The mill did not change when I understood I was going to die. It did not tense or quicken, nor did it respond with violence to what was happening within its walls. It didn't need to. Everything inside it had already been arranged for that moment long before I crossed its threshold, long before I stepped into the mist for the first time. The only thing that truly changed was the way I perceived it, as if I had finally stopped resisting its logic and begun to recognize, in that constant pulse, not a threat but the confirmation of something that had been dormant within me for far too long. Aldric was still alive, though saying it like that felt more like a concession to language than to reality. His body had been reduced to a raw and stubborn effort not to collapse entirely, blood pouring uncontrollably from where his arm had once been. And yet he persisted, perhaps out of honor, or perhaps out of a pride that had nothing to do with winning anymore, but with not dying on his knees. Serah held him together as best she could, torn between keeping him in this world and containing what was closing in on us. There was something deeply human in that gesture, something the mill seemed to reject. Every root she summoned emerged gray, twisted, hollow. Her magic had become a metaphor, expressing salvation as the price of existing. Maelor, for his part, delayed the inevitable. He raised barriers that lasted just long enough to give us the illusion that there was still time, buying a few more seconds of life at the cost of his own power. Eldran, as always, was different. For some time now, he had become a body inhabited by multiple wills, each surfacing at random. His mind had abandoned the material plane, leaving behind an inert shell, upright and present, yet disturbingly empty. His eyes belonged to something else, to someone who did not participate in the fight and yet observed it with a clinical fascination, as if the outcome did not matter, only the process. The way each of us lost hope and succumbed to fear. I looked at him longer than I should have, because in that moment I understood something. We were not only victims. We were also a spectacle. Somewhere, deep within the mist, something was watching through him and learning. I felt no rage. No surprise. Only a strange clarity. They descended then, like parts of a mechanism activating at the precise moment it was meant to. They were gears in this great engine called the Devil's Valley. Their presence did not alter the air or the light. Not even a speck of dust shifted its course. They were in harmony with the place, with its rhythm, with its purpose. And as they drew near, I did not see the urgency to kill, but the certainty that what was about to happen had already been decided.
—This already happened —one of them recalled.
—And it will happen again —added the other, circling me as if following a script.
I moved forward anyway. Not doing so would have been just another decision I had spent too long avoiding. Hiding behind the idea that there might be a correct path, a perfect move that would solve everything without paying the price of my choices, was no longer an option. Trying to rewrite fate with every strike hurt more than the shattered pieces of my own body, pieces that had always served as an escape when I lost myself in the labyrinth of my mind. The blow came, and my body responded late. Not from lack of reflex, but because there was nothing left in me that wanted to protect itself with the same urgency as before. The impact went through the shield, through my arm, through my chest. The venom had numbed my flesh, and what I felt was not just pain, but a physical confirmation of what was already happening within. Each wound was not the result of the fight, but the translation of something deeper, forged with every decision made, with every feeling I had denied.
—I killed her… you want revenge —I said, and blood spilled from my mouth.
They both stopped. And in that brief silence, I thought I had understood something. But once again, I was wrong.
—No —one replied, her expression mocking my disbelief.
—She doesn't matter —the other continued. Outside, the mill groaned. The dead had begun climbing, trying to force their way through the windows.
—She was a link —she added— just like you. Just like all of us.
Everything turned. Everything returned. Every story, every attempt, every failure repeated itself with small variations that changed nothing. I understood then that the witches were not the origin, nor even the problem. They were parts of a larger system that required things to unfold in a certain way to keep functioning. The cycle always returned to the place that hurt the most. I was not special. I was just another piece of the whole. The final blow did not arrive as an ending, but as another act. One of them, the last to speak, had taken Aldric's sword. With it, she drove the blade through my back, the tip emerging from the center of my chest with a precision that left no room for error. In front of me, her image flickered and dissolved with quiet irony. My body tried to react, but it was nothing more than a useless reflex. I would have preferred to be an old hero who lost his final battle rather than just another line in this story.
—Always the same —she whispered in my ear— always trying to fix it.
The blood flowed slowly, heavily. I took a step back and felt her move in front of me. Behind me, the void of the window. Beyond that, the dead, clawing, piling up, waiting for the feast. In front of me, my killer smiled, and her sister nodded as if confirming everything had unfolded at the exact right moment. The moment became intimate. The steel inside me, carving through without resistance, turned my body into undeniable evidence. Aldric was the first to break. He tried to stand, desperate and clumsy, slipped in his own blood, and fell to his knees. He had lost both balance and strength to the hemorrhage. His mouth opened, releasing only a broken sound. Serah took a second longer. Her hands froze midair, trapped between the life she had always tried to summon and the death she could no longer stop. She looked at me as if searching for a flaw in the scene, an error, something that would allow her to intervene. Tears began to fall, warm against the cold. She did not scream. She did not speak. Maelor stepped back. One step, as if the space between us had become dangerous, as if my wound were contagious. The magic in his hands faded like a candle flame in a soft breeze. He tried to say something, but it never came. Eldran blinked once. The trance broke. His true self surfaced for a fleeting instant, just long enough to feel the loss. The mill's axis turned with greater weight. I felt the entire structure adjusting itself around what had just occurred. It was necessary for everything to continue. Outside, some of the dead fell as they climbed, tearing their nails, shredding their cold flesh against the wood. My body was already gone. The only thing left standing was the rawest certainty I had felt since entering the valley. I had not failed. I had done exactly what I was meant to do. My part in this performance was complete. I accepted it. And then I chose to be myself in my most primitive form. To express my stubbornness, my defiance, even in the face of death. With the little strength I had left, I removed my helmet. Not as a heroic gesture, but as someone who had finally stopped hiding. I took a deep breath, deeper than I had in a long time. A breeze brushed across my face, hardened by confinement, and for the first time, I felt safe. I looked at my companions. They stared back at me, their eyes wide, surprised to see my face, recognizing something old and familiar in it. I smiled.
—My name is Munin Huginsson, Captain of the Waves… —I said, and then, looking at the witches— I am the last berserker… and I choose how I enter Valhalla.
With what remained of me, I grabbed the witch before me. I felt the sword sink deeper into my body as I pulled her close, embracing her with all my strength, driving the blade through her as well. The metal pierced the thin barrier of her chest.
—This… is new —she murmured with her final breath, blood spilling from her lips.
The other witch stared in shock from the corner. Eldran's eyes filled with both awe and rage. I could not save them. I could not break the cycle. I could not change what had already been. But I could decide how it ended. Still holding her, I let myself fall backward through the window. The world gave way with me. The air wrapped around us as we fell. There was no vertigo. No fear. Only a strange sense of freedom. The dead reached us before we hit the ground. Their cold hands tore into us, ripping flesh, dismantling what remained of our broken bodies. The destruction of my body was not punishment, but the final form of the truth I had been avoiding. I could not be the hero I wanted to be. I had not saved anyone. I had arrived too late to every important decision. But in that final moment, in that insufficient yet wholly mine choice, I found something that resembled victory. A painful happiness settled into my soul as rotten teeth tore through my muscles and tendons. Everything turned red. I surrendered to that feeling, facing the infinite darkness we call death, with the promise that beyond it, my gods and my friends were waiting. The pain faded. My senses dimmed, one by one. And with a single tear running down my face, I embraced the idea of failure with all my love.