Light burst out through the gaps between the fingers clutching the artifact.

The light formed letters, and the instant I saw them, I ran without hesitation.

There was no time to stop and think.

Instinct and intuition were screaming at me.

That if I was even a few seconds late, Luman’s life would be forfeit. He would shatter without resistance and disappear into light.

In the darkness soaking through the space like black water, the golden spear blazed as bright as the sun. Watching Luman’s faintly illuminated face reflected in it, I ran to reach him.

Toward that broad, enormous back.

Everything else faded far away, and in a few long strides, Luman’s back drew closer.

For a moment, it looked as though the shape of a fox flickered inside the brilliant golden spear. A form rising like smoke before dissolving back into light.

Ah.

The pattern on the floor had only one final line left before completion.

What would happen if that thing finished?

‘Don’t wonder about it. I’m not going to let it finish.’

Don’t panic. Don’t rush.

Because according to these “letters,” I would never arrive too late.

The current of air that had been dragging me around violently finally began flowing in my favor.

It felt similar to before. To when I had leapt down to save Cedric.

The necklace the old apothecary had given me had shone as if trying to swallow me whole, and then a massive wave had crashed over this space until it filled with water. At first, it had interfered with me too. But when I refused to yield to it, it eventually helped me instead.

‘So help me now too.’

Because I will never yield.

Because I don’t want anyone’s death beneath my feet. Because I don’t want to watch another back disappear forever beyond my reach.

Following where the letters guided me, I stared only at his spear. The world around us was dark, and only Luman shone. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The pitch-black darkness I had never seen before felt almost tangible, as though it were blocking the way itself. But I did not falter. Even when the heavy darkness pressed down on me, I did not lose my way. Because the ivory spear gathering light—the spear that had drawn in every last scrap of light in this underground space—was leading me onward. I only had to follow that light. As though I were being pulled into it.......

And then, just as Luman raised his hand high into the air and was about to drive the spear back down—

Just as the spear, bright as the world’s first dawn, was about to pierce the darkness fallen over everything like the world’s final night—

I finally reached him.

Right before his spear split the darkness apart.

Right before he shattered into pieces.

Right before he vanished far away.

I managed to catch hold of him.

“Luman.”

I placed my hand over the one gripping the spear and looked up at him.

His empty golden eyes were filled with nothing but light.

I could read no emotion from him. No thought.

Eyes like a puppet stripped of its will.

Like porcelain sculpted from light.

Like a machine moving according to a programmed command, he tried to grip the spear again. I pushed his hand away.

Tap.

Luman’s hand fell limply.

The moment I fully grasped the spear, it sounded as if I heard Lante screaming. A scream sharp as shattered glass, torn apart by agony.

‘It’s okay. It probably isn’t that different from the pain I know.’

So.......

“I’ll do it instead, Luman.”

Wouldn’t it be better if the one who understood did it?

So give the light back to Luman’s golden eyes.

Give back what was stolen from him.

Ripples spread across Luman’s face as though it were reflected on the surface of water. Those ripples spread like veins, forming faint cracks. As though the slightest impact would shatter him apart.

I wanted to touch his face.

But instead, I gripped the spear with both hands.

A numbing sensation swept through my body.

Watching the final line slow as it neared completion, I lifted the spear high into the air the way Luman had.

And as I drove it downward, I prayed.

Give him back his soul.

If the final fate of a Hero who devoted his life to protecting the kingdom was sacrifice in the end, then that was too cruel.

Shouldn’t someone else bear at least that last sacrifice for him?

Ah, this feeling was like seasickness.

I had never been on a ship, but it felt as though a vessel °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° caught in a storm was struggling against the waves so it would not overturn.

My consciousness floated. The pain was only one step behind me, but I already knew.

That a pain as violent as a tidal wave and as terrifying as bombardment was about to swallow me whole. That it was waiting just behind me.

Both hands gripping the spear burned as though they would burst apart, and my entire body shook.

I felt a horror beyond anything language could express.

Like someone struck by lightning, I stood there enduring everything piercing through me.

To stop the pattern from completing, I endured with the spear driven into its very center—the final dot.

My legs trembled. The condensed force gathering toward that final stroke, that tiny point left unfinished in the pattern, tried to shove me away.

‘No. I won’t move.’

Because if I failed, then Luman would be next.

‘Please help me do this.’

At some point, tears had begun streaming down my face.

Stubbornness. Obsession. Sheer desperate willpower to stop this no matter what held my shaking ankles in place.

‘Ah.......’

I saw light slowly filling the gaze fixed on me.

Like gentle waves rolling quietly ashore. Like shoulders suddenly dampened by soft rain. It was returning little by little, seeping back in.

A gaze like sunlight in winter.

Like stones warmed beneath a gentle sun.

Like a piece cut from the sun itself.

Luman’s gaze.

The kindness he had treated as nothing special. The way he had wrapped himself around me as though naturally taking my side.

Would this be enough to repay the feelings behind your kindness?

Luman.

Watching his pupils tremble like hundreds of butterflies beating their wings, I finally smiled.

Ah.

So you aren’t supposed to run from the fear pressing right up against your back.

You’re supposed to willingly let it swallow you whole.

The spear pierced deep, impossibly deep, into the earth below.

And then shadow and light swallowed me.

***

Ruuuumble.

Peruan could not shake the feeling that he was witnessing a scene from myth.

The sinful humans writhed behind them like insects, while the corpses of those chosen as sacrifices were piled like mountains. The masked figures, who had endlessly stolen lives and harvested blood, stopped moving like puppets with their strings cut. Beneath their feet, the ground groaned as though it might collapse at any moment.

And the Hero.

The platinum-haired man gathering pure white light into the massive spear as he walked toward the center of the place Ren had pointed to.

The darkness sinking down thick and heavy.......

Yes, I will erase your death for you, so take this death cleanly with you and go.

Peruan had been captivated by the back towering wide and tall like Mount Geroa itself, but he turned his head to look after Ren.

“Ren, my dear, what are you trying to......”

“Let go!”

“Ren! What are you doing? You’re bleeding!”

“I said let go, Peruan.”

Ren was tearing open his own thumb to make it bleed.

Good God.

Peruan hurriedly grabbed Ren’s hand, but the force pouring from him left no room to stop him.

What in the world was he trying to do?

Blood dripped steadily from the thumb where the flesh had been ripped open. Ren smeared the blood over the necklace.

“Ren!”

Peruan called sharply.

“This is that man’s duty. It is also his love, wishing for your safety.”

Peruan spoke of Luman’s love without the slightest hesitation.

Ren, frantically smearing blood across the necklace, stopped.

“Ren, come here. It seems something terrible is about to happen.”

Has he calmed down?

No matter how he looked at it, pulling the nails embedded in Ren’s heart was not going to be easy.

What an unbearably magnificent death this is, Hero.

Peruan wanted to ask Luman that.

As Peruan cautiously reached toward Ren, intending to pull him back, he froze when he saw Ren’s face.

Those were not the eyes of someone who had given up.

“.......”

Not the eyes of someone accepting things in silence.

They were the eyes of someone resisting.

Ren wore the same eyes Peruan had once seen in that portrait.

Peruan’s lips parted. He wanted to call Ren’s name, but no sound came out.

Overwhelmed by those green eyes shining like the morning star, Peruan could not move, like prey trapped in a spider’s web.

The surroundings gradually drowned in darkness. Even the screams trembling with fear and terror had stopped beneath the suffocating silence. A silence heavy as anchors dragging people down beneath the overwhelming dark.

Everyone was terrified.

Everyone except one person.

“—Reeennn—!”

Ren surged forward in a burst of light trapped between both hands.

Metal screamed inside that tearing shout.

Like a flash of lightning, the boy rushed forward, tore the spear from the Hero’s grasp, and drove it into the ground.

Lightning erupted up and down the spear.

A single light tore through the suffocating darkness. A blinding radiance flashed and devoured the dark whole.

Ruuuuuumble—!

Rumble—!

KRAAAAAASH—!

The explosions and violent tremors roared through the bunker as though they would tear it apart.

“Ren——!”

Aaaaaaahhhh—!

The screams came a moment too late.

And the bunker began to collapse.