The Mother Tree's summit rose above the mountain like a gigantic scar cutting through the sky.
Its roots no longer looked like part of a tree. They spread across the rock like living veins, carrying a slow and heavy pulse that made the entire mountain tremble. The trunk had grown in an unnatural way after absorbing the divinity of the God of Strength. The wood had twisted in on itself, rising higher and higher, as if the plant world itself was trying to reach the plane of the gods.
There stood Lusian.
Standing among enormous branches that creaked under the pressure of accumulated mana.
Black and golden sap flowed down the bark like freshly spilled blood. His hands were still stained with remnants of divine blood, and the air around him had become too heavy to belong to a mortal place.
Then, the space behind him began to distort.
The air folded slowly, forming silver waves that moved across the void like ripples on still water. The distortion expanded in silence until it opened a stable portal among the roots of the Mother Tree.
And from it emerged Keitaro.
Or at least… the man who once had been Keitaro.
He appeared already seated on one of the gigantic roots, as if he had always been there. He crossed one leg calmly and let out a tired sigh, the kind of sigh of someone who had lived too long to still be surprised.
His silver eyes lifted toward Lusian.
There was nothing human left in them.
They were empty eyes, deep, ancient.
The eyes of Vaelen, God of Space.
His gaze slowly lowered to Lusian's bloodstained hands.
—Well… you've grown —Vaelen said, with a calm and strangely distant voice—. But you're still the same. The soul doesn't change. You still remember the taste of that cheap coffee you were drinking when we ripped you from your world.
Lusian's body tensed instantly.
The wind disappeared.
The Mother Tree's branches stopped moving.
And for several seconds, the silence between them became so heavy that even the mountain seemed to hold its breath.
The name Erwin appeared in Lusian's mind like a wound that never fully healed.
He didn't know what to do.
A part of him wanted to release the darkness and erase that entity from existence.
The other… just wanted to fall to his knees and ask why.
His fingers slowly closed into fists.
—You were there —he said at last, his voice rough and broken—. You were the man in the suit.
Vaelen watched him in silence before slowly shaking his head.
The sadness in his expression felt too old to belong to an immortal being.
—No —he corrected calmly—. I was the one who held the veil so the other gods couldn't see you.
His silver eyes drifted toward the horizon.
—Kheris made the decision. He opened the wound between worlds. But I was the one who created the distance. I traced the path between your room and that forest. I hid your presence while Sophia held you… so that even the Law of Fate would not discover that your soul did not belong to this world.
The air around Vaelen warped slightly as he spoke, as if space itself reacted to each memory.
He lowered his gaze slowly.
His hand moved over the Mother Tree's root, drawing invisible lines with his fingertips, like someone retracing ancient routes only he could still see.
—Kheris was dying, Lusian.
His voice lost strength for the first time.
—He was not wounded. He was not weakened. He was condemned.
Lusian stayed silent.
Vaelen continued without looking away from the black wood beneath his hand.
—When the gods expelled him from the sky… outside there, divine power cannot be created. It can only be formed in the celestial world. And without divine power, the end is always the same.
The space trembled slightly.
—He had two choices. Fade away slowly… or return as what he hated most.
He finally lifted his gaze.
—A demon.
Vaelen clenched his jaw.
For the first time since appearing, something like anger crossed his face.
Not uncontrolled fury.
Weariness.
Pain accumulated for too long.
—Kheris despised demons —he said quietly—. Not because of their form. Not because of their power. He hated them because they were gods unable to accept the end. Beings who kept clinging to the world even after losing the right to exist.
Space around Vaelen distorted faintly.
The Mother Tree's roots creaked under invisible pressure.
—For him, becoming that would have been worse than death.
He looked up toward the endless canopy covering the sky.
Black and golden leaves shimmered slowly under the sunset light, as if the entire tree was breathing with them.
—So he chose to disappear… but to leave something behind.
His silver eyes returned to Lusian.
And this time there was no divine distance in them.
Only sincerity.
Lusian clenched his fists.
Inside him, everything mixed at once.
Anger for what they had taken from him. Pain for everything he had been forced to endure. Confusion.
And a gratitude so deep that even breathing hurt.
Because Kheris had ripped him out of his world.
But he had also given him a family.
A home.
A reason to keep living when everything seemed lost.
Lusian lowered his gaze for a few seconds before speaking.
—Why are you telling me this now?
Vaelen stayed silent for a moment.
Then he slowly rose from the root where he was sitting.
And for a brief moment, his body stopped looking human.
Keitaro's form cracked like a reflection on water.
Beneath it existed something far greater.
An entity made of fragments of stars, impossible lines, and space compressed into itself. Something without a fixed shape, as if the universe had tried to give form to a concept too ancient to exist among mortals.
Then the illusion stabilized again.
Vaelen looked directly at Lusian.
—Because you are no longer a piece on the board.
The wind began to move again around the Mother Tree.
—You became the owner of silence. The bearer of a Law even the gods prefer to avoid.
The darkness around Lusian reacted faintly, as if it had heard those words.
—Kheris died knowing his Throne would not remain empty.
For the first time, a small smile appeared on Vaelen's face.
Tired and honest. The memory of an old friend, the helplessness of not being able to help him… ironically, almost human.
—And I stayed… because I want to see what a man from another world does when given the power of a god.
Vaelen approached slowly.
Then he placed a hand on Lusian's shoulder.
Keitaro's hand.
Warm.
Human.
Real.
That simple contact hit harder than any word. Because for an instant, Lusian could forget he was standing in front of a god. And remember that, once, Keitaro had only been a friend.
—Don't thank us —Vaelen said calmly—. But don't hate us either.
His voice no longer sounded like that of a celestial entity. It sounded tired. Honest.
—We only gave you a stage. The rest was your choice.
His eyes lowered slightly.
—The pain you endured was yours. The decision to love a Demon Queen was yours. And protecting that small guardian… was yours too.
Lusian felt a knot tighten in his chest.
Vaelen continued in a low voice, as if afraid to break something fragile between them.
—Erwin died so that Lusian could exist. But they were never different people.
The hand on his shoulder tightened slightly.
—They were always the same heart refusing to break.
The silver glow began to fade from the surroundings. Spatial distortions slowly dissipated. The invisible pressure covering the mountain vanished, as if space itself had been holding its breath for centuries.
The divine presence began to retreat. Fainter. More distant.
And just before disappearing completely, Vaelen's voice was heard one last time.
Soft. Distant. Almost carried away by the wind.
—Take care of Keitaro…
Lusian barely lifted his gaze.
—He likes this world very much.
A brief silence.
—Almost as much as you do.
The presence disappeared completely.
The air returned to its natural movement.
The leaves began to sway again.
The divine pressure stopped crushing the mountain.
And Keitaro…
Blinking, confused.
His knees weakened slightly, as if his body suddenly remembered it had weight. He placed a hand on his head, disoriented.
—…What am I doing here?
His voice no longer carried stellar echoes.
It was just the voice of a confused boy.
Lusian looked at him a second longer than necessary. Then exhaled through his nose, tired.
—Great… —he murmured—. Just now.
Keitaro looked up.
—Huh?
Lusian turned away, walking back from the edge of the Mother Tree.
—What are you doing now, idiot.
But there was no anger in his voice.
Only relief.