The ship cut through the clouds like a flaming spear, its hull burning from the friction of descent. Wind screamed through shattered sails. Wood groaned, bent, and splintered. Sparkle's hands were clenched around the fractured railing as the world around them tilted, and gravity took over completely.
She didn't open her eyes.
Neither did Seele. Neither did Dan Heng.
The air roared too loud for words, too violent for thought. Below them, the Sun Prince's colossal form burned like a second sun — his molten wings unfurled, his blade of starfire cleaving through one of the other flaming giants. Every swing sent earthquakes through the air itself, the heavens shaking from the magnitude of his existence.
It seemed he had finally begun to use his Aspect.
Sparkle tilted her head slightly, lips parted in the ghost of a smile.
"Left…"
Her body shifted, fingers brushing the deck's splintered edge as if tracing invisible lines through space. The ship responded — not through steering, but through will. The creaking hull angled ever so slightly, veering away from the flaming spear that shot toward them from the Sun Prince's hand.
It missed by less than a breath.
"Now."
Dan Heng tensed, and in the next moment, all the Soul Essence on the ship transmuted into another form… crimson flames, crackling lightning, chilling ice — the radiant tree on th deck started to finally splinter and burn, freeze and decay.
Seele grabbed him by the arm, warping through the air and away from the ship.
Behind them, the explosion bloomed into a sphere of annihilation.
The flying ship ceased to exist, replaced by a radiant detonation that tore through the clouds and sent waves of distorted air rippling across the battlefield. Fragments of burning metal were scattered like rain.
In the heart of the chaos, Sparkle didn't flee.
Instead, she allowed the explosion to tear away at her, for with every wound, a paper figurine appeared to take that damage for her. Her figure disappeared and reappeared within the explosion, constantly substituting itself with paper figurines.
Her form reassembled mid-fall, smoke rising from her hands. Below her, the Sun Prince staggered, his once perfect form split apart by the explosion. His molten armor peeled away in sheets, revealing glimpses of something beneath — blackened muscle, scorched bone, the pale flicker of something once human.
His roar tore through the heavens.
Sparkle's now-opened eyes caught it — the tiny gap between two plates of molten steel.
In her hand, the Ruby Knife shone.
As she fell, two burning eyes engraved a Transcendent glare into her.
The flames engulfed her. Her skin blistered, hair burning away, clothes reduced to ash. Still, she didn't stop. She dove straight into the inferno, her body disintegrating into paper again and again, each time reforming just long enough to descend further.
The world went white.
Then the knife found flesh.
It sank deep into the gap — into the charred, human body beneath the godly shell. The Ruby Knife's edge glowed brighter than any flame, devouring the heat around it, until it burned with cold crimson light.
The Sun Prince let out a sound that wasn't a scream. It was something older, something rawer — a sound of unmaking.
Then the light in his eyes went out.
The titanic body convulsed, molten limbs flailing, and then — slowly, terribly — it began to collapse.
The battlefield below vanished under a storm of falling giants. The Sun Prince's colossal form crashed backward, dragging with it the other Calamity Giants that had been bound to him. Their bodies twisted, fell, and broke apart, all tumbling over the shattered edge of the Chained Isles.
And Sparkle, no longer clutching the disintegrated Ruby Knife, fell alongside them.
***
A flicker of memory surfaced.
Noctis had suddenly appeared on flying ship, which had been ascending into the sky. In one hand, he carried Solvane's blood. In the other, he held a half-conscious creature.
He'd turned to Dan Heng, who stood silent and pale.
"Take this."
Noctis flicked the Ruby Knife through the air.
Dan Heng caught it.
And the Saint disappeared as quickly as he came.
Sparkle and Seele had been peeking through the cabin door, having planed to approach Dan Heng earlier, but stopping themselves when Noctis appeared.
***
Her body trembled as the heat finally faded from her nerves. The fall stretched on endlessly, the Sky Below swallowing the remains of the Calamity Giants one by one.
The Sun Prince's flame guttered out completely, and his colossal body broke apart into rivers of molten metal as the chains of the flying ship's remains caught on his massive legs.
Sparkle closed her eyes.
Fate proceeded as expected.