The Mage King's body hit the ground.

Burnt. Split. Gone.

Virion stood over him, sword lowered, breathing uneven. One wing was gone. Half his body was stone now. Cracked. Crumbling. But his grip on the hilt never loosened.

He looked up.

The sky was quiet. The world was silent.

And then, slowly, he fell to one knee.

His body had taken too much. Even a shadow as vast as his had limits.

The obsidian crown on his head cracked.

His hand twitched. Then froze.

Pieces of his arm turned to dust.

He tried to rise, just once.

He couldn't.

His blade fell first.

Then his body followed.

Like a collapsing mountain, he crashed to the ground beside the Mage King.

The battlefield rumbled.

Flames died. Winds stopped. Time seemed to halt.

From afar, the armies saw the two giants fall.

One in black and white.

One in yellow and shadow.

Both motionless.

Both dead.

There were no cheers.

Only silence.

Both had won.

But they both also fallen.

Gone.

Forever.

They all stopped their battles. Descends towards the ground and moved too. Then...

The Council Members landed in a circle around Mage King.

They did not speak.

Vea and Svea dropped to their knees.

Anothers clenched their fists, faces twisted in rage.

Some wept.

Others stood silent, heads bowed, eyes shut tight.

Thousands of mages behind them stood frozen. Their staffs dimmed. Their flames vanished. Their wards uncast.

Mage King had raised them all. He had taught them all.

The last of the Vestiges arrived slowly also some new too.

None ran.

None called out.

They stood in a wide circle, the ancient warriors of lost civilization and forbidden ages. Every one of them had once been brought back by Virion's will. Every one of them owed their second life to him.

Now that weight was lifted.

And they felt it.

One of them knelt.

Then another.

Then all of them.

They touched the ground with their heads, offering no words.

There was no prayer.

No spell.

Only silence.

The smoke had not yet cleared from the skies.

Ash still drifted.

The battlefield remained littered with broken steel, melted sigils, shattered armor, and bodies too burnt to recognize. But no more blades were raised. No more spells were cast.

The war had stopped.

At first, no one knew what had to do them.

Then it happened.

The air turned cold.

All of Qiyun trembled as if the ground itself bowed.

Above the battlefield, a voice echoed. It came from the clouds. From the sky. From deep inside every soul.

"Enough."

It was not shouted.

It was not loud.

But it carried through every mountain and river, every ruined city, every soldier's spine.

Everyone dropped to one knee.

Even the remaining Vestiges.

Even the remaining council mages.

Then the voice returned.

"We have to move on."

A silence followed.

"He was our commander. He led our armies when the worlds still burned. His name was Virion. And now, he has fallen."

No one dared speak.

No one moved.

A storm began to form above.

Dark red clouds spiraled. Lightning carved black marks into the sky. But the voice kept speaking.

"He died by his own choice. In his own way. For that, I will honor him."

A beam of light fell from the heavens. It struck where Virion's body had vanished.

Then, piece by piece, his shadow returned.

His wing. His sword. His broken crown.

They reformed slowly.

Time itself paused.

Virion's body rose an inch off the ground, frozen in mid-air, glowing faintly with red light. Then it turned solid.

Crystalline.

Sealed in a block of pure celestial ice.

No heat touched it.

No spell reached it.

No wind moved it.

The block floated above the crater where he died.

Then the voice spoke again.

"I have given this planet ten years."

The clouds stopped spinning.

"Ten years to grow stronger. Ten years to rebuild. Ten years to pray."

No one felt relief.

Only pressure.

"Because when ten years pass, we return. Not to warn. Not to talk. Not to fight. To destroy. And take what belongs to us. The Origin Core will be ours. Vestige army retreat. "

The sky cracked with a single flash of red lightning.

Then the voice faded.

But the cold remained.

The clouds began to drift.

The sun tried to shine again.

Qiyun had ten years.

And every soul knew the truth.

They would not survive unless they changed everything.

The ground pulsed once.

Then again.

The clouds turned gray, not from magic, but from weight.

He landed with a single step.

A crack split the sky where his foot touched the earth. The broken wind quieted.

He was tall, armored in obsidian plates fused with blood-colored ore. His face was hidden behind a helm shaped like a snarling beast. His cape dragged behind him like smoke. Each of his steps scorched the ground.

The Vestige Army knew who he was.

They stood straight.

They saluted with one hand across their chest.

The Third Commander had arrived.

He looked at none of them.

His gaze was fixed on the frozen crystal above the crater, where Virion's body floated in silence. His fists clenched once. Then relaxed.

He lifted his hand. Virion's body also lifted and moved towards him.

One motion.

Sharp. Clean.

That was the order.

"Retreat," he said.

His voice was iron. It left no room for questions.

The soldiers obeyed.

Without spells.

Without portals.

They began marching away from the battlefield. Lines of Vestiges, thousands in number, pulled back like a black tide rolling in reverse. The skies cleared slightly as they left, but the air remained tense.

The Third Commander did not move. He waited until the last soldier vanished into the horizon.

Then he turned once toward the mortal armies of Qiyun.

His voice echoed once more.

"Ten years. Use them well. You will not see me again before the end."

He vanished in a red blink.

No flash.

No sound.

Just silence.

And then… nothing but smoke over a dying battlefield.

Counsiling members and mages just showed it. Their anger was so high. But Old Lark stopped them in between this all things. He understood that this time they didn't had so much powers. He looked towards the whole army, counsiling members. Towards the Seroi's, Ren, Mage King. He stopped them and ordered them to do nothing.

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