Then… it was time.
The Activation Pillar stood before them, half-buried in ancient stone, its surface etched with symbols older than any kingdom. The air around it felt dense, like the world itself was holding its breath.
Aguila carefully placed the Sun Artifact into Riureas's hands.
Its golden surface was warm—no, alive—pulsing faintly, as if it already knew what was about to happen.
"One of us must do it," Aguila said. "Only one."
Silence followed.
No one spoke at first.
Then, one by one, they looked at Riureas.
Crystella nodded, calm and certain.
Elra lowered her head slightly in respect.
Selvaria's gaze was sharp, but trusting.
Yulleus simply said, "There's no debate."
Aguila smiled faintly. "The choice is unanimous."
Riureas swallowed.
"…Alright."
He stepped forward.
The moment he raised the Sun Artifact toward the pillar, the world responded.
The morning sky flared into blinding brilliance.
The sun burned brighter than it ever had, flooding the peak with gold—then, without warning, the heavens dimmed.
For a heartbeat, it felt like night had swallowed the world.
Wind roared upward.
The pillar ignited with radiant lines.
Light began to gather.
Not scattered—focused.
It converged beside the Activation Pillar, twisting and folding in on itself, shaping something impossible. A silhouette formed within the glow, delicate and unmistakably human.
The light softened.
Condensed.
And then—
A girl stood where the radiance had been.
Small.
Young—no older than thirteen.
She had Solana's hair, golden with soft orange hues, flowing gently as if moved by sunlight alone. Her eyes—those unmistakable red-sapphire eyes—opened slowly.
But her dress was different. New. Simple, yet radiant, woven from light itself.
She looked around, taking in the sky, the mountains… and then him.
Riureas.
Her lips curved upward.
A small, gentle smile—warm, familiar, and devastatingly real.
"…I found you," she said softly.
The wind fell silent.
The sun shone steady once more.
And in that moment, everyone understood.
This was not just a revival.
Something had changed.
The moment her presence settled into the world, every kingdom felt it.
Not as a shock.
Not as fear.
But as a warm pressure, like sunlight breaking through clouds that had hung for far too long.
Across the supercontinent, preparations for war halted.
Blades paused mid-sharpen.
War banners stopped being raised.
Mages felt their spells unravel in their hands, not in failure—but in hesitation.
Something ancient had returned.
Kings stood from their thrones without knowing why.
Priests fell silent mid-prayer.
Even monsters deep within the wilds recoiled, instincts screaming that the balance had shifted.
The world remembered.
In the Northern Alliance, commanders stared at one another as the air itself seemed to glow faintly. No orders were given. No alarms rang. The will to march simply… faded.
In the Eastern Treaty, council chambers fell into uneasy quiet. Years of hatred suddenly felt heavier than before, harder to justify.
And far to the north—
Virroga stopped.
He felt it the instant it happened.
That familiar warmth brushing against his senses, like a memory he had tried—and failed—to bury.
"…So," he muttered, lips curling slightly. "You're back."
He turned away from the window, utterly calm.
"No matter," he said to the empty room. "Not yet."
War could wait.
Because whatever had just returned to the world…
…would eventually come to him.
Solana blinked.
Light still clung to her skin, fading slowly like morning mist, and the first thing she noticed was how small everything felt.
Too small.
She looked down at her hands—slender, unfamiliar, unscarred by centuries of existence. Then she lifted her gaze.
Riureas stood before her.
And her eyes widened.
"…Huh?"
Her head barely reached his stomach.
Silence followed. Heavy. Confused.
Solana took a hesitant step closer, as if testing the world itself, then another. Her dress fluttered softly in the mountain wind, far simpler than the radiant garments she once wore.
"This…" she whispered, voice higher, younger. "This isn't right."
She pressed a hand to her chest, brow furrowing as memories flooded back—cycles, light, burning skies, promises made and broken.
"I was supposed to return as I was," she said, shaken. "Not like this."
Her red-sapphire eyes lifted to Riureas, searching his face, panic barely restrained.
"I'm… young again," she muttered, almost to herself. "Back before everything went wrong."
She clenched her fists, frustrated, confused.
"…The artifact didn't just revive me," Solana realized slowly.
"It reset me."
The wind howled around the peak, carrying her words across the mountains.
Riureas said nothing yet—but the weight of what this meant settled heavily between them.
Solana, the Witch of the Sun.
The being who once stood above gods.
Now reborn as a girl who barely reached his stomach.
And whatever force governed the loops…
…had clearly allowed this to happen.
For a moment, the tension broke.
Elra was the first to move.
Her eyes softened, then filled with something bright—relief, joy, something she hadn't allowed herself to feel in a long time. Without hesitation, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Solana.
"You're back," Elra said, her voice trembling but happy. "You're really back."
Crystella followed immediately, kneeling so she wouldn't overwhelm her, gently pulling Solana into the embrace as well. The cold witch's usual composure melted away, replaced by a rare, genuine smile.
"Welcome back," Crystella said warmly. "We've missed you."
Solana stiffened at first—caught off guard by the sudden closeness—then slowly relaxed. The warmth of their arms, the familiarity of their presence… it grounded her.
"…You didn't forget me," Solana murmured, almost disbelieving.
She hesitated, then hugged them back, her smaller arms tightening around Elra and Crystella as best she could.
For the first time since her revival, she smiled—not the calm, distant smile of a god, but a soft, human one.
The wind still roared at the mountain peak, the world still stood on the edge of conflict…
But in that brief moment, surrounded by those who remembered her,
Solana was home.
But happiness never lasts long.
A deep, distant horn echoed through the valley below—low, violent, unmistakable.
Selvaria was the first to turn, her eyes sharpening as her muskets slowly lifted behind her.
"…An army."
Smoke rose from the forest beneath the crescent mountains. Steel glinted between the trees like a crawling tide.
The Northern Alliance had arrived.
Virroga.
Banners bearing his crest cut through the green canopy as soldiers flooded the lower forest, marching straight toward the Crescent Kingdom. The calm, hidden city was already ringing with alarm bells.
"The forest defenses are breaking," Aguila's voice carried grimly. "They're moving fast."
Riureas clenched his fist.
"So he felt her revival after all."
Solana looked down the mountainside, fear flashing across her young face. "This… this wasn't supposed to happen so soon—"
Elra stepped forward, fire flickering faintly around her hands. "Then we don't let it reach the city."
Crystella's breath frosted the air. "If they want war, they'll meet it here."
Selvaria cracked her neck once, her massive central cannon locking into place.
"Front lines, then. I'll handle their heavy units."
Riureas turned to Solana, placing a hand gently on her shoulder.
"Stay with Aguila. No matter what happens—do not come down there."
Solana hesitated, then nodded. "…Come back alive."
Riureas drew his weapon and faced the descending slopes.
"Alright," he said quietly. "Witches. Arsenal. Author."
Below them, the forest shook as the first clash began.
The battle for the Crescent Kingdom had started.
Selvaria moved first.
Her nine muskets lifted into the air as one, rotating into firing formation. A low hum spread across the mountainside—then the sky tore open with sound.
Blazing shots rained down in perfect lines, each impact erupting into controlled explosions that erased entire ranks of the Northern Alliance before they could even raise their shields.
Crystella followed without a word.
She stepped forward, pressed her staff to the ground, and exhaled.
The earth screamed.
A wave of absolute cold surged outward, freezing the forest floor, the trees, and the soldiers mid-stride. Ice climbed their armor, sealed their joints, and locked them into place like statues carved from frost. The front line vanished beneath a frozen plain.
Elra raised her hand.
The world… slowed.
Enemy movements dragged as if trapped in thick glass—arrows drifting lazily, spells unraveling before completion, soldiers stumbling through moments stretched thin. Their charge collapsed into chaos, every command arriving far too late.
Then—
The air changed.
Above the battlefield, Solana rose.
She floated higher than all of them, small frame glowing against the darkening sky. Her hands lifted slowly, calmly.
The sun flared.
A radiant halo formed around it—then twisted, bending inward, reshaping itself into a vast, unblinking eye. The sky dimmed, clouds pulling back as if afraid to exist beneath its gaze.
Heat flooded the mountains.
High above, light condensed—hundreds, then thousands of small blades forming in a massive circular array. Each dagger burned white-gold, edges shimmering like molten glass, their heat warping the air around them.
Solana's red-sapphire eye reflected the battlefield below.
This was her true power.
She lowered her hand.
The blades followed.
They screamed downward in perfect rows, striking the slowed enemy ranks with merciless precision. Light pierced armor, bodies, and ground alike—lines of annihilation carving through the Northern Alliance forces in blinding succession.
The forest burned.
The ice shattered.
Time resumed—only for those still alive to realize the war was already lost.
From the mountainside, Riureas stared in stunned silence.
So this is the Witch of the Sun…
And somewhere far beyond the battlefield—
Virroga watched.
And smiled.
Riureas felt it the moment the power faded.
That presence.
His gaze snapped past the burning forest, past the frozen ruins of the battlefield—until it locked onto a single figure standing calmly beyond the chaos.
Virroga.
Unharmed. Unmoved. Watching.
The world around Riureas blurred as anger surged through him.
"…There you are."
Without another word, he turned and ran.
Down the mountainside, boots striking stone and ice, sliding, leaping, ignoring pain, ignoring shouts behind him. Wind tore past his ears as the battlefield rushed upward to meet him. Every step carried years of resentment, unfinished words, and a past that should have stayed buried with the old world.
Virroga stood at the forest's edge, cloak stirring gently, hands relaxed at his sides as if waiting.
As Riureas closed the distance, Virroga's familiar smile curved upward.
"So," Virroga said, voice carrying easily through the scorched air,
"you finally decided to chase me yourself."
Riureas skidded to a halt just meters away, sword already in hand, breath heavy but eyes burning.
"This ends now," he said coldly. "No rewrites. No loops. No running."
Virroga chuckled softly.
"Good," he replied, golden gaze sharp with recognition.
"I was hoping you'd say that."
The air between them tightened—
two men bound by a past only they remembered,
standing at the edge of a war that was never truly over.
And with no armies left to interfere—
The real fight was about to begin.
The sky was still burning.
Above the battlefield, Solana did not lower her hand. Wave after wave of molten blades descended like solar rain, cutting through armor, earth, and will alike. Each strike left scorched lines across the land, bodies turning to ash before they even hit the ground.
Yet the enemy did not stop coming.
From deeper within the forest, horns sounded. New banners emerged between the trees—fresh troops pouring in, driven by orders that no longer cared about survival. The Northern Alliance was feeding soldiers into annihilation, buying time with lives.
Riureas felt it before he heard it.
A presence landed beside him, heavy and controlled.
Aguila.
The Crescent King stood firm, bird-winged cape settling behind him, golden eyes scanning the battlefield in a single sharp sweep. His expression was calm—but beneath it was something older, colder.
"So," Aguila said quietly, "Virroga finally shows his hand."
Riureas didn't look away from his enemy.
"He's mine."
Aguila stepped forward half a pace, power radiating from him like pressure before a storm.
"Then we stand together. This battle will not be decided by armies anymore."
Virroga laughed, slow and amused, as if he'd been waiting for this exact moment.
"Ah… the Crescent King himself," he said. "And the Author who refuses to stay in his place."
The ground trembled.
Not from Solana's blades.
Not from magic.
But from the sheer collision of presences.
Aguila raised his hand. The air behind him warped, feathers of light forming spectral wings that stretched wide, casting a vast shadow over the forest.
Riureas tightened his grip on his sword, power gathering around him—raw, unstable, shaped by rewrites and defiance rather than divinity.
Virroga's smile widened as dark energy coiled around his arm, old power awakening—power that remembered previous worlds.
High above, Solana paused.
Her eye-shaped halo turned—not toward the army, but toward them.
She felt it too.
Three forces.
Three wills.
Three truths colliding.
The lesser battle faded into the background as the air itself seemed to hold its breath.
This was no longer a clash of nations.
This was the moment where monsters, kings, gods, and authors
finally stepped onto the same stage.
And the battle of powerhouses began.