The ground itself groaned.
A jagged door split open at Rei's feet, and from it rose a figure wrapped in a pressure so dense the air bent. The last Elder. His aura was not a storm like Xeran's or a vacuum like the Void. It was weight. It was gravity given flesh.
Rei's eyes narrowed. "Only you remain," he said, voice thin but steady. "When you fall… it's over."
The Elder didn't answer. His hollow gaze swept over Rei's battered frame, the broken battlefield, the fading black sun. He knew. This was no longer the boy who'd stumbled into their world. This was something else.
For six days Rei had fought without rest. The moon and sun were peeling apart, the Hour of the Black Sun ending. The Elder understood if he didn't fight now at full power, he would join his brothers in dust.
He raised his arm, opening another door in the ground, a way out.
Rei tried to move. His muscles screamed. His blood roared. The dual power inside him cracked at his bones. He couldn't bring both divinity and demonic to bear anymore. But he had one last shot.
He hurled the Blade of Resolve.
It was no throw, it was a star fired from his soul. The blade blurred past sight, piercing the Elder's arm and nailing it into the earth like a divine spear.
The Elder's face tightened as the ground splintered. He tried to pull back, but the sword wouldn't move. Rei staggered forward, then collapsed, his body finally shutting down.
The Elder's lips curled. An opportunity. His arm burned; still, he would rip it off to finish the boy. He yanked, flesh tearing, bone cracking, until his own arm split away, leaving the blade buried in the earth, still thrumming with Rei's energy.
He stepped toward the unconscious body. Slow. Calculated.
And then darkness.
A low pulse rolled through the field, like a heart beating in the deep. Black lines crawled across Rei's skin, his shadow stretching unnaturally. His eyes flickered crimson.
"Ah…" a voice rumbled from inside the boy. "You again."
Raga.
The Elder stopped. He could already feel it: the surge of a power that was not Rei's, not mortal, not bound by weight. He hesitated. Even with one arm gone, he still had the force of collapsing worlds in his body, but this was different.
The shadow rose, curling from Rei's skin like smoke from a burning god.
Raga's voice came now, but it was not human. It was a choir of thunder and abyss.
"You crawl like an insect into a dying world, Elder," it said, deep and slow. "Do you think I do not know your weight? I have carried the weight of death since before your kind were born."
The Elder's jaw clenched. He said nothing. He stepped back.
Raga chuckled, a sound like stones grinding in hell. "Leave if you wish. Hide under the skin of this earth. But you will crawl back to me. They always crawl back to me."
Black sparks burned off Rei's hands. His body trembled under the strain. He could not fully take Raga in this state; he was too damaged. The shadow pulsed once, then began to recede.
Inside, Raga spoke to him quietly. "You said you were me," he said. "That you accepted me. Perhaps you did. But your flesh is weak, child. Even I cannot hold you upright now."
Rei's voice inside the void of his mind was tired but clear. "It's over. For now, it's over. He'll come to me when the time comes."
"You're sure?"
"He will," Rei said. "They always do."
Silence stretched between them.
Finally Raga asked, "Then what will you do, boy?"
Rei closed his eyes, lying there on the scorched ground. "Maybe… live," he whispered. "I can't remember the last time I actually lived. I have nobody but you. Maybe if I was truly awakened… I could rewrite the past. Change it all."
For a long moment Raga said nothing. Then, softly, almost like a promise:
"You cannot rewrite the past," the demon said. "But you can carve a new future. When you stand again, I will be there. You and I, we will see what a world shaped by divinity and death can look like."
And for the first time since the Hour of the Black Sun began, there was no battle.
No roar. No flash of power.
Only a boy and a demon, breathing in the silence of a dying sun.