The world had ended.
Not with a bang, nor a flash. It ended slowly, like an animal that bleeds until it dies. The demons of the first tier – Tréyos, Trónnos, Trudar – swept through the north in three days. The villages of Lunos, which once resisted the cold and hunger, fell like rotten pines. The soldiers, the few who remained, were massacred. The peasants, enslaved. The children, taken to the portals.
Ierály, the Shadow Queen, completed the conquest of the south. Mercius, Eladir, Graylor – everything burned. Those who did not surrender were killed. Those who surrendered were enslaved. The Contraranures, now an army of thousands, flew the black flag of the empty eye.
The City of the End, without a Pope, without a leader, without faith, opened its doors to chaos. The survivors – the few who escaped the demons and the cultists – jostled in the streets, looking for food, water, a quick death.
Endomyar no longer existed.
Only ruins remained, and bodies, and the smell of blood.
+-+
Zirinos walked over the dead.
Not the dead of Lunos. Those had been rotting for days, covered in flies and maggots, their eyes eaten by birds. Zirinos had not looked back when he left the battlefield. He had not seen Andy and Irina's bodies decaying. He had not seen Luna's silver hair darken with dried blood. He had not seen the mark of Anorys fade on Ana's chest.
He didn't need to. The images were engraved in his memory, burned into his soul.
Now, he walked over the corpses of the demon lords.
Tréyos, the Wrathful, lay on his back in a pool of black lava. His chest open, his ribs exposed, his empty eyes fixed on the gray sky. Zirinos had killed him with a sword stroke – a cold, calculated stroke, without rage.
"Tréyos," said Zirinos, his voice neutral. "Your power is mine."
He knelt. His right hand touched the lord's chest. The corruption – black, thick, pulsing – transferred from the corpse to his skin. Zirinos's veins shone for an instant, then darkened.
One more, he thought. One more, and the spell will be ready.
He stood up.
+-+
Trónnos, the Greedy, leaned against a rock, his eyes still open, his hands outstretched as if trying to grasp what he could not take. Zirinos had killed him with a blow to the back – quick, dirty, without honor.
"Trónnos," said Zirinos. "Your power is mine."
The corruption transferred again. Zirinos's veins shone, pulsed, darkened.
+-+
Trudar, the Proud, did not die with his back turned.
He faced Zirinos like a warrior, sword in hand, his black armor shining in the pale sunlight. His empty eyes fixed on Zirinos with disdain.
"Do you think you can kill me, mortal?" asked Trudar, his cavernous voice.
"I know I will," replied Zirinos.
"How?"
"With humility."
Trudar laughed. The laugh echoed in the mountains.
"Humility? You?"
"The humility of knowing that I am worse than you."
Trudar hesitated. It was enough.
Zirinos's sword entered his neck.
The lord fell to his knees. His black armor lost its shine. His empty eyes were now dead.
"Trudar," said Zirinos, kneeling. "Your power is mine."
The corruption transferred. Zirinos's veins shone for the last time.
Three lords. Three powers. Three corruptions.
One was missing.
+-+
Tryni, the sovereign of hell, lay in the center of a circle of black stones.
He had not died in the mountains. He had not died on the battlefield. He had died there, on the island of the first portal, days before, when the lords of the first tier tried to free him from the seal. Something had gone wrong. The magic that had held him since 6700 had not broken – it had exploded.
Tryni had no wounds. No blood. Only the absence. The void where once there had been a king.
Zirinos knelt beside him.
"Tryni," he said, his voice low. "Your power is mine."
His hands touched the sovereign's chest. The corruption – pure, ancient, infinite – transferred like a river of black lava.
Zirinos screamed.
Not from pain. From power.
His veins shone. His eyes ignited. His skin cracked. The gold-and-blood hair darkened at the tips, as if the fire of hell had touched it.
When the corruption settled, Zirinos opened his eyes.
They were red. Not red with blood – red with corruption, with power, with death.
"It is done," he murmured.
+-+
Zirinos stood up.
The battlefield – the true battlefield, which stretched for miles from the first portal – was empty. The demons had fled. The lords were dead. Only the corpses remained, and the silence, and the smell of sulfur.
Enyo squeaked on his shoulder.
"Be quiet," said Zirinos. "It's not over yet."
He walked to the center of the circle of stones. He raised his arms. The corruption accumulated in his palms – black, red, pulsing, alive.
"Power of Tréyos, the wrath," whispered Zirinos. "Power of Trónnos, the greed. Power of Trudar, the pride. Power of Tryni, the calamity."
The energy grew. The ground trembled. The sky darkened.
"Power of Trussum, the lie. Power of Treiza, the lust. Power of Trainur, the envy. Power of Triti, the gluttony."
The eight powers. The eight sins. The eight lords.
Zirinos joined them into one.
"Spell of destruction," he said, his voice echoing in the mountains. "THE END OF IT ALL!!!"
The energy exploded.
There was no light. No sound. Only the void – the same void Zirinos had felt on the night he killed the drunkard who murdered his mother, the same void he had felt when he raped Lysara, the same void he had felt when he saw Mira dead.
The spell spread like a black cloud. It covered the mountains. Covered the valleys. Covered the villages, the cities, the fields, the rivers.
It covered everything.
When the cloud passed, Endomyar ceased to exist.
+-+
Zirinos stood alone in the center of the circle of stones.
The ground around him was black, sterile, dead. No grass remained. No trees. No corpses. Only ash.
Enyo trembled on his shoulder.
"Be quiet," whispered Zirinos.
The creature did not quiet.
Zirinos looked at the horizon. The first sun, pale and sad, shone over the ruins of a world that no longer existed.
"I destroyed everything," he said aloud. "Everything."
His head began to hurt. The masked one's voice came from within.
Good work.
"It wasn't for you."
Zirinos closed his eyes.
"The monster that came out of hell," he said, after a long time, "is not the same one that went in."
The wind blew cold.
He opened his eyes. The red shone.
"The first volume of his life ended there."
"The second would begin."
=|-+-+-|=
Livia Aryster did not reach the City of the End.
The goblins attacked at dusk, when the horse no longer had the strength to run. They were many – dozens, perhaps hundreds – and Livia was alone.
The sword fell from her hand on the first impact. Her fragile body could not resist. They fell upon her like starving dogs. They tore her clothes. Tore her skin. Tore her soul.
When they finished, they left her on the ground, naked, bloodied, her eyes open to the sky.
Livia did not cry.
She had no tears. No voice. Nothing.
Only the hope that death would come quickly.
It came.
A curved knife entered her chest. Blood ran. Her eyes went dark.
Livia Aryster died alone, on a deserted road, on her way to a city that no longer existed.
+--
Alór van Decatry did not reach the north.
The corrupted men – those Trussum had turned into monsters – attacked at dawn, when the cold froze his fingers and his vision blurred. Alór killed the first ones with his sword. Killed the second ones with a dagger. The third ones, he no longer had weapons.
Frost tried to help. The dragon's ice froze two corrupted ones, but the rest were many.
"Flee!" shouted Alór, pushing the creature away. "Flee!"
Frost hesitated. His white eyes, fixed on Alór, shone with a sadness he could not express.
"Flee!" repeated Alór. "I stay. You live."
Frost fled.
The small dragon, with fragile wings, flew south, toward the nearest Torrus-Endra. The portal shone on the mountain slope – a vertical gash, with blue edges. Frost entered. The darkness swallowed him.
Alór died with his back turned, as he did not want.
The corrupted ones had no pity. No hurry. They only killed him, slowly, and left his body to rot in the snow.
+--
Zirinos never knew.
He never knew about Livia, raped and killed by goblins. He never knew about Alór, killed by corrupted men. He never knew about Frost, lost in a Torrus-Endra.
And if he had known, he would not have cared.
The world had ended. Endomyar no longer existed. The dead were only numbers. The stories, only echoes.