Ferinish cut through the shadows that had freed Slady, sending him back into the fight. She looked at him coldly, yet also with a recognition she couldn't avoid. Turning to Truth, she replied in a firm voice:
"This isn't about changing sides. It's because there's a greater evil we must face."
Slady sat down, regenerating. Leaning on his cane, he moved to stand beside her.
"Why did you free me, Ferinish? After everything..."
She placed her sword against his neck, cold and unyielding.
"I haven't forgiven you. And I never will. But I need your strength to eliminate those who took Elisa and Shaphira from us."
Even with his frail body, even knowing all his sins, Slady accepted without hesitation. Truth watched them both with a distant look, as if remembering the man who only wanted to become human and the woman who loved without knowing how to receive love.
But after that moment of distraction, Truth swung her sword and attacked suddenly.
Slady stepped forward, shielding Ferinish with his staff. Hades lunged at the warrior with greater fury. Mara, though temporarily unable to fight, used the shadows to strike at both of them.
Satan tried to seize control, clouding his vision and attempting to trap him to clear a path for Truth. But Slady would not allow himself to fail.
Tearing shadows from within himself, Slady struck the Creator of Truth in the chest with hands shrouded in darkness. She braced herself on her blade, then knocked Slady to the ground with a single hand and charged forward with her sword. The Theatrical Assassin dodged, using chains wrapped around his feet to coil around her neck and hurl her against a wall.
Clapping his palms together, the walls closed in on Truth. She tore through them but still felt the wound. Slady launched himself into the air with one leg extended, kicking at her head, but Truth blocked with her blade and cut through his feet.
Hopping on one foot, they continued to exchange brutal blows, each tearing pieces from the other.
In the distance, Ferinish fled from the shadows pursuing her alongside Hades. Sliding under a boulder as Hades loomed above, she unleashed flames that drove back the Destroyer and the shadows. Embedding her crimson blade in the rock, she launched herself from the sword to strike him in the chest, and the flames consumed him from the inside out.
Hades seized her by the throat and ran his sword through her chest, beginning to tear downward. But the warrior intensified her magic more and more, making the flames incinerate her own body and hair, causing the sword to vanish at the cost of activating the Mark of Sin.
They fell to the ground. Hades propped himself up on his sword and finally spoke:
"You're impressive... it seems I underestimated Slady and those who stand by him."
The redhead, feeling the mark on her chest flare to life, rose and walked toward him, her hands black as charcoal resting on the ground.
"Everyone underestimates him…"
she replied in a hoarse voice.
"But now your opponent is me."
Hades nodded in agreement and stated:
"You are more powerful than the man I never managed to kill, even when I underestimated him."
Yet even as he spoke, Ferinish collapsed to the ground, exhausted. Hades remarked:
"That is humanity's weakness. Limits. They cannot wield too much magic, nor grow too strong… lest they be cursed."
Mara emerged behind her, her alluring form gliding through the shadows to climb up Ferinish's back, whispering near her ear:
"Perhaps… Ferinish also deserves to be freed from that limit…"
Ferinish did not want to endure that pain again. Renkai Energy already dwelled within her, but only in small amounts. Now, however, she could feel a far greater density flooding into her being. She could only drool from her mouth, unable to think through the overwhelming agony. Her hands began to disintegrate as fire spread across her body. Her eyes rolled back in agony.
But as a glow escaped from the rocks, a wave of heat forced them back.
Rising to her feet with hair blazing like flames, Ferinish declared:
"I will not yield to Renkai Energy… not again."
With her palms flat, she spun her body and cut through everything around her with fire. Mara was hit. Ferinish seized her by the throat and moved toward the sword, driving its hilt through her body. She pulled the blade from Mara's chest to plunge it into her head. Shadows poured from Mara's exposed chest, trying to crush her. Ferinish's chest blazed brighter still. The Sinner's Mark growing more intense, and her Mana limit having been reached long ago.
Hades did not wait; he ran his sword through her back as her flames grew ever brighter.
Slady, nearly collapsing, saw the scene from afar. He remembered… he remembered Elisa… he could not let this happen again. With an almost primal instinct, he charged at the Destroyers. Truth tried to stop him but was struck with a devastating punch to the chest, crashing to the ground.
Holding his cane, with something like tears seeping from his empty eye sockets, Slady shattered the dark alchemy, shaping its energy. The matter condensed in his palms, shrinking to atomic levels, smaller than an atom, and he hurled it into the dark sky.
"Let all things unravel in my hands."
Even as they tried to stop him, he touched the sphere that drew in all matter.
White light blazed before their eyes. All matter was destroyed. Everything went dark.
When he opened his eyes again, the space was like a broken reality. He felt no pain. He saw nothing. Under his protective form lay Ferinish, her body charred, naked… but not dead.
Shadows had become part of him, as if even Satan himself could not control his power enough to protect the vessel. He stood and lifted her in his arms.
And there lay creation itself, splendid, shrouded in darkness.
Two souls were there. The third was not. Truth had escaped, by mere inches.
For a long time, no sound was heard, not even the cries of tormented spirits. It was an uncomfortable silence.
He laid Ferinish carefully on the ground. Taking the souls, he pressed them to his chest and absorbed them.
He sat on the throne of sacrifice, unable to close his eyes. But not before he heard her voice…
She lay on the ground, but her soft feminine voice escaped her dry throat:
"I am… happy. For all of this."
Her fragile nails breaking free from her flesh to touch his feet, she continued:
"Even though I once wished for your death… I am happy. If a beautiful world is to be made… let my own life be the price you pay."
With hands like bone, Slady touched her hair, caressing the strands with profound tenderness.
"Do not fear…"
he murmured.
"When all things are reborn, you will live in a world that will not be destroyed by my presence."
With a surge of power, the world began to crumble. Souls poured from his eyes and mouth in a cry that echoed across the formless dimension. Everything shook, breaking apart and rebuilding anew.
Ferinish watched, seeing the sacrifice unfold before her. But something felt wrong.
Krythos was beginning to seize control of everything.
This… was not supposed to happen.
Ferinish tried to reach for the shadows, but nothing could stop the cursed god.
A white energy also began to interfere. The God of Creation and the God of Destruction would not allow themselves to be replaced and erased by a single man.
But with her last shred of consciousness, Ferinish saw the white spheres in his empty eyes flare to life. With a wave of his hand, she was thrown out of that place through an unknown portal.
In the final seconds, everything went black.
Then a soul sphere ignited, followed by many others. The figure stood, shadows now wrapping around him like a garment. A demonic voice murmured, not with contempt, but with respect born of fear:
"You… have gone further than any other man."
He looked at his unmarked chest. Elisa's blood lay on the ground, and reality was intact once more… not entirely. There were fractures that could never be mended.
Krythos, in the body of the immortal cursed with immortality, opened a new portal before him and cast the sphere away.
"If you wished to enter the Eternal Library, be sealed there forever."
With his children rising beside him, weaker now, weakened by the man—Krythos commanded them:
"Transform Shaphira into the Beastly Destroyer."
His arms shrouded in shadows, Krythos stood in that perfect body and declared:
"I have returned to this world."
Then, watching his obedient children vanish into the air, Krythos did the same, leaving the lifeless place behind.
... But something still stirred. In utter solitude, a red liquid hid among the rubble.
(Thus ends the Fifth Volume.)