The sky was breaking.
Golden waves of cleansing magic rolled outward from Harry, purifying radiation in expanding rings across Boston. Buildings stopped glowing. The river darkened from toxic green to murky gray.
And high above—
The Nuclear Dark Lord screamed.
The shard in his chest flickered violently, its radioactive glow dimming as the wasteland itself was stripped of the energy sustaining him.
"You cannot erase the very thing that birthed me!" he roared, voice cracking like splitting steel.
Harry hovered opposite him, armor blazing with runes.
"I don't need to erase it," Harry replied calmly.
"I only need to control it."
The Collapse
The Dark Lord lunged in desperation, unleashing a blast of condensed nuclear magic stronger than anything before.
Harry didn't block it.
He absorbed it.
His indestructible armor flared white-hot—but did not crack.
Runes along the plating shifted, rewriting themselves in midair.
His Pip-Point flashed:
ARCANE REACTOR SYNCHRONIZATION: POSSIBLE
Harry understood instantly.
The shard in the Dark Lord's chest wasn't just nuclear.
It was a fusion core bound with corrupted wizard magic.
And Harry now commanded both.
He raised his wand high.
"Accio Core."
For the first time—
Fear crossed the Dark Lord's face.
The glowing nuclear shard ripped free from his chest in a spiraling arc of green fire.
The sky detonated with light.
The Dark Lord's body began to destabilize, magic unraveling like torn fabric.
"No— I am evolution! I am the future!"
"You're a mistake," Harry said quietly.
With a final gesture—
He encased the nuclear core in layered containment spells and sealed it within his armor's arcane reactor chamber.
The storm collapsed instantly.
The Dark Lord's body disintegrated into harmless ash, carried away by clean wind.
Silence Over the Commonwealth
For the first time since the bombs fell—
The sky was clear.
Not temporarily.
Completely.
Brotherhood knights lowered their weapons.
Institute synths stood motionless in stunned silence.
The Dragonclaw roared triumphantly before settling beside the ruins like a guardian statue.
Across the wasteland, radiation levels dropped further than ever recorded.
Harry descended slowly to the cracked streets below.
Elder Maxson of the Brotherhood of Steel approached and removed his helmet.
"It's over?" he asked quietly.
Harry nodded.
"For now."
From beneath the earth, representatives of The Institute emerged, witnessing a sky they had never seen in their lifetimes.
Blue.
The Choice
Harry could feel the contained nuclear core humming within his armor.
He now possessed the most powerful energy source ever created—
Controlled.
Stable.
Infused with purified magic.
He could dominate the continent.
Expand beyond the Commonwealth.
Rule everything.
Instead—
He opened his Pip-Point.
ARCANE COMMONWEALTH PROTOCOL: GLOBAL CLEANSE INITIATED
Energy surged outward—not destructive—but restorative.
Slowly, across miles of land, radiation continued to fade.
It would take years to fully heal.
But the chain reaction had begun.
Not nuclear.
Magical.
A New Legend
As settlers gathered, whispers spread.
Not of fear.
Of gratitude.
Harry looked toward the horizon where the Dark Lord once stood.
He had survived Voldemort.
He had survived nuclear war.
He had survived a reborn monster forged from both.
And he had chosen mercy over annihilation.
The Boy Who Lived was no longer just a wizard of the old world.
He was the guardian of the new one.
Above, the stars shone without haze for the first time in two centuries.
And somewhere deep within Harry's armor—
The purified core glowed steadily.
Not as a weapon.
But as a promise.