Silus stood under the bleeding sunset of the Demon Realm. Behind him, Kael and the disciples followed at a distance, their eyes filled with a mix of loyalty and pure terror. Without a word, Silus began to skip through the fabric of space, teleporting toward the black spires of the Demon Lord's castle.
But space itself began to warp. Before he could reach the gates, the world tilted. Silus felt his consciousness slipping into a cold, dark abyss.
He had fallen into Mirage—the ultimate domain of Nyx, the Nightmare Queen.
Suddenly, Silus blinked. He wasn't in the Demon Realm. He was in his old bedroom back at the palace. The sun was warm on his face. He walked downstairs to find his mother laughing and his father reading a map. On the table sat Elena, looking at him with eyes full of love—not betrayal.
"Silus, you're late for breakfast," she teased, reaching for his hand.
Days turned into weeks. The pain of the Void, the blood on his hands, and the war all felt like a bad dream. He was happy. But deep in his mind, a raspy, metallic voice began to scream: "SNAP OUT OF IT! THIS IS A CAGE! WAKE UP!"
Silus shook his head. "Be quiet," he whispered to the air. "This is real. I'm home."
"YOU HAVE NO HOME!" the sword hissed again. "I AM DEATH! I AM THE ONLY REAL THING YOU HAVE LEFT!"
"I don't know you! Get out of my head!" Silus roared at the empty air, scaring the "dream" version of his parents.
Outside the dream, in the real world, Kael and the disciples had found Silus's body lying paralyzed on the ground. They realized he was being consumed. "Everyone! Combine your mana!" Kael commanded. They poured their remaining life force into Silus, trying to break the spell.
Inside the dream, the sky began to burn. The palace crumbled. Silus was pulled into a gray void where Nyx stood, her mask grinning at him.
"Why leave, Little Prince?" she whispered. "In my world, you were loved. In the real world, you are just a monster."
Silus lunged at her, but his fist passed through her like smoke. She laughed, summoning illusions of his parents' dead bodies to circle him, whispering his failures. She trapped him in a Crystal of Eternal Despair, draining his soul.
Silus looked at the crying face of his mother's illusion and his expression went cold. "This was fun," he said, his voice dropping to a terrifying level. "But you made one mistake. You forgot that I've lived in a real Void for eight years. Your nightmare is a playground to me."
Silus didn't use a move. He simply existed. He released a pulse of "True Void" energy so vast the crystal shattered into millions of pieces. He moved so fast that even in her own domain, Nyx couldn't react. He grabbed her by her throat of smoke.
"You aren't a ghost," Silus hissed, his fingers burning with dark-gold flames. "You're just a coward who hides in the dark. Erase."
With a single squeeze, he deleted her existence from reality.
Silus opened his eyes in the real world. He expected to see his friends cheering. Instead, the smell of fresh blood hit him.
Standing over the broken, bloody bodies of Kael and the disciples was the final Star: Astaroth, the Gatekeeper. He stood at the castle gates, his four arms crossed, looking down at the "God-Slayer" who had woken up too late to save his friends.