The battlefield didn't breathe.
It burned.
Above the broken remnants of a once-sacred world, clouds hung like flayed skin, black and trembling from the chaos they'd been forced to witness. Skies once worshiped for their celestial light were now nothing but ash-colored scars.
And in the middle of it all—
Dark stood alone.
Lara's blood still stained his gloves.
Her last warmth hadn't even left his arms before he walked.
But he hadn't spoken.
Not to her.
Not to the stars.
Not to the universe that dared to think it could take something from him and walk away untouched.
No speeches.
No threats.
Just a silence so thick it dragged the air down with it.
And then—his eyes opened fully.
The world didn't shake.
It begged.
A ripple of pressure tore through the sky, breaking it open like fabric stretched too tight. The sun flickered, failing. Moons cracked, and nearby stars dimmed for a moment—just a second. Just long enough for the divine to realize something was wrong.
Dark: (whispering) Come.
The ground behind him split open—not physically. Spiritually. It peeled like it was shedding a lie.
From the void, one by one...
They answered.
A hundred.
A thousand.
Ten thousand.
Each shadow rose with reverence and fury, no longer lurking beneath—they were summoned.
Champions stepped out next.
Igor. Malik. Raz. Vel. Clum. Cal. One. Syv. Brak. And now... Biru.
Their feet touched the ground like thunder had finally found a body.
Dark's voice stayed low.
Dark: Kill them all.
The shadows launched.
What followed was not war.
It was execution.
Celestial warriors that once spoke in the language of galaxies—their screams came first.
A priest of light exploded before he could raise a shield—torn apart by Raz's blades, his flesh warping as the gravity around him turned hostile.
Malik twisted through the air, carving spears of molten hate through angelic flesh, shattering wings mid-flight, his laughter like a devourer's hymn.
Clum dropped from above, fists glowing with cursed momentum, slamming into the earth with enough force to displace the entire city grid. Buildings imploded. Bones liquefied.
Igor was untouchable. A black sun on two feet, burning everything in his path with raw pressure. Celestials aimed, prayed, cried—but he did not stop.
Vel flung his scythe into the heart of a divine battalion, splitting them down the middle like wheat being cut for slaughter. Their light dimmed. Their faith broke.
Cal evaporated entire squads with silent pulses—waves of anti-time rupturing lungs, hearts, skulls, souls. He didn't move fast. He moved fatally.
And Biru—
Biru howled with a reborn hate. His claws dug into a Seraph's spine and ripped it out through its throat. Wings were torn. Eyes shattered. And as he stood on the corpse, his body dripping divine blood, he looked to the sky and screamed a sound only Lara would have understood.
Thousands died in seconds.
The Celestial Empire—once a name feared across entire constellations—folded.
But they didn't run.
They couldn't.
Because Dark hadn't finished speaking.
Dark: No mercy.
Every Hollow followed.
Faceless. Loveless. Merciless.
And when the last of the standard soldiers were slaughtered, the sky—what was left of it—began to burn.
A new pressure arrived.
Slow.
Colossal.
Not louder than Dark's rage. But grander. Older.
The true leader of the Celestial Empire stepped through a veil of woven starlight—his body tall, armor forged from solar matter, a crown of broken halos spiraling above his head. His eyes were comets. His voice, untouched.
???: Who dares stain the heavens with blood and call it justice?
Dark didn't look up right away.
He walked past Lara's broken blade, reached down, and picked up the hilt.
He held it for a moment.
Dark looked to the sky, the cold steel in his gaze sharpening.
Dark: You.
The emperor, still floating far above the ruined earth, tilted his head slightly—wearing a look of utter disdain, as if the one calling him was not even worth acknowledging. His celestial robes rippled through the torn air, threads of starlight dripping from the edges like broken constellations.
Dark: Get down here.
The emperor's lips curled into a faint, condescending smile.
???: As you wish.
Without hesitation, the emperor descended.
No dramatic flare. No thunderous roar.
He simply dropped.
And the moment his foot touched the shattered ground, the entire world seemed to groan under his arrival.
Cracks webbed out in every direction like veins splitting through glass. The mountains on the horizon fractured, lines of molten light bursting through their sides as if the planet itself was trying—and failing—to contain the weight of the being now standing upon it. The skies above trembled, warping under unseen gravity. Oceans hundreds of kilometers away churned in violent spirals. Even time itself wavered, the very concept of "present" struggling to hold steady.
Dark stood motionless, Kyuketsu already humming at his side, his coat snapping violently in the sudden gales screaming across the battlefield. The pressure would have crushed anyone else. Reduced them to nothing but red mist on broken stone.
But Dark remained.
Breathing.
Waiting.
Alive.
The emperor took a single step forward, each movement deliberate, like a god inspecting an insect.
???: I am Veridion Arcalestis... Emperor of the Celestial Empire, Master of the Seventh Dawn, Herald of Eternity.
His voice didn't just carry—it pressed. Every syllable weighed down on the bones of the world itself.
Veridion: You are a flicker. I am an age.
Dark's fingers tightened slightly around Kyuketsu's hilt.
Dark: You're just another body waiting to hit the floor.
Veridion smiled wider now—amused.
Then moved.
He didn't vanish. He didn't blur.
He simply appeared—inches from Dark—his hand lashing forward in a spear-hand strike that compressed the air into a solid wall of pressure.
Dark met him without flinching.
Kyuketsu flashed upward, intercepting the blow, the two forces colliding with a sound like an entire mountain range collapsing into itself. The ground between them cratered instantly, debris launching into the sky like shrapnel. Dark slid back half a meter, boots digging trenches through the cracked earth, but his balance never broke.
He lunged.
Kyuketsu cleaved horizontally, aiming for Veridion's throat with a snarl of black light. The emperor tilted his head minutely, letting the blade carve past by millimeters—and countered with a rising palm toward Dark's sternum.
Dark pivoted sharply, spinning inside the strike, the blade arcing down in a tight spiral aimed at Veridion's side.
Veridion shifted again—inhumanly smooth, like liquid wrapped in the shape of a man. His robes flared outward, trailing stars, and his foot snapped upward into a brutal side kick. It landed square against Dark's ribs with a crunch of bone and flesh, sending him sliding back across the stone.
But Dark planted his foot, twisted, and skidded to a stop.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
He wiped it away with the back of his hand.
Dark: (quietly) That all?
Veridion's smile thinned, the amusement starting to flicker beneath rising irritation.
Veridion: You speak of endings, little mortal...
Veridion: Yet you have never seen true finality.
The air shifted.
Without warning, Veridion extended his hand—and the heavens themselves bent toward him.
Thousands—millions—of spectral chains erupted from the clouds, each one pulsing with the weight of collapsed stars. They converged downward like a rain of execution.
Dark exhaled slowly.
Raised Kyuketsu.
And moved.
He didn't dodge.
He cut.
One by one, every chain that sought to bind him was severed by impossible precision, each stroke carving apart the sky's wrath. Sparks of cosmic blood rained around him as he advanced, relentless, blade singing a low, mournful hymn against the incoming storm.
Veridion's brows furrowed slightly.
He stepped forward to meet Dark fully now—abandoning all the ceremony.
Both figures collided again.
And this time, there was no grace.
Fist met blade. Blade met bone. Shockwaves cracked through the battlefield with every clash, sending up blasts of broken earth and screams of twisting reality. The ground itself warped beneath their feet, the laws of physics breaking apart under the sheer violence of their collision.
Dark ducked a hammering strike, driving his shoulder into Veridion's midsection, forcing the emperor back two steps. He followed with a low sweep aimed at breaking the emperor's legs—but Veridion floated upward slightly, avoiding the strike entirely before twisting midair and slamming his heel down toward Dark's skull.
Dark caught the heel on the flat of his blade, the force driving his knees to the ground—but he rolled with it, flipping backward and lashing Kyuketsu upward in a vicious uppercut slash. The tip scored a deep cut across Veridion's side, slicing through cloth and celestial flesh alike.
The emperor flinched.
A flash of surprise.
Dark: (gritting his teeth) You're not untouchable.
Veridion's expression hardened.
Veridion: Neither are you.
The air condensed around Veridion's fists, raw starlight coiling around his arms like living plasma.
The temperature dropped.
Not in degrees.
In concept.
The very idea of warmth abandoned the world around them, sucked away by the gathering ferocity in Veridion's hands. Light bled from the sky. Colors drained from the stones. Even the wounded winds froze in place, held captive by the coming storm.
Veridion didn't announce his power.
He became it.
With a flick of his wrist, the entire battlefield collapsed inward, the ground rippling toward Dark like a reversing ocean caught in gravitational death. Trees folded into splinters. Rocks compressed into powdered dust. The remnants of the sky wept shards of broken constellations.
Dark didn't move.
Until the last second.
And then—
He was inside the collapse.
Kyuketsu screamed to life in his hand, a flare of black and crimson slashing through the inverted world. He carved a path through the devastation, each movement precise, every angle violent. Rubble spiraled around him harmlessly as he pushed forward, step by brutal step, toward the heart of the calamity.
Veridion blurred in, a comet of clenched fists and celestial flame.
They met mid-crater.
The first punch from Veridion cracked Dark across the jaw, a brutal strike that sent a ripple through the veins in Dark's neck. Blood splattered from his mouth. His feet tore two deep trenches into the ground as he slid back.
But Dark caught himself.
And came back swinging.
Kyuketsu slashed upward in a savage arc, the blade crashing into Veridion's raised forearm. Sparks exploded into a blinding spray. Metal screamed against divine bone. Veridion grimaced—and retaliated with a low hook to Dark's ribs that lifted him clean off his feet.
Dark twisted midair, flipping backward, landing hard, knees buckling from the impact.
He inhaled sharply.
Let it burn.
Let it fuel him.
Dark: (whispering) I'm not here to fight fair.
He surged forward again—faster now.
Every step was a gunshot against reality.
He feinted high, then ducked low, slamming his elbow into Veridion's knee. A sharp snap followed—the joint dislocating with a crack—but the emperor didn't even grunt. He pivoted on the ruined leg, delivering a backhand that shattered the air between them and caught Dark across the side of his skull.
Dark staggered, vision fracturing into white noise.
But he didn't fall.
He planted his sword into the ground, stopping his momentum, and pulled himself upright.
Blood poured from his scalp.
One eye was swelling shut.
But he smiled.
Dark: (crooked grin) You're slowing down, old man.
Veridion's face darkened.
The emperor raised both hands—and the sky screamed.
Pillars of celestial force dropped from the heavens, beams of raw existence crashing down like judgment itself. Each impact vaporized the landscape, detonating entire craters into molten rivers. The land buckled under the assault, tectonic plates groaning.
Dark moved between them.
A shadow dancing through the apocalypse.
He vaulted over the first impact, Kyuketsu trailing arcs of severed gravity behind him. He ducked the second, the heat of it peeling the very fabric of his coat. The third he sliced in half mid-fall, the impossible cut splitting a pillar of starlight into harmless mist.
He closed the distance in a heartbeat.
And drove Kyuketsu into Veridion's chest.
The blade pierced through flesh, scraping against ribs, the tip erupting from Veridion's back in a burst of black light.
For a moment, there was silence.
Veridion coughed once—silver blood dribbling from his mouth.
But then—
He laughed.
Low.
Mocking.
He grabbed the blade still stuck inside him—
And pulled it deeper, dragging Dark closer by his own weapon.
Veridion: (whispering) You'll need more than that.
His other hand ignited.
A star.
A miniature sun formed in his palm.
Veridion slammed it against Dark's side, detonating a point-blank explosion that carved a canyon into the battlefield and launched Dark into the sky like a dying meteor.
Dark's body spun, trailing blood, cloak shredded.
But before gravity could even catch him—
Veridion appeared above him.
He kicked downward, a thunderous blow straight to Dark's spine, sending him plummeting back toward the earth.
Dark smashed into the ground hard enough to rupture a valley, the impact vomiting a tidal wave of shattered stone and molten lava into the air.
The crater smoked.
Crackled.
Dark lay at the center, unmoving.
The emperor descended slowly, regal, untouched by the chaos.
Veridion: (coldly) This was inevitable.
The dust began to clear.
A broken figure stood.
Coat torn. Blood streaming from multiple wounds. Sword arm hanging limply at his side.
But his head was bowed.
Not in surrender.
In focus.
And then—
Dark raised his head.
And the look in his eyes wasn't human.
It wasn't rage.
It wasn't hatred.
It was something colder.
Something more final.
Dark: (quietly) Kyuketsu... full release.
The air twisted.
The sword in his hand trembled once—
Then erupted in a pulse of darkness so deep that even the light recoiled from it.
Black flames poured from the blade, swirling up Dark's arm, crawling across his body like sentient shadows. His aura didn't expand—it collapsed inward, becoming so dense that space around him buckled inward like a dying star.
Veridion took a cautious half-step back, instinct prickling.
Dark: (voice layered, deeper) I'm done playing.
The ground under Dark's feet cracked and sank, unable to hold the weight of his presence anymore.
He moved.
Faster than sight.
Kyuketsu flashed.
One second—Veridion was standing tall, regal, untouchable.
The next—
His arm was gone.
Sliced clean at the shoulder.
Silver blood sprayed in a geyser.
Veridion roared, stepping back, clutching the stump.
But Dark was already there.
No words.
No hesitation.
Kyuketsu slashed again.
Across Veridion's chest, leaving a deep, blackened gouge that refused to heal.
Another step. Another cut.
Across the thigh.
Another step. A thrust through the ribs.
Veridion's body was unraveling—slashed apart in surgical precision, each cut placed to maim, cripple, break.
Veridion swung wildly, a desperate hammer strike glowing with raw celestial force.
Dark ducked under it effortlessly, stepping inside Veridion's guard, grabbing his shattered wrist—
And ripping it apart at the seams.
Bones cracked. Tendons snapped.
The emperor howled.
But it wasn't anger anymore.
It was fear.
Dark's movements were clinical. Surgical. Inevitable.
Every step, every strike, dismantling Veridion piece by piece.
Veridion dropped to one knee, coughing silver blood onto the blackened stone.
Dark stood over him.
Silent.
A god of death who had forgotten how to speak.
Veridion raised his eyes—pleading now, confused, broken.
Veridion: (gasping) Wh... what are you?
Dark didn't answer.
He raised Kyuketsu.
And brought it down.
One clean stroke.
No glory.
No cruelty.
Just finality.
The emperor's head dropped from his shoulders, rolling across the fractured ground, leaving a trail of silver blood behind.
Dark exhaled once—slow, ragged.
The battlefield fell into true silence for the first time.
Only the wind remained.
And the broken, twisted remnants of a world that had witnessed a man walk through gods—and never flinch.
The emperor's head rolled to a stop, silver blood pooling around it like a desecrated moon. His body slumped forward a second later, the regal armor clattering hollowly against the broken stone, no longer filled with divine pride—only silence.
Dark stood over the corpse without a word, Kyuketsu dripping darkness from its edge, his eyes half-lidded, unreadable. The world around him sagged under the weight of his will, as if even gravity itself waited to see what he would decide next.
For a moment, he simply stared at the fallen emperor.
This wasn't rage anymore.
It was judgment.
Dark stepped forward, one slow, deliberate step at a time, until he stood directly over the severed body. He crouched down, placing two fingers against the ruined chestplate, feeling the last lingering echo of the emperor's soul still trapped within the mangled flesh.
It beat—weakly. Desperately.
A spirit too stubborn to fade. Too proud to move on.
Dark closed his eyes for a second.
Then spoke, voice low and cold enough to carve bone.
Dark: You don't deserve rest.
The air around his hand twisted, spiraling inward like a black hurricane. Tendrils of Hollow magic seeped from his skin, digging into the emperor's body, tearing apart what remained of its soul's divinity and reforging it into something simpler.
Something mindless.
The silver blood boiled, turning black.
The flesh reknit—but wrong. The wounds didn't heal; they scarred, deep and jagged, locking the once-proud emperor in an eternal state of mutilated obedience.
The empty husk of the emperor jerked once—
Then again—
Before rising to its feet, headless, body stitched together by veins of pure Hollow force.
It knelt before Dark silently.
Not out of loyalty.
Not out of belief.
Out of command.
A Hollow now.
Faceless. Mindless. Purpose crafted from failure.
Dark: (quietly) Welcome to nothingness.
He waved his hand once, a casual flick of his fingers.
The Hollow emperor dissolved into black mist, drawn into the Summoning Veil like a new pawn on an endless board, swallowed without ceremony or reverence.
There would be no name.
No title.
Just another blade waiting to be unsheathed when needed—and forgotten when not.
Dark exhaled, slow and steady, the tension in his shoulders releasing slightly. Around him, the battlefield groaned, winds shifting as if finally realizing their master had changed.
He glanced once more at the silver blood staining the stones—what used to be greatness. What used to be pride.
Dark: (thinking) In the end... it all rots the same.
He sheathed Kyuketsu in a slow, deliberate motion.
Above him, the stars began to realign—nervously, cautiously—as if uncertain whether it was safe to shine again.
Dark turned his back to the battlefield and walked away, leaving behind nothing but ash, ruin, and the quiet, hollow echo of a kingdom that had fallen not with screams...
...but with silence.
The world was silent.
Not the silence of peace.
The silence of endings.
Ash drifted down like mourning snow, catching the ruined air in slow, broken spirals. The battlefield lay frozen, shattered fragments of war stretching out to a dying horizon. Lara's body remained untouched amidst the wreckage, a final beacon of something that once fought, once loved, once lived.
And now—
Dark walked forward.
Each step felt heavier than the last, dragging across the ground like he was wading through the collapse of his own soul. His coat scraped the broken stones. His boots cracked the dirt. But he barely noticed.
His eyes were only for her.
Only for the girl who had smiled through storms.
Who had stood when everyone else fell.
Who had waited.
For him.
Dark knelt beside Lara's body. Slowly. Carefully. As if the world might break worse if he moved too fast. He reached out a trembling hand, brushing a streak of blood and dirt from her pale cheek, revealing the soft skin beneath—the same skin he once saw light up with laughter, with stubbornness, with fire.
Now cold.
Now still.
Dark: (whispering) I'm sorry.
The words broke out of him like pieces of something bigger, something crushed beyond recognition.
Dark: I should have been faster.
His hand slid to hers, fingers wrapping around her cold ones.
Dark: Stronger.
He bowed his head until their foreheads touched, his breath shuddering against her unmoving lips.
Dark: I should have been there.
He squeezed her hand tighter, but there was no squeeze back. No pulse. No warmth.
Only memory.
Dark: You fought for everything we dreamed of...
Dark: And I let you fight alone.
Tears slipped from his eyes—not loudly. Not messily.
Silently.
Like they had been waiting their whole life to fall.
Dark: You deserved better than this.
His voice cracked on the last word, splintering into the ash-choked air like a dying star gasping one final flare before vanishing.
Dark: You deserved a future. A life. A world where you didn't have to bleed just to breathe.
He let the words fall, because nothing could lift them.
Dark: (softly) I'm sorry, Lara.
The others stood behind him, silent, respectful, broken in ways they couldn't show. But Dark didn't care if they watched. Didn't care if the heavens themselves bore witness.
This was their goodbye.
No one else's.
Dark: You waited for me.
Dark: Even when the sky fell, you waited.
His hand tightened, squeezing hers gently, even as the cold bit into his skin.
Dark: I won't ask you to forgive me.
Dark: I don't deserve it.
He pulled back, just enough to look at her face again. To memorize it. To burn it into the last living part of his heart that still beat for something other than war.
Dark: But I swear to you...
Dark: I'll carry you.
Dark: In every step. In every breath. In every battle.
Dark: You're not gone.
He placed her hand over her heart, covering it with both of his.
Dark: You're in me now.
The wind shifted slightly—gentle, tired. It brushed against his bloodied hair, kissed her torn wing, lifted a strand of her hair in a tender, almost living caress.
Dark: (whispering) Sleep, my light.
Dark: Sleep... knowing you changed everything.
He leaned down one last time, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead.
It lingered.
It trembled.
And then it broke.
Dark stood—slow, deliberate, like leaving her side meant leaving a part of himself behind forever.
Maybe it did.
No.
It did.
He turned once—not to walk away. Not to escape.
But to carry her memory forward.
His coat whipped around him, shadowed against the bleeding skyline, and for the first time since he rose to power—
Dark looked like he might shatter if the wrong breeze touched him.
He walked back toward the others without a word, each step a silent funeral drumbeat.
Cron wiped his face with the back of his sleeve, blinking fast.
Leona hugged herself tighter.
Tier lowered his head.
Gilmuar's jaw tightened so hard it might have cracked.
But no one spoke.
Because what words could you offer a man who had just lost the only piece of light he had left?
None.
Dark passed them without a sound.
Behind him, Lara's body lay cradled by the ashes, untouched by further harm, guarded only by silence and stars.
A grave made by fate itself.
And as Dark stepped forward into the unknown—
It wasn't vengeance that filled him.
It wasn't rage.
It was something colder.
Heavier.
Purpose built from sorrow.
He would not mourn in fury.
He would not scream to the sky.
He would not rage against the gods.
He would become the storm that ended them all.
For Lara.
For the promise he made.
For the light he failed to save—but would never forget.
Ever.
Dark stood there, the ash still falling, the earth still bleeding.
His fingers curled into fists, the leather of his gloves creaking under the strain. His chest ached—not from wounds, but from something deeper. A tear that wouldn't heal. A hollowness that no blade or magic could fix.
He stared ahead.
The stars, once distant, now felt too close.
Watching.
Judging.
Dark: (quietly) I've had enough.
The words bled out of him like a blade drawn from flesh. Slow. Heavy.
Dark: Enough of kneeling to kings.
Dark: Enough of watching the ones I love die.
Dark: Enough... of mercy.
He lifted his head, his eyes burning—not with rage, not with madness, but with a crystalline, chilling resolve.
Dark: In the next two years...
Dark: I will kill every evil that breathes.
The wind roared louder now, almost as if the world itself recoiled from the oath being carved into its bones.
Dark: I will tear down every empire built on blood.
Dark: Shatter every god who thinks himself untouchable.
Dark's voice hardened, becoming something that didn't belong to a mortal anymore. It was prophecy. It was execution.
Dark: I will rise.
He looked down once more at Lara's still form.
Dark: And when I do...
Dark: I won't be a king.
Dark: I won't be a tyrant.
Dark: I will be an Emperor.
The final word hit the world like a thunderclap.
Dark: A True Emperor.
Dark: And none of you... none of you will ever take anything from me again.
He turned, his coat whipping in the frozen air, and began to walk.
No fanfare.
No cheers.
No gods watching over him.
Just a boy. A man.
Carrying the graves of the people he loved.
And a war coming for the universe itself.
The night swallowed him whole.
And from that moment on—
There was no more doubt.
Only the path.
Only the storm.
Only Dark.
End Of Both Arc 5 & Arc 5 Chapter 25.