veer coughed up blood, yet still forced his hands against the ground to support himself as he stared ahead. His hair hung over his face, partially hiding the sudden pain and confusion in his eyes.
He faintly said, "Where… where?"
"Where are you… Sythris?"
Sythris answered, "Here…"
But Veer did not look her way. His eyes suddenly caught someone in the distance.
Some distance away, John crawled across the ruined ground.
He was laughing. Veer started bleeding more profusely as he watched him.
"Ahhhh…"
He tried to stand, only to fall back to the ground.
Then he started crawling. With his hands, Sythris watched in utter silence as Veer seemed to have changed again. He… he started crawling slowly toward distant John.
John had tears cutting paths through the dirt and blood on his face. One of his hands was gone, the stump pouring freely, while his entire body was a map of wounds and grime. Nearby, his severed hand twitched weakly against the earth, still spurting blood as if it refused to die.
"Haha…"
"Bastard…"
John wiped the blood from his mouth and looked toward a mountain of debris where Marvis had fallen. Blood stained the stones. There was almost no chance the man had survived.
John smiled, then screamed in agony and pain.
"How does it feel, Marvis? Now that you're dead?"
"Don't you want the answers anymore? Come get them from me…"
He pushed himself upright with difficulty and sat against a broken piece of debris, breathing hard through gritted teeth. A dangerous red aura was rising from his body.
Veer and Sythris were still some distance away. Veer dragged himself forward inch by inch. Sythris tried to stand, only to collapse again—something heavy had struck her legs as she gritted, "I can't even move."
She again circulated energy throughout her body. She had dual elemental channels that no one knew.
She coughed blood again as she muttered, "What had happened?"
"Why? Why can't I do anything in these situations?"
"Why is it every time the same?"
"Move, my body… Veer, wait… wait… please."
But Veer moved and crawled as though he did not even hear her.
When Veer glanced up, he saw John moving. "John…" His voice was rough. "Is this also your… doing…?"
He kept crawling.
Directly before John stood Eleana. She was not as severely injured as the others, protected by the pale moon that still surrounded her. It seemed to have automatically activated as a defensive mechanism when the King landed, sweeping everything around in his fall.
Yet her own nails had dug deeply into her shoulders—self-inflicted in her grief over Rio. Of the man himself, there was no sign. Rio was buried somewhere, covered by the debris. All of them were on the right side of the square, whereas in the middle there was a huge pit where the King had crashed. There was no sign of him until now.
A mound of debris from the earlier trench hid Veer and Sythris from John's sight.
John looked at her and coughed out a laugh. "Haha… Eleana… you really are beautiful."
"No wonder that bastard is all over you…"
"Haha. I wonder if he is still alive after I thrashed him like a ragbag."
Eleana slowly looked toward John. Her eyes revealed something. It was deep despair.
Her white hair shone against the first rays of dawn as she muttered slowly, "What… what did you say?"
John looked at her in silence for a second, as though he was amused. His face was battered, one hand was missing, and blood flowed from his face as he raised his other hand. He made two fingers open straight and the rest closed.
He muttered strangely inaudible sounds as Eleana felt a familiar feeling. It was something she had experienced.
"I have a surprise for you," John said.
His body began to glow. Two strange runes rose from within his chest. Two intersecting circles in bright yellow color. They were sparkling.
The moment Eleana's eyes fell upon them, a terrible familiarity struck her. She trembled violently.
"It…"
"It can't be…"
The runes hovered for a brief moment, then shot upward. They surged toward the pale hand still struggling against the spear within the void in the distant sky.
The runes struck.
The spear shattered with a low, resonant hum that echoed from the clouds. Another spear fired in response, but it could not stop what followed. Two pale, beautiful hands now fought continuously against the spears, preventing the torn void from being sealed.
Eleana slowly raised her head. She could barely move, yet she had seen everything. More than that—she had recognized it.
Her voice trembled as though a huge puzzle had suddenly solved itself before her eyes.
"You…"
"It was you all along."
"Merissa didn't lose control that previous day. It was you… you made her lose control…"
"You had made the arrival of that huge disaster that swept thousands to create that abomination…"
"JOHN…!" she shouted.
John turned toward her and mimicked clapping. "You are a genius girl…"
"I thought I needed to explain…" He screamed in his pain.
Eleana's eyes had lost their focus. Her mind pictured every battle they had fought together, every decision she had trusted him to make, every moment she had considered him a comrade—all of it suddenly felt like pieces of an elaborate deception. The man she had known had never been what he appeared to be. He had been manipulating them from the beginning.
John smiled again. "Eleana, don't take it too personally."
John coughed, still smiling. "This look… I love this look. Oh God… it's so refreshing."
Eleana's eyes looked up as she trembled, and memories began to collide and rearrange themselves.
John had been this… but was he alone? Impossible. But he knew a lot and had played a major role in it.
But from when?
Gradually, the overlooked signs resurfaced—moments that had felt wrong, moments she and the others had chosen to ignore. She remembered the day John had decapitated the headless demon with those strange arts. She remembered how John and Caria had disappeared during their time in Mythria. Had they both been traitors all along, or had they simply been following the King's orders?
More memories rose. The banquet. Veer being challenged by Rheon. Rheon, who had once served as a guard under John. Prince Erin's easy friendship with him. John had used them all. And once they had served their purpose, he had discarded them.
John watched the realization spread across her face and smiled.
Eleana's soul trembled the more she realized. She was already hurt, as her only vengeance had been taken away from her.
"Traitor… You… How could you?"
Years of trust crumbled inside Eleana's mind as she slumped weakly to the ground.
John glanced toward Sebastian, who stood some distance away as though watching a play. He didn't have a scratch on him as he just looked on, his head covered by his hat.
"Get the fuck out of here, man. I need to console her."
Sebastian gave him a knowing look and stepped back.
John turned back to Eleana.
"Look, Eleana. How do you feel?" His smile widened. "Isn't it fascinating? To learn that everything you were fighting for was just a play? It's like watching a drama."
Eleana glared at both of them, eyes burning.
"I will kill you two…"
"Oh, oh. Relax, relax…" John said. "He was the same…"
Eleana's eyes widened further.
"Actually… just a short time ago, I revealed a few things to Veer. "
"He had the same look. Just like you…"
"Poor man, he didn't even have the strength to defend against it. It would be so perfect to see you two together…"
Horror flooded her as John continued speaking. She wanted nothing more than to strike that smiling face, yet her body would not obey.
John smiled wider.
"At Mythria, the strange incident with the vice leader—I was the one who did it. Caria and I getting controlled by the demon… that was just an act."
"You know, haha. That Noelle? She was setting Veer up on my orders. Hahaha!"
Eleana wished she could cover her ears, but she could not move. Her body was giving out. She spat a mouthful of blood.
John continued, almost cheerfully. "You know… Veer is the culprit behind all of this. He forced me to do it."
Eleana's shoulders trembled as she could not move, taking in the horrors. She prayed that someone could stop that man from speaking.
"You demons… So it was you two who did all those horrible things to him…"
"You… So it was you who made him lose his memories." She cried.
"Oh, surprising!" John laughed. "You actually know he has no recollection of his memories…"
"So it's not just me who was acting. You, knowing Veer didn't have any memories, continued to play the role of what—acting wife?"
"Haha…"
Her voice broke. Tears streamed down her face. Then she screamed—raw, furious, broken. For the second time in her life, Eleana completely lost control. Everything she had believed in had been shattered.
Just as John was laughing, ready to add more, a shadow fell over him.
Sebastian, watching from afar, stopped and observed in silence.
The person had reached him. There was only one thought in his mind. Rage was the thought.
Broken, covered in wounds, and without a single ounce of star energy left in his body, he climbed onto John. John's face was already battered, but his first punch silenced him completely.
Then he began to rain punches down upon him.
John's eyes opened a bit as his pupils reflected a familiar face. Veer, was it?
Veer was weak. He had no prana, no star energy to circulate. Yet his fists kept falling. Bones began to jut out. Blood spilled across John's face and body. Still Veer punched—again and again, without pause.
Eleana suddenly stopped crying as she watched that battered figure raining punches. Her prayer had been answered, but not by a god—by a man who had lost his memories and his strength.