The world didn't feel real anymore.
After the battle, the air itself groaned—as if the heavens were stitched together by sound and pain. Everywhere I looked, light bent unnaturally. Fractures cut across the sky, glowing white like cracks through glass.
My hands shook. The Snowfire Blade hummed faintly, alive but afraid. Lian and Yue stood over the wounded, their power working tirelessly to hold the remnants of this world in place.
"Mukul," Arina whispered in my head, her tone trembling for the first time since I'd known her. "The resonance between your divine energy and the Abyss Source has gone unstable. Reality is bending to your emotion. The Goddess System itself is shaking."
"I'm trying to calm it," I said, though the mark on my chest burned so deeply it felt like fire under my bones. "It won't stop."
"You've crossed the threshold," Arina said, voice soft but grave. "You're no longer using the system. It's beginning to use you."
The ground quaked again—a deep, painful rumble that sent waves through the sky. Around the battlefield, soldiers screamed as light and shadow tore apart like cloth. Whole patches of space bent inward, swallowing what remained of war's ruins.
Lian shouted something distant—too far for her voice to break through the ringing in my ears. Yue's eyes struggled to hold the tears in balance, her arms trembling under the effort.
A sudden pulse cut through the chaos. Not light—darkness.
From the heart of the broken valley rose crimson mist spiralling upward, alive with fury. And in its centre, Zhao Tian's broken form hovered, his armour cracked but his aura unending.
I could taste his voice before I heard it.
"Even death fears me now, brother."
The red mist wrapped around him like a crown. His body changed—skin marked with streaks of black flame, his eyes hollow, his veins glowing with the Dark System's core.
"Impossible," Arina breathed. "He's communing directly with the system's origin. It's trying to escape through him."
Zhao Tian's laughter rolled through the fractured sky. "I tried to control it, Mukul—but it doesn't need control anymore. The systems hate balance. They crave command. The Dark One answered me. Together, we'll unmake the Goddess who built this prison of peace."
He began to rise, light and shadow swirling into a column stretching toward the heavens—toward whatever waited behind creation's veil.
"Arina," I said, grip tightening on the Snowfire Blade. "If he reaches the origin—"
"He merges with it," she answered quickly. "And the universe resets under darkness. You must stop him now, before his body dissolves completely."
I didn't wait for another word. My body moved on instinct.
I leapt through the fractured air, the Snowfire Blade blazing brighter than the sun. All around me, shattered pieces of reality floated—hallucinations of the worlds I had seen and lost.
When I reached him, he looked down with a sad smile—the kind that broke something deep inside me. "You always were the light, Mukul. I was just the mirror."
"Then I'll break the reflection," I whispered.
The world roared. We collided in a shockwave that erased sound. The energy burst cracked the last remnants of the battlefield, sending rivers of light warring with rivers of shadow. His halberd met my sword, sparks raining upward like stars.
Each strike tore something larger—the sky, the ground, ourselves.
"Do you even know what you're fighting for?" Zhao Tian shouted over the storm. "To save balance? The Goddess? This power kills everything it touches! You can't save them!"
I met his blade again, pushing forward. My voice came out quiet but certain. "I'm not trying to save everything… just stop the world from dying twice."
He snarled, and the Dark System's energy flared, spilling waves of twisting shadow across the air. Faces appeared within it—spirits, memories, echoes of the dead. Their screams filled the wind.
Arina cried out in my mind, her usually calm voice breaking.
"It's merging! End it now, Mukul—before you're pulled in too!"
The words barely reached me. Power surged through every vein—beautiful and unbearable.
Zhao Tian lunged one last time, his halberd dragging a line of fire across the air. I caught his wrist, twisted, and drove the Snowfire Blade forward into his chest.
The sound wasn't a scream but a sigh.
Light exploded outward, not from my weapon, but from inside him—a violent, blinding cascade as the Dark System ruptured. Shadow poured out, devouring everything it touched, only to collapse inward with a shriek that rippled across worlds.
When it was over, silence fell.
The smoke cleared slowly, showing Zhao Tian kneeling before me, the halberd broken beside his hand. He looked almost human again—eyes dark, voice faint.
"You… always wanted peace," he murmured. "I only wanted to stand beside you. But the world never lets two suns rise."
I gripped his shoulders, but he laughed weakly. "You win, brother. Just remember… light burns too."
And then he was gone, turning to dust that vanished into the quiet dawn.
The mark on my chest pulsed violently once, then stilled.
Arina's voice trembled again. "It's done. The Dark Origin has been sealed—for now. But… at what cost?"
I looked around. The battlefield was gone, replaced by endless grey light. Shattered fragments of space hovered like floating glass. Lian and Yue stood far off, clutching each other, their faces pale.
I stumbled, my legs refusing to move. Each breath burned. The Snowfire Blade flickered out, its light gone.
"I killed him," I whispered, staring at my empty hands. "But why does it still feel like I lost?"
Arina didn't answer. For once, even she sounded afraid.
"The Goddess System trembles," she finally said. "Zhao Tian's death freed some of the Dark Origin's power. The world will not hold steady. Host… something older than both systems stirs beneath your mark."
The horizon cracked again.
I looked up just in time to see new light fall from the sky—not fire this time, but pure white radiance, brighter than all my memories. It wasn't warmth. It was judgment.
Arina's last words faded like a heartbeat. "Mukul… the heavens have noticed you."
And as thunder rolled through a sky no longer blue, I realised one truth in that endless silence:
Killing my brother hadn't saved the world.
It had just awakened it.