The bells of Elaria tolled across the horizon, their echo rolling like thunder through every street and spire.
Word spread faster than dawn:
The Savior has chosen to descend upon the Origin.
Priests flooded the streets with banners of violet silk, nobles threw petals from the balconies, and the people cheered until their voices trembled.
At the heart of it all, Rion stood before the Grand Cathedral, his expression calm, almost serene. Celestine walked beside him, cloaked and silent, her eyes lowered to the cobblestones.
When the Grand Priest approached, draped in gold and white, her tone trembled with reverence.
> "Rion of the Violet Manifesto," she declared, "you walk where no mortal has walked. End the suffering that once stained our world. Bring us the final dawn."
The crowd roared "Savior! Savior!" a thousand voices of hope and blindness.
Celestine's hood slipped slightly as she turned her face, and the cheers turned to gasps.
A fruit hit her cheek, bursting red. Then another.
"Monster!" a man screamed. "It's her! The demon that devoured our Celestine!"
"She killed our idol! She desecrated her beauty!"
Tomatoes, stones, curses, all hurled by hands that once praised Rion.
Celestine flinched, her golden eyes dimming. Rion kept walking, unmoved, his hands folded behind his back. To reach for her now would ruin everything.
The Grand Priest frowned slightly, uneasy.
> "Why is the creature still alive?"
Rion's voice was flat. "Because even monsters have a role in salvation."
Her doubt deepened, but she said nothing. Who was she to question the Savior's methods?
---
By the time the gates closed behind them, the cheering had faded.
Only silence remained, and the forest beyond.
Rion stopped.
For a moment, he stood still. Then his violet Manifesto erupted in his hand, wild and uncontrollable.
He unleashed it.
A wave of purple flame swallowed the trees, bending the trunks and turning the forest into glass.
The air screamed.
> "Disgusting," he whispered. "They disgust me."
Celestine stepped back, her voice shaking. "Rion—"
> "They think I'm here to *save* them from evil," he snarled. "But the only evil I see is their hunger for comfort. Their peace has made them cruel."
His flame dimmed, coiling into his palm again. "I'll show them what real salvation is."
---
The voyage to the Sixth Continent lasted weeks. No compass could track it, only his Manifesto could pull them through the endless mists.
When the fog broke, an island emerged like a scar across the sea.
Blackened skies. Rivers of hardened ash.
And at its heart, a volcano, eternally glowing red.
The Grave of the First Shadow.
Rion climbed the jagged slopes with Celestine beside him, the air heavy with whispers of languages older than gods.
When they reached the crater, he looked down into the molten pit, the supposed resting place of the ancient Demon King.
He drew his Manifesto from his chest. The violet flame pulsed wildly, as if it knew where it belonged.
> "You were his color," Rion said quietly. "Violet — the hue of everything cast away."
He raised it high, then threw it into the fire.
The mountain shuddered.
The lava swirled upward, forming a colossal silhouette — horned, winged, vast as the night.
A voice like grinding stone spoke:
> "You who carry my echo… what do you seek?"
Rion dropped to one knee.
> "Power. The power to give demons a soul — to make them more than imitation. To make them alive."
The figure's eyes glowed. "To grant life where death belongs… that is the sin of kings."
"I accept it."
The shadow extended its arm. A spiral of darkness twisted into Rion's chest, and for an instant, the world bent under his heartbeat.
But before he could speak the incantation, a sharp sound split the air, a whistle, followed by impact.
A blue beam of holy energy tore through the sky and struck Celestine's shoulder.
She screamed. Her body convulsed as her arm began to dissolve, the corruption spreading like frost.
"Celestine!"
Rion caught her, feeling her body crumble like ash in his arms.
From the cliffside above, the Grand Priest descended, her robes torn, her eyes blazing with fury.
> "I should have known," she spat. "The president of Santomaine warned me, the color violet belongs not to heaven, but to the Demon King!"
"You followed me," Rion hissed.
"You deceived the world," she retorted. "You've been sheltering evil, raising the very plague we swore to end!"
She raised her staff, its white light clashing against the violet sky. "I will finish what your false light began!"
The ground exploded in radiance as divine and demonic energy collided.
Rion fought with everything he had, the power of every nation burning through his veins but rage made his precision brutal.
The Grand Priest's light shattered under his flame. Her staff cracked; her robes caught fire.
When she fell to her knees, he whispered, "You call yourself holy, yet you murder what you do not understand."
She tried to speak but the violet fire consumed her before she could.
The mountain fell silent.
Rion turned and saw Celestine, lying motionless.
Her body had stopped dissolving, but her eyes no longer shone. Her lips curved faintly, a mimic smile, unfinished.
"Celestine…"
He knelt beside her, holding her like fragile glass.
The shadow above them whispered again:
> "This is the price of seeking life where there is none."
Rion trembled, his flame flickering wildly in his hand.
"Then I'll change the price," he said.
But the Manifesto did not answer.
He stayed there until the stars rose, the volcano roaring beneath him the man once called Savior, kneeling before his first true loss.
And in the glow of the lava, his violet light began to darken no longer radiant, but royal.
The color of a king reborn.
- THE END