The gigantic owl’s body crashed into the ground, crushing every house nearby. Victoria and Eithne had moved out of the impact zone, anticipating where the body would fall as soon as they saw it descending from the sky.

  The giant owl’s body seemed increasingly erratic, as if its existence in this world were not allowed, and it fought against an invisible force trying to erase it.

  Both of them shared the same question. Where was Midas?

  But they had no time to worry too much about their friend. After all, that strike, although damaging, had not been enough to banish the giant owl from the physical world.

  Both Victoria and Eithne readied the Manemite spears, prepared to exploit their enemy’s weakened state. Two blinding lights fred within the immense cloud of dust that had become the battlefield. Victoria’s crimson mana glowed with a bloody shine, while Eithne infused hers with elemental energy. Quickly, the crimson and emerald lights spread side by side.

  This would be their st strike, containing all their will to fight. Neither hesitated; the time for doubt had long passed. There was no turning back.

  The enormous Void owl, sensing the two energies, rose, trying to take flight. It was too dangerous for those attacks to hit its already weakened body. But there was no more time.

  The first shot came from Eithne, flying with pinpoint accuracy toward the area where the wing joined the body. The emerald energy detonated, obliterating the entire area, and unlike before, the owl’s body did not regenerate. Its time in this world was ending.

  But even after losing much of its body, it did not stop, charging forward instead with all its might, trying to reach them, especially the vampire who had so fiercely resisted death. It roared in fury as it dragged its colossal body.

  Its fierce cry was silenced once more when the crimson spear was unched. The emerald spear cast by an archon had been destructive, but to survive another spear from someone of legendary rank was simply too much for its already crippled frame. The crimson spear pierced directly through the head, purging all Void energy, tearing through its body without resistance. Finally, a ferocious magical explosion erupted along the spear’s trajectory, destroying everything in its path. It was over.

  Traces of Void ether remained, but they were too small to pose a threat.

  Victoria could go no further. Her body, besides being incredibly damaged, carried both mana poisoning and Void corruption. The only reason she still stood was that the corruption and the mana poisoning were fighting each other inside her, each vying to be the poison that would finally kill her. Still, she moved toward her beloved Eithne.

  Eithne turned to see Victoria, but she could no longer see. Blood poured from her eyes, nose, and ears. Victoria rushed in and hugged Eithne. She wanted to take control of Eithne’s blood and body to prevent her from suffering so much. Eithne quickly realized what Victoria intended.

  “Stop, don’t do it. It’s okay.”

  Victoria could no longer restrain herself. Tears fell down her cheeks.

  “But you will suffer, Eithne… please, let me. Don’t resist. I can’t bear to see you in pain.”

  Eithne smiled. Her white teeth were stained with blood that threatened to spill from her mouth.

  “In my st moments, I want to feel you by my side. So please, don’t do it.”

  Victoria said nothing else and hugged her, pressing their bodies together. Victoria could not feel warmth or cold in her body, but the love she felt at that moment was more than enough.

  Around them, beasts and monsters slowly closed in, eager to devour their weakened prey that now y weakened.

  “Victoria, thank you for giving me the wooden figurine. You do not know how happy I was at that moment.” Her voice faded slowly; there wasn’t much time left.

  “Hey, tell me… if there is another life after this, do you think we will be together again?”

  “My love, if there’s another life after this, rest assured, we will be together. No matter what happens, no matter what tries to separate us… I will walk by your side, in life and in death.”

  Finally, upon hearing those words, Eithne’s body weakened. Her embrace lost strength, as did her legs. The only thing keeping her upright was Victoria, who refused to let go, even if Eithne’s body was nothing more than a corpse.

  Hungry monsters began to approach, growling at the prospect of consuming their prey. Victoria stared into nothingness, trying to hold on as long as possible to the faint warmth produced by her beloved, but even that warmth was being slowly taken away by death.

  At that moment, small particles gathered in Victoria’s vision, slowly forming a shadow that had no power at all; it was completely harmless.

  “See? I told you — you were nothing but a corpse… and yet you dragged that girl to death with you.”

  The shadow spat its insidious words, trying to wound its bloody enemy one st time.

  “If you had died obediently, and all they found was your corpse, who knows? Maybe the girl could have held on a little longer.”

  “Oh, right, that wouldn’t make much sense. She’d die shortly after… but look, that’s life, isn’t it?” The shadow’s voice swung between mocking and indignant.

  “You are born, you grow, you reproduce, and you die. That’s the basic w of life. But you resist, and you resist… disgusting and unnatural beings.”

  Suddenly, its tone grew serious as it looked at Victoria.

  “You are nothing but dust, and to dust you shall return, no matter how much you fight against this truth.”

  “Are you done?”

  “Ooooh! Do you have something to say? Like a st statement? Come on, I’m all ears!”

  The shadow smiled, waiting for Victoria’s words.

  “I said that no matter how many lives pass… I would still reunite with Eithne, right?”

  “Yes, you said that. Very romantic, by the way. My heart softened a bit at that moment — but only a little. I still want you to die miserably, you know?”

  “Well, there’s one more thing I want to do.”

  “Oh? And what would that be? Tell me, please. It’s not like I’ll remember this in five minutes.”

  “No matter how many lives pass or what happens to the world afterwards… if there is anything beyond this, I will still choose to stand against you, Void.”

  The shadow stopped smiling.

  “There it is… that is the resilience I hate so much about you. Say all you want, but you will end up as food for those babies. Both your body and your beloved’s will become monster shit soon enough.”

  Victoria smiled. The fact that it was insulting her at that moment only meant she had struck a sensitive nerve.

  “Maybe death is indeed inevitable.”

  “Finally, we understand each other. Certainly it is. Now die. Chu chu.”

  “But there is something you can’t control.”

  Victoria’s body was filled with magic. The crimson glow spread.

  “What? You still had some magic left? Well, it doesn’t matter — I’m disappearing, anyway.”

  Victoria looked at it, filled with hatred — a look she had given no one else but this repulsive creature. Even the monsters avoided coming any closer, momentarily frightened by the fierce murderous intent.

  “Woooow… if looks could kill, I’d probably be dead. It’s a pity they don’t. Look at me with all the hatred you want — you’re still powerless in the face of the inevitable.”

  “You must have figured it out, too, right? Death may be inevitable, but we choose how to live our lives. And above all, sometimes we can choose how to die. And just like my friends and all living beings in this world, even those who tricked you and resisted death, like me…”

  The magic rose to its climax and churned violently.

  “Always, for the ages past and to come, we will choose to stand against you.”

  The magic seeped into Eithne’s corpse, filling it.

  “Then I will keep killing you again and again, for ages upon ages.”

  The shadow no longer ughed. “Try it.”

  Those were Victoria’s st words. After that, her body and Eithne’s erupted in a furious burst of bloody magic. The ferocious explosion annihited all the monsters that prowled nearby. The bloody magic slowly rose into the sky, leaving the earthly world behind, ascending where no one could reach it.

  The only thing left amid the fierce bst was a solitary shadow, the sole witness to those st words.

  “Until the end, a damned nuisance… I thought it would be fun to mock her, but in the end, my humor went to hell.”

  It wasn’t the first time the shadow had heard such words. Throughout its millions of years of existence, heroes greater than it, entire gactic civilizations, beings called gods… across all worlds and pnets had shown the same defiant look.

  “All they do is make my job more annoying.”

  It found them disgusting. How a being born solely to bring the end of the universe could face so much resistance went against everything it represented as the harbinger of the end.

  “Death is the end of everything, but it also brings peace. Being forgotten… if they understood that, I’m sure they’d accept it more easily. Mmmmh, perhaps I should try a new approach in the next creation of the universe…”

  The shadow continued muttering to itself for hours.

  Far from there, in an unknown pce, a man awoke. Midas had awakened and quickly leaped out of his bed, analyzing his surroundings. After making sure the pce was safe, he touched his hair.

  “It’s still there, thank God.”