THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS VIOLENCE AND DESCRIPTION THAT MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR SOME READERS
The projection pulsed again, crimson shadows bending across the throne room as the Queen flicked her fingers. Damon's breath hitched. He felt Gamishi's pain humming through the vision, despair woven into every flicker of light.
The Queen's voice echoed, softer now. "Watch carefully… this is the price of defiance."
Gamishi hung by chains forged from living flame. They didn't just burn, they fed on his eterna, draining him with every breath. His chest rose raggedly, as if life itself was slipping through cracks in his body.
It felt as though he had died a thousand times, mind and flesh torn apart, but Kroxus replaced each organ with fire binding them back together. Every part of him hurt.
Kroxus stood before him, arms crossed, calm, like a sculptor admiring unfinished work. "Still silent?" His voice dripped with cruel amusement. "I expected another round of screams by now."
Gamishi raised his head, lips cracked. "I'd rather burn," he rasped, "than satisfy your evil desires."
Kroxus smirked. "Then burn you shall."
He snapped his fingers. Dark red lightning coiled into the flames like living serpents. The sky itself trembled. Gamishi's cry echoed through Loira. A sound that seemed to shake the sky itself, reaching the stars as if the heavens recoiled.
Days passed. Or weeks. Time had no meaning to Kroxus. One mortal against an immortal. Relentless, but also hopeless.
The guards stopped watching. One muttered, "This is not justice. I wanted fairness… not slaughter."
Kroxus turned, smiling. "Your wish is my command." He simply looked at the soldier. A single glance, and the man was gone, burned through in an instant.
"But Gamishi never broke. He stopped screaming. He just breathed. And the silence became his rebellion," the Queen said.
Then came the whisper. Not from Kroxus, but from the dark itself. Hallucinations. "You can end this... just one word... and you'll see them again…"
Gamishi's fingers twitched. His vision swam. He saw Yuki's face. His sons' laughter. The necklace she wore that morning. He closed his eyes. No. He would not break.
Kroxus chuckled. "Ah, the mortal's mind. So fragile, yet so loud."
He knelt beside him, voice low. "Tell me what the message said on Sorah's arm."
Gamishi didn't answer.
"Fine," Kroxus sighed. "In fact, why didn't I reason this before? Perhaps mortals are selfish… in the name of love." He turned, eyes gleaming. "Let's see if your family is as strong‑willed as you are."
The chains vanished. Gamishi collapsed, knees hitting the cracked floor. A rift opened in front of them. A red gate roaring with flame.
Through it, Gamishi saw his home. The fountain where Haruki once played.
"No… please…"
Kroxus extended his hand. From the flames emerged three beasts. Horned, four‑eyed, cloaked in ember dust. "One beast for each of them," Kroxus said coldly. "Your sons… and your wife."
"STOP!" Gamishi's voice cracked, desperate. His knees buckled beneath him.
"Why should I stop? Your sons' training might finally pay off. Let's test it."
"NO!"
"Not the words I asked for, human."
"Please— I'll tell you!"
Kroxus turned, grin sharp as a blade. "Then speak, mortal."
Gamishi's shoulders shook. "Sorah said… prepare for Kroxus."
"Excellent." Kroxus's eyes flared. "Then the destruction begins now."
He spread his arms. Reality opened like a wound. Demons — endless, black, crawling — poured through the portal toward Earth.
"You promised not to hurt my family!" Gamishi cried, dragging himself forward. "What? When did I ever say so?" Kroxus smiled cruelly, stepping through the gate.
Gamishi summoned every strand of strength, clawing toward the closing portal.
The smell of blood. Screams of pain. Smoke choking the air. Cries of agony. Everywhere he looked: cities scorched in seconds, oceans boiling, Earth itself screaming. Even as he looked above him it seemed like sparks lit the sky, but those weren't sparks. They were planets, on fire.
And then, Yuki. Standing at a gate, clutching both sons. Her face pale, her eyes brave.
Gamishi crawled toward her. "Don't… touch them. Please."
Kroxus stepped on his fingers. Gamishi yelled in pain. "Oh, but you've been silent this whole time?" Kroxus sneered, snatching the children from Yuki.
She screamed. "Don't touch them!"
He struck her across the face with a brutal kick. "Now boys, come say hello to your father."
Haruki and Akira struggled and their eterna flared. One as water, one as fire. They hurled it at Kroxus.
"You've taught your children well, Gamishi." He crushed them in his grip. The crack echoed like breaking stone through Gamishi's ears.
"YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T HURT MY FAMILY! WHY!?"
Yuki's terrified, agonised cry filled the void. A mothers fury breaking through her fear.
Kroxus laughed, deliberate and cruel. "I'm a man of my word. I never said they wouldn't die."
He raised his hand. Flames lifted Yuki into the air, choking her voice, wrapping her in a cruel glow. Her eyes found Gamishi's, terrified, yet unbroken. And for a heartbeat, eyes of confused sorrow met eyes of desperate love.
"No… no, no—KROXUS, STOP!" Gamishi yelled, summoning every thread of strength as he ran towards Kroxus.
"Your struggles are futile, Gamishi." Kroxus's voice was tranquil, yet filled with doom. He flicked a wave of fire that sent Gamishi meters to the ground. A burning scar seared across his chest.
"Gamishi…" she whispered through fire, her voice breaking but steady enough to carry. "I love you."
And in that instant, her body slowly began to disintegrate from her feet, as if Kroxus wanted him to feel every moment. Red light scattering like ash in the wind. When it reached her neck, her necklace fell, striking the ground with a soft chime that echoed louder than any scream.
Her eyes — once full of warmth — stared back at him in the fading light, frozen in terror. And finally, the space where she had been held collapsed into drifting ash, which Kroxus tossed aside like sand.
Gamishi didn't move. He couldn't. His eyes wide, empty. Then, slowly, something inside him snapped.
"I have a gift for you, Gamishi."
Kroxus gathered and poured the agony of every soul he'd shattered into Gamishi — rage, terror, despair — a storm of stolen emotion.
He turned to leave, fearing the Eternal One's arrival. But suddenly flames bent around Gamishi. Eterna — no longer bright, no longer pure — turned black.
His hair darkened, flowing like ink. A red crack split across his forehead, glowing molten. His eyes, once yellow, burned crimson.
Kroxus watched, amused but cautious. "What are you doing?"
Gamishi rose slowly, shadows bending toward him like loyal beasts. "The anger… of my people," he said, voice layered with echoes. "The pain… of every life you took…"
He looked up, whisper and roar at once. "It is mine now."
The chains shattered. The ground broke.
Kroxus laughed. "You absorbed their emotions? Their fear? Their hate? This is perfect, while the Eternal One seals me someone else will do my bidding. You are clever, Gamishi… but far too late."
Gamishi stepped forward. "You're wrong. This is enough… to break you."
For the first time, Kroxus hesitated. The air quaked. The sky cracked. Gamishi's flame, black and red, consumed all around.
The world detonated around him.
Back in the throne room, the projection dimmed to nothing. Damon sat frozen, heart pounding like a drum. The dog trembled against his leg, tail tucked. Hazel floated silently, her glow faint.
The Queen finally spoke, voice low. "That was the moment Gamishi, our hero, turned. Not because he was weak… but because grief gave him power no mortal should ever wield."
Her eyes flickered with old sorrow.
"How?" the dog asked. Damon translated.
Hazel explained softly.
"Eterna can be powered by emotion to some extent. The final emotions of millions that Kroxus forced into Gamishi surpassed that extent because instead of dying, he used it to power himself. But the darkness took over. If you're happy, it shines beautifully. If you're angry… well, you saw." She swirled her hands, diamond light glowing briefly.
Damon swallowed hard. "And Kroxus?"
"Kroxus fled," the Queen said. "He felt the Eternal One coming to punish him. He did and Kroxus is in bondage. Now we think Gamishi has assumed Inferno's throne, that is the only way to keep the balance though we are unsure. But before Kroxus left… he smiled."
"Why?"
"Because even in defeat," she whispered, "he knew someone else would carry his will."
"His will?" Damon asked.
"Gamishi intends to destroy all beings with Eterna. He believes it is the root of his loss."
"How does that affect our world?" the dog barked.
"It does because all living things have eterna," Damon answered.
The Queen nodded.
"The Eternal One took the remaining eterna‑blooded who fled during the war and forged this fourth plane — Eternum — to hold them. The rest, the low‑eterna or practically non‑eterna people, he returned to the Multiverse. Some on other planets, some on Earth… after mending it of course. Your world, what you call a multiverse, is infinite because it constantly expands."
"The Eternal One promised us a chosen one would come. To defeat Gamishi and save the two planes. That one is you, Damon."
The light faded completely.
And in the silence that followed, Damon's eterna shimmered faintly on his chest for the first time.