The Ashes of Victory
Silence.
It was the kind of silence that followed the end of all things — thick, hollow, infinite. The wind no longer screamed, the rifts were gone, and the once-roaring sky now hung still and pale like a wounded ghost. Only the faint shimmer of dust drifted through the light of dawn, carrying with it the last echoes of battle.
Lira stood amid the ruins, her cloak torn, her staff cracked and humming faintly with residual energy. Every inch of her body ached, but pain was far from her mind. Her gaze remained fixed on the spot where Zero had vanished — where the rift once burned like a second sun.
There was nothing left there now.No light.No shadow.Just air.
She took a slow step forward. The ground beneath her boots crunched with fragments of crystallized energy — remnants of the Ascension Seal. Each fragment pulsed weakly, fading one by one as the magic dispersed into the ether.
Zero's last words echoed through her mind, heavy as the air she breathed."Guess this is goodbye."
Her throat tightened. She knelt, brushing her fingers over the ground where he had stood. The soil was still warm, faintly glowing gold beneath her touch. For a moment, she could almost feel him there — the pulse of his aura, steady and wild as always. Then it was gone, swallowed by the silence once more.
"I told you not to be a hero," she whispered. Her voice cracked halfway through the words. "You never listen, do you?"
The only answer was the distant sigh of the wind.
Hours passed. The light shifted from gold to gray as the sun struggled to climb through the haze. Eventually, Lira forced herself to stand. There were others — survivors, perhaps — who needed her. Zero had bought them a future; the least she could do was make sure it meant something.
She turned her eyes toward the horizon. Where once the land had been torn apart by war and magic, now stretched an endless field of ash and shadowed mist. The cities were gone. The forests were gone. Even the rivers had been boiled away by the cataclysm.
And yet — the world lived.She could feel it beneath her feet.A heartbeat.Faint, but real.
She started walking.
Each step took her deeper into the wasteland that had once been the Eastern Ridge. Every now and then, she found pieces of the old world — a broken sword, a twisted tower, the faint trace of a barrier long faded. But here and there, signs of renewal were beginning to appear. Patches of grass pushing through cracked earth. Streams of clear water forming where the rifts had collapsed.
The world was healing.
But the same could not be said of her heart.
After what felt like days, she reached the base of the old citadel — what remained of the command spire that once stood watch over the valley. Half of it had collapsed, forming a jagged monument of stone and metal. At its center, she found a single figure waiting among the debris.
It was Kael — the last of the Dawn Sentinels. His armor was cracked, one arm bound in cloth, but he stood tall as always. When he saw her, his eyes widened with relief.
"You're alive," he said softly.
"Barely," Lira replied, forcing a tired smile. "You look worse."
He gave a dry chuckle. "You should see the other side."
For a moment, they simply stood in silence. No words could fill the weight of what had been lost.
Finally, Kael asked, "Did you stop it?"
Lira's smile faded. "He did."
Kael nodded slowly. "Zero."
"Yeah." Her eyes drifted toward the sky again. "He sealed it. The rift's gone — for now."
Kael studied her carefully. "For now?"
Lira turned toward him, her expression grim. "The Abyss wasn't destroyed. It was pushed back. Sealed beyond the veil. But seals… seals break. Especially ones made with a soul."
Kael's jaw tightened. "You think he's still—"
"I know he's still out there," she interrupted. "I can feel it. His energy hasn't faded. It's… distant. Muted. But it's there."
Kael lowered his gaze. "Then we find a way to bring him back."
Lira laughed — a tired, hollow sound. "You make it sound simple."
"It's what he'd do for us."
That shut her up. She looked away, biting back the ache rising in her chest. "He'd probably be angry if we didn't try."
"Then we try," Kael said firmly. "The Ascendant relics — the ones scattered during the battle. If we can gather what's left, maybe we can trace his energy through the void."
Lira blinked, hope flickering through the numbness. "You really think it's possible?"
Kael's eyes hardened. "I don't believe in impossible anymore. Not after what we've seen."
For the first time since the battle, she smiled — faint but real. "Alright then," she said softly. "We find him."
They spent the next hours gathering what remnants they could. Each fragment of the relics pulsed faintly when brought close together, resonating with the same frequency as Zero's aura. It wasn't much — but it was something.
As dusk began to fall, Lira sat beside the ruins of the spire, watching the first stars appear. For the first time, the sky was clear — unscarred, peaceful.
She whispered toward the horizon, "You better not be dead, Zero. Because I'm coming to drag you back myself."
And somewhere beyond the veil, in the endless dark where the Abyss still stirred, a flicker of light moved — small, distant, but unmistakably alive.
The connection had not been broken.Only buried.
Lira's eyes glowed faintly, a single rune of gold burning across her wrist — the mark of the Ascendant Bond.
"Found you," she said quietly.