Manon looked around, frightened by the slightest movement.
She kept glancing outside, afraid Astra might return. Her hair was a mess from the countless times she had shaken her head trying to calm herself, and she could no longer sleep.
She thought again and again about what the strange girl who had burst into her garden had told her.
"They call me the Third Horseman of the Apocalypse…"
She could no longer take those words lightly. She could no longer forget them.
Astra's face was etched in her memory like an indelible mark on white paper.
"And you think this is my fault?"
Marc's words echoed in her mind as well. That day, she had gone to see the boy herself, hoping he would deal with his own problems, but he had brushed her off, claiming it had nothing to do with him. The cold, hard look in his eyes, along with the crushing pressure that seemed to radiate from him whenever someone came near, still made Manon shudder at how deeply she despised him.
Why did she have to endure all this, when she had never asked for any of it?
She couldn't understand why she had been shown that vision. Why she had been plagued by those dreams ? Why a girl like her, with nothing special about her, had to bear the burden of saving the world—or witnessing its destruction ?
"What am I supposed to do to avoid dying? And those eyes, those horrible eyes staring at me from afar…"
Manon remembered her vision. The place where it had all begun. The source of her problems, her troubles. Her life had become nothing but survival. A countdown until everything collapsed.
Then, she thought of someone she wanted to unleash all her anger upon.
"Marc Zeymond. This is all your fault…"
And through it all, Marc had become the center of attention.
**
"I have to find those books."
In the middle of an empty room, Marc held up his phone, checking for any new directives. But he knew nothing was likely to change…
"How?"
On the other end of the line was the Emperor, as calm and cold as ever.
"You don't have any lead, anything at all? I'm getting nowhere searching blindly."
"Marc Zeymond, if I had a lead, I would have already given it to you. For now, you need to find those books if you want to know how to end all of this. Were you able to defeat Aeros?"
That question stung. Marc had pieced together how he had survived his encounter with the invading entity, but he had no idea whether he had actually defeated her or not.
No camera from the Zvenne Empire had managed to cross the border. There was no footage of the fight—and worse, Marc had no memory of it himself.
"I don't know. There's a gap in my memory, starting from the moment she stabbed me."
Turcan sighed.
"That could become a problem if she's stronger than you. Make sure you're better prepared for your next encounter. In the meantime, find those books—and don't lose control a second time. Is that clear?"
"Understood."
The Emperor ended the call.
The news was far from reassuring. The books were still missing, and the plague had already wiped out nearly sixty percent of Arva's population. Even though the war was on hold, nothing suggested it would end well.
Astra had already killed over a billion people across the world with her natural catastrophes. A number so absurd, so monstrous, it filled Marc with dread. And the last horseman was still missing, still unknown. Which meant an even greater danger could be lurking over their heads, without anyone knowing what it was.
"This is a real mess."
As these thoughts swirled, Marc stared at his reflection on his dark phone screen.
His worn, battered face made him look even sadder and darker than usual. The innocent boy he had once been was completely gone—replaced by a young man who despised himself and was scarred by the trials of a life far from ordinary.
If he had known everything that awaited him, he would have locked himself inside his home and never come out. Though perhaps that wouldn't have stopped him from killing over a million people anyway—because of those cursed words.
"Sorry."
He apologized to himself, though it was already useless. He no longer knew if this was truly life and he was growing up irreversibly, or if it was just a nightmare he was paying for with every step.
He couldn't even think of all his victims anymore. They were nothing but grotesque numbers. Each life lost was just one more added to a scale that had long since collapsed.
The weight of the dead pressed down on Marc like an ocean. Guilt—yes, that was it—was eating away at him so deeply that he no longer even felt it.
Over time, he had learned to live with it. It made him wonder if he had already become a monster…
"Well then… let's go."
But the battle wasn't over. Marc had to finish it.
"The question is… am I even capable of it?"
And that was the whole point...
Marc returned to Garida, retracing the streets in search of the slightest clue. Since Zvenne had pushed deep into the territory, the people of Garida had fled the western part of the Empire. The buildings in the towns Marc had once walked through now stood empty. The streets were deserted.
Only the soldiers of Zvenne, marching in rows down the main roads, brought any sound to the hollow silence.
The schools were abandoned. Public spaces, lakes, plains… the very soul of Garida was dying little by little as Zvenne gained ground, wrapped in an atmosphere of cold menace.
"So this is it. The art of war."
Marc surveyed the lifeless scene. His black armor, glinting faintly in the empty streets, made him look like a ghost knight haunting the ruins. He wore a new white mask—but this time, he had left a black scar across it, right where Aeros had once cut his face. A reminder of that defeat.
He walked for hours through the streets, sometimes breaking into a run to reach the next district, until he arrived at the edge of Zvenne's expanding territory. There, he stopped and stared forward.
On a tall building in the distance stood a man in a black suit, calmly smoking a cigarette, the smoke curling lazily upward.
Marc recognized him instantly and spoke in a measured voice.
"Are you here to try and stop me again?"
Lori didn't answer at first. He kept smoking, only turning his head slowly toward Marc.
A tired, cold look had settled into the leader of the IGA. Overwhelmed since the beginning of the war, he had been forced to deal with politicians and elites exploiting the chaos to secretly eliminate their rivals—leaving the IGA stretched thin on every front.
Even so, his voice was calm when he finally answered.
"My poor boy… you look even more destroyed than I do."
Marc understood exactly what he meant.
Lori descended the stairs of the building quickly, the cigarette still hanging from his mouth. When he stepped outside, he found himself face-to-face with Marc.
"Well then. What happened to you, kid? Tired of winning already?"
Marc gave no reply. He just stared at Lori—or at least, that's what Lori thought.
In truth, Marc wasn't really looking at him at all. He only saw the man's aura behind him. His eyes were as hollow as the cities of Garida. He wasn't looking. He wasn't seeing.
"I see," Lori muttered. "So this is the price one pays to become like you. I thought I'd already lost a lot… but you look even more broken."
He tilted his head back to watch the sky. The dark, stormy gray seemed to sink into an even deeper black. Still, he focused on the black birds circling above, their silhouettes blending into the heavens.
"Have you ever dreamed of being a bird?"
Marc's eyes flickered with a faint trace of emotion.
"When I look at the sky, I tell myself that stupid dream of flying is meaningless. I never wanted to leave the ground. I always kept my eyes forward, to keep moving ahead. When I lifted my head to the sky, it was only to remind myself that birds were birds, and I was me. I didn't envy them. I thought them small and fragile.I was strong and tall. I was better."
The cigarette burned down to its end and Lori dropped the butt to the ground.
"We're done. The IGA will no longer work with Garida. It was insane to think that we could defeat a monster like you. But at least we tried. And as its leader, I wanted to tell you this myself: you were the strongest opponent I've ever faced. And for that, I'm proud."
Marc's expression didn't change. A shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds and lit Lori's figure, followed by several more rays piercing the dark sky. The sun revealed itself after so long—but none of its light touched Marc. He remained in shadow, yet for once, he lifted his gaze and locked eyes with Lori.
"Farewell, Marc Zeymond. I hope I never see you again… at least not as an enemy."
And then Lori vanished, dissolving into the light, even as it shone on him.
Marc stood still for a long moment, replaying Lori's strange words about the birds. What hidden meaning had he left behind? That freedom isn't always what we imagine? That even if things had been done differently, the end would have still been ruin?
It was a bleak comparison, and Marc didn't want to think about it.
So he moved forward again. One step after another—recovering, if only faintly, a trace of life.