A horrifying sound echoed through the chamber. William’s mana core was violently ripped out, together with the sword.

The once beautiful white crystal core, now dim and cracked, emerged from his abdomen, impaled through the center by the blade. The sword had pierced directly through it so cleanly that the core looked moments away from splitting into two pieces entirely.

Blood, flesh, and torn veins splattered across the crystal platform.

The scene looked like a living being’s very heart was being carved out, the removal of the source that defined life, power, and existence itself.

Anna immediately laid William flat against the platform again before preparing for the next step, which was to remove the seal.

"What will you do??" Tamasya asked quietly.

Anna’s hands trembled uncontrollably now.

"I...I will have to remove the seal from his heart." As she spoke, she slowly took out a small dagger.

Using mana, she desperately attempted to prevent further blood loss, though William’s body now contained a horrifying open wound that none of them knew could even heal properly anymore.

Yue and Andrea remained deeply shaken.

They quickly stored away both the sword and the damaged core before moving closer to assist Anna. Even now, fear lingered inside them. Some of them worried that Anna was only mutilating William’s body further out of desperation.

Still, none of them stopped her. Anna carefully made a cut near William’s chest and flesh. As she did that every few seconds, her hands shook violently.

Tamasya noticed it immediately but remained silent. Inside her heart, frustration and rage burned endlessly, seeing the helplessness they were in.

William had sent all of them away into the domain to protect them while he alone faced Lux. The memory made her clench her fists tightly.

She was angry at him. Angry that he chose to bear everything alone.

Angry that he left them behind. If only he were awake right now, she would have screamed all of that directly into his face.

From the corner of her eyes, she suddenly noticed Anna collapsing onto her knees.

The woman’s breathing had become erratic. Her widened eyes were filled with terror.

Only now, after everything, had the true despair of losing her son finally caught up to her.

Anna bit her lips harshly, trying to steady herself, but her hands refused to obey.

Finally, she looked helplessly toward Yue and Andrea and began explaining exactly what needed to be done. Both women stepped forward without complaint.

Yet the moment they picked up the dagger and approached William’s corpse, their courage faltered completely.

The gaping hole in his stomach. The opened chest cavity.

The sheer brutality of the scene in front of them broke them down.

They had killed before. They had seen gore and flesh countless times.

But this was different; this time the flesh belonged to their known, their nephew, and that made their blood run cold. They felt blasphemous touching the corpse that was supposed to be respected.

Even if there was truth in Anne’s assumptions, one wrong movement inside his heart would destroy whatever tiny chance of revival remained.

Neither of them dared to gamble with that small chance.

Their hands trembled beneath the weight of the responsibility.

Tamasya finally lost her patience as she looked at their faces.

Without another word, she walked forward and snatched the dagger from them.

Then she began the procedure herself.

The blade sliced through William’s chest until his motionless heart became visible beneath layers of torn flesh.

Somehow, Tamasya’s hands remained steady throughout the process. She felt as though she no longer had any choice but to continue this until she had a clear answer; she was desperate to hear William’s voice again.

Carefully, she cut into the heart that had now stopped beating.

Under the sharp cut of the dagger, the flesh parted cleanly beneath the heart’s walls.

Inside the organ rested a small green jade stone embedded like the seed of a tree; several vessels and tubes connected themselves to this seed.

Tamasya immediately summoned wisps of shadow energy that slithered into William’s chest and wrapped around the crystal.

"I am breaking it."

Shadow’s voice echoed inside her mind.

The next instant, the green jade seal shattered into dust. The shadow wisps retreated immediately afterward.

Tamasya took a deep breath as she took her hand out of William’s chest cavity. She looked at her bloodied hands with a hardened yet restrained expression as tears threatened to burst from her eyes.

Suddenly, without warning, a blinding eruption of energy exploded outward.

CRASH

The force sent all four women flying several feet backward from William’s body.

"Urghh!!" Tamasya’s body crashed into the wall of the room.

Anna groaned painfully as she forced herself upright again; her eyes remained locked onto the crystal platform. Meanwhile, Yue and Andrea, who had been looking after Anne, were thrown back with immense force.

William’s body had begun radiating an overwhelming light into the stormy night.

Then, suddenly, the storm above the Holy Sun Empire stopped completely, as if compelled by the light itself.

The roaring winds vanished. The dark clouds parted as though torn open by unseen hands, revealing a massive full moon hanging in the sky.

Moonlight poured down through the shattered windows and bathed William’s body in silver radiance.

Slowly, in front of Anne, Tamasya, Andrea, and Yue, his body slowly rose from the crystal platform and levitated into the air.

His expression remained calm and peaceful, and his breath remained dormant with no signs of revival, standing in terrifying contrast to the blood covering his chest and the trembling crimson hands of Tamasya below.

The four women stared upward in complete shock.

Slowly, within their shattered hearts, a fragile spark of hope began to return.

Perhaps...

William could still come back. Under this hope, they kept on witnessing the otherworldly phenomenon, but soon William’s body rose to an untrackable height in the sky and disappeared.

Tamasya, along with the other, finally took to the sky and followed behind him. But they could not find him anymore, as if the boy had disappeared from this world completely.

A bad premonition rose in their hearts, and they frantically started searching for him.

Meanwhile, William’s body was floating quite a few miles above the ground, and the full moon was directly facing the dead boy.

Under the radiant moonlight, William’s heart stitched back together and started healing. Although the rest of the injuries remained even then.

The figure of the moon in the sky shook violently for a few moments when something happened, something that the whole of Aris would remember forever.

From another corner of the land, the sun suddenly rose while the moon had not set. The light of these two celestial bodies was mixed; the sun was glowing only faintly, yet its brilliance was not ignorable.

William’s body slowly started regenerating under the sun’s light while the moonlight did its own work.

From far away in the sky, Miss Fate looked at the unfolding phenomena with a subtle smile.

"The sun and the moon have come together to tend to his injuries."