Zero Point looked like the end of the world itself—a place fallen out of time, where polar ice met a bottomless black rift. The air was not meant to be breathed; it scraped the throat with the stench of sulfur and rusted iron. Above it all, the Great Seal stretched across the sky like a tattered curtain of light, emitting sounds like massive silk being torn—muffled screams of a world refusing to collapse.
Sultan and Illyana disembarked from the aerial vessel, accompanied by five elite guards whose eyes overflowed with terror behind their iron masks. There was no military spectacle here—only a funerary silence, broken by the howling wind slipping through fractures in the Seal.
"Look at that darkness, Sultan…" Illyana whispered, pointing her sword toward a widening fissure in the Seal.
"This isn't just a break. It's hunger. The demons aren't trying to enter our world—they're trying to pull it into theirs."
Sultan did not answer. His body trembled—not from the cold, but from the resonance of the Seal vibrating through his veins. His silver hair began to glow with a faint blue light, as if the lightning within him were answering the sky's lament.
"I can feel them, Illyana…" Sultan said hoarsely, his blue eyes piercing the void.
"I hear their teeth grinding behind that light. They're waiting for the last stone to fall."
Without warning, the ground beneath them split open.
From the fissures emerged twisted beings—half smoke, half molten metal—screaming with a cry that shook the mountain itself. This was no random assault; it was an organized ambush, as if someone had given the signal.
The five guards fell within seconds, their armor useless against the claws of shadow. Only Sultan and Illyana remained, standing back to back within a circle of crawling death.
"Sultan! Don't unleash wild fire here!" Illyana shouted as she decapitated one of the creatures.
"If your flames strike the Seal, you'll accelerate its collapse! Use your balance—let the air cut them down, and the earth imprison them!"
Sultan drew a deep breath, feeling the weight of four continents upon his shoulders. He no longer saw the monsters—he saw the magical threads animating them. He raised one hand toward the torn sky, then slammed it into the ground.
What followed surpassed all expectations.
Not merely an emerald spear emerged, but a spiraling vortex of emerald lightning enveloped him. The air became invisible blades, shredding shadow-creatures before they could reach him, while the ground beneath them froze instantly—then exploded into crystalline walls that trapped whatever remained.
Sultan moved as if performing a sacred dance; his silver hair streamed behind him like a royal wing, his eyes blazing with a light no longer human.
In that moment, he was the Balancing Law incarnate.
Amid the chaos, Sultan saw a silhouette standing at the edge of the rift—a man in a long coat, his features obscured, yet his presence dripping with venom. He didn't need to see the face to know who it was.
"Ysenbert!" Sultan roared, his voice echoing across Zero Point like thunder.
The shadow laughed—a cold sound swallowed by the wind.
"Well done, boy. You've learned to merge the elements. But you've forgotten one law: the law does not protect those who break it."
Ysenbert raised his hand and unleashed a black bolt of lightning—not at Sultan, but directly at the Great Seal. The strike hit a weakened point of light, tearing open a colossal hole from which a black gale erupted, pulling everything toward it.
"Illyana! Hold on to me!" Sultan shouted, driving his emerald blade into the ground to anchor himself.
Illyana gripped his hand, her face pale as snow.
"Sultan—the Seal is collapsing! If we don't close it now, there will be no Baghdad, no Europe… the world will be swallowed by the void!"
Sultan looked at the rift—then at Illyana. In her eyes, he saw fear… but also absolute faith in him.
And in that moment, he made his choice.
"I'll close it," Sultan said, his voice carrying both imperial resolve and a son's farewell.
"But the price may be my life. Illyana… if I don't return, remember that song. Remember that we once had a sun."
He leapt toward the black rift, leaving Illyana screaming his name behind him. He soared through the black winds, wrapped in a halo of white and emerald light, like a meteor returning to its destined sky.
At the edge of oblivion, Sultan released everything he had.
The four elements merged within his grasp, forming a sacred white flame that he drove into the heart of the fracture.
A blinding light erupted, followed by a silent explosion that shook the fabric of existence itself.
Then… silence.
When Illyana opened her eyes, the Seal was knitting itself together once more, glowing faintly. But Zero Point was empty.
There was no sign of Ysenbert.
No sign of Sultan.
Only a fragment of Sultan's silver cloak remained, caught on a shard of emerald crystal, fluttering in the frozen wind.
Illyana fell to her knees, clutching the cloth to her chest as her tears froze upon her cheeks.