For a long moment after Lamair vanished, Thanatos remained where he stood still and unmoving.

The vast, empty expanse around him returned to its natural silence, a silence so complete that even the concept of sound felt unwelcome.

Yet something lingered, a faint disturbance, not in the space, but in him.

"Troublesome," Thanatos murmured softly.

The word carried no irritation. Only... acknowledgment. His violet eyes dimmed slightly as he turned his gaze toward the place Lamair had stood just moments ago.

There was a trace there, not of power, not of presence, but of difference—a divergence, a path that refused to converge.

Thanatos raised a hand, watching his fingers for a moment as if expecting something to change, but nothing did.

Of course not. It never did.

"Alive," he added quietly.

The word felt... distant, foreign, but not unpleasant. It was just... unreachable for him. His gaze lifted, piercing through the endless layers of existence beyond the void he occupied.

He saw threads, countless, interwoven, breaking, ending, and beginning. Death was constant, predictable, but inevitable.

And yet... Lamair had looked at it differently. Thanatos exhaled slowly.

"Perhaps that is why you were allowed."

Allowed to pass, allowed to remain himself, allowed to not become this.

A faint smile touched his lips again, small and brief, but real.

It faded.

The stillness reclaimed him, and the observer returned.

...

Lamair didn’t feel himself return.

One moment, nothing, the next, motion.

Wind tore past him as his body reformed mid-step, boots touching solid ground without a stumble, but something was different. The world didn’t feel the same, not physically, but in weight and in presence. In... endings.

He frowned slightly.

"Weird."

He moved. Something pulled at him. A... curiosity. The space before him warped like a door opening where there wasn’t one before.

Lamair didn’t hesitate.

"Let’s see what you meant..."

He stepped through.

...

The first world was quiet... too quiet.

A barren landscape stretched endlessly, cracked and dry. The sky was grey, unmoving, like time itself had stopped caring. Lamair walked forward slowly. There were no people no ruins. Nothing.

"What happened here?"

He knelt, touching the ground.

And then, He felt it. The world had... stopped. It had ended. Life had simply ceased. Just a quiet, universal stillness.

Lamair stood slowly.

"That’s creepy."

He left.

...

The second world burned.

Flames still raged across what remained of cities, even though there was nothing left to consume. The sky was torn open, revealing cracks of unstable energy that bled into the atmosphere.

This time, there were remains. Shadows burned into walls. Skeletons frozen mid-motion.

Lamair walked through it, his expression tightening slightly.

"War."

But not just war. He crouched beside a collapsed structure, brushing aside debris.

"They didn’t stop."

Even as they died, even as the world broke, they kept fighting. The energy here wasn’t still; it was violent and restless.

Death here had teeth.

Lamair stood, exhaling slowly.

"Noted."

He stepped forward and left again.

...

The third world... was wrong. It looked alive. Forests stood tall. Rivers flowed. The sky was blue.

It was perfect... too perfect.

Lamair walked slowly, his hand resting lightly on one of his axes.

"Yeah, no."

His eyes narrowed. There were no sounds, no wind, no movement beyond what should be.

Then, he saw it.

A figure... standing still.

Lamair approached cautiously.

"Hey." There was no response. He stepped closer to identify it well. The figure didn’t breathe. It didn’t... exist properly.

Lamair reached out.

The moment his fingers brushed it, the world collapsed. Everything shattered like glass, revealing the truth beneath.

Decay and rot.

An entire civilization preserved in a false moment, refusing to accept its own death. Lamair stepped back as the illusion broke completely, revealing endless corpses locked in place.

"Denial," he muttered.

He looked around once more.

"That’s worse."

And left.

...

World after world. End after end.

Some died screaming, some died fighting, some died quietly, some refused to die at all, and through it all, Lamair walked, observed, and felt.

Each one left something behind, not just destruction, not just absence, but... weight.

By the time he stopped, he was standing at the edge of something familiar.

Anbord.

The skies were clearer here.

The air... alive.

For the first time since he left, he exhaled fully.

"Home."

But even as he said it, his eyes shifted slightly. Because now, he could see it... faint and subtle, but everywhere.

Traces of death, not overwhelming but present, lingering, and accumulating, just as Thanatos said.

Lamair scratched the back of his head.

"Yeah, I’m definitely not becoming that guy."

Still, a small smirk formed.

"But I get it now."

He stepped forward toward the Kael’Dri estate, toward life, toward everything that made his path different.

And behind him, the echoes of a thousand endings followed quietly, not as a burden, but as understanding.

...

Lamair didn’t appear in the hall he teleported from, but at the front gates of the estate. The place was bustling as usual with happiness, joy, and craziness. He exhaled as his armor dematerialized, revealing him in black clothes. His eyes glinted faintly as he made to open the gates.

Due to his height, his hand touched the very top of the gates. The massive gates groaned slightly as they parted under his hand, opening just enough for him to step through. The moment he crossed the threshold.

"Yeah," he muttered under his breath, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "Definitely home."

He took a step forward, then stopped. He sensed heavy footsteps, fast. Too fast for normal people.

"DAD!"

Lamair barely had time to turn before something slammed into him, or rather, someone.

Werock.

He came at full speed.

Lamair didn’t move; he didn’t even budge.

"You got heavier," Lamair said calmly, looking down at the young adult clinging to him.

"I got stronger," Werock shot back instantly, grinning up at him.

"Same thing."

Before he could say anything else, a shadow loomed.

Lamair looked up.

"Oh."

Ivy.

She just... arrived, fast enough to crack the ground slightly beneath her feet. Her massive frame cast a shadow over both of them, her expression steady, but her eyes softened.

"You’re back," she said simply.

Lamair nodded once.

"Yeah."

She stepped forward and hugged him.

Lamair blinked.

"You’re bigger."

"You were gone for a while."

"Fair."

Werock snorted.

"I told you she got taller."

"I can see that."

Before the moment could settle any further, two presences surged forward.

"Lamair!"

He didn’t even get to turn properly before Lusamine reached him, her arms already moving, Cassandra right behind her, eyes lit with relief and something deeper, but they never made it because...

"THERE HE IS!"

"YOU OWE ME A FIGHT!"

Two figures blurred into existence from opposite directions.

Lamair’s eyes widened slightly.

"Wait..."

Too late.

BOOM!

Trevor hit him first.

Ethan hit him second.

The combined impact sent all three of them crashing to the ground, the force cracking the stone beneath them and sending a shockwave rippling across the courtyard.

Dust rose.

Silence followed.

"You two are idiots," Lamair’s voice came from the crater.

Trevor laughed, still half on top of him.

"Missed you too!"

Ethan grinned, completely unbothered.

"You didn’t die."

"I took a walk."

"That’s not a walk."

"It was for me."

Cassandra pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Of course, this is how it goes."

Lusamine sighed, though she couldn’t hide the smile tugging at her lips.

"Get off him."

Trevor didn’t move.

"No."

Ethan didn’t move either.

"Not yet."

Lamair stared up at the sky for a second.

"I just got back."

"Good," Trevor said. "You’re warmed up."

"For what?"

Ethan’s eyes glinted slightly.

"A spar."

Lamair closed his eyes briefly and exhaled.

"I should’ve stayed in the dead worlds."

Werock burst out laughing. Ivy just shook her head slightly, and just like that, the weight of death, the silence of endings, and the emptiness of distant worlds were drowned out... By noise, chaos, and family.

And for once, Lamair didn’t mind it at all.

He couldn’t even try when those two idiots were sitting on him like they were his kids.

"I’m beginning to hate this size difference. You, idiots, are grown adults with kids!" Lamair exclaimed as he blasted them off him.

"Your statement doesn’t count..." Ethan stated with a deadpan face.

"And who gave that foolish judgment?" Lamair retorted with a dark smirk. Ethan’s eyes twitched in annoyance.

"Blasphemy to the Emperor!" Trevor shouted with a shocked expression and clasped his mouth in fear.

"These..."

"Will you two stop acting like kids?" A faint feminine voice sounded behind them. Everyone recognized that voice, especially Ethan and Trevor, who went to hide behind Lamair.

Madeleine looked at the two grown men acting like kids and shook her head with a sigh. They never changed.

Well, she wasn’t complaining. In fact, she liked them like this. Happy and crazy, just as they were as kids. Although they’d stopped their pranks, their mischief still remained and had been passed on to their children.

Talk of children, two little creatures floated towards Lamair, who now sat on the ground with a smile on his face. One had red horns and the other, blue scales. Sol and Selene.

"Big uncle!" Sol exclaimed in joy as he floated into Lamair’s arms.

"Unc! Unc!" Selene mirrored Sol and appeared in Lamair’s arms, too.

"I missed you, too," Lamair said with a bright smile.