The chain tightened.
And the abyss screamed.
Not merely the fanatic creature impaled upon the ruined summit beneath the fractured heavens, but the abyss itself—the endless darkness stretching beyond reality, the colossal entities drifting through impossible oceans of shadow, the very fracture carved across the sky above Valthorin.
Everything trembled.
Because something impossible had just occurred.
The Lonely King had rejected its own abyss.
The fanatic creature writhed violently as the massive black chain piercing through its chest pulsed with ancient power, causing enormous fractures to spread rapidly across its body while streams of dark energy erupted outward uncontrollably like blood pouring from a mortal wound.
Its countless eyes burned with disbelief.
WHY…?
The voice echoed distorted and broken across the battlefield.
The Lonely King remained silent for several seconds.
Then—
Very softly—
It answered.
Because devotion without understanding becomes ruin.
The chain tightened harder.
The fanatic creature screamed.
A catastrophic wave of abyssal energy exploded outward from its collapsing body, powerful enough to shatter the remaining upper summit entirely while black storms erupted across the heavens above.
Kyūsei barely managed to shield himself with compressed darkness instinctively as the shockwave tore through the battlefield.
Stone disintegrated.
The ruins collapsed further.
Even the massive hands extending through the fracture trembled violently as instability spread throughout the abyssal breach itself.
The fanatic creature had become part of the fracture.
And now—
The abyss was tearing itself apart.
Lena forced herself upright through the violent winds while silver mana flickered desperately around her.
"The breach is destabilizing!"
Kazuto coughed blood beside Kyūsei.
"…good destabilizing or world-ending destabilizing?"
"…both!"
"Fantastic."
Above them, the fractured heavens groaned violently as enormous cracks spread outward through the abyssal opening itself. The pale hands reaching into reality began disintegrating one by one, collapsing into storms of black particles as the dimensional structure sustaining them weakened rapidly beneath the Lonely King's interference.
The second eye remained fixed downward.
Watching.
Not with indifference anymore.
With conflict.
Kyūsei could feel it clearly now.
The abyss had spent eternity devouring worlds because it believed endless emptiness could only be escaped through possession.
Through force.
Through swallowing existence itself.
But Kazuto's words—
Humanity's absurd stubbornness—
Had shaken something buried deep beneath all that loneliness.
The Lonely King no longer seemed certain.
And uncertainty inside a being powerful enough to consume worlds was terrifying.
The fanatic creature continued screaming beneath the crushing chains.
YOU WOULD CHOOSE MORTALS OVER ETERNITY?!
The Lonely King's silhouette remained motionless beyond the breach.
Then the voice echoed quietly.
We envied them.
Silence spread across the battlefield.
Even the collapsing heavens seemed to pause.
Kyūsei's breath caught.
The abyssal creature froze.
The Lonely King slowly lowered its gaze toward Kazuto and Kyūsei standing together atop the shattered summit.
They suffer.
The chains surrounding the ancient king shifted softly through the darkness.
They fear.
The second eye narrowed slightly.
Yet they continue reaching for one another regardless.
Kyūsei's chest tightened painfully.
Because beneath all the cosmic horror and impossible power—
That sounded unbearably human.
The fanatic creature screamed again.
THE THRONE MUST REMAIN ABOVE HUMAN WEAKNESS!
This time the Lonely King answered immediately.
No.
The word echoed across reality with terrifying calmness.
Isolation is weakness.
The creature's body cracked violently.
More chains erupted from the abyss beyond the fracture, piercing through the fanatic creature from every direction while black energy exploded endlessly around its collapsing form.
The abyss was executing one of its own.
Kyūsei stared upward in disbelief.
"Kazuto…" he whispered quietly.
Kazuto sighed weakly beside him.
"…yeah."
For once—
Even he didn't have a joke ready.
The fanatic creature convulsed violently beneath the chains.
Its countless eyes slowly shifted toward Kyūsei one final time.
And suddenly—
The hatred inside them changed.
Not toward him.
Toward the Lonely King itself.
YOU HAVE BEEN CORRUPTED BY MORTAL FRAILTY.
The heavens screamed.
The creature's body began expanding violently as unstable abyssal energy erupted from every fracture across its form.
Lena's eyes widened instantly.
"It's overloading itself!"
Kazuto cursed.
"Move!"
Too late.
The fanatic creature detonated.
Darkness consumed the battlefield.
A catastrophic explosion of abyssal energy erupted upward into the fractured heavens hard enough to split the sky wider than ever before, while enormous shockwaves tore across the valley below and black storms swallowed the horizon completely.
Kyūsei felt himself thrown backward violently.
The world blurred.
Sound vanished beneath roaring destruction.
And then—
Silence.
Slowly, painfully, Kyūsei forced his eyes open again.
The summit was gone.
Completely erased.
Only floating fragments of broken stone remained suspended within distorted space beneath the collapsing heavens above Valthorin.
The fanatic creature had vanished.
Destroyed.
But the breach—
The breach had become unstable beyond repair.
Massive cracks now spread endlessly across the sky as reality itself collapsed inward around the abyssal fracture, pulling storms, mana, and fragments of the world upward toward the widening void.
Lena's face had gone pale.
"…the dimensional barrier is breaking apart."
Rufus looked emotionally dead.
"Is there a version of today where we survive?"
No one answered.
Because above them—
The Lonely King was moving.
The ancient figure beyond the fracture slowly stepped closer toward reality itself, chains dragging through endless darkness while the enormous crown still hovered motionless beneath the shattered heavens.
Not attacking.
Not invading.
Approaching.
And suddenly Kyūsei realized the horrifying truth.
The Lonely King had not stopped the fanatic creature merely to save the world.
It had done so because now—
It intended to make the choice itself.