The battlefield had gone quiet, but not with peace.
Silence here was a wound — deep, humming, and still bleeding light.
Sid stood within the trembling heart of that stillness. The sphere of Dominion he had forced into existence still shimmered faintly around him, rippling with cracks like old glass. The three flames — Black, White, and Red — had recoiled from their collision, leaving behind a hollow sky split by threads of reversed lightning.
His breaths came shallow. Each exhale carried dust, ash, and a taste of something metallic — the lingering echo of divinity burned too long in mortal lungs.
And somewhere within that fractured silence, a voice called:
"Sid… hey—"
Nox stumbled into view. His left arm hung useless, scorched to the bone; his right still clutched the hilt of his sword though the blade had melted into slag. His once-white coat was little more than tatters, his face drawn and pale, but his eyes — they still burned human. Always human.
Sid's knees almost gave way in relief. "You're alive."
"For the moment," Nox managed, leaning on the shattered pillar of what had once been sky. He looked around, taking in the ruins — the armies turned to cinders, the sky trying to remember what color it used to be. "Looks like you finally broke the world, huh?"
Sid tried to smile, but it wouldn't come. "It's breaking itself. I'm just… holding the pieces."
"Always the hero," Nox muttered, though the word sounded like it hurt him to say it.
They stood together for a moment — two remnants of a thousand wars, surrounded by ash and silence.
Then Nox's tone changed. Quiet. Intentional. "Sid. There's something you need to hear. Before the end."
Sid turned to him. "You're not dying, Nox. Don't start talking like—"
"I'm not dying," Nox interrupted softly. "I'm finishing what I started."
Sid froze. Something in that phrasing — too calm, too rehearsed — made his stomach twist. "What are you talking about?"
Nox's gaze lifted to the horizon, where Velgrin's crimson fire still pulsed in the distance like a dying heart. "Do you remember the first time we met? You asked me why I was helping you. I said it was because someone had to keep you alive long enough to learn who you really were."
Sid nodded slowly. "I thought that meant you believed in me."
"I did," Nox said. "Still do. But that wasn't the full truth."
He straightened, despite the pain, and for the first time, Sid saw something like guilt shadow his expression — a weight that had been there all along, hidden behind sarcasm and steadiness.
"I wasn't sent by any god or daemon," Nox said. "I served something older. The Void Sovereign."
The name rippled through the air like an echo of thunder. The ground itself seemed to recoil.
"You served...?"
"Guarded," Nox corrected. "Watched. The Sovereign's will was simple: if the balance ever tipped too far, betray the vessel before the cycle repeats."
Sid's heart stuttered. "The vessel… me."
Nox nodded once. "You were never supposed to reach this point, Sid. You weren't supposed to outlast the gods, or survive the Mirror Abyss. You were supposed to break and reset the pattern — not remake it."
The air around them trembled. The remnants of Shadow Dominion pulsed in protest, sensing Sid's turmoil.
"So all this time," Sid said quietly, "you were preparing to kill me."
Nox closed his eyes. "If it came to that. But I didn't. Because I saw something the Sovereign didn't account for — choice."
He met Sid's gaze again, raw, unguarded. "You weren't just a weapon, Sid. You were learning. Changing. Becoming something that didn't fit the equation."
Lightning forked across the blackened clouds — a reminder that Velgrin's Eighth Flame was still out there, rebuilding its strength.
Nox stepped closer, his voice low, steady. "The world doesn't have time for me to explain everything, so listen: the cycle of gods and daemons, light and shadow — it was never meant to end. It feeds on repetition. Ravh'Zereth rises, Eryon descends, Velgrin corrupts. The Seal resets. That's the loop."
"And the Sovereign?" Sid asked.
"The observer," Nox said grimly. "It exists to ensure the loop continues. Because as long as it does, existence has structure. But if you break it…" He looked Sid dead in the eye. "No one knows what happens next."
Sid's voice came sharp, almost desperate. "Then why tell me now?"
"Because I'm going to give you the chance to find out."
He drew a knife — not for killing, but for carving. Its blade was translucent, humming with voidlight.
Sid took a step forward. "Nox—"
"Don't," Nox said, quiet but firm. "This isn't death. Not really. It's a trade. My essence for a lock — a living ward."
"You can't..."
"I can," Nox said. "And I have to. Velgrin's Eighth Flame is merging with the breach Ravh'Zereth left. If it fuses, there won't be a world left to save. But if I bind myself into the lattice, I can hold it — not forever, but long enough for you to reach the final Seal."
Sid's voice broke. "You'll burn yourself out."
"I've been burning since the day I met you," Nox said with a faint, broken smile.
He pressed the knife into the ground. The air shuddered. Symbols — ancient, circular, and alive — burst to life around them, forming a ring of living runes.
Sid reached out, gripping his friend's arm. "Don't do this. We can find another way. You always find another way."
Nox looked at him — not as a guardian or mentor, but as a brother. "No, Sid. You find another way. That's what I taught you for."
He knelt, his body trembling as the runes began to sink into his skin. Light poured from his eyes, his veins, his open wounds. He was unmaking himself — folding his being into the world's fabric.
"Listen to me," Nox said, voice now fading beneath the roar of the ritual. "I lied when I said I trained you to survive. I trained you to end it. Not by killing — by choosing. By remembering what others forgot."
Sid's grip tightened until his knuckles bled. "Don't leave me with this."
Nox smiled faintly through the pain. "Someone has to. That's how you'll learn to stand alone."
The light reached his throat, his face, his eyes. His last words were carried through it like a whisper of wind.
"Be more than what I taught you."
Then he was gone.
The runes collapsed inward, leaving only a faint shimmer in the air — a seal woven from will, sacrifice, and memory.
Sid fell to his knees before it, his heartbeat echoing like a drum against the void. The world shifted — the ward holding Velgrin's advance at bay, the battlefield stabilizing for a breath.
But the silence that followed was unbearable.
He pressed his palm to the air where Nox had vanished. It was warm, faintly pulsing — like the beat of a distant heart.
For a long moment, Sid said nothing. Then, through the haze of grief and rage, his Dominion stirred again.
"Then I'll be more," he whispered. "I'll end it my way."
The light around him dimmed. The seal hummed quietly, and far in the distance, Velgrin's flame faltered.
Nox's sacrifice had worked.
But the cost had only just begun.