The Creator was angered by the distortion in his domain. The blood gushing from the gate was far from enough to fill the Void, but it did not stop him from continuing his plan. With cold certainty, his voice echoed through the shattered space.
"Kneel."
The command was absolute. Morpheus's body moved before his mind could resist, and his knees struck the ground against his will. The Creator's gaze remained indifferent.
"Do you truly think you can oppose me? I created you from my own existence. Obeying my commands is the very purpose of your being."
Morpheus trembled as he struggled with everything he had, but his body refused to answer him. The more his sanity crumbled, the weaker his resistance became. The Gray Fog's influence was fading, and the flames of vengeance inside him only grew stronger, blinding him further. There was no escape, only the suffocating certainty of being bound.
Beside Adam, Ouroboros appeared silently, watching Morpheus's death unfold. To ascend to godhood, he needed to obtain the Snake of Mercury characteristic from Morpheus. If he could rise to divinity, it would strengthen the defenses against the Outer Gods, something that benefited the other gods as well. Ouroboros stepped forward without hesitation, raising his hand toward Morpheus. He was about to claim the Sequence 1 characteristic.
The moment Morpheus sensed Ouroboros's presence, a final option came to mind. It was reckless, almost impossible, and the risk was immeasurable. Even if corruption was no longer the main problem, the memories of his past lives could still drive him completely out of control. But the alternative was far worse. To remain someone's slave, someone's weapon, forever. Morpheus made his choice. He would gamble everything.
To sever the bond between him and the Forgotten, one of them had to die. The Forgotten had ensured the bond never truly broke by taking Morpheus's memories at the very moment of death, reincarnating him again and again. Each cycle ended the same way: death, erasure, rebirth.
But this time was different.
This time, there would be no reincarnation. Morpheus could feel it in the air, in the Creator's indifference. The moment of his true use was approaching, the moment when he would be nothing more than a disposable vessel.
And when Morpheus finally recognized the pattern, he understood the only way to break it.
Right now, he could not oppose the Forgotten directly. The command in his blood was too strong. But that helplessness offered him another path—a loophole.
If he could not resist with his will, then he would resist with his Pathway.
He answered Sunny and Klein's prayers with a single command.
"Leave. Now."
The message/order was delivered instantly, and in that brief moment, Morpheus forced his sword upward. Before anyone could react, he drove the blade into his own heart.
Flames erupted violently from the wound. From both his body in the Academy and his body in Backlund, colossal pillars of fire burst into the sky, consuming everything around. His friends were safe because of his order, but the others nearby were not so fortunate.
The entire Academy was swallowed in fire. Students and instructors alike screamed as they burned, their lives extinguished in seconds. The flames did not stop at the walls. They surged outward, spreading through streets devouring everything in their path.
The scene in Backlund was no different. The fire erupted across the streets like a plague. Angels who had come to strike Morpheus were caught in the inferno, their divine bodies halfly scorched. Ordinary people inside nearby buildings had no time to flee before they were reduced to ash.
It was not merely destruction. It was a ritual of burning, a desperate act of severance written in flame.
The Forgotten could not understand what he was seeing. Why would Morpheus suddenly choose to end his own life? Hadn't he always clung to his bonds, no matter how twisted they were? Why abandon them now? As the Forgotten searched desperately for answers, a faint smile appeared on Morpheus's burning face.
"Let's do this, Will."
The moment he spoke, the entrance behind them was torn apart, and a gigantic serpent forced its way inside. Morpheus had already given an order to his Echo before stabbing himself.
Will swallowed Morpheus's dying body and his sword. Consumed them. The serpent's massive form twisted unnaturally, gradually reshaping into something human. The Forgotten stared in disbelief. His greatest creation, the weapon that had endured for thousands of years, had taken its own life, and now a god was claiming the body burning with vengeance.
Ouroboros, the closest one to Morpheus, was engulfed in flames. Even as an Angel, the fire burned him. He retreated instinctively, but his outstretched hand was suddenly seized by a pale-white grip. Looking down, he saw that Morpheus was gone. In his place stood Will Auceptin.
But this was not the Will he knew.
Having spent so long beside Adam, Ouroboros realized the truth immediately. This was Will's divine personality.
Will raised the sword he used as an anchor. Ouroboros tried to evade, but it was useless. Will was a god now, and distance meant nothing. The blade pierced Ouroboros's chest, and Will released the sword without hesitation. Then, turning away from the spreading flames, Will began walking toward the Will Auceptin of this timeline, the one who was still only Sequence 1.
Ouroboros staggered, sensing something strange within the sword. A presence disturbingly similar to himself. When he tried to pull it free, the hilt burned his hand. He attempted to reclaim fate, to escape the fire and the blade, but a power of the same nature interfered.
It was not coming from Will.
The moment he understood that the sword itself was the source, all the flames scattered across the battlefield were drawn into it, as though the fire had found its true master. The inferno collapsed inward, and Ouroboros was reduced to cinders.
He remained standing as a blackened husk. The sword in his chest dissolved into countless glimmers of light, fading away as though it had never been there. Then, like a shell cracking apart, the ashes began to fall away.
Beneath them was not Ouroboros…
But Morpheus.
Reborn.
For a moment, there was only silence.
The flames that had devoured the battlefield were gone, drawn into nothingness as though they had never existed. The air itself felt emptied, stripped of heat, stripped of sound. Even the world seemed to hesitate, unsure of what it was witnessing.
Then Morpheus inhaled.
It was not the desperate gasp of someone returning from the edge of death.
It was slow.
Measured.
Almost… unfamiliar.
His lungs filled as though they were experiencing air for the first time. The sensation was strange, distant, like the memory of breathing rather than breathing itself. His heart beat once, heavy and deliberate, and with that single pulse, something deep within him shifted.
For years, movement had never truly belonged to him.
His body had been a prison of dead weight, a vessel that refused to answer. Every step, every gesture, every breath of action had been forced through blood manipulation—threads of crimson puppetry holding him together. He had moved only by command, only by control, only by violence against his own flesh.
But now…
He rose to his feet without effort.
No blood was pulled.
No veins were strained.
No invisible strings tightened beneath his skin.
His legs obeyed as naturally as breathing.
The weakness was gone.
The constant pressure of dragging his own body through sheer willpower had vanished like mist under sunlight.
Morpheus stood still for a second, not because he could not move but because he finally could.
He looked down at his hands. "Thanks, Weaver," he murmured under his breath.
Through his death, he came face to face with Weaver, and the kindness he had given was finally returned to him.