The World Gate continued rebuilding above the battlefield.
Slowly.
Endlessly.
Silver light spread across the shattered sky like a second horizon while fragments of erased reality drifted downward around everyone. The system had become unstable after Vireon shattered the first activation, but instead of stopping—
it had grown more desperate.
And desperate things were dangerous.
Kael stood silently beside Elara while distorted space moved unevenly around him. The overwhelming pressure from the battlefield still lingered inside his domain, but his attention remained fixed upward toward the reforming gate.
Vireon's words echoed in his mind.
You're running out of time, son.
The black fractures spreading across Vireon's arm had not disappeared.
If anything—
they were getting worse.
Riven noticed it too.
"…Father," he said carefully, "what exactly happens when those fractures spread completely?"
Silence.
For a moment, Vireon simply looked toward the sky.
Then he answered calmly.
"Reality stops recognizing you."
The battlefield became quiet again.
Even Elara's expression changed slightly.
"That's… possible?"
Vireon laughed softly.
"For Eclipse? Unfortunately."
Kael's jaw tightened.
Because deep down—
he already understood what Vireon meant.
The farther Eclipse power evolved, the less it obeyed normal existence.
Eventually—
reality itself rejected it.
The silver figure suddenly spoke again:
"WORLD PURGE CONTINUES."
The gate above the battlefield expanded further.
Entire pieces of the distant sky vanished instantly into silver emptiness.
Riven stared upward nervously.
"…Can somebody explain why the world-ending object keeps getting bigger?"
"The system is afraid," Vireon answered.
The Inferno Monarch finally spoke again from the distance.
"It should be."
The Divine forces still remained separated from the battlefield center now. Even immortals no longer looked confident beneath the pressure of the World Gate.
Because they understood something terrifying.
If the gate fully opened—
even they would be erased.
Kael looked toward Vireon.
"You knew this would happen eventually."
"Yes."
"And you said nothing."
Vireon's gaze remained calm.
"You weren't ready to hear it."
Kael's distorted space darkened slightly around him.
"And now?"
Vireon finally looked directly at him.
"Now you're becoming exactly what the system feared."
Silence.
Elara instinctively stepped closer to Kael again.
Not because she feared him.
Because she could feel the weight of those words settling onto him.
Kael stayed quiet for several seconds.
Then:
"…What was the first Eclipse War?"
The battlefield seemed to pause.
Even the silver figure stopped moving briefly.
Vireon exhaled slowly.
"Long ago, Eclipse wasn't a clan."
His voice became quieter now.
"It was a group of people who rejected the system controlling reality."
Fragments of black distortion spread lightly through the air around him as he spoke.
"They believed existence should evolve freely… without authority deciding limits."
Riven frowned slightly.
"That doesn't sound evil."
"It wasn't."
The answer chilled the battlefield.
Vireon looked toward the World Gate.
"But freedom without limits becomes destruction eventually."
Kael's eyes narrowed.
"And the war?"
Vireon's expression darkened slightly for the first time.
"One Eclipse lost someone important."
Elara's heartbeat tightened slightly.
"And he destroyed half the world trying to bring her back."
Silence crushed the battlefield.
Even the Divines lowered their gaze slightly.
Because suddenly—
the fear surrounding Eclipse made sense.
The system had not been born from hatred.
It had been born from terror.
Kael slowly looked toward Elara beside him.
And Vireon noticed immediately.
"That," Vireon said quietly, "is why they fear you."
The words hit harder than any attack.
Because Kael understood the comparison instantly.
The battlefield trembled again.
Not from the gate.
From him.
Elara immediately grabbed his wrist before the unstable distortion could spread further.
"Kael."
He looked at her.
And the fear inside him finally appeared clearly for the first time.
Not fear of death.
Fear of becoming the same monster history remembered.
Elara saw it immediately.
And her chest tightened painfully.
"You are not him," she said firmly.
Kael looked away slightly.
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do."
The answer came without hesitation.
"Because the person who destroys the world for love…" her voice softened slightly, "…and the person who protects people even while breaking apart himself are not the same."
Silence.
Riven quietly looked away again.
"…Why are emotional moments always happening during apocalypses?"
Nobody answered him.
Because Kael was staring at Elara like he wanted to believe her more than anything else in existence.
The silver figure suddenly raised its hand again.
"WORLD PURGE FINALIZATION BEGINNING."
The gate above the battlefield opened wider.
A massive beam of silver light slowly began forming again at its center.
But this time—
the battlefield did not panic immediately.
Because now they finally understood the truth.
This war was never about power.
It was about fear.
Fear of what love could turn Eclipse into if it ever lost something it could not survive without.