“Wake up.”
His fingers dug into Cecilia’s shoulder. His nails embedded themselves in her flesh. A faint emerald light flickered at the point of contact. The wound healed instantly, and the new tissue pushed his nails out.
Cecilia’s eyelids twitched.
It was very faint. Her eyelashes didn't flutter more than a millimeter.
Bell pinched her again, even harder this time. His nails directly tore the skin near her collarbone. Beads of blood welled up, but a flash of green light followed, and the blood vanished.
Cecilia’s lips parted slightly.
“It hurts...”
A breathy sound squeezed out from the shallowest part of her throat.
Her eyes opened. Her red irises were unfocused, unable to find a point of convergence. Above them, the aftershocks of the clash between Salomos and Leovet rolled over their heads. Black and cyan light flickered alternately, casting shadows across her face.
Bell lifted her up a few inches, resting the back of her head against his forearm.
“Salomos.”
That was the first word he spoke.
Cecilia’s irises shifted. Her focus slowly converged on Bell’s face.
“What is its weakness?”
No preamble. No pleasantries. The second dragon breath was still charging overhead. Pitch-black energy churned within Salomos’s throat, while Leovet’s Wind Domain desperately held back the spreading edge of that power of denial.
Time was slipping away by the second.
Cecilia stared at Bell’s face. She watched him for three seconds.
Then, she smiled.
It was a weak smile. The corners of her mouth only pulled back a fraction, not even revealing her teeth.
“Brother is getting impatient.”
Bell’s cheekbones tightened.
“Don't talk nonsense.”
“Weakness, huh...”
Cecilia’s hand rose, but it fell halfway. Her wrist went limp; she had no strength.
Her fingers brushed against Bell’s chest, the tips grazing the fabric. She felt her way upward, touching his collar, then his Adam’s apple, finally coming to rest on his chin.
“Give me a kiss.”
Bell’s jaw muscles contracted sharply.
“You—”
“I’ll tell you after the kiss.”
Cecilia’s finger hooked Bell’s chin. There was little strength in the gesture, almost no pulling force, yet she lifted her own face toward him. Her head was tilted back, her lips slightly parted.
Another dull thud echoed in the sky. A cyan wind wall and pitch-black Light of Denial collided within the clouds. The shockwave pressed downward, causing the rubble on the ground to bounce.
Bell’s back teeth ground together.
The deduction chain in his mind completed within zero point three seconds.
Refuse, and she remains silent. Information on Salomos remains a black box. Leovet won't hold out much longer. Total annihilation.
Compromise, and get the intel. Find a breakthrough.
He lowered his head.
His lips touched Cecilia’s.
A brief contact.
It lasted less than half a second. Bell immediately pulled back.
Cecilia’s finger was still hooked on his chin. She didn't let go.
“That doesn't count.”
“...”
“Tongue.”
Cecilia tilted her head. The cloudiness in her irises receded a layer, and a spark of life flickered in those red eyes, carrying a sense of sickly satisfaction.
“It doesn't count if you don't use your tongue.”
Bell’s temple throbbed.
Three meters behind him, Leon leaned against a broken wall. Blood was still dripping from his left arm. He turned his head away, staring at a crack in the ground.
Further back, Lilian crouched behind cover, holding Tia. The Crown of Thorns was crooked on her head. Her jaw was clenched so tightly that the muscles beneath her skin bulged and receded.
Bell closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them again, all emotion was suppressed to the deepest depths of his gaze.
He lowered his head a second time.
This time, his lips didn't pull away immediately.
Three seconds.
Bell pulled back.
A thread of silver stretched between their lips before snapping.
Cecilia’s breathing grew heavy. The frequency of her chest’s rise and fall quickened, and a faint flush appeared on her cheeks.
She lowered her hand from Bell’s chin and rested it on her own chest.
“Satisfied? Talk.”
Bell’s voice was dry, the words jumping out from between his teeth one by one.
Cecilia didn't answer immediately.
She turned her head.
Her gaze swept across the ruins of Moon Phase City, across the scorched earth and the ravines, finally landing on the two colliding points of light in the sky.
The cyan Leovet. The pitch-black Salomos.
Every collision made the earth tremble. Space repeatedly tore around the rifts, and the entire firmament seemed to sway.
“I really want to see the ending.”
Cecilia’s voice was light, carrying the detached ease of a bystander.
“In hundreds of loops...”
Her finger traced slow circles on her chest.
“Leovet is undefeated.”
A pause.
“It's not that no one has challenged him. Humans, orcs, monsters—it didn't matter. He just stood there. Whoever came, died.”
Her red irises stood out starkly against the backdrop of the pitch-black sky.
“But Salomos—”
The curve of her mouth changed, shifting from languid to something far more complex.
“It was never born.”
Bell’s spine stiffened.
“In all my loops, it was just a name. A record of inscriptions carved into the deepest parts of the earth. A legend.”
She looked back at Bell.
“According to my script, after some intimate moments with Brother...”
She used the word ‘intimate’ quite casually.
“I would have personally dispelled Salomos’s spell formula. The withered husk tide would stop, the remains of the World Tree would collapse, Moon Phase City would be saved, and everyone would be happy.”
“Then I would have left with Brother.”
“But—”
A flicker of movement passed through the depths of her irises.
“That man knocked me out.”
Leovet.
“I didn't have time to dispel the spell formula. Salomos... woke up on its own.”
The ground shook again. Rubble slid from the top of the broken wall, hitting Leon’s shoulder, but he didn't move.
“This is a script I have never experienced.”
Cecilia moved her hand from her chest to her lower abdomen, pressing down lightly.
“Unfamiliar. Brand new.”
Footsteps approached from the other side of the ruins—hurried and heavy.
Horn’s figure scrambled out from behind a collapsed section of the city wall. The command core of the golem legion—that brass ring—flickered with a faint dark-gold light on his right index finger. His uniform was half-shredded, revealing the one-piece work suit beneath, which was covered in dense mechanical sketches.
Antinoia followed closely behind him. The left lens of her glasses was cracked, and the pendant on her chest was still glowing.
Horn saw Cecilia sitting on the ground.
He stopped.
Then, he waved at her.
He was smiling, his mouth pulled wide to reveal a row of neat teeth, but there was no warmth in his eyes. It was that fake smile seen countless times in social settings—the height of perfunctory.
Cecilia turned her head away.
“Pah.”
She spat out some bloodied saliva, which landed on the rubble.
“Traitor.”
Horn’s smile didn't waver. He turned to Bell.
“The withered husks in the city have all lost their activity. The golem legion is currently clearing the remains.”
Antinoia pushed her cracked glasses up. Her gaze swept over Cecilia, but she didn't ask any questions.
A massive boom echoed from the sky. It wasn't the sound of a collision, but the sound of space being forcibly torn open.
Leovet’s cyan wind armor shattered further before Salomos’s power of denial. His figure retreated rapidly through the air. The hem of his instructor’s robe was completely burned away, and his trousers were reduced to tatters below the knees.
But on Salomos’s right wing—a second crack appeared.
Pitch-black dragon blood seeped from the rift, falling toward the ground and carving several more absolute voids into the ruins.
Cecilia watched Bell’s profile as he kept looking toward the sky.
“Being impatient won't help.”
She tugged on the corner of Bell’s clothes.
“Just watch. The undefeated man against the thing that shouldn't exist. Even I am seeing this ending for the first time.”
Bell pulled his gaze from the sky and looked down at Cecilia.
He spoke.
“Do you remember the vampires?”
Cecilia blinked.
“I remember. The ten ancestors. The inheritance stone pillars. The Blood Dance Tattoo.”
The corners of her mouth curved.
“I also remember the Wood Elves.”
Bell’s breath hitched.
Margaret didn't remember. Leon didn't remember. Lilian didn't remember. Tia didn't remember. The entire world didn't remember.
Only he and she did.
“The Wood Elves were erased.”
Bell’s throat tightened.
“Was it you?”
Cecilia didn't deny it.
“To obtain the World Tree Heart, it must first have no owner.”
She spoke plainly, stating a fact.
“The Wood Elves were the guardians of the World Tree. As long as they existed, the World Tree Heart would never acknowledge an outsider.”
“So—”
She raised her hand, her slender finger tracing a line in the air.
“I borrowed Salomos’s power. I denied the existence of the Wood Elf race.”
Denial.
It wasn't a slaughter. It wasn't a seal. It was the erasure of the entire concept of a race from the underlying logic of the world.
Aunt Philan’s face flashed through his mind—that gentle Wood Elf who always smiled.
She didn't exist.
She had never existed.
Bell’s fingers tightened on Cecilia’s shoulder.
The color of the sky suddenly changed.
It wasn't the alternation of cyan and black.
It was gold.
A blinding golden pillar of light struck down from the highest point of the firmament.
The beam of light inserted itself precisely between Salomos and Leovet. The powers they were currently clashing with were forcibly severed at the same instant. The cyan wind armor was pushed to the left by the shockwave, while the pitch-black dragon was jolted to the right.
Leovet stabilized his form in mid-air. The fragments of his instructor’s robe turned to ash in the thermal radiation of the golden pillar of light. He tilted his head upward.
He pulled his hands out of his pockets.
On that face that had remained unperturbed from beginning to end...
For the first time...
Solemnity appeared.
The golden pillar of light dissipated. The residual heat evaporated all the clouds above the ruins of Moon Phase City. The sky became crystal clear.
A massive form dove down from beyond the dome of the sky.
Golden scales—every single one reflecting the starlight. Its wingspan was more than triple that of Salomos, obscuring half the firmament.
Its vertical pupils were pure gold, with a thin, cross-shaped crack running through them.
It descended between Salomos and Leovet. Its tail swept across, and the resulting air pressure crushed the remaining foundations of Moon Phase City’s northern wall.
Bell’s knees completely gave out.
His legs could no longer support him, and he sat back onto the rubble. Cecilia, in his arms, sank with him.
Only one thought remained in his mind.
The Star Dragon King.
The ultimate disaster that had vaporized Leila and severely wounded Dracula with a single breath three thousand years ago.
It opened its mouth.
Golden dragon fire danced between its teeth, illuminating every inch of Moon Phase City’s ruins.
Salomos’s crimson vertical pupils met the Star Dragon King’s golden ones.
Both dragons let out a simultaneous dragon's roar.
The earth split open.
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