The world was dark. Ren stood on the ruined earth. He looked at Kuro, the little skeleton.
"You woke me," Ren said.
"The play was over," Kuro said. "It was time to close the curtains."
Ren nodded. "I am tired. I want to sleep. But the voices... the millions of voices..." Ren was full of the souls he had trapped. Full of the souls the Sun and Moon had eaten.
"Let them go," Kuro said. "Let them die."
Ren looked at his hands. "If I let them go, I will be alone again."
"Solitude is the price of existence," Kuro quoted the First Law.
Ren sighed. A sigh that lasted a thousand years. He released his Stasis.
He allowed himself to Decay.
Ren's body dissolved. The Sun and Moon dissolved. The mountains, the cities, the monsters—they all turned to dust.
Kuro sat on a pile of dust as the universe faded back into the Grey Fog. Kuro looked at his own hand. It was crumbling.
"Finally," Kuro smiled. "Peace."
He closed his eyes and turned to ash.
The world was empty again. Silence returned to the Fog.
...
But deep in the ash, a single speck of dust glowed. It was not Strength. It was not Wisdom. It was the Ember of Hope.
It waited. It waited for the next Noax.
[End of Volume 4]