I activated my King of Prosperity: Dalhans.
But even as I called upon it, his sheer aura crushed its effect as if my Regalia were nothing but smoke before a storm.
Each time his blade moved, it wasn't an attack, it was a death sentence narrowly delayed by luck and defiance.
The air grew heavy, every breath a fight. My bones trembled beneath the pressure of his presence.
Even the ground beneath us cracked and twisted as if reality itself feared him.
Veronica stood frozen in terror, her lips trembling but no sound escaping.
I couldn't blame her.
My skin peeled from my arms; my armor had already shattered into dust. Still, I refused to fall.
His next swing came from the left, tearing through the air and into my side.
My ribs decayed under its touch as I was hurled through the air, crashing into the dirt before Veronica.
She dropped to her knees, hands glowing as she tried to heal me, even though I could see the strain tearing through her veins.
Her nose bled; her hands shook. Still, she kept going.
That small, trembling act of defiance gave me the strength to rise again.
I caught his blade mid-swing, the impact shaking the world itself, but it was futile.
Both of us were flung back by the force of it.
It felt as though the only reason I still stood was because he allowed it.
His eyes, cold, bottomless, met mine.
"What a terrifying glare," I said weakly, raising my sword. "Is life really that meaningless to you?"
Veronica's trembling hands wrapped around my waist, her voice breaking as she whispered.
"Please, just stop... please." She began to merge her life force with mine, her light mingling with my fading strength.
He stepped forward, his shadow swallowing the camp.
"Why do you struggle?" he asked, voice devoid of tone, of warmth, of any trace of life. "Is it not the will to live that leads you to die?"
The sound of his voice carried no entropy, no vibration, just stillness so absolute it ruptured my eardrums.
Blood streamed down my neck. Veronica's voice shook, she clutched me tighter, her healing light flickering.
"Listen," I said, forcing air through broken lungs. "You need to run. Tell them, tell everyone, what's coming."
I gave her too much of my strength, I could feel it, but it was the only way.
She gripped my wrist, shaking her head. "I can't leave you! Not with this monster!"
Panthor's eyes narrowed. "Monster," he muttered.
"That word again... that denouncing word humans use when they see something greater than themselves. Tell me, why?"
He raised his sword high, darkness spiraling around it like a living storm. The very air screamed.
I felt Dalhans flicker, then flare to life again. My Regalia shimmered, and for some reason, I could wield it once more.
I didn't question it. I gave him everything, my pain, my sorrow, my weakness, and used it to stand tall.
Even then, he did not falter. He did not bleed. He simply looked at me with quiet contempt.
"Sansir, we need to run!" Veronica pleaded. "There's no shame in retreat!"
She tugged at my arm, desperate, but my body refused to move.
My heart, a physical, glowing mass of flesh and mana, appeared before me, suspended in the air, dripping with light and blood.
Veronica screamed, her hands glowing furiously as she tried to heal me again and again.
But I wasn't dying. Not yet.
Panthor tilted his head slightly. "There it is. Your heart. The heart that craves life, yet walks willingly into death."
His words tore through me more than his blade ever could.
My spirit quivered. For an instant, I saw my Mythical Beast.
A lion of gold and bronze, its mane flowing like molten metal, its tail a river of earth and ash.
Spikes of broken swords jutted from its back, each humming with a violent hum.
It circled me once, then bit down on Veronica.
Her scream pierced the stillness.
She clawed at me, trying to stay, but her body was dragged away, her blood rising as mist into the air.
My arm nearly broke from her grip, then she was gone.
The mist that followed was mine, my blood, my exhaustion, my loss.
"Is that it?" I said hoarsely, raising my sword once more. "Is that all you have to say?"
Panthor's blade descended like a guillotine, cleaving through not flesh but soul.
My vision shattered into white fragments. Somewhere, I heard Veronica's body hit the ground.
"Sorry," I muttered to no one. "I don't think living is really an option."
He released his weapon, letting it vanish into the dark, then extended his hand to my floating heart.
"Strange," he said softly. "You die, yet you stand. As if to whisper no to the inevitable."
I looked up at him, my lips curling into a faint, broken smile. "After seeing Nicholas... you're nothing."
He blinked once, confused.
"You're a shadow," I continued. "A memory that will fade."
He closed his palm over my heart. "Then when you die, embrace it."
But his hand closed on nothing.
A sudden burst of light, molten gold and deep green, tore through the sky.
The very world shuddered as the light condensed into a figure standing between us, barefoot, smiling, eyes gleaming with avarice.
Ouroboros.
He held my heart in one hand, his grip lazy, his presence intoxicating.
The air warped around him, bending to his will as if even reality couldn't defy his hunger.
"Sansir," he said, voice dripping with disdain and something like affection.
"Why do you submit yourself to death? Why do you mourn the finality you were born to defy?"
He turned, eyes blazing with serpentine fire. "I despise it. You must take what you want and hold it close. You must devour the world if you must, but never surrender it."
I stumbled back, falling to my hands as my breath caught. The storm that had raged above moments ago began to still.
The sky, once fractured with lightning and fury, now hung in eerie calm, like a wound trying to close.
I looked up at him, this impossible being wrapped in gold and shadow. "A saving grace," I murmured.
Ouroboros flinched, his expression twisting with disdain. "Grace?" He spat, shuddering as though the word itself offended him.
"Do not mistake my disgust for mercy."
He threw my heart, and it vanished from his grasp, reappearing in my chest with a sound like thunder muffled beneath flesh.
I gasped as warmth returned, blood rushing through my veins once more.
"Don't think this will be a common accordance," he said sharply, his tone half divine decree, half scolding amusement.
"I almost never give things away. Even idols must take to have meaning."
Panthor's sword shimmered into existence once more, dark and endless. He raised it without hesitation.
Ouroboros smirked and twirled his massive spear, stepping forward.
The ground split beneath him as the two forces collided.
The impact shook the heavens.
Their strikes rippled through the air like colliding realities, each blow rewriting the sky, each spark illuminating the ruined camp below.
Ouroboros spun his spear, deflecting every strike with lazy precision, each movement both art and defiance.
Panthor pressed harder, his swings faster, sharper, driven by cold rage.
The air between them pulsed, alive with power that made the stars tremble.
I sat there, breath ragged, my body broken yet whole, watching two incarnations of truth wage war. Death and Continuity. End and Greed.
A sigh escaped my lips, heavy with both exhaustion and realization. Death, how troublesome a thing.
Always close, always reaching, yet never truly claiming what it desires.
I wasn't afraid to die; I never had been. But I could no longer accept death as the end.
It wasn't courage that drove me, nor pride.
It was conviction, the stubborn, human refusal to yield. The knight's vow that even in despair, one must stand.
But as their battle raged, the truth dawned on me like sunlight cutting through cloud.
To reject death was not enough. To survive was not enough.
I had to transcend it.
I had to rise beyond the reach of fear, beyond the hand of gods and monsters alike.
I had to ascend, to the sky, to the stars, to whatever lay above this fleeting, fragile world.
And when I reached that peak, when I stood above all that bound me?
I would look down upon the world not as its ruler, but as its liberator.
Because only those who conquer death can free others from it.