She shook her head, a small sad smile on her lips. " No. I can feel it. You came to save me even though you didn’t know me. You spent ten years in this nightmare to protect me, when you could have left as soon as the situation became unstable. My father will pay you, that’s true, but I’m sure you don’t give any real value to money. What you’re looking for is elsewhere. Someone with a gaze as filled with solitude as yours doesn’t fight for gold. "

Klein remained silent...

" You’re too idealistic, Princess, " he finally said, crushing his cigarette. " That’s what got you into this cage. "

" Maybe, " she admitted. " But it’s this idealism that lets me see you’re more than just a cynical exorcist. "

As a fragile calm seemed to settle between them, the temperature in the room suddenly dropped. A smell of sulfur and burnt flesh invaded the space. Klein stood up with a start, drawing his sword, but he was too slow.

The floor behind Sierra liquefied into a black molasses from which a clawed hand burst out. Before Klein could intervene, Shaytan materialized, her silhouette vaporous but charged with renewed malice. She grabbed Sierra by the throat, lifting the young elf off the ground.

" Enough with the sentimentality... " snarled the demon. " We’re not in some shitty novela, and what next, you’re going to kiss? "

She tightened her grip, and Sierra stifled a cry, her legs kicking in the void.

Shaytan’s hold on Sierra’s throat was relentless. The demon’s dark claws sank into the ethereal flesh of the young elf, whose alabaster face turned to a grayish tint.

" Let her go... parasite... " murmured Kaiser.

He closed his eyes for a moment, plunging deep into his consciousness. It was no longer about manipulating aura like a warrior... He had to become the blade itself. He felt the resonance with Sulyvhan’s soul reach an unprecedented paroxysm. The Eclipse tattoo on his back began to shine with a blinding glow, piercing through his silver coat.

< Third Movement: New Moon >

" Sierra... look at me... " he ordered.

The young elf turned her eyes toward him. She saw the man she had come to know over a decade of silent battles.

Kaiser took a low stance, his feet anchoring into the ground that cracked under the pressure of his aura.

< Fourth Movement: Full Moon >

He did not aim at Shaytan. He raised his blade toward the zenith, crossing swords in a flash of absolute light. The demonic mana in the area was swept away like dust by a transverse shockwave.

" Die with your domain... " he roared.

With a circular movement of titanic power, Kaiser sliced the void above his head. The sound was indescribable, a tearing of the fabric of existence. A colossal fissure appeared in the black sky, a scar of white light that offered a glimpse of the outside world, the real world. The suction was immediate, the debris of the domain beginning to be drawn into the void created.

Shaytan was destabilized by the shockwave, her grip on Sierra loosening for a fraction of a second. It was all Kaiser needed.

< Aura Technique: Attraction >

He projected his energy and pulled Sierra back to him with protective violence. He caught her against his chest, his good arm holding her tight while he stood facing the fissure.

" Sierra... listen to me carefully... you have to run toward that light... now... " he said, his voice urgent as the ground began to collapse under their feet.

Sierra looked at him, her eyes wide with disbelief. She grabbed the lapels of his coat, her fingers trembling. " What...? No! I can’t! If I leave now, you’ll stay trapped here with her! Klein, you won’t survive the collapse of my mind if you’re not with me! "

Kaiser gently pushed her toward the fissure, his blue gaze regaining a clarity she had never seen. " Don’t be stupid, Princess... I told you I always finish my job... Your father is waiting for me with a very generous check, and I intend to collect it... "

" You’re lying... " she murmured, tears finally flowing down her porcelain cheeks. " You’re not doing this for the money... You’re going to die for me... Why? " 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

" Because you’re the only person in this shitty world who was stupid enough to believe I was a good person... " he replied with brutal honesty. " Now get out! Idiot Princess... I’m right behind you, I promise... "

Sierra hesitated, doubt and terror fighting in her gaze. But Kaiser left her no choice. He concentrated his aura in one last impulse.

< Aura Repulsion >

He literally hurled her through the fissure. Sierra reached out toward him in a silent scream as the white of reality swallowed her.

As she disappeared, Kaiser looked at her one last time. And there, in the chaos of a mental world self-destructing, he smiled. It was a real smile, devoid of cynicism. A smile of a man who had finally found a form of redemption in an act of pure selflessness.

’ I am truly the heir to Sulyvhan’s will... ’ he murmured to himself, feeling the weight of centuries of solitude from the cursed emperor lighten for a moment.

Silence fell brutally over the prairie, a deathly silence that precedes the final storms. Kaiser slowly turned around.

A few meters away from him, Shaytan was getting back up, her appearance now nothing more than a mass of boiling darkness from which six red eyes of hatred emerged. She was no longer the seductive princess of sloth.

" I underestimated you... little human... " snarled the demon, her voice making the very foundations of Sierra’s psyche tremble. " You dared tear my veil... You dared steal my prey... "

She took a step forward, and the demonic mana surged violently around her, forming tides of black tar that devoured everything they touched. The pressure became such that Kaiser’s bones began to crack again.

" You’re going to cause way too many problems... I smell Sulyvhan on you, and it’s a scent the hells cannot tolerate... You’re not getting out of here! ... " she screamed.

Kaiser simply spat some blood and raised his white sword again, the tip pointed toward the heart of the darkness.

The demonic mana then exploded into an apocalyptic tidal wave, while Kaiser charged forward one last time, a silver silhouette defying the eternal darkness...

***