Chapter 38: The Day The World Went Away (10)

I’ve always known it would be like this.

Ren contorted through empty air as gravity fractured around him. A brilliant blaze sliced past—missing him by inches—the holy sword’s luminous extension hunting him. He plummeted, only for it to arc in pursuit. He twisted his body, redirecting his fall into horizontal flight. The holy light carved through the space he had occupied a second before, missing his flesh by a whisper.

He flung himself in all directions, each desperate movement a prayer against obliteration. The veins beneath his skin pulsed faintly—thin lines of pale luminescence branching outward. Numbness had replaced pain. Sensation itself had become a distant memory.

The whip snapped toward him. His fingers splayed wide. Gravity burst from his palm in a concussive wave that struck with the force of a celestial hand. Their powers collided. The tendril shuddered, recoiled, then shattered into motes of fading light.

Evelyn pulled the sword into position. Silent rivers of gold flowed into the weapon. Incandescence gathering along its notched edges. Those golden eyes remained fixed, unblinking. No longer on the terminal or the fleeing survivors below. On him alone.

I’m grateful.

Their fated battle had never been in the world they once called home. Despite prophecies and destiny, the Hero’s blade and the Demon King’s power had remained strangers to one another. It was Leon who had stood against her in the end, bearing Evelyn’s wrath while Ren battled Renfield above. Until now, across dimensions, far from home.

Except, it wasn’t really destiny. His title as Demon King had been empty—forced upon him while unseen hands pulled his strings from the shadows. “Hearthearth,” Ren shouted. “You remember that tavern, don’t you?”

Evelyn’s face remained a mask of cold purpose. “The past is dead,” she said.

“That day… we shared a meal.”

A ghost of a smile crossed his face before pain twisted it. He doubled over, coughing. Dark blood spattered between them, taken away by the wind. With trembling fingers, he wiped crimson from his lips.

“In some kinder universe, I think we could have been allies.”

It didn’t matter now.

“You are at your limit.” Those golden irises pierced beyond flesh. “I can see it, you know. As we speak, what little remains fades. It’s over, devil. This world is dying. Stand down, and die with it.”

I wish you’d stop calling me that… The word left him tired. “Even divine weapons have limits. When yours fails, I’ll drag you to the bottom of the ocean.”

“You’ll die before that.”

The faces blurred from his consciousness—Haruka, Aki, Lilly—all fading. There was only Evelyn, and this moment. His rage churned beneath his skin while exhaustion corroded him from within. An urge seized him—to scream until his throat bled, to rip and tear with his bare hands, to force someone, anyone, to taste, if only for a single moment, the bitter poison he’d swallowed every day.

And…

I’m sure that you feel the same way.

His fingers curled inward, knuckles whitening. Evelyn’s body coiled. The air thickened, pressing inward from all sides. Far below, the tarmac buckled and split. Concrete cracked. Aircraft debris wrenched free from the ground. Metal shrieked against metal as the debris field collapsed toward her.

A jagged wing section struck first, sending her tumbling over the churning water. More wreckage followed—spiraling inward with impossible force. The maelstrom compressed tighter, denser, until it formed a grotesque sphere of wreckage suspended above the ocean.

He drove his fist toward the depths. It howled as it speared toward the waiting sea—

—only to cleave apart. The mass split open as a searing edge of light sliced through. Where it passed, everything turned to vapor.

Ren wasted no time. He launched himself forward and materialized inches from her face in the shadow of falling wreckage. His fingers found her throat, clamping down. They plunged earthward, a meteor breaking from celestial moorings. Hurtling. The sea erupted—a liquid volcano, walls of water climbing skyward where they pierced its surface. Spiraling currents followed their descent as he forced them deeper, his grip unyielding around Evelyn’s throat as they plummeted toward the ocean floor.

Light splintered through darkening water. It faded. Disappeared. The weight of the deep pressed in, a pressure that would pulverize ordinary flesh, implode ordinary lungs, obliterate ordinary people. They were anything but ordinary.

His fingers uncurled from her throat, surrendering her to the depths. Evelyn drifted downward through the suffocating darkness, her irises kindling with fury beneath fathoms of black water. I can’t hurt her directly and that sword dispels any direct magical strikes. But she’s not immune to environmental factors. Even her immunity has limits—

The abyss erupted with light. A supernova, underwater.

A cataclysm of divine incandescence that devoured the depths, turning miles of seawater to instant steam. Where crushing darkness had reigned moments before, now existed only searing, unbearable brilliance.

Ren’s reflexes saved him by milliseconds, his power twisting gravity into a protective shell. He hung suspended in a void. Around him rose liquid walls. A perfect cylinder gouged from the sea itself. Water thundered at the edges, curving impossibly upward while vapor streamed toward the distant surface. Along the boundary, sea life twisted in their death throes, bisected bodies and severed tails still twitching, caught between drowning in air and the aftermath of Evelyn’s wrath.

She struck without a moment’s pause. Spears of divine light pierced the void, hunting him. Each radiant projectile carved through the air behind him, narrowing the gap with every heartbeat. The ocean above thundered inward, a collapsing cathedral, billions of tons of water rushing to fill the sudden emptiness.

He ascended, he didn’t make it far. Light coiled around his ankle. The radiant whip snapped tight with a violent crack, its brilliance flaring as it bound him. Agony detonated through his leg—a sharp, searing, absolute pain, as if every nerve had been set ablaze. His flesh sizzled where divinity kissed skin, the stench of charred meat swallowed instantly by the roar of converging water. Thought fractured. Focus disintegrated. The ocean reclaimed him, tons of seawater collapsing, crashing into him. His eyes burned. His lungs screamed. Salt invaded every open wound.

The whip held fast as Evelyn swung him violently. His body spun helplessly, light tearing at his ankle while the ocean battered him from all sides.

She jerked him backward. Pain lanced from tailbone to skull in a single, unbroken current. Beneath the crushing weight of the sea, his mouth stretched wide in a scream no one would ever hear.

Evelyn materialized in the darkness, a specter of divine wrath. Between her fingers, the holy sword had transformed—its golden luminescence stripped away to reveal something stark and absolute. White light cut through black water, its edge so fine it seemed to sever the darkness itself.

He tore through the abyss toward her waiting blade. The last dregs of mana coursed through his failing body. He did not retreat, he dove directly at her. His bound leg pointed, gathering force. Water warped around his limb, the ocean itself straining beneath the impossible weight he commanded. His descent quickened. Mass and velocity fused into something monstrous, the sea parting with a banshee wail as he hurtled through the depths.

Evelyn couldn’t react in time.

The sea convulsed, unleashing a shockwave that tore through fathoms of water. Their bodies plummeted deeper, trailing violent currents like comets falling through liquid night. Instinct consumed him. His limbs became weapons, each movement amplified by his gravitational dominion. Every blow carried tremendous weight—as if he fought with mountains chained to his wrists, planets bound to his ankles. The ocean shuddered with each collision.

She did not so much as flinch. Her divinity remained intact—a perfect shield against his fury. But her sword arm shifted and faltered against the abyssal depths and his relentless assault. The blade that had taken his arm once now sat trapped, useless in her hand.

Her skin ignited from within. Catastrophic light bled from her pores, swelling. But before she could unleash it—gravity reversed itself, exploding outward. The force slammed into Evelyn’s luminous form, distorting the surrounding depths. She hurtled away—plummeting deeper, vanishing into the abyss.

From the bowels rose a soundless cataclysm, brilliance devouring water as it expanded. He could do nothing but watch it climb toward him.

A few more minutes of this…

And I’ll die.

His gaze fixed on the explosion.

It doesn’t matter anymore. That’s what I told myself. Wasn’t it?

And yet…

Why do I still—?

Currents twisted violently. From below, Evelyn ascended through dissipating chaos—her divine form struggling against the ocean’s weight. He lunged to meet her—

—but she veered mid-flight. She rocketed upward, abandoning him.

His mind sharpened instantly. Down here in the crushing deep, he held the upper hand. She knew it too, that’s why she was fleeing toward the surface. Teeth bared, Ren extended his arm. Gravity seized Evelyn mid-escape.

The darkness fractured into countless points of divine light. They materialized all around him—light javelins aimed inward, their merciless glow transforming the abyss into a cage. The ephemeral weapons collapsed, a hundred points of annihilation folding into one terrible singularity. They became one giant lance—a single decisive symbol of divine retribution condensed into form. It plummeted toward him, trailing celestial fury, the weight of heaven itself descending to crush him.

He forced the space to solidify before him, and everything vanished in blinding radiance.

He shot from the depths, his body hurled across the ocean’s skin. He bounced against the surface—once, twice, countless times—consciousness flickering with each brutal impact.

Then—

Nothing.

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

Ren’s lungs filled. Cool air carried pine sap and soil into his nostrils. His fingers pressed into something soft, blades of grass yielding beneath his weight as he pushed himself up.

His gaze swept across his surroundings. Pines and oaks stretched in every direction, their massive trunks vanishing into darkness beyond the firelight’s reach. The forest pressed close. Something about this pulled at his memory, like a half-forgotten dream from childhood, its edges worn smooth by time.

His attention wandered toward the center of the clearing. Flames danced and popped, sending ribbons of golden light spiraling upward. Heat caressed his skin. Beyond the fire, something caught his eye. Dark green leather boots propped on the ground, their worn soles facing him across the flames.

He snapped forward, blood hammering as his gaze traveled upward. From weathered boots to the figure lounging in the dancing firelight. The familiar sweep of sandy hair. That unmistakable half-smile illuminated by flame. Ren’s eyelids fell and rose again, as if the image might dissolve between one moment and the next.

“Midori?”

A laugh escaped the man. “Am I that forgettable?”

His face twisted in confusion. “…Leon?”

Leon—if this apparition could truly be called by that name—hunched forward, disturbing the campfire with a half-charred branch. Sparks escaped, their smoky trajectories fading as they ascended toward what should have been stars.

The firmament above wasn’t merely dark, it was nonexistent. A nothingness that seemed to stretch on and on and on. When the last ember disappeared into that impossible darkness, Leon’s eyes lifted to meet his.

“Does it matter?”

Certainty evaporated on his tongue. He found himself staring into the dancing flames instead, while Leon’s question hung in the space between them, as tangible as the woodsmoke curling upward. The silence stretched thin before Ren finally broke it.

“…Am I dead?”

Leon snorted. “Am I dead, he asks me. Always so depressing.” He prodded the flames again. “How should I know if you’re dead?”

Something pierced the fog of his confusion. A feeling so unexpected he almost didn’t recognize it. The corner of Ren’s mouth lifted in a smile. His shoulders sagged as he pulled his knees to his chest, chin settling against his forearm. “You’re right…” His voice emerged quieter. “It was a stupid question.”

A log surrendered to the heat with a gentle crack.

“Do you remember,” he murmured, “when you told me life was all a dream?” Leon’s stick stilled. “That one day the dreamer would wake up, and all of this would be over. So I should just be happy now…” Ren stared into the fire. “Without you and Sera, I’m…” He faltered. “You two were the only place I ever fit. And with Reina,” his voice caught on her name. “I kept everything locked away, and now she’s gone, and I can’t ever—” He stopped, swallowing hard. “Now, I think I’m just waiting that moment. For the dream to end.” The fire’s glow trembled. “It feels like I never should have been born. Everywhere I go, everything I touch falls apart. Everyone I…” His fingers dug into his knee. “Everyone I care about disappears and I can’t—I can’t keep—”

A trembling breath.

“I’m so tired of fighting to exist. And I just want it to be over.”

With a practiced hand, Leon nudged the dying coals, breathing new light into the fading heart of their fire. “No,” he said, barely above a whisper. “You don’t.”

Ren’s head shot upward. His chest constricted as if gripped by an invisible hand, filling with rage tangled with disbelief, shame with defiance.

Leon’s eyes were already on him, his lips curved in that gentle way. “You think you do, but you don’t.” The flames shrank back, surrendering territory to the night.

“I know that because…”

Leon’s silhouette began to dissolve, his features running watercolors caught in rain. Darkness crept forward from between the trees, consuming the forest inch by inch.

“…no matter what you’ve endured…”

The fire retreated to glowing coals.

“You’re still here, aren’t you?”

“Leon—!”

Don’t go. There’s still so much I want to say.

Ren reached out, but his oldest and closest friend had become nothing more than impressions of light against darkness. The trees liquefied into the night. The campfire shrank to fading orange specks. As everything disintegrated, Leon’s final words hung suspended in the emptiness:

“You are the dreamer...

…so dream.”