Lucy's hands were on the mask before I could process her arrival.
She didn't ask. Didn't hesitate. Just gripped the bone-white demon fused to my skull and pulled.
The separation was agony.
Not physical pain. Spiritual. The mask had become part of me at one hundred percent—bone merged with bone, corruption woven into essence structure, sin integrated with soul. Removing it felt like being flayed at a fundamental level.
Black ichor poured from where the mask had been. Pure corruption essence bleeding out. The three-layered consciousness fractured. Monster and corruption screaming as they were forcibly suppressed. Human consciousness surging back to dominance.
[CORRUPTION: 100% → 50%]
[TRANSFORMATION REVERTING]
[MASK APPLICATIONS USED: 1/7]
The change was immediate. Brutal.
My metallic silver hair faded to natural silver-white. The chrome-crimson sheen of my skin dulled to pale flesh marked with faded corruption veins. My void-black eyes with swirling stars became grey storm clouds again. Tired. Human. Aware.
The seven masks orbiting me vanished. The seven swords dissipated.
And the weight of what I'd done crashed into me like divine judgment.
I collapsed.
Lucy caught me. Her arms around my shoulders. Holding me up when my legs wouldn't work anymore.
"Sidd? Sidd, can you hear me? Are you—"
"I killed it," I whispered. My voice was hoarse. Raw. Single-toned again. Just human. "I killed Azariel. The Angel who tried to save a dying sun. Who carried fourteen centuries of guilt and grief. Who just wanted to rest."
"You freed it," Lucy said firmly. "You gave it peace. That's not murder. That's mercy."
But my Truth-Seer activated involuntarily. Showed me the reality beneath her words. The truth she was trying to hide.
She was terrified. Not of what I'd done. Of what I'd become. For those minutes at one hundred percent, I hadn't been Sidd. I'd been something else. Something that calculated and killed without hesitation. Something that wielded seven sins like tools and felt nothing.
She'd seen the Found Nothing. And it had scared her.
"I'm sorry," I said quietly.
"Don't," she replied. Her grip tightened. "Don't apologize for surviving. Don't apologize for doing what had to be done."
Then the system messages appeared.
Not in my vision like the corruption warnings. These were different. Floating in the air itself. Golden text burning against the grey sky. Visible to everyone.
[TIER 3 ENTITY DEFEATED: AZARIEL, THE FALLEN ANGEL]
[MIRROR WORLD BOSS ELIMINATED]
[ANCHOR POINT SYSTEM: ACTIVE]
[RELIQUARIES DEACTIVATED]
[FINAL REWARD CALCULATING...]
I stared at the messages. At the confirmation that the system was still functioning. Still watching. Still controlling everything even after I'd just killed a Tier 3 entity that had existed for centuries.
"What's it calculating?" Gery asked. He and Somi had approached cautiously. Both looked exhausted. Both carried new eclipse marks from binding to Reliquaries.
[CALCULATION COMPLETE]
[REWARD GRANTED TO: THE LOST ONE]
[UNIQUE ATTRIBUTE ACQUIRED: ESSENCE OF JUDGMENT]
[CLASSIFICATION: DIVINE REMNANT]
[DESCRIPTION: YOU HAVE INHERITED A FRAGMENT OF AZARIEL'S ORIGINAL DIVINITY. THE POWER TO JUDGE. TO WEIGH SOULS. TO DETERMINE WORTHINESS. THIS POWER MANIFESTS AS WINGS—NOT OF CORRUPTION, BUT OF DIVINE ESSENCE. SIX WINGS OF WHITE LIGHT THAT GRANT FLIGHT, PROTECTION, AND THE AUTHORITY TO PASS JUDGMENT.]
The text burned brighter. More messages appeared.
[SECONDARY EFFECT: PURIFICATION]
[YOUR CORRUPTION CAN BE TEMPORARILY SUPPRESSED WHILE WINGS ARE MANIFESTED. CORRUPTION LEVEL REDUCES BY 20% DURING FLIGHT. WARNING: EFFECT IS TEMPORARY. CORRUPTION RETURNS AFTER MANIFESTATION ENDS.]
[TERTIARY EFFECT: DIVINE PRESENCE]
[ENEMIES OF LOWER TIER FEEL COMPULSION TO KNEEL. ALLIES WITHIN RANGE GAIN ENHANCED RESISTANCE TO CORRUPTION AND MENTAL ATTACKS.]
I felt it then. Power settling into my essence structure. Not corruption. Not sin. Something else. Something that remembered what divinity felt like before it fell.
And from my back, slowly, impossibly, something began to grow.
It started as warmth between my shoulder blades. Not heat. Just... warmth. The kind you feel when sunlight touches your skin after months of darkness.
Then light. Pure white light bleeding from my back. Not the harsh white of the Ecliptic Sword. Soft. Gentle. The white of dawn breaking after an endless night.
The light coalesced. Took shape. Became solid.
Wings.
Six wings of pure white light sprouted from my back. Each one was maybe eight feet long, composed of layered essence that looked like feathers but moved like living flame. They spread slowly, instinctively, catching the grey light filtering through the clearing sky.
They were beautiful. Not in a corrupted way. Not in a monstrous way. Just... beautiful. The kind of beauty that makes you remember there are things in the world worth protecting.
Lucy stepped back, her hand over her mouth. "Sidd... your wings..."
"Holy shit," Gery breathed.
Somi's Strategic Omniscience flared. Her multiple voices were awed. "Classification: Divine manifestation. Essence signature: ninety-eight percent purity. Analysis: these are not corruption-based. These are... actual angel wings. Fragments of Azariel's original form preserved in essence and granted to you as inheritance."
I tried to move them. The wings responded instantly, perfectly, like they'd always been part of me. They folded against my back. Spread wide. Adjusted individually. Each one controlled by instinct I didn't know I possessed.
And when they moved, the corruption veins on my body faded. Not gone. Just... suppressed. My fifty percent corruption dropped to thirty percent while the wings manifested.
[CURRENT CORRUPTION: 30% (TEMPORARY)]
[BASE CORRUPTION: 50%]
[DURATION: UNLIMITED WHILE WINGS MANIFESTED]
[WARNING: ESSENCE COST TO MAINTAIN: MODERATE]
I stood. The wings adjusted automatically, helping me balance. Supporting my weight.
Then, without thinking, I pushed off the ground.
And flew.
Rising above the crater was effortless.
The wings beat once. Twice. Each movement sent me higher. The bone-ground fell away beneath me. The Cathedral of Hands grew smaller. The wasteland spread out in all directions—a landscape of stone prayers and fading red light.
At thirty percent corruption with divine wings, I felt more human than I had in days. The emotional blunting receded. Fear returned. Wonder. Awe. Joy. Grief. All the feelings corruption had stripped away came flooding back.
I climbed higher. The six wings spread wide, catching air that shouldn't exist, riding thermals of pure essence. The grey sky opened above me. For the first time since entering the Crimson Sorrow, I saw blue.
Actual blue. Not red. Not eclipse-shadow. Just sky. Normal, beautiful, impossible sky.
The red was fading. Receding. The eternal twilight was ending. And in its place, daylight—real daylight—was breaking through.
I looked down. Saw my friends staring up at me. Saw the Penitents who'd gathered to witness. Saw Elara with her eclipse-marked eyes reflecting not red anymore, but blue.
Saw the Cathedral of Hands beginning to crumble. Not collapsing. Just... dissolving. The stone prayers were releasing their grip. The Archive was fading. The Choir was silent, finally at rest.
The Crimson Sorrow was dying. Not in catastrophe. In peace. Because the Angel who'd sustained it—who'd kept it alive through sheer force of guilt and grief—was finally gone.
I flew higher. Pushed the wings to their limit. Climbed until the air thinned and the world below became abstract. Just shapes and colors and the promise of ending.
And for the first time since this nightmare began, I laughed.
Not the cold calculation of seventy percent. Not the three-toned voice of one hundred percent. Just... human laughter. Exhausted. Relieved. Broken. Real.
I was a monster with angel wings. A corrupted being carrying divine power. A human who'd become something else but could still remember what humanity felt like.
I was lost. Still lost. Would probably always be lost.
But for this moment, suspended between red sky fading and blue sky emerging, between corruption and divinity, between monster and man—
I was flying.
And that was enough.
I descended slowly. The wings carried me down with perfect control. Landed in the center of the crater where I'd killed a god.
The wings folded against my back. Didn't vanish. Just... rested. Waiting to be needed again.
Lucy ran to me. Threw her arms around me. Didn't care about the wings or the corruption or the fact that I'd just killed a Tier 3 entity.
Just held me while I stood there, still half-human, still half-monster, still completely unsure if I was saved or damned.
"You came back," she whispered. "You put on the mask and you still came back."
"I'll always come back," I said. "As long as you're willing to pull me out."
Gery and Somi joined us. Four survivors. Four corrupted beings. Four people who'd just witnessed the death of divinity and the birth of something new.
Above us, the last traces of red faded from the sky. The eclipse was gone. The eternal twilight was ending.
The Crimson Sorrow was dead.
And we were still alive.
"One Tier 3 world down," Gery said quietly. "How many more until we escape this death game?"
I looked at the six white wings folded against my back. At the divine power inherited from a broken god. At the proof that the Anchor Point system was still active, still rewarding, still controlling everything.
"However many it takes," I said. "We keep going. Keep fighting. Keep surviving."
I spread the wings once more. Let them catch the new daylight breaking through.
"Until we find the truth. Or until we become so lost that truth doesn't matter anymore."
The gateway back to Sanctus Mortis appeared at the edge of the crater. Pulsing. Waiting.
We walked toward it together.
Four survivors carrying corruption and divinity in equal measure.
Four people who'd killed a god and inherited its wings.
Four friends who'd promised to keep each other human, even as humanity slipped further away with every world we survived.
The Crimson Sorrow dissolved behind us. Stone prayers crumbled. The Archive faded. The Choir's silence became eternal.
And Azariel—Bearer of Divine Light, Keeper of the Dying Sun—finally rested.