She had been treated like a dog, used to clear away unpleasant obstacles so she could climb higher, only to be betrayed in the end. Then, as now, she considered herself the most unfortunate person in the world. Clinging to those in power, harming others for her own gain—she remained the same to the very end.

“Th… this. This!”

The Emperor, looking down at Catherine, who remained latched onto his leg even in death, was about to shout something when—

“Are you still thinking of running away?”

A low, raspy voice echoed, and at the same moment, a chilling aura slashed across the Emperor’s unharmed leg.

“Aaargh!”

As the Emperor collapsed, Aiger pressed a sword to his throat, his eyes dark as night staring straight into him. Realizing only now that there was no escape, the Emperor let out a twisted laugh.

“Heh, hehe. Hehehehehe. So, in the end, you are the one who kills me.”

“No.”

Aiger lifted the Emperor’s chin with the tip of his sword and replied,

“You’ll die on the execution platform.”

With that short statement, the Emperor instantly understood what awaited him after death, and his eyes widened in sheer terror.

“N… no! No! K*ll me now! K*ll me, I say!”

The Emperor struggled, fumbling inside his robes. The moment his fingers grasped a small vial he habitually touched every day, Raylin’s voice rang out from behind Aiger.

“The Emperor has one last trick up his sleeve!”

Just as Aiger was about to turn, thinking the situation was nearly over, he sensed an overwhelming emotion radiating from the Emperor. It was neither denial, anger, anxiety, resignation, nor despair before death.

It was expectation and exhilaration.

It was the emotion of someone about to turn the tide in their favor.

The Emperor smiled at Aiger and poured the vial’s contents into his mouth.

Aiger instinctively realized that the small vial was identical to the one that a frantic lab worker had begged to have returned before they had entered the palace.

The true nature of that vial, as the masked figure had confessed, was none other than—

“T-that is an elixir of immortality made from His Majesty’s own blood and flesh. It is expected to be more effective than anything created thus far!”

Crunch.

The sound of glass shattering filled the air as the imperfect “elixir of immortality” slid down the Emperor’s throat.

A shiver ran down Aiger’s spine. Sensing something was terribly wrong, he swung his sword to sever the Emperor’s neck—but the Emperor’s head suddenly slumped forward.

He appeared to be dead.

So easily. His final act of resistance ending so anticlimactically…

Aiger stared at the Emperor with an indescribable expression before his face stiffened abruptly. He sprang backward.

In the blink of an eye, the Emperor’s limp body began to expand explosively.

The wounds he had sustained thus far healed in an instant.

When he finally lifted his head, his face, though retaining its original shape, was grotesquely twisted.

“Hi… ggh. Ggghhhhhh.”

The sounds escaping his fully distorted lips were no longer human.

Drooling thickly, the Emperor glanced down at his own hands before catching Aiger’s sword with his bare hand as it slashed toward his torso.

Before he could be caught, Aiger let go of his weapon and swiftly leapt back, immediately grabbing another sword from the ground and launching himself forward once more.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

The Emperor did not remain idle either. Uttering incomprehensible noises, he charged at Aiger with his massive body.

***

Thus began a gruesome battle of flesh being torn and bones being shattered.

Aiger, who had surpassed human limits, and the Emperor, who could no longer be called human, clashed relentlessly, reducing their surroundings to ruins.

In the midst of it all, Raylin struggled desperately to steady herself, enduring the chaos.

“I need you.”

She had to stay here.

At the very last moment, when Aiger finally struck down the Emperor, she needed to be by his side.

In the dizzying, perilous battlefield, Raylin suddenly caught sight of a human figure.

Aside from herself and Aiger, no one else should be alive here. Could it be an illusion…?

She couldn’t even finish her thought.

Boom! Crack!

A corpse flung by the Emperor crashed into a wall that was already severely cracked, causing it to start collapsing.

There was no time to think.

With strength she didn’t know she had, Raylin dashed forward, grabbing both a dazed servant and a maid just in time.

Rumble!

Dust billowed thickly where they had just stood as the wall came crashing down.

“Hah… haah, haah.”

Even as she gasped for breath, Raylin checked to make sure the two were unharmed. Seeing them pale and trembling, she shoved them forward.

“Go, now! Escape through that hole!”

“B-but—”

“Go, now!”

The servant stammered and tried to grab her sleeve, but Raylin shouted forcefully.

At her words, the two stumbled as if pushed from behind and ran frantically through the gaping hole leading to the palace.

Watching them go, Raylin collapsed to the ground.

However, she did not lower her head. Instead, she widened her eyes and pursued Aiger.

It didn’t matter if she couldn’t see him.

She could hear the sounds, which meant he was still alive. That was enough.

Raylin tightly shut her eyes and focused solely on the sounds.

***

“Nenenenenega.”

The emperor, uttering something that could hardly be called human speech, raised both arms high, about to strike down Aiger.

At that moment, in his half-closed, twisted eyes, a white crescent moon appeared.

Immediately afterward, the emperor instinctively grabbed his own throat.

Aiger, swinging his sword in an arc without the slightest waste of movement, slashed the emperor’s neck halfway through. Without stopping, he kicked the emperor’s chest, sending him crashing down.

Thud.

A deafening roar echoed, not like a human collapsing, but as if an ancient tree had fallen.

Aiger tightened his grip on the blood-slicked sword and drove it into the emperor’s grotesquely bulging throat, its veins and tough, unidentifiable outer layer protruding.

“Kehek! Ke, keuhk.”

Blood did not burst forth like a fountain.

Instead, the sensation was dry and brittle, like stabbing into withered wood.

The emperor reached out, trying to tear Aiger’s arm away. At that moment, Aiger twisted the sword and swung it forcefully.

Snap.

“Krgh…”

A rasping breath leaked from the emperor’s half-severed throat.

“If this is what you so desperately wished for in immortality, then no, even without that, I would reject it for eternity.”

“Krk, Kraaahhh!”

Crunch. Clang!

Aiger mercilessly stomped on the emperor’s still-rolling eyes, extinguishing his breath completely. At the same time, his sword snapped.

Even in his final moments, the emperor’s lips trembled as if trying to form words, but soon, the last trace of life faded from his eyes.

Looking down at the pool of thick, dark red liquid gathering at his feet, Aiger let out the breath he had been holding.

“Hah, hah, hah…!”

Silence engulfed everything.

It was suffocatingly quiet, making it difficult to even breathe properly.

Aiger stood motionless, staring down at the emperor’s hollow and futile end.

***

Is it… over?

After the deafening noises ceased, a few seconds later, Raylin unfolded her curled-up body and lifted her head.

Before her eyes stood Aiger, alone amid the ruins of everything that had collapsed.

She stared blankly at his unmoving back, then suddenly tried to stand, only to stumble.

Something struck her ankle in the aftermath of the fallen wall, but she didn’t flinch. She had been holding her breath, bracing herself, hidden away.

Through the torn hem of her skirt, her swollen ankle was faintly visible. A sharp pain throbbed through her back, but she firmly planted her feet.

Such pain was nothing.

Her entire focus was on Aiger.

‘I have to hold him. Right now, I have to catch him.’

‘Emptiness,’ ‘futility,’ a faint ‘anger,’ and ‘resignation’ surrounded Aiger, darkening as if consuming him.

Raylin knew that someone who had relentlessly pursued their goal could collapse the moment everything was over.

Grasping her tangled skirt, she ran toward him with all her strength.

“Aiger!”

The moment he slowly turned his head at her call, her trembling hands clutched his sleeve, and her emerald eyes wavered even more intensely than her hands.

“Aiger, Aiger, Aiger…”

As if she knew nothing else, she called his name in a breathless voice.

Aiger silently gazed at her.

Sweat-drenched golden hair clung to her forehead, her face was smeared with dust and blood splatters—

Aiger reached out to touch her cheek, then hesitated.

His hands were still stained with a dark, sticky liquid, whether blood or something else.

Just as he was about to withdraw his hand, Raylin suddenly grabbed it and pressed her cheek against his palm without hesitation.

At that moment, Aiger’s heart pounded—thump, then again, thump.

The emptiness and exhaustion that had flooded him after slaying the monstrous emperor were swept away by her warmth.

He finally let out a long breath.

“Haa… huh.”

A breath escaped his dry lips, carrying with it remnants of emotions he could not put into words.

Ironically, that was the end.

What had seemed unforgettable, inescapable—

The emperor’s shadow that had crushed him for so long crumbled so simply.

Staring down at the dried-up, crumbling remains of the emperor, he murmured like a sigh,

“So this is what you so desperately sought as immortality?”

Following his gaze, Raylin looked at the disintegrating emperor and spoke.

“What meaning was there in an undying life? For the eternal prosperity of the empire?” 

“Who knows.”

Even if the emperor, who met his end in such a miserable state, were to remain on the throne forever, it did not seem like the empire would bask in endless prosperity.

Raylin grasped Aiger’s cheek and turned it toward her.

“Someone once said that life is brilliant because it ends. That mortal beings can live each fleeting moment more fiercely and wholeheartedly than anyone else.”

“Yes… that’s right.”

Aiger, who had been hunted by the deaths orchestrated by the emperor since birth, slowly nodded.

His past had been nothing but torment and monotony, something he had never once looked back on. Yet, because he had endured that past, he was now here, with her.

For the first time, he truly felt that he was alive.

Seeing Aiger somehow look relieved, Raylin smiled brightly.

“You’re finally back.”