Thud... thud... thud...

Celestia’s wet steps echoed through the hallway of the castle, crimson footprints and drops of blood from her sword marking the floor below like a trail of carnage. The walls, once pristine, now bore the splatter of the fallen.

Only a few necessary troops remained in the castle, those who tried to block her way to the main hall. She dealt with them as she had dealt with the soldiers in the city, swiftly and without mercy.

She reached the large entrance of the hall. The massive doors creaked open, groaning on their iron hinges.

Beyond them lay the grand hall of the castle. Tall marble pillars lined both sides, supporting a high vaulted ceiling adorned with golden chandeliers that cast flickering shadows across the chamber. Crimson banners bearing the royal crest hung between the pillars, while a long red carpet stretched toward the throne at the far end of the hall where Catherine, the Queen, was seated with an unusual calm on her face.

Celestia stepped inside, her blood-soaked boots leaving crimson footprints across the polished floor as she walked toward the throne.

"Ezekiel," Catherine murmured, her voice laced with both sadness and concern as her heavy eyes fell on Celestia’s approaching figure.

The more Celestia drew closer, the more her face contorted, veins bulging across her forehead in sheer, unfiltered anger. The sound of her knuckles cracking echoed through the vast hall as she tightened her grip on the hilt until her fingers screamed in protest.

"After everything I did for the empire," she muttered. Her voice had turned deep and rumbling, completely unrecognisable. "Why!!! Why did you do it!?"

Catherine’s shivering lips parted. Her hands trembled on the throne’s armrest, fingers clutching the polished wood for support.

"Ez-Ezekiel, I—"

Before she could say anything else, Celestia landed a kick through her gut. The impact was savage, brutal. Catherine’s body slammed into the backrest of the throne, splitting it apart from the sheer force. Wood splintered and flew in all directions.

She hit the floor with a heavy thud, blood vomiting from her mouth along with wet, ragged coughs.

While she was still lying on the floor, Celestia reached before her, her blue flame like eyes staring down at her with cold, righteous fury. Catherine’s eyes shone with a dim glow as they reflected the sword of Celestia that was descending upon her without any hint of hesitation or mercy.

The blade pierced through her abdomen and into the floor below. A huge energy wave erupted from the impact, destroying the stone beneath them. Cracks spiderwebbed outward in all directions.

They began falling to the basement below, with the blade still implanted in Catherine’s abdomen. Debris from the floor fell alongside them, chunks of marble and dust cascading into the darkness. They hit the basement floor with a sickening thud. Another mouthful of blood erupted from Catherine’s mouth, splattering across the cold stone.

Still, instead of fear or anger, Catherine’s face carried intense grief as she looked at Celestia’s bloodied body with a warm expression.

Celestia hated the way she looked at her. She should be begging for mercy. She should be regretting her actions. She should be crying with pain. So why was she forming such an expression?

Her focus turned to the floor below, the flames of her eyes trembling with shock.

A large circular array was engraved on the stone. The blood from Catherine was pouring down into its grooves, filling them like ink in a fountain.

Celestia instantly recognised the array.

"Th-this is..."

"I-it is the ar-array of the Summoning Ritual," Catherine completed her words, her voice barely above a whisper, each syllable a struggle. "The... ar-array required... the sa-sacrifice of royal blood to activate it."

Celestia’s brows twitched in confusion. The fury in her eyes flickered, replaced for a moment by uncertainty.

"What are you playing at?" She demanded, annoyance clear in her voice.

"I am s-sorry, Ezekiel. I re-refused to let you return to your world because our empire needed your protection. If I had activated it, I would have lost my lifespan, and you would have been returned to your world, leaving the empire without a ruler. Perhaps there was something more to my reluctance than duty."

Each word she whispered came out with intense agony as she clung to her life to speak her final words to Celestia. Her breath was shallow, her voice fading.

"I... prepared this ritual... to let you return to your world... once you defeated the Troll King. But then I heard that you died in the raid."

The array below her began glowing with a crimson hue and started sucking her blood more aggressively to fill the remaining patterns.

Still, even though her skin had turned pale from blood loss, almost translucent in the dim glow, she continued.

"Y-you ha-have no idea how happy I was... wh-when Kite revealed that he saw a cyan-haired woman with Tristan. I wa-was relieved that you had found a belonging in this world."

"Do you think I will believe the nonsense you are spouting!?" Celestia snapped. The debris on the floor around them shook from the sheer force of her voice, pebbles rattling against stone. "You did not know that I was a woman!"

Catherine let out a soft chuckle. "Fa-father never hid a-any... thing fr-from me."

Celestia’s jaw tightened. Her voice turned louder, more broken as she demanded, "Then why did you kill my family!?"

Catherine slowly lifted her trembling hand, gently touched Celestia’s cheek, and whispered, "I n-never g-gave such o-order..."

Her hand dragged from her cheek and fell to the floor, leaving behind wet lines of crimson against her skin.

Celestia was left with a completely hollow expression, her face drained of all emotion. The sword in her hand trembled as she shouted, "D-don’t lie to me. I do not b-believe you."

She glared down at Catherine, the flames in her eyes flickering violently like candles in a storm. "Tell me the truth. Why did you kill them?"

How does it feel, Ezekiel Silverhart? Killing the woman that loved you so deeply that she had prepared to sacrifice herself just to let you return to your world?

"Shut your mouth! She deserved it. She killed my family."

Did she? Why would she do that after all these years if she knew your identity from the beginning?

"N-no... sh-she was lying," Ezekiel shook her head, refusing to believe it even though the truth was clear before her, as undeniable as the blood on her hands. Her feet staggered, and she fell to her knees, the impact barely registering.

She looked at her hands, hands filled with the blood of countless innocent people. The image of their lifeless bodies appeared in her mind. Their screams as her blade slaughtered them echoed in her ears, as the weight of what she had done settled over her like an avalanche.

Now that she looked at Catherine’s still body, it hit her like the violent waves from a broken dam, crashing over her without mercy.

The reason why the previous king had suddenly lost his lifespan and died. Why not even once had anyone inquired about her identity and nationality as she lived as Celestia for five years just at the border of the capital city. All of it started making sense to her.

You have destroyed the very empire that you were summoned to protect.

"Wh-what have I done?" Celestia murmured, her lips trembling. Crimson tears of regret and grief trickled down her cheeks.

The cracks around her body spread, covering her whole form like a broken glass vase about to shatter. The flames in her eyes grew wider, turning into a pair of blue comets that cast eerie shadows across the basement.

Behind her, from the silhouette of death that surrounded her, a figure came into view. It was a purple colored humanoid shape, yet his appearance was anything but human. The centre of its chest bore a fist sized hole. On its face, there was only one eye at the centre, deep purple with a black vertical slit like that of a serpent.

Below the eye was a wide mouth lined with canine teeth, jagged and sharp. The creature whispered with a wide, horrifying smirk,

That’s right. Suffer more, Ezekiel Silverhart. Writhe for your sins.

"A p-pisach?" I gasped, recognising the creature. I had seen similar creatures in Jambavan, Vyaghra, and Vajra’s memories. "Was this monster the one behind all of this?"

Ezekiel Silverhart, do you wish to turn everything back to how it was? To be with your family again.

A flicker of hope appeared on Celestia’s face, fragile but desperate. "Y-yes. I do."

The pisach extended both its hands forward, threads of purple energy emerging from its fingers and embedding themselves into Celestia’s body like puppet strings.

In that case, do not resist.

My eyes narrowed at the creature and the ominous energy it possessed. "What is it trying to do?"

The creature suddenly vanished from Celestia’s back.

"Where has it gone?"

We have a rat sneaking in.

Its voice rumbled behind me. I turned, finding it staring at me with its large purple eye and wide, jagged smirk. The single pupil dilated with amusement.

"You can see me?" I asked, taking a step back.

Hmm. You are not from this time.

It suddenly thrust its hand forward, slamming into my chest. Even though I should not have been tangible, even though I was nothing but a watcher, I felt the strike land. Pain erupted through my translucent body.

The world around me changed in the blink of an eye.

The sky was broken, filled with countless dimensional rifts, similar to the one in San Francisco but multiplied a hundredfold. Monsters, from the size of a palm to the size of mountains, poured out from these portals, engaging in brutal war against the humans on the ground. Fire and blood rained from above.

"Taranis, don’t do it," a familiar voice entered my ears. Ume stood before me, tugging at my tattered shirt, her face filled with worry and terror. Tears streamed down her cheeks. "Please, let’s return."

Before I knew it, my hand gently patted her head, and I whispered, "We both know that I cannot do that, Ume, when all of this is happening because of me."

Before Ume could protest further, half of my body radiated a blinding white light, while the other half emitted an abyssal darkness. The two energies converged at the centre of my back, forming a yin-yang Taiji formation.

A trace of bright white formed in one of my eyes, while a dark trace formed in the other. With a swing of my sword, I shattered the ceiling of the small room where we stood and flew upward, debris falling around me like rain.

In the sky, at the centre of the monster waves, stood a pisach, the same one that had just slammed my chest.

My body moved on its own, reaching before the creature.

"You otherworlder. Not enough. Defeat me," the pisach muttered with a terrifying smile, its single eye gleaming.

We began clashing in the sky, our battle shaking the heavens. I poured every last ounce of my strength into every strike of my blade, yet the pisach proved too powerful for me. Each blow I landed was shrugged off; each counter struck me harder.

Before I could react, it thrust its claw forward and pierced through my chest. A sharp pain surged through me. I felt my body losing strength at a terrifying pace, my limbs growing heavy.

The energy from my eyes vanished. The sword fell from my hand as my limbs grew limp, dangling uselessly.

"Nooo!!!!! Taranis!!!" Ume’s horrified voice tore from the ground below.

The pisach pulled out its hand, the only support that had been hanging my body in the sky. I began falling freely, the wind rushing past my ears. My eyelids slowly covered my eyes, the world fading to a narrow tunnel. From my blurry vision, I saw above the broken sky that the sun was black with a white halo surrounding it.

On the land, amidst the countless fallen buildings, there was also a broken watchtower, its clock still moving.

The exact time as I drew my last breath was 1:49.

Interesting... So this is your destiny.