"Spend the rest of your time enjoying Okhema."
"It won't be long now."
"Everything will end."
"Everything will finally reach its conclusion."
"When this cycle comes to an end, I will announce both the destruction and rebirth of this world."
The moment Caelus finished speaking, the trio's vision blurred.
When everything came back into focus, they once again saw Caelus lying on the bed, his face pale and bloodless, looking as frail as a candle flame flickering in the wind.
After saying all that, he still had not explained why he was pretending to be sick in bed.
Stelle instinctively suspected that there had to be some kind of scheme behind it.
But after thinking about what Caelus had just told them, she decided that whatever he was planning probably had nothing to do with them.
So there was only one thing left to do.
Enjoy the food, the drinks, and the city.
When they opened the door, Phainon was still waiting outside.
Seeing how much more relaxed the three of them looked, he assumed they had finally confirmed that Caelus was all right.
He smiled.
"You arrived, and Partner immediately woke up."
"Perhaps that's some kind of arrangement of fate."
"Still, Okhema may become somewhat unsettled over the next few days."
"It would probably be best if you found somewhere to stay and avoided going out too often for a while."
"Would you like me to arrange accommodations for you?"
"Thank you."
Dan Heng nodded.
At the same time, he continued observing everything around him.
Before learning that Amphoreus was a simulated digital world, he had never thought much about the details.
But now that he knew the truth, he could not help trying to see through the world around him and discover what lay beneath its apparent reality.
Stelle was doing the same thing.
She even reached out and touched the nearby wall.
The texture beneath her fingers felt completely real.
There was no way to distinguish the boundary between simulation and reality.
After everyone left and the room fell silent once more, Caelus sat up on the bed.
"Still no."
He shook his head.
Another attempt had failed.
The weakness he had displayed earlier had not actually been an act.
He really had reduced himself to an extremely fragile state.
When Caelus first began doing this, Lygus had been genuinely curious.
He had no idea what Caelus was trying to accomplish and assumed he was preparing some new scheme.
So Lygus simply observed.
After several hundred cycles, once he became certain that Caelus was experimenting with something, Lygus took advantage of one of the moments when Caelus had weakened himself and immediately began altering the simulation and introducing new variables.
Before Caelus even had a chance to respond, Cyrene personally struck Lygus across time and sent him flying.
Cyrene rarely fought directly.
Even in battle, she usually remained in a supporting role beside Caelus.
But fundamentally, she and Caelus were one existence.
Whatever combat strength Caelus possessed, so did she.
The only real difference was that Caelus's power leaned closer toward Nihility, while Cyrene's leaned closer toward Remembrance.
"Partner, do you really have to keep trying this?"
"If I want to continue growing, I need to become complete."
"I've already recovered most of my emotions, making my existence more genuine and complete."
"But unlike normal living beings, I still lack the concepts of life and death."
Life and death formed one of the greatest balances in existence.
An absolute opposition between chaos and order.
Throughout his entire existence, Caelus had witnessed the lives and deaths of countless others.
But he himself had never truly possessed the concepts of life and death.
If an existence born from Nihility wanted to become a complete self, he needed to experience both.
At the same time, understanding life and death would further complete his comprehension of Equilibrium.
That was why, throughout so many cycles, Caelus had repeatedly pushed himself infinitely close to death.
He weakened his existence as much as possible.
He wanted to experience what it felt like for his own existence to approach annihilation, to stand at the edge of being swallowed by Nihility.
But no matter how close he came, it was still only a near-death experience.
It was not genuine death.
It could not grant his existence the concept of life by first imposing the concept of death upon him.
To gain true rebirth, he first had to genuinely die.
But killing Caelus was far from easy.
The only way he could destroy himself was to allow Nihility to completely engulf him and devour every trace of his existence.
Yet because Cyrene existed, the anchor holding his self together was far too strong.
Nihility could not consume him so easily.
And if he continued forcing the issue through that method, Cyrene would die before Caelus did.
That was something he could never accept.
If he abandoned that method, then only one option remained.
Overwhelming force.
Pure numerical superiority strong enough to kill him outright.
Excluding Aeons, the only existence currently capable of doing that was...
"So Irontomb really does need to be born."
Caelus finally made his decision.
At the end of this cycle, he would give Irontomb everything he had accumulated across more than thirty million cycles.
All the Coreflames representing the Titans.
At the same time, Caelus would reproduce the complete data from those thirty million cycles of Amphoreus based on his own memories and hand that over as well.
He would allow Irontomb to be born in its complete form.
A true Sixth Tier existence.
Perhaps even Lygus himself had never expected this.
After opposing Caelus across so many cycles, the two of them had ultimately been working toward the same result.
The wheels of destiny continued along the same track.
The story proceeded much as it always had.
Although the Astral Express trio had been told that they did not need to interfere in this cycle, after witnessing the tragedies caused by the Black Tide and hearing the stories of those who had sacrificed themselves, they still chose to join the battle.
They fought alongside the Chrysos Heirs.
Together, they worked to recover the Titan Coreflames.
Even if the ending could no longer be changed, perhaps the journey toward it could still become a little better.
Mydei confronted his past.
With everyone's help, he unraveled the secret behind Nikador's immortality.
Then, with his own hands, he killed Nikador and granted the ancient god the ending a warrior deserved.
Afterward, Mydei stepped over the fallen Titan and ascended to the throne of a new god.
Castorice found the answer she had been searching for throughout her journey.
She achieved her own redemption and embraced her blood relative amid the sea of flowers in the realm of the dead.
Then she became the Titan of Death.
Hyacine learned the truth about her ancestors.
She discovered that she was not truly a descendant of the legendary Sunstorm Knight.
She also learned the truth behind the fall of the city in the sky.
In the end, she still faced that painful reality and embraced the destiny that belonged to her.
Unfortunately, in order to suppress the Black Tide, which had become far more powerful after someone's malicious interference, she chose to remain behind in the city in the sky.
Every sacrifice had been made for the sake of creating a greater ending.
Throughout the journey, far too many people had willingly given everything in pursuit of the faint hope promised by the prophecy of Recreation.
And now, Recreation was finally about to begin.
But unlike previous cycles, when only a handful of people reached the final stage, this cycle was far more crowded.
The three members of the Astral Express.
Lygus, who had appeared in every cycle.
The Savior, Caelus.
Cyrene.
And Phainon, the Savior who had originally belonged to this destiny.
Six people in total stood at the final destination.
Lygus showed no anger or regret over the complete failure of his plan.
He had already done everything within his ability.
Even if he ultimately lost, he had lost openly.
He had no regrets.
Now he would personally witness the conclusion of the work he had spent so many years pursuing.
And that did not mean everything he had done was meaningless.
At the very least, he would witness a false world become real.
Phainon, meanwhile, looked solemn.
Countless sacrifices had led them to this point.
He did not know what would happen after Recreation.
All he could do was pray that those who had fallen along the journey would meet again at the end of the west wind, in the tomorrow they had all fought to reach.
The Astral Express trio simply waited quietly.
If the atmosphere had not been so solemn, March 7th probably would have taken out her camera and started taking pictures.
Caelus stood beside Cyrene.
"Partner."
"Are you ready?"
"Mm."
After answering, Caelus placed the final Coreflame into position.
Then he activated the corruption he had secretly embedded throughout more than thirty million cycles.
When Lygus realized that his administrator privileges were being taken away, he showed neither confusion nor surprise.
He had expected this.
Elsewhere in Amphoreus, a fissure opened into the world's most deeply concealed location.
Caelus stepped through it.
He entered a place that had remained hidden beneath interference from causality, destiny, and Amphoreus itself.
He passed through corridors constructed from metal and stone.
Along both sides were countless crystalline forms.
Cyrene's corpses.
No.
Elysia's corpses.
They were the remnants left behind across more than thirty million cycles.
Echoes of the past that had been absorbed by Cyrene every time the cycle restarted.
Eventually, Caelus reached the deepest part of the hidden structure.
He pushed open the door.
Inside, he saw a figure sitting within an enormous birdcage.
"Nice to finally meet you, Demiurge."
Demiurge lifted her gaze from the storybook resting on her knees.
When she saw Caelus enter, her face immediately lit up with joy.
"Long time no see, Partner."
(To be continued.)
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◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)