Just me and Theron. The Saint and the fraud. The weight of Jeryl's sacrifice, of everyone's sacrifice, settled on my shoulders, a mantle I hadn't asked for and didn't deserve. The Radiance's light, briefly bolstered by Jeryl's final gift, stabilized for a handful of heartbeats.
It was a fleeting reprieve. The drain resumed, slower now, but steady. We were the last two logs on the fire, and the flames were dying.
Theron's gaze held mine. There were no words left to say. We both knew the calculus. The barrier was breached. The end was beginning upstairs. Our only purpose now was to hold on a little longer. To give the convoy every second we could steal. And then… then it would be time for the sun to rise one last time.
If Theron was surprised to see me last till the end, he didn't show it. I thought of asking him, but I was already too tired to stand up: it was the power of the Radiance that kept me in place. I suppose, as Ascended, Jeryl and Annette had been prioritised by the Radiance.
As stronger than a Dormant but weaker than an Ascended, plus having topped up halfway through, I had managed to outlast the others-except for Theron, who seemed to be growing weaker each minute yet still stood tall.
The hum of the Radiance was a feeble thing now, a sputtering candle where once a sun had raged. The drain was slower, a cold, syrupy pull that felt less like having my soul ripped out and more like watching it seep away into the dark. There was no pain left. Just a vast, hollowing emptiness.
Theron's voice cut through the stillness, a dry rasp that seemed to cost him immense effort. He wasn't looking at me. His eyes were fixed on the dimming crystal, but he was speaking to me. To the silence. To himself.
"I never saw the ocean, you know," he began, his words slow, measured. "The Venerable One… he promised to take me, once. When my training was complete. We were going to travel to the coast of the Silent Sapphire Sea." A faint, ghostly smile touched his lips. "I used to dream of the sound it would make. He said it was a roar that could drown out all other thoughts."
He was quiet for a long moment, the only sound the faint, pathetic hum of the dying artifact.
"I am afraid, Adam," he confessed, the admission seeming to surprise even him. "Not of the end. I made my peace with that weeks ago. But of what comes after. Is there a dawn for us? Any of us?" He drew a shuddering breath. "I have to believe there is. I have to believe that this… this is not the end of our story. That the Gods, in Their infinite wisdom, have not abandoned us to this darkness. That humanity will find a way. We always have. We are… resilient."
His words hung in the air, a desperate, beautiful prayer.
Inside my skull, a different voice answered, too tired and broken to be given sound. They're gone, Theron. Or They never cared to begin with. Your Gods are just as doomed as we are, as doomed as the Daemons and all other life across the Realms. The things out there… they don't care about your faith. They'll grind your bones to dust and your city to rubble, and then they'll move on to the next world. There's no grand design. Just… hunger.
But I didn't say it. I let his hope sit there, unchallenged. It was all he had left.
My own mind, untethered by exhaustion, drifted away from gods and humanity's fate. It went back to a small apartment on a world without magic. To a life of quiet mediocrity. I hadn't been a hero there either.
Just a man. An average man with a peaceful, diligent soul, who found comfort in routine and simple pleasures. I'd never done anything great. Never saved anyone. I'd just… lived. Kindly, for the most part. Inoffensively.
And now here I was, at the end of all things, having helped burn two dozen people to fuel a magical bomb, having helped save a few hundred others. Was it a redemption? Was it a tragedy? It felt too grand a label for what it was. It just… was.
The thought of dying returned, not as a sharp terror, but as a heavy, accepted weight. And with it came the most absurd, mundane, and profoundly human regret of all.
I never got to see the rest of it, I thought, the absurdity almost making me want to laugh, if I'd had the energy. I never got to see the full anime, after waiting for years.
It was such a stupid, trivial thing. But in that moment, it was the most real regret I had. Not for lost love, or unfinished ambitions, but for a story left untold.
Theron continued to speak softly, his words blurring into a gentle stream of memories and faith, a lullaby for the end of the world. I listened, but my own final thought was a silent, petty grievance against a universe that would deny a man his anime finale.
And perhaps it was that which gave me possibly the dumbest, but also maybe the best, idea I had had yet. I looked at Theron and asked him, "Do you plan on detonating the Radiance when they approach?"
He looked at me in slight surprise before nodding. "Yes, I have already set it up. All that is required is a small source of energy. I made it so the system runs backwards on itself, colliding and igniting. It's quite simple, actually, even you could do it now."
"Then let me."
My words, firm yet cold, resolute yet simple, seem to momentarily daze Theron. He looks at me with confusion before tilting his head forward. "What?"
"Let me do it."
Theron seemed to deny the meaning in my words, his eyes struggling to focus on me in the gloom. "Do what, my boy?"
"Light the fuse. You've set the trigger. Let me be the one to pull it."
His reaction was immediate, a flicker of his old authority. "No. Absolutely not. This is my duty. My burden. My—"
"They need you," I interrupted, the words finding a strength I didn't know I had left. "The civilians. They have two guards against a broken world. They need a Transcendant. They need a leader. They don't need a martyr who's already half-dead. You can still protect them. I can't."
I saw the conflict war on his face—duty warring with desire, the weight of his responsibility against the crushing fatigue. "The Radiance… it is tied to me now. If I leave its presence before the detonation, the feedback will…" He trailed off, but I understood. It would consume what was left of him.
"Then don't leave it tied to you," I said, the plan forming with a cold, perfect clarity. "Drop the barrier. Stop feeding it. Let it calm. The connection will weaken. Then go. Run. I'll stay. When they break through… I'll give it back all the energy it wants. All at once."
Theron stared at me, truly stunned into silence. The plan was insane. It was a gamble that the Radiance's stability wouldn't fail completely without a constant feed, that I could reignite it fast enough.
"How?" he finally whispered, his voice breaking. "How can you be so… accepting? You have lived, Adam. You have seen things outside these walls, experienced wonders I have only read of. How can you sit there and choose this so calmly?"
I didn't have an answer for him. Not one he would understand. I couldn't explain the soul-deep weariness of a life that had already felt too long, or the quiet acceptance of an average man who had, against all odds, finally done one thing that mattered. I just gave him a faint, tired smile.
"Please, Theron. Step away."
The fight left him all at once. His shoulders, which had carried the weight of this temple for so long, finally slumped in utter defeat. He didn't speak. He simply stumbled forward and wrapped his arms around me in a tight, desperate embrace. I felt the hot sting of his tears against my neck, the tremble of his exhausted frame. Then, he let go, turned, and without looking back, walked unsteadily toward the tunnel entrance.
As he crossed the threshold and moved down the passage, the effect was immediate. The constant, draining pull from the Radiance ceased. The light in the chamber dimmed drastically, shrinking back to the core crystal's initial, potent glow. From somewhere high above, a sound like a million panes of glass shattering echoed down—the final collapse of the golden barrier.
A moment of perfect, terrifying silence followed.
Then the sound began. A low rumble that built into a thunderous stampede. It grew louder for several minutes, getting closer and literally shaking the mountain. I wouldn't be surprised if they trigger an avalanche, though I suppose you would need snow for that.
The horde, unchained, was coming. I could hear them—a wave of claws and fury—crashing through the temple above, scuttling down corridors, demolishing walls. They knew where the light was. They were coming to snuff it out.
I pushed myself up, my legs trembling, and sat on the stone altar directly beneath the hovering Radiance. I focused, drawing on the last dregs of my Spirituality, and a small, searingly bright blob of silver-gold light coalesced in my palm. The trigger. The final spark.
Theron had told me how to activate it, how my end would be painless and as close to instant as it can be. Though he only had a few minutes head start, I was confidant he had gotten far enough away. It was a downward slope after all, and Theron could handle the tumble. The though of a weary old man rolling down a hill did rise a chuckle out of me, I will admit.
The first of them reached the chamber entrance. A twisted, multi-limbed horror, all teeth and rage. It surged into the room, followed by a dozen more, a tide of nightmare flesh. They skidded to a halt, repulsed by the Radiance's light, their forms hissing and recoiling from its purity. It was a stalemate. But it would only last seconds.
I stood up on the altar, my body a silhouette against the glowing crystal.
I spread my arms wide, the tiny star of ultimate annihilation held aloft in my hand. I smiled at the ugly, unnatural horrors before me. I remember Eurys telling Sunny that the Void was Corruption per se, in that it wasn't inherently negative. It was merely Change, and the rabid madness I saw before me was just the result of said Change and the old ways resisting each other, the host being driven to collapse as a side effect.
Still, as I looked at them in person for the first time, I found I couldn't care less. To me, they were all disgusting abominations, and I would purge them here. My lips spread wider as a rush of chūnibyō-ism filled my chest, laughter escaping despite myself. The ball of silver-gold floating in front of my chest, arms spread out like I was embracing the crowd in front of me.
"Let there be Light!"
And then there was nothing
....
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