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Dust still floated like a veil over the battlefield. The entire world watched in sepulchral silence.
Dante, even bloodied and with half his body destroyed, remained standing. His empty eyes, his cracked crown… and yet, he smiled.
— …Congratulations, Mei Nuhay… — he said in a hoarse voice, his lungs heavy. — You… shone. Until the end.
Around them, the skies remained dark. But the heat was no longer felt.
Fenra, watching from the destroyed building, narrowed her eyes. — …No… I… I can't sense her anymore…
— Neither can I — said Aisha, her face panicked. — The energy… it's gone…
Stella fell to her knees. — No… it can't be…
Tekio clenched his fists, his heart beating like an insane drum. — Mei…?
Akira raised his sword. — If she fell… then I'm going.
Aisha grabbed his arm. — Wait. There's… there's still something.
Dante began to regenerate. The crown pulsed, releasing energy. His wounds slowly closed. His smile widened.
He was relaxed… but he felt it. Too late.
— …Huh?
Within the dust… a light.
An intense golden glow emerged behind him, cutting through the veil of destruction.
She was there.
Mei Nuhay.
Floating, her body wounded, blood streaming from her mouth, her hair spinning in flames like a solar spiral.
— Miss me?
Before Dante could react, she was already in motion.
— Supreme Technique…
Her hands crossed, energy began to grow, violent, unstable, like a sun rising over the crater.
— …Ascendant Sun!
She spun in the air like an inverted comet, diving directly at the exact moment the crown was releasing energy to regenerate Dante.
BAAAAAAAAAAM!
The light swallowed everything.
— MEI! — Tekio screamed. The entire city shook.
The entire world exploded in shouts. People on the screens roared as if it were a World Cup final goal.
— IT'S HER! — SHE'S BACK! — MEI NUHAY! MEI NUHAY!
The light dissipated.
Dante lay fallen. The crown cracked. The voices… screaming.
Voices from the abyss echoed, grotesque, insane:
— THAT GIRL MUST DIE! — WRETCHED INSECT! — YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!
Mei panted. — How cute. Mommy and daddy are screaming because their little boy got beaten up.
The crown, even damaged, began to regenerate. Fissures closing. A new glow emerging.
But Mei was already in front of it. Her hands joined. She whispered the words like a sentence:
— Distorted Pulse: Solar Equilibrium.
The energy created vibrated at the same frequency as the crown's regeneration. Synchronized. Cruel.
The crown was reconstituting… but before it could fully close, Mei delivered the final blow.
— Pulsar in Final Code.
The crown pulsed yellow. Exploded.
The impact reverberated in the air like the beating of the world's heart.
The abyssal voices howled, distorted, and… fell silent.
The link had been severed.
Dante fell to his knees. His energy fell with him.
Now… he was just a man with broken power. A king without a throne.
Mei walked up to him. He tried to attack—a blast of shadows—but she intercepted it with an open palm and broke his leg with a single kick.
— GYAAAH!
He rolled on the ground, screaming in pain. He dragged himself away.
Mei pulled him by the hair.
— It was an incredible fight. Truly it was. But… it's time for the tyrant to pay.
She aimed at his eyes.
— You know what you did to Aisha? — and burned his eyeballs.
— GAAAAH!! AAAAARGH!!
He thrashed, in despair, as Mei dropped him like a dirty rag.
Dante still attempted one last blow. An explosion that pushed him a few meters away.
But… Mei just walked. Slow. Silent. Firm.
The entire world watched.
She came close. Her gaze silent. Dante moaned, powerless.
Mei looked at him with disdain and laughed softly.
— You know why you fell for this, little king? She answered herself: — Because you overestimate yourself too much.
Dante, between moans, tried to understand.
Mei raised a finger: — I needed to create an absurd distraction. A spectacle. An explosion big enough to disappear from everyone's radar. So I activated that move—the Ascendant Sun—and poof, I vanished. I ran out of energy for a while, but I got what I wanted: time to plan… and for you to relax.
She took a step forward, smiling. — I'm a genius, aren't I? The sun hid… and when it was born again, it burned your soul.
She moved closer.
— You know… speaking seriously now— she said, in a calmer tone — sometimes I think that… if I didn't have this weight on my chest… this damn burden of caring… I could have been like you.
He looked at her with his blood-stained, blind face.
— Because… deep down… I'm arrogant, egocentric… and powerful. But… — she looked at the sky — every time someone I could have saved dies… my chest burns. It burns more than the flames I conjure.
She looked back at him.
— Maybe… that's what separates me from you. A pity, huh? For you, and for any other monster who thinks power is everything… Because the burden of kindness… is what keeps me standing.
Dante, dragging himself, no longer spoke.
Mei slowly stood up.
The city was in ruins. But the star… still burned.
The world wept. And applauded.
— The Empress has won.
The floor of the crater still smoldered, cracked in every direction as if the planet itself had screamed.
In the center, a ruined body dragged itself with effort.
Dante.
His hands were burned, his leg broken, his eyes completely destroyed, two blackened craters where the king's gaze once was. And yet… he smiled.
There was blood on his teeth.
— Won…? — he murmured, spitting. — No. You only delayed what was already sealed.
Mei approached with firm steps, her body covered in cuts and soot, but still standing. Her presence was still warm… alive.
— Still trying to play the prophet? — she mocked, exhausted but firm. — Don't you get tired?
Dante laughed with difficulty.
— You… will be the next. The second.
— Second to what?
— The second to die.
Mei stopped.
Dante couldn't see, but his body trembled for an instant. A black liquid began to trickle from the corners of his mouth and nose. His chest expanded as if something inside him was trying to get out… but there was no aura, no energy. Just collapse.
— The light will go out… and… she will come.
Dante coughed dark blood, stretched his hand toward something invisible… and then stopped.
Nothing else moved.
Dante, the King of the Abyss, fell like a rock finally yielding to gravity.
Dead.
Mei stood there for seconds. The silence of the world seemed to weigh on her shoulders.
She looked at the corpse for a moment, then let out a long sigh.
— Damn… died in his own way. Mysterious, dramatic, and without letting me have the last word.
She took a step back, exhausted, the heat of her body finally beginning to dissipate.
That's when she heard it.
— MEI!!!
Tekio came running through the debris, his eyes wide and face dirty.
Stella came behind, holding Dan's hand. Aisha, Akira, and Fenra completed the group.
— Knew you'd take your time — said Mei, without turning, but a tired smile curved her lips.
Tekio hugged her tightly.
— You're alive! — he said, almost in tears.
— Yeah, for now. Until someone scolds me for blowing up the whole damn city.
Stella came to her side and held her face.
— Mei… you… you defeated him.
— I did — said Mei, leaning her hands on her knees, panting. — But it was close. He almost extinguished me. For real.
Akira stared at the body on the ground.
— And he died… on his own? Before the final blow?
— A coward to the end — said Aisha.
— Or too proud — added Fenra.
Dan crossed his arms, looking around at the devastated battlefield.
— Mei… the whole world saw this. You've become a legend.
She looked at him with a half-smile.
— I was already a legend. Now I just reinforced it.
In the four corners of the world, the image of Mei Nuhay standing, with her allies arriving behind her, dominated the screens, the networks, and homes.
— She won! — The king has fallen! — Mei is alive! — The Empress saved the world!
In military command centers, generals lowered evacuation maps.
On battlefields, Sifs who were still fighting raised their fists.
In public squares, crowds cried and shouted her name.
In the international council, leaders stood speechless.
Danteus smiled for the first time in hours.
— I told you — he said quietly. — The Empress would burn the end of the world before letting it fall.
— So? — asked Stella. — How did you trick that bastard?
Mei turned, leaning on a piece of rubble.
— I needed a distraction big enough. So… I blew everything up. A colossal attack. Horrible energy expenditure, but it worked.
— You… disappeared — said Tekio. — Even your spiritual presence vanished.
— Of course. I ran out of reserves. That was part of the plan. He thought I had died or retreated. When he relaxed… Ascendant Sun.
By the way, I used your Ascending Thunder as inspiration, thanks for that Tekio.
— You're insane.
— No — said Mei, laughing weakly. — I'm a genius.
---I'm starving, guys, I know we have more things to resolve, but I think if I didn't die to Dante, I'm going to die from hunger.
They then laughed together, as they hadn't in a long time.
The war seemed, finally, over.
And even among the ruins… the world, for the first time in a long time, breathed in peace.
To be continued...
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