Inferna and I fought toward the end now—both of us knowing this was the final battle.
"THE PLAN," she said. "TELL ME AGAIN. I WANT TO HEAR IT."
"Six hundred years of preparation. A dragon death at specific coordinates. Corruption embedded in your very being. A trigger that tears reality."
"AND IF IT FAILS?"
"Then we do it again. In another hundred years. Or a thousand. However long it takes."
"YOU'D WAIT ANOTHER THOUSAND YEARS?"
"I've waited this long. What's a thousand more?"
---
Year 300-1000.
The plan came together.
After centuries of experimentation, I finally understood how to break the world.
The key was corruption.
When a dragon died in the End, the game ran a check: "Is this world complete?" If yes, the player could leave. If no, the world continued.
But what if the game couldn't answer the question?
What if the dragon's death introduced corrupted data—foreign code, impossible enchantments, reality-breaking magic—that made the game's logic collapse?
In that collapse, there would be a moment. A fraction of a second where the rules didn't apply. Where a door could open.
Where I could escape.
---
Year 300. The discovery.
I was studying the End's structure when I noticed something: the dimension was unstable.
Not obviously—the End worked as intended, mostly. But beneath the surface, there were cracks. Places where the code didn't quite align. Gaps where foreign data could slip in.
The Ender Dragon's death was the End's most significant event. When the dragon died, the entire dimension reset, regenerated, prepared for the next player.
What if I could make that reset... malfunction?
---
Year 350. The experiments.
I started small. Killed the Ender Dragon while it was affected by various enchantments. Tested different death locations. Timed the kills against different celestial events.
Most tests did nothing. The dragon died, the End reset, nothing changed.
But some tests produced... anomalies.
A kill during a void alignment—a rare event where the End's void touched other dimensions—created a flicker. Just a moment of something else showing through.
A kill while the dragon was affected by [Corruption]—an experimental enchantment I'd developed specifically for this purpose—made the End's reset stutter.
I was on the right track.
---
Year 400. The plan forms.
I needed:
A dragon—a special one, corrupted from birth, carrying experimental magic in its very cells. 2. A kill location—specific coordinates where the End's code was weakest. 3. A trigger—an enchantment that would activate on the dragon's death, introducing the corrupted data. 4. A portal—the [World Breach] enchantment, ready to catch the moment of reality collapse and turn it into a door.
I had all of these.
I just needed to bring them together.
---
Year 400-990. The preparation.
I prepared everything.
Inferna agreed to the plan—her choice, finally, freely made. She would die to set me free.
I prepared the kill location—a specific obsidian platform in the End that I'd reinforced and enchanted over decades.
I wrote the [World Breach] enchantment—six months of careful work, requiring 500,000 XP per attempt.
I gathered XP crystals—50 crystals, each holding 10,000 XP, enough for three attempts at the portal.
I said goodbye to Eterna—left them everything I could, took only what I needed.
And I prepared myself—for success or failure, for freedom or another millennium of imprisonment.
---
Year 998. The moment arrives.
Void alignment will happen in around 2 years. A rare event that happens once per century, when the End's void touches other dimensions.
I meet Inferna at the prepared location.
"Are you ready?" I ask.
"I WAS BORN READY," she says. Then, softer: "Father. Whatever happens... thank you. For making me. For giving me existence, even if its purpose was your escape."
"Thank you for choosing to help. You could have refused."
"NO. I COULDN'T. I WAS MADE TO HELP. THE CHOICE WAS ALREADY MADE."
"Then thank you for making peace with it."
We begin.
The final battle.
After two hundred years of training, of fighting, of growing together—we fight for real now.
For the last time.
For freedom.