Darkness had no end here.
The void was collapsing. The edges of reality had begun to bleed away into nothing, and what remained was held together by threads of fading hope and strained willpower. Time stuttered. Space convulsed. The stars themselves flickered like dying embers. In the epicenter of this unmaking, Raizen floated—bloodied, battered, soul-weary, and alone.
But not quite.
Within his grasp pulsed the Crown of Shadows, its obsidian gleam now laced with veins of pure light, paradoxical and divine. It was no longer the same artifact he had once stolen, worn, feared. It had changed—as he had. It hummed with the remnants of every soul that had touched his life. The friends who had stood by him. The enemies who had challenged him. The innocents who had paid the price. Their memories echoed within the Crown's depths, crying out not for vengeance, but for continuance. For peace.
But the Endbringer still stood.
Not as a creature now, but as a living storm—a mass of anguish and unspent wrath that towered above existence, clawing at the very laws of creation. It no longer resembled Raizen. It had outgrown form. It had become a godless maelstrom of void, and it was tearing apart the last bastions of what once was. Planets crumbled in the distance. Dimensions screamed as they folded into the beast. The world—the very concept of "world"—was ending.
And Raizen… was its only shield.
The Crown vibrated violently in his hands. It wanted to be used. It begged to release its full power, to burn through the fabric of the Endbringer's essence like divine judgment. But Raizen could feel it. This time, there would be no holding back. No pulling away at the last second. If he unleashed everything the Crown offered—if he embraced it fully—it would consume him. There would be nothing left of Raizen the man. Only the Crown.
A god without a soul.
He hovered above the ruins of what had once been a galaxy, his breath shallow, chest heaving, heart torn. The voice of the Endbringer roared through his mind.
"You are me already. This is your nature. You have always longed for power. Even now, you hesitate—not because you fear the Crown, but because you love it. Admit it."
Raizen's knuckles whitened around the hilt of his blade. He looked into the abyss and saw his reflection—not a monster, not a tyrant, but a man who had suffered too much, loved too hard, lost too many.
"No," he whispered. "I loved people. Not power."
A rumble echoed across the Void. The Endbringer surged forward like a tidal wave of pure chaos. Raizen raised the Crown to his chest, and a blinding light erupted around him. Every moment of his life flashed in that instant: the orphaned child, the laughing boy, the warrior, the commander, the broken soul holding his dead friend's body, the man standing at the edge of the end.
He could feel the Crown offering a different ending. One where he survived. One where he won and kept everything. Where the Endbringer was erased, and he remained, unchallenged, unmatched. But at what cost?
The temptation was unbearable. A world without pain. Without struggle. A perfect peace… forged through control.
Raizen closed his eyes.
He whispered a name—Kaela's, the first crewmate who had ever believed in him. Then another. Aruun's. Then another. Juno. Dazren. Lyra. Even his old rival, Voren. Name by name, he called them to mind. The fallen. The living. The forgotten. The forgiven.
They had made him who he was.
Not the Crown.
Not the power.
Them.
And with a trembling breath, Raizen opened his eyes. He placed the Crown upon his brow one last time.
But he did not surrender to it.
He guided it.
His body ignited in radiant shadow—light and dark interwoven like strands of fate. The Crown responded, not as a master to a slave, but as a mirror to a soul finally at peace with itself. The sky burned with symbols older than time. The void wept stars.
And Raizen descended like a meteor into the core of the Endbringer.
They collided.
Not with steel. Not with magic.
With truth.
The force of their clash rippled across all realms. The last remnants of the cosmos paused, watching. On shattered moons and crumbling worlds, those who still breathed held hands and prayed to gods who had long gone silent.
In the heart of that maelstrom, Raizen burned away the lie.
He did not destroy the Endbringer.
He forgave it.
He forgave himself.
The creature shrieked, not in pain, but in confusion. In disbelief. In recognition. It began to unravel—because it could not understand mercy. Because it was made of fear and hate and hunger, and Raizen offered none of these things.
He embraced it.
And with that, it was gone.
Silence.
The void stilled.
Raizen hovered alone now, the Crown crumbling in golden ashes upon his brow. His form flickered—less a man now, more a whisper of light. His sacrifice had been real. His humanity, scattered across the stars. But he smiled.
Because the world lived.
Because hope lived.
And somewhere, far beyond, the sun began to rise.
END OF CHAPTER 6