Carrying the spirit and smile on his lips and in his expression, Reiji's figure faded away into countless pieces of ashes. It was the concluding point for the conflict Reiji had faced for thousands of years, perhaps the turning point for the person the world addressed as 'Raizel'. The turning point where the journey of the most selfless person began.
Returning to the story, Reiji headed back to the center city of the world while carrying the most unexpected news for Arfanez, who was awaiting their return.
Right at the moment of Reiji setting his foot in the castle, Arfanez ran ahead toward him while throwing a question loudly, "What happened to you guys? Where have you been for the entire night?"
Looking around Reiji, wondering about Liona and Araya, Arfanez added, "And where are Liona and Araya? What happened to them?"
Keeping his sorrowful face downward, Reiji kept himself silent for a while. Unable to receive any answer from Reiji, Arfanez shouted, "Why are you silent, Reiji? Just tell me what happened to them?"
While shouting, he noticed some traces of fresh blood on Reiji's long coat and added a question with a bit of surprise, "W-why do you have blood on your coat? What really happened?"
"They're no longer….I couldn't save them..." Reiji replied. His voice matched his expression, showing the broken and devastated tone; totally different from his typical commanding voice.
A dark shadow erupted on Arfanez's face, showing the endless worry and wonder he was holding at that moment.
With that, he whispered, "W-what do you mean….I don't understand."
"They didn't let them survive anymore….those bastards, those foolish humans….They took Liona and Araya's lives." Reiji replied, hesitant.
"They killed both of them." He added, still hesitant and saddened.
"What do you mean they killed them? Stop joking, Reiji; it's not the time for jokes." Arfanez replied immediately, trying to think of Reiji's sentences as false while holding a storm of worry and surprise in his expression.
"I'm not…I'm telling the truth." Reiji replied, frustrated a bit.
Hearing Reiji's sentence, Arfanez collapsed on the ground, losing every single trace of happiness from the depth of his heart, eyes, and expression. The darkness of sadness and incoming madness covered him. His entire figure began to tremble along with his tremendously trembling eyes. The sudden, unexpected news totally shocked him at that very moment, like a shockwave shattering a figure into countless pieces. Every trace of hope, every trace of kindness, and every possible positive concept about humanity that belonged to Arfanez was now in question. In a state where everything slowly revealed doubts in his mind, every dawn began to be the opening of chaos for him, every twilight began to be a nightmare for him, and every single mortal slowly became the most cursed and chaotic existence for him.
The trust he held for the mortals was now turning into fear and nightmare. His kindness, his love slowly turned into hatred and an eagerness for revenge.
As moments passed, Arfanez began to scream while holding his head extremely tightly. Every positive memory he held with the mortals started to turn into nothing but a nightmare. Darkness erupted where light was meant to appear; love lost its meaning to hatred, and the smile faded away against the presence of sadness and sorrow.
The world changed for him; the moments became nothing but foolish fantasy. As moments passed onward, golden magic power began to erupt from his body. The intensity slowly rose to an extremely high level, to the extent where the castle started shaking within the presence of his magic power.
It was the moment when the story changed, the moment when the kindest king of the world became the tyrannical, revenge-hungry demon.
"I hate the mortals!" Arfanez shouted extremely loudly to the point where the entire world heard his voice, shaking the world itself with the intensity of his magic-amplified voice.
Reiji remained expressionless while knowing the outcome. He knew everything that was going to happen after lying to Arfanez. But it was the thing he wanted to do, the very chaos he wanted to spread throughout every possible story. It was the way of redemption for him, the way of salvation for him.
Arfanez's rampage slowly spread out all over the world and led the world toward its end. Like the way he wanted, Arfanez covered the entire world under the very similar spell he used to remove Zeldia from the face of the world. In the very same way, the most peaceful world in existence slowly drove toward the most unwanted, unexpected, and chaotic conclusion.
Every single mortal within the world turned to ashes at that very moment, turning into nothing more than history.
Later on, Reiji influenced Arfanez into a new belief and ideals. Perhaps his hatred toward the mortals didn't change, but he began his journey with a new goal. From that day, Arfanez became the warrior for the stories. Not someone who would protect the stories until the very end, but the person who would slowly drive every story toward apocalypse and recreate them in a new form, in a form where the concept of negative emotions would no longer exist. For Reiji, it was to stay by his side for the goal, like the way he always was.
Raizel continued his journey from there, from where he would protect the stories with all of his might. No matter how much he struggled, no matter how much conflict he had to face in his journey; he never stopped. Perhaps he died, but returned as a reincarnated being; the same person with the same personality, and with the same will and goal.