The gray sand of destiny drifted in the void. The Shattered Moon Core hovered high, like the eye of death, watching this long-overdue judgment with cold indifference.
Ilea stood beneath the Dream-Burning Blade, gray flames curling around her. Her cloak had dissolved into streaming light, and the oath seal on her shoulder burned until the flesh was raw, yet she did not retreat a single step. She knew this was no ordinary battle—it was the final clash that would decide the ownership of the Gray Realm's fate.
Riche, like an incarnation of destiny, stood within the Shattered Moon. Behind him, sixteen illusory fate wheels rotated slowly, representing sixteen fragments of soul will that had been erased, plundered, and remolded. Those wills had resisted, struggled, and in the end, all were absorbed and assimilated by him.
"You think you have a choice," he looked down at her, his voice calm yet cold with judgment. "You were always a variable designed by the fate wheel, the first flaw in the Gray Realm. Now, you must be mended."
Ilea did not reply. Instead, she raised the Dream-Burning Blade high. Within its edge surged everything she had ever lost in the depths of her memory—the soul mark of her father, the fall of the Scarlet Flame Army, the shattering of the first Phoenix Seal, the howls of Lucian's soul-burning battle.
These were not weaknesses, but the ashen heart from which she remolded her resolve.
"You say I am a flaw—"
Ilea's gray eyes locked onto Riche, and her flame heart exploded like a star.
"Then I will use this flaw to tear apart the fate wheel you hold so dear!"
She swung the first sword. Gray flames sliced through the void, and the first layer of the fate wheel shattered.
Riche did not move. The second and third layers of the wheel rotated automatically to suppress the damage. But Ilea, riding the momentum of the gray flames, struck again and again. Each blow was no mere release of power, but a spiritual strike fused from her oath-bound soul and the original Phoenix flame—targeting precisely the "perceptual core" of the fate wheel, the very emotions once deemed "unstable" in her.
"You think only you have borne the Gray Realm's pain? The destiny you carry is but a fraction of what I once endured!" she shouted.
Gray flames took shape behind her, forming massive wings. A dozen chains of light burst from her flame heart, sealing the outer ring of the Shattered Moon Core one after another.
Riche's eyes finally flickered. The fate wheel spun rapidly, and streams of gray light transformed into dense blades, slashing at Ilea from all directions.
In that instant, Lucian charged into the battlefield from the flank. His blood-flame blade tore through the void, blocking part of the fate wheel's storm. His left arm was nearly pierced, gray blood spraying, yet he ground his teeth and held his ground.
"You will not fight alone," he croaked. "Your Gray Realm is not home to just one Phoenix."
"There are others—who would burn down the entire fate with you!"
In the distance, the remaining Soul-Burning Knights, Rift-Realm refugees, and Flame-Seal Oath Spirits converged, transforming into streams of fate-defying flame to crash against the Shattered Moon's barriers. At last, three rings of the Shattered Moon shattered under the onslaught, exposing the core fate wheel.
Riche hissed, biting his tongue. A silver-gray blood rune appeared in his palm: "If you insist on defying fate—"
"Then let the entire Gray Realm perish with me!"
He detonated the last fragment of the fate wheel's oath bone, unleashing the - suppressed millennia-sealed final flame of soul-splitting. The void collapsed, and all creation burned.
But just as the flames were about to consume everything, Ilea drove the Dream-Burning Blade into her chest, releasing her last oath flame—the Gray Flame Judgment.
"You built the fate wheel; I judge it with gray flames!"
In that moment, the Shattered Moon froze. The fate wheel stopped turning.
Time in the Gray Realm stood still. Riche's pupils trembled violently as he watched the fate mechanism he prided himself on being shattered by the woman he once dismissed as a "variable."
The Dream-Burning Blade burst from her body, carrying the power of the entire realm, and pierced the Shattered Moon Core!
With a thunderous crash, the fate wheel snapped, and the Shattered Moon collapsed.
As the gray flames gradually died down, Ilea landed slowly, dropping to her knees. Her divine robe was tattered, her soul torn.
Riche was gone. Fragments of the fate wheel fell like rain, dissolving into countless stardust of souls.
Lucian collapsed beside her, clutching her remaining hand.
"It's over," he said, his voice shaking. "You did it."
She managed a smile, two streaks of ash-streaked tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Not yet… the Gray Realm… still needs to be rebuilt."
She looked up, toward the end of the shattered void, as if glimpsing the new era about to awaken.