The chamber no longer felt like stone.
It felt like judgment.
Light pressed down from above—heavy, oppressive, not blinding so much as absolute. The kind of radiance that didn't care whether you were ready to witness it. It simply existed, and everything else was expected to endure.
I lay on my side inside the protective orb, breath shallow, ribs screaming every time my chest moved. My vision swam, colors bleeding together—crimson flame, gold-white light, shadows that refused to burn away no matter how bright the chamber became.
Sir Adranous stood at the center of it all.
No—beneath it.
The light didn't descend onto him. It stood behind him, vast and immeasurable, like a presence leaning forward to observe. The air trembled as if the world itself was unsure how much longer it could hold this much authority in one place.
Azazel staggered back a step.
Just one.
But that alone told me everything.
The demon's wings were half-furled now, scorched along the edges, membranes hissing where divine heat ate through corrupted flesh. His Jaki surged wildly, no longer disciplined, no longer clever—just trying to smother the fire that judged him.
He laughed.
It wasn't mocking anymore.
It was strained.
"So," Azazel said, voice warping as the light pressed closer, "you bind yourself to a dying sun."
Sir Adranous didn't lower his blade.
He didn't raise it either.
His stance was calm—feet planted, shoulders relaxed, sword held upright like a standard rather than a weapon.
"This fire isn't dying," he replied. His voice was steady, almost gentle. "It's remembering."
Azazel snarled and vanished.
The impact came a heartbeat later.
A shockwave tore through the chamber as Azazel crashed down from above, claws ripping toward Sir Adranous's spine. Stone detonated upward, shards slicing through the air like shrapnel.
Sir Adranous stepped forward instead of back.
He turned into the blow.
Steel met claw with a sound like a bell being rung beneath the sea—deep, resonant, wrong. Heat exploded outward, carving molten lines across the floor. The collision shoved both of them apart, Azazel skidding backward, Sir Adranous sliding only a single step.
Blood dripped from Adranous's shoulder now, sizzling as it touched the ground.
Azazel noticed.
He grinned, baring too many teeth.
"You bleed," the demon said. "So even the sun remembers weakness."
Sir Adranous wiped the blood from his cheek with two fingers, studied it briefly, then flicked it aside.
"Yes," he said. "That's why this matters."
The ground buckled.
Azazel attacked again—no finesse now, no games. Just raw violence. Wings beat, claws tore, horns carved grooves into reality as he pressed forward, each strike heavy enough to crush a siege wall.
Sir Adranous moved.
Not fast.
Precise.
He cut—not to wound, not to kill—but to decide where Azazel could not stand. Every swing of his blade erased space, burned paths through the air that Azazel was forced to avoid or endure. Fire followed every motion, not wild, not raging—controlled, authoritative.
Like a sentence being written one word at a time.
I felt it then.
The pressure.
Not aura.
Not Jaki.
Will.
It rolled through the chamber in waves, heavier than gravity, pressing thoughts down into the bones. My water affinity recoiled instinctively, the ocean inside me pulling back from something vast and scorching.
This was not borrowed power.
This was claimed.
Azazel roared and slammed both fists into the ground.
Darkness surged outward—Jaki spiking in jagged pillars, screaming with hatred. The light dimmed for half a second.
Only half.
Sir Adranous drove his blade into the stone.
Flames erupted in a perfect circle, sealing the darkness inside. He leaned forward slightly, as if bracing against a gale.
"You don't get to drown this world," he said quietly.
"Not while I'm still breathing."
Azazel lunged through the fire anyway.
Sir Adranous met him head-on.
The clash cracked the chamber ceiling.
I shielded my eyes as heat and shadow collided again and again, blows trading faster now, heavier. Sir Adranous was no longer untouched—his armor was split along the ribs, one leg dragging slightly, breath coming harder.
But Azazel looked worse.
Burns didn't heal anymore.
His Jaki sputtered when it surged, eaten away at the edges by light that refused to be corrupted. Each regeneration cost him more than the last.
Still, he laughed.
"You think this ends me?" Azazel growled. "I outlived your orders. Your crowns. Your crusades. I will outlive you."
Sir Adranous straightened fully.
For the first time, his sword lowered—just slightly.
"No," he said. "You won't."
Azazel hesitated.
Just for a breath.
Sir Adranous raised the blade again, this time holding it horizontally, both hands steady despite the tremor running through his arms.
The words along its length ignited, burning brighter than before.
Child of the Second Sun.
He spoke again—not loudly.
But the chamber listened.
"I am not the greatest knight," Sir Adranous said.
"I am not the strongest blade Lionhearth has ever drawn."
He inhaled slowly, painfully.
"But I am what remains when vows are exhausted, when faith breaks, and when mercy fails."
The light behind him shifted.
Focused.
Condensed.
"I am the line that moves after prayer."
Azazel screamed—not in anger.
In recognition.
Sir Adranous stepped forward.
Once.
The sword came down.
Not in a flourish.
Not in a blaze meant to impress.
It fell like a verdict.
Fire surged—not outward, but inward, collapsing into the blade as it cut through Azazel's chest. The demon's roar broke into static, Jaki unraveling as the strike carved through layers of corruption, will, and ancient defiance.
Light erupted upward.
A pillar of sunfire punched through the ceiling and vanished into the sky above Newoaga.
Azazel froze.
Then cracked.
From the cut outward, fissures of golden flame spread, burning away wings, horns, shadows—everything that made him Azazel. He reached out once, claws grasping at nothing.
Sir Adranous leaned close enough that only the demon could hear him.
"You were never a god," he said softly.
"Just a memory that refused to end."
The fire consumed the rest.
When the light finally faded, there was no scream.
Only ash, drifting down like black snow.
Silence followed.
Not the fragile kind.
The final kind.
Sir Adranous stood there for another second.
Then his sword dimmed.
He exhaled once—and collapsed to one knee.
The orb around us dissipated immediately.
I dragged myself forward despite the pain, vision blurring again as the world returned all at once. The others stirred behind me—shattered, burned, alive.
Barely.
I looked at Sir Adranous, at the fading glow around him, at the scorch marks carving the chamber where a demon had fallen.
Fire beyond oath.
Not borrowed.
Not begged for.
Endured.
I clenched my sword tighter without realizing it.
One day—
No.
Not one day.
Someday, I would have to stand where he stood.
And when that day came, I prayed the world would be ready to be judged again.
A few minutes later came pure silence.
And I was still processing everything.
Azazel didn't scream when he died.
That was the part that stayed with me.
One moment he was there—towering, burning, grinning through blood and ash—and the next, Sir Adranous' blade cut through him like judgment made solid. The flame didn't explode outward. It collapsed inward, folding in on itself until there was nothing left but heat distortion and drifting cinders.
No roar.
No curse.
No final promise of return.
Just silence.
Heavy. Absolute.
The chamber trembled once—like the world exhaling after holding its breath for far too long—then settled.
I realized my hands were shaking only after my sword slipped from my grip and clattered against the stone.
It sounded… small.
I stared at the space where Azazel had been. My mind kept expecting movement. Regeneration. A second phase. Something.
Nothing came.
He was gone.
Sir Adranous stood at the center of it all, sword still raised, flame thinning from blinding brilliance into something dimmer—older. The markings on his blade faded from molten gold to dull ember-red. The summoned sun above us fractured into light, then dispersed like ash on the wind.
When the heat finally receded, the smell hit.
Burnt stone.
Charred blood.
And something else.
Finality.
Sir Adranous exhaled slowly, shoulders rising, then falling. For the first time since he arrived, his posture looked… heavy. Not injured—burdened.
He planted his blade into the floor and leaned on it like a man holding himself upright through stubbornness alone.
The orb shielding us flickered.
Then vanished.
Cold rushed in.
Reality returned.
I felt it immediately—the pain I'd been holding back flooding in like it had been waiting patiently for permission. My ribs screamed. My lungs burned. My legs trembled so badly I had to drop to one knee just to keep from collapsing.
Around me, Class 1-S began to stir.
Low sounds first.
Breathing.
Groans.
The scrape of armor against stone.
Seraphyne coughed and rolled onto her side, pink fire sputtering weakly before dying out completely. Kai swore under his breath, trying—and failing—to sit upright. Aelira pressed a trembling hand to her arm, frost crystallizing and then cracking as her aura finally faltered.
Kazen didn't move at first.
My chest tightened.
"…Kazen," I croaked, crawling toward him despite every instinct screaming not to.
He was lying where Azazel had thrown him, back against the wall, breathing shallow. His right arm was splinted awkwardly against his chest—broken, unmistakably—but his eyes were open.
He looked at me.
And smiled.
Weak. Crooked. Alive.
"Hey," he muttered. "Guess… we didn't die."
My vision blurred.
"Idiot," I whispered, gripping his shoulder harder than I should have. "You almost did."
"Yeah," he said. "But you didn't let it happen."
I didn't answer.
Because if I spoke, something inside me was going to break apart in ways I didn't understand yet.
Sir Aldred staggered to his feet nearby, blood drying dark against his sleeve. He looked older than I'd ever seen him—not physically. In his eyes. The way he stared at the scorched chamber like a man counting lives, debts, and mistakes all at once.
He turned to Sir Adranous.
"…It's done?" Aldred asked quietly.
Sir Adranous didn't answer immediately.
He looked down at the blackened floor, at the scorched murals, at the shattered symbols carved into stone—proof of pacts that should never have existed. Proof of how long this rot had been allowed to grow.
Then he nodded once.
"Yes," he said.
"It's done."
No triumph.
No pride.
Just confirmation.
The weight of it settled over us.
Azazel was dead.
But nothing about this felt like a victory.
I pushed myself upright again, ignoring the way my body protested, and faced Sir Adranous.
"…The saintess," I said hoarsely. "Lumiel."
His eyes shifted to me instantly.
"She lives, probably." he said. "Barely. Whatever was done to her—whatever binding was started—was interrupted."
Relief hit me so hard it nearly knocked me back down.
"But," he continued, voice sharpening, "that does not mean she is free."
Of course not.
Nothing ever ended cleanly.
I swallowed. "Then this isn't over."
"No," Sir Adranous replied. "It's only been exposed."
He stepped closer, the stone beneath his boots still warm.
"You did something today," he said, looking not just at me, but at all of us. "Something dangerous."
Kazen snorted faintly. "Survived?"
Sir Adranous glanced at him. "Refused to look away."
The words hit harder than any blow Azazel had landed.
He turned back to me.
"You saw the machine beneath the throne," he said. "The lies built into peace. The price paid quietly so others never have to see it."
I clenched my fist.
"We weren't supposed to," I said.
"No," he agreed. "You weren't."
Silence stretched again—thick with understanding.
Finally, Sir Adranous sheathed his sword. The moment steel clicked into scabbard, something in the chamber relaxed, like the world acknowledging the end of a sentence written in blood.
He looked tired now.
Human.
"Reinforcements are securing the upper levels," he said. "Knight Captains. Clean-up teams. Truth-bearers."
Truth-bearers.
That was new.
"This place will never be sealed again," he added. "What was hidden here will be dragged into the light—whether kingdoms want it to be or not."
Seraphyne laughed weakly. "Wow. Summer break really escalated."
No one corrected her.
Sir Adranous' gaze returned to me one last time.
"You held," he said. "When something older than empires tried to break you."
I opened my mouth—
He raised a hand.
"This was not praise," he said calmly. "It was acknowledgment."
His eyes softened—just barely.
"The fire you stood against today?" he continued. "Most knights never even get close enough to feel its heat."
He turned away then, toward the ruined chamber, already shifting back into a commander's mindset.
"You'll carry this," he said over his shoulder. "Not as glory."
I looked at my blood-slicked hands.
"I know," I said.
His voice reached me one final time.
"As weight."
And he left.
I sat there in the silence that followed—surrounded by broken stone, injured friends, and the corpse-less absence of something that should never have existed.
Azazel was gone.
But the truth he exposed wasn't.
And as the heat finally faded completely, I understood something with terrifying clarity:
This wasn't the end of the first war.
It was the moment I learned what one really costs.