A week later, after Osculi Iudæ spoke to the Eldest Elder, he was on his way back to the western region, he exited the Eastern region and began walking through a town. Two children approached him talking. One of them talking about how they want to be Paladixtus when they grow up. While Osculi Iudæ outer self showed a pleasent sight, the turmoil within was not as he looked at the children and thought: did she make you orphans too?
He walked on. A woman approached, her basket filled with fresh fruit—her own meager provisions, purchased from the market. With profound gratitude, she offered it to him, a silent tribute to the order she believed in. He wanted to refuse, but his eyes caught on a single, perfect apple.
The memory struck him like a physical blow: his mother's hands, her voice, the simple safety of a life before the fall.
He accepted the gift. At a food stall, he bit into the apple. Its sweetness was a lie. As he chewed, he watched the thriving community around him—the laughter, the safety, the blissful ignorance. The bitter truth solidified within him: It's all a lie. A beautiful city built upon the graves of the previous generation.
Rising, he passed a construction site where builders worked in seamless harmony—a symphony of elemental cooperation. A dark, rebellious thought flickered: Look at what we can accomplish on our own. We don't need any Entities. He shook his head, burying the heresy, and continued toward the sanctuary.
---
Upon his return, he delivered his report in the war room, presenting the secured treaty with mechanical precision. A desperate, hidden part of him still clung to a thread of hope, praying for a justification, for a truth that could absolve her.
When the room emptied, leaving only the three of them, he knew this was his final test. If she came clean, if there was a reason—a good reason—for her calculated cruelties, he could perhaps forgive. She wasn't evil; look at the peace she had forged.
Unless... unless the Eldest Elder was right. Unless this peace was not an end, but a means—a stage upon which to crown herself the sole, untouchable savior.
Steeling himself, he voiced the question that felt like treason. "Are the rumors true?"
Without hesitation, without a flicker of remorse, Ezmelral's lookalike met his gaze and answered with clean, cold finality.
"They are lies."
Osculi Iudæ turned his back on her, the soft click of the door sealing his final break from the woman he once revered. Alone in his chamber, he staggered, the last of his faith shattering. "Just an experiment," he muttered to the empty room, the words tasting like ash.
From a hidden pouch, he produced the pill—the Eldest Elder's promised key to power, dark and unnaturally warm in his palm. His fingers closed around it. Indecision crystallized into a cold, sharp purpose. He would become the purge his planet needed.
---
His resolve now an unbreakable blade, Osculi Iudæ stood before the muttering hall, the smoky mirror still painting its damning narrative. It showed not only his personal torment but a curated collection of tragedies—each a location where an Overlord had festered into existence under her watchful, yet inactive, eyes.
"You asked me why?" Osculi's voice cut through the rising din, sharp and cold. He gestured to the visions. "Is this not reason enough?"
"Those are fabrications!" Bellavius roared, his Earth Essence flaring as he strained against the generals holding him, their blades pressing warningly against his skin.
A fragile undercurrent of faith fought back in hushed whispers from the crowd, but it was a losing battle. With a sharp clap, the Northern King silenced the room. The main doors opened, and a group of weary northerners was ushered in.
"Look at her," the king commanded. "Was this the woman who pulled you from the Heartmash's gut a year ago?"
They studied her, and one by one, nodded. "Yes," a woman whispered. "She saved us."
"Describe her," the king pressed, his voice a trap being sprung. "What was different?"
"A-as her hair," a man stammered, his eyes distant with the memory. "It was... changed. Streaks of crimson, like living fire."
"Like a goddess from the old tales," another confirmed.
"Thank you," the king said, dismissing them with a wave. He turned to the assembly, his face a mask of grim revelation. "Do you see it now? She crafts a divine visage to win the people's devotion, while in the shadows, she engineers the very crises that make them desperate for a savior."
At the center of it all, Ezmelral's lookalike could barely stand. The corruption backlash was a fever burning through her veins, making the room swim. Her breath came in shallow, out-of-sync gasps as she watched the faces of her people—faces she had fought for, bled for—harden with doubt. The grand, years-long architecture of her mission was collapsing into rubble, not by an enemy's army, but by a single, perfectly aimed seed of truth and lies, just as victory was finally within her grasp.
Then, a sharp, resonant clang echoed through the hall as Osculi Iudæ hurled his Paladixtus sword to the floor. The unique steel, capable of harming a PraLumunix, gleamed accusingly in the light.
"Look at it!" he roared. "The only blades that can kill the PraLumunix — and she alone knows how to forge them!"
That truth — or illusion of one — was enough.
In the eyes of her people, the last light of faith went out. Not a slow fading, but a sudden, merciless snuffing.
And in that moment of spiritual death, the corruption struck.
A jagged laugh tore from her lips — harsh, dissonant, unfamiliar. Blood splattered the floor as her Essence Core fractured under the backlash. She staggered, her strength bleeding away as the room tilted.
Where did it all go wrong?
The thought echoed as her body fell.
Her mind flickered back — to the day the GodKing had left her, to the words she'd never spoken.
"Ah," she breathed weakly, realization dawning with her final exhale. "That's when…"
Her back met the floor with a soft thud.
"I never told you," she whispered to the ceiling — to the stars she could no longer see. "I love you."
Her trembling hand reached upward, fingers stretching for a sky beyond her grasp.
A faint smile crossed her lips.
Her hand fell.
Silence.
The savior of a world — slain not by corruption, but by faith lost.