Then—
The body below shifted.
His hand curled, and then his elbow bent.
And with a broken grunt, Ren pushed himself up from the ground, dripping black water and blood, coughing once—then twice more violently, retching up thick ink that splattered the stone. Eva let out a strangled gasp at the sight of it. Ren was still alive and whole.
Down below, Ren slowly got to his knees, his grey hair hanging in soaked strands over his face. His pale skin was painted with bruises and cuts, a jagged cut across his ribs still clotted with old blood. He dragged one knee forward, then another, until he was crouched on one foot. He blinked—slowly, regaining his vision as his eyes wandered side-to-side.
Eva raised a shaking hand to her mouth.
"You're still…"
Behind Ren—something stirred.
The leftover ink around him trembled, splotches coming together to form a small darkened circle along the floor. And from it, a form emerged, rising like a shadow torn from the abyss.
Graceful and lithe, ripping out with both reverence.
Nocstella
She rose from the ink, her soaked gown clinging to the contours of her body. And her face—still that mask of beauty. That same elegant, maternal calm. Still, her posture remained regal, even through the ink's filth and Ren's beating. Her hair continued to flow down her back like black satin in calm waters.
Her voice, when it came, was as soft and polished as ever.
"You're persistent, Hollow..." Nocstella's crimson eyes pierced into him. "I believed death would encourage clarity. But it seems I was mistaken...You're more clouded than ever."
But Ren's gaze said something different. His eyes—they were sharper than they'd ever been.
"That power you've been using all this time..." Ren questioned in a low tone. "The shadows...The ink...All of it...And it's not even yours."
She exhaled lightly through her nose, promptly disregarding his statement.
"I've never…felt this kind of anger before," Ren thought to himself. "I didn't know resentment could feel like this."
Then, he exhaled and looked down at his hand—the one that always trembled, now steady.
"I've been scared my whole life...I mean, who wouldn't when the reaper constantly knocks on your door? I know you hear me when I say this. I'm still that scared boy, but..." He looked back at her. "I no longer feel that fear from you. Only, the sight of you now makes me sick."
Nocstella's head tilted ever so slightly to the side.
Ren took a step forward, his expression darkening, unfit for his soft face.
"You've been in my head since the beginning, crawling around like a parasite," Ren said, now speaking aloud to her. "You heard every thought I didn't say, so tell me…"
He narrowed his eyes.
"If you knew what I was thinking this whole time…how did I get this far?"
Nocstella's lips parted, just slightly.
"If you were really in control—if all that given power really meant nothing to you—then why wasn't I crushed the moment I woke up here?"
He took a final step forward, his boots grinding against the stone.
"Why was I able to reach you?"
That word—reach—landed heavier than it should have, as if it violated some unspoken law.
Her expression faltered, as her hand twitched at her side.
Ren saw the tension, the calculation, the searching for an answer she hadn't prepared.
"I allowed it," She replied at last, her tone faintly brittle. "A final note in a tired symphony...A child's tantrum—if that's what it took to finally empty you of false meaning."
"I don't believe it...You didn't allow anything." Ren scoffed, raising his hand and pointing at her, like someone pointing to the cause of an issue. "You're losing. That's what it is...You're not the perfect figure you think you are. You're just a coward who hides behind borrowed power because you're too afraid to be seen as you really are."
And then, with a mockingly gentle tone—
"…Nocstella."
For a moment, the world stilled.
"No more of this," She whispered. "I am done wasting my precious words on you."
Her arm lifted skyward in one smooth motion, pale fingers outstretched to the heavens.
She no longer looked at Ren.
Her gaze exceeded him—beyond him—up toward the cold-white moon above.
"Come, child…"
The temperature dropped instantly. The moon above—the unnatural, cold-white orb hovering high above the sanctum—pulsed once. Then once again, like a heartbeat.
"Follow my voice—" Nocstella's arms spread wide, her head tilted back to view the moon. "And dawned from a mother's warmth...Iris"
And then—
Silence, utter and complete.
The air grew thin—unnaturally so.
Both Eva and Ren could feel their lungs straining, chests tightening as if being slowly crushed beneath an invisible force.
Ren's arm muscles tensed. He stepped forward—one deliberate step toward Nocstella.
Her arms remained lifted, her gaze unbroken, fixed to the moon above as if awaiting rapture.
"Now...Now...I have to finish it here." Ren thought, surging in with balled-up fists.
He closed the gap in three strides—
And then—a sound.
A high-pitched whine from above.
Like a baby.
Like that sluggish monster from before, but at least ten times louder.
Ren froze mid-step, stopped against his own will, and slowly tilted his head upward.
Above them, the moon began to splinter.
The surface of the moon—no longer stone, but some translucent, membranous shell—bulged outward. First came the outline of claws. The whining continued, rising in pitch.
As the claws scraped against the inside of the shell, chunks of 'moon' peeled away, a black liquid seeping down from the opening. A claw—elongated and bone-pale—punched through.
Ren staggered back, shielding his face from the raining black fluid.
Its silhouette twitched and spasmed inside the cracked womb until it finally erupted.
A wyvern, malformed and distorted.
It seeped out from the 'moon' like an infant forced too soon from the womb.
Nocstella finally lowered her arms, eyes watering as if watching her child take their first step.
"My perfect child has been born…" Nocstella said with maternal reverence, tender and full of pride. "And this world shall be blessed by its first breath."