The dawn stretched thin across the wounded land — light struggling through veils of lingering darkness.
It wasn't peace. Not yet.
It was the silence after screaming.
Sid stood at the center of the ruin where the Eighth Flame had died. The earth had cooled into glass-like stone, still etched with veins of gold and black — remnants of his Dominion sealing the wound left by Velgrin's fall.
The air was heavy with stillness. Even the wind seemed uncertain whether it was allowed to move again.
Sid's cloak fluttered faintly in that hesitant breeze, the once-black fabric now dulled, frayed at the edges. His eyes reflected not light, but a deep, endless calm — the kind that comes only after choosing too much.
Behind him, the survivors gathered. Gods, daemons, humans — together, for the first time, not because of alliance or faith, but because there was nowhere else left to stand.
Their gazes fixed on him. Some in awe.
Some in fear.
All waiting.
A voice broke the silence.
It was Elira, her hair torn, her divine light dimmed but alive.
"It's over, isn't it?"
Sid turned slightly. His expression didn't change.
"No. It's never really over."
Her lips trembled. "Then what was all this for?"
He looked out at the horizon — a horizon that no longer curved, but stretched infinite and raw, a scar where the heavens had been torn.
"To remember that power isn't what saves us. Choice is."
That answer didn't satisfy anyone — not the gods who had lost their dominions, nor the mortals who'd lost their faith. But it was the truth, and truth had always been heavier than victory.
Nox stepped forward from the crowd — limping, blood on his cheek, but still smirking in that irreverent, human way.
"You really did it, huh? The kid who didn't want to be a god ended up rewriting reality."
Sid's gaze softened. "Someone had to."
Nox gave a short laugh that ended in a cough. "Yeah, well, next time maybe don't pick a fight with existence itself."
Sid almost smiled. Almost.
"Next time, I'll make sure existence listens first."
From the ruins, a figure of light and ember rose — Alfred's remnant, the echo of the old mentor who had guided Sid long before divinity ever touched him.
The projection bowed slightly.
"You have done what even gods could not — brought balance through compassion."
Sid shook his head. "I didn't bring balance. I just stopped the fall. For now."
The echo tilted its head, eyes fading with every word.
"Then what will you do now, Unbound One?"
Sid looked down at his hands — the marks of the divine and the demonic still etched into his skin. They pulsed faintly, not with power, but memory.
"Now?" He exhaled. "Now I unmake myself."
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
Elira stepped forward, her voice breaking. "You can't mean—"
"I do." Sid turned toward the Seal at his feet. "As long as I exist, this balance will never be free. It'll always depend on me — on my will, my power. That's not peace. That's control."
Nox's voice cracked. "Sid—"
Sid looked at him, smiling faintly. "You'll keep them safe. You always did, even when you pretended you didn't care."
Nox clenched his fists. "I can't protect what doesn't exist!"
Sid's eyes glimmered with warmth. "You can. Because I'll still be there — not as a god, not as a flame. Just as the choice they made to live."
The Seal beneath his feet began to glow again — not with divine fire, but with something gentler. A memory of warmth.
The Dominion symbols rose into the air, spiraling around him. Threads of shadow and light intertwined, forming a cocoon that pulsed like a heartbeat.
He looked to the gathered crowd one last time.
"Remember this: every end is just a shape waiting to be named again. Don't worship it. Learn from it."
Elira's tears shone like small stars.
"What will become of you?"
Sid smiled — not the hero's smile, not the god's, but a human one.
"I'll be the whisper between breaths. The silence after storms. The shadow that remembers the light."
And then, the Seal opened.
The sky fractured into glass, pouring shards of light that rained down gently.
Where Sid stood, there was only brilliance — white, gold, and silver converging into nothing.
When it faded, the world sighed.
The cracks in the heavens mended.
The void quieted.
The Eighth Flame was gone.
And so was he.
Days passed.
Then weeks.
Mortals began to rebuild.
The gods who survived took new vows — not to rule, but to watch.
Demons retreated into the deep places of the world, no longer enemies, merely keepers of forgotten truths.
And at night, when the winds whispered through the new forests growing over glass fields, people swore they could hear a voice — soft, almost too faint to believe.
"Live. Choose. Remember."
Nox stood on the same plain where Sid had vanished, staring into the horizon that was now full of green and dawn.
He muttered under his breath, voice rough but steady,
"You really became the bridge, didn't you?"
Elira approached beside him, her divinity dimmed to a soft glow.
"The world doesn't worship him anymore."
Nox smiled faintly.
"Good. That's exactly what he wanted."
As the sun rose, a faint shimmer appeared over the horizon — not a god, not a flame, but a shadow walking across the light.
The Last Shadow.
And in its quiet, endless stride, the world began again.