Noah stared at Evodil, who stood motionless, soaked in human blood and James' glowing golden ichor.
He didn't flinch, didn't speak. Only sighed as he pulled his glasses from his face and let them fall to the floor, the lens cracking faintly on the stone. A tired, bitter smile crept onto his lips.
"As much as I wanted to put us back together…" His voice was soft, unsteady. "My plans never work, do they? I wish I had your kind of luck."
Evodil said nothing. His gaze was hard, unreadable beneath his blindfold. The Crypt Blade shimmered into existence in his hand, already mid-swing before Noah could blink.
Noah didn't dodge. Didn't run. He opened his arms wide, as if to hold his older brother one last time. But it never came.
The blade cleaved through him cleanly. No resistance.
There was no blood. They had never needed organs. Evodil's body held only black essence. James had been made of molten ichor, golden and divine.
And Noah—Noah spilled gemstones. Crystalline fragments, flawless and luminous, scattered across the floor. They glittered in silence, hollow and worthless now. One white gem rolled to Evodil's feet, glowing faintly like Evodil's hair once had.
He didn't pick it up.
He simply stepped over it and walked through the shards, each one reflecting fragments of what they once were. He reached the observatory, a place that had once been a respite. A place he could go when the world grew too loud.
Now? He could rest anywhere and never hear another voice again.
He dragged himself toward the chair by the window. His body was battered, bleeding from places that didn't matter anymore. James was gone, and with him, the order of the world. Everything would unravel.
Jasper was gone—just a human, someone unimportant to the grand design. No one would remember him.
Noah was gone—a genius who still believed it could all be repaired. Someone who tried to bring them back together, just like Caroline once did.
Evodil slumped into the wooden chair. His weapons vanished. His hands trembled. His head throbbed like a bullet was lodged behind his eyes, knocking against bone and thought.
He had killed them. Every soul who had ever dared care for him.
And still, the voice wouldn't stop
"What else do you want?" he shouted, rising to slam a fist against the desk. "They're gone! All of them! Leave me alone! You don't get to take anything else from me—you've ruined enough!"
His hand swept through the debris, hurling it backward through the glass pane behind his chair. The observatory window shattered outward, revealing Menystria beneath a sky stripped bare. The darkness that had cloaked the crater was gone. Everything lay visible.
That shouldn't have been possible.
His powers always worked in here—his fog, his veils, the illusions—none of it should've faded. Something was wrong.
He opened his mouth to scream, to demand answers. But there was no one left to hear him.
Before sorrow could finish blooming in his chest, a void cracked open beneath his feet. A hole of pure, writhing darkness swallowed him whole.
No resistance. No delay.
He landed hard, breath knocked from his lungs as his knees scraped across an endless floor of shadow. Black on black. No sky. No end. Nothing for miles in any direction. It was as though he had been swallowed by his own power.
He rose slowly.
"So this is it?" he growled to the emptiness. "You made me do all of it—and now you punish me? You think you're better than me? Face me, you goddamn coward!"
His voice cracked the silence like thunder, raw and furious, thick with grief he didn't know how to name.
Then came the laugh.
Low, layered, a sickening mesh of voices—male, female, mechanical, human. None of it real. None of it right.
He spun around. Nothing behind him. Nothing ahead. Only the vast, oppressive void.
Then the voice came again.
"Look who crawled into my humble abode. Again." It dripped with mockery. "You just can't help yourself, can you? Killed your brothers. Your nephew. Couldn't even help her either. It's amusing. Every. Single. Time."
Evodil froze. His body tensed, eyes widening behind the cloth.
No one else knew about Caroline. No one but family.
"You scream, you cry, and then you kill. Over and over. You're nothing but a little animal chasing his tail, century after century. One hundred sixty-six lives, and not once did you do anything different."
His hands curled into fists.
"You mock me?" he hissed. "You dare mock me and my fam—"
A howl of laughter cut him off.
"Family? Oh yes, let's talk about your glorious family!"
The voice grew sharper, venomous.
"A lineage of killers, liars, and broken things. You slaughtered them yourself. What a beautiful little legacy!"
Silence fell.
Evodil stood frozen, fury and grief roiling in his throat. He reached for his blade.
But nothing came.
His hand remained empty
No flicker. No weight. No Crypt Blade.
Panic flared. This felt just like the White Palace—but this wasn't that. There was no color here. No light. Just void.
And then pain.
A spike of darkness ripped through his throat, stopping just short of full decapitation. His legs gave out. His body collapsed. Black essence spilled into black ground, impossible to see.
And then, in the dying seconds of his consciousness, he saw it.
It towered above him. Taller than him. Taller than any god. Antlers like twisted iron scraped the invisible sky. Its torso glowed white, cracked like a shattered screen. Flames—half black, half white—clung to its limbs. Its head was void itself, with only that massive, unblinking eye staring down at him.
"You won't remember this," it said. "But I will."
It leaned closer.
"I remember every time you came here. Because you can't change. Because you're weak. Because you killed them. All of them. Amanda, too."
Evodil's lips trembled.
"I will be your executioner every time," the creature snarled, its voice now singular, focused on the god dying at it's feet as if he was the only thing left to see in the world.
"Remember my name, you pathetic man. Azraem."
The foot came down, and all was black.