Stepping away from the carnage, the baby cradled in my arms, I left the fighting to the golden leviathan and the angelic being flanking me.
"He's all yours," I said quietly.
"At last, feather of fates!" the golden leviathan thundered, his voice shaking the white void itself. "We meet again after your betrayal! It may only be a fragment of you—but vengeance has no patience!"
Without hesitation, the colossal serpent lunged. Its jaw split the light, biting down upon the winged man's position. The impact shattered the horizon, detonating explosions that rippled through the emptiness like newborn suns.
The winged man barely dodged, his form tugged away by strings of glimmering time. "How—how can this be?!" he gasped. "Your souls were broken! Extinguished! Never to reincarnate again! Why do you still exist?!"
"In impossibility," came a soft, calm voice, "lies the sweetest possibility."
Seririna appeared beside him in a blink, her silver-and-black gown fluttering without wind. One of her wings split into a blade of voidlight, slicing into his chest in a burst of abyssal flame.
"All that is required," she whispered, "is a little insanity."
The fragment of the Throne of Fate screamed as his body convulsed. Blue radiance poured from his wound and streamed toward the distant golden tree spiraling across the void—roots buried in nothing, branches bleeding into everything.
The battle spiraled downward, deeper into the pale emptiness. Seririna, the voidborn Seraph, and Forhorn, the dominator of horizons, toyed with the soul of Fate like predators long denied their prey. His strings flailed helplessly, trying to bind time itself against their fury. But they were not enemies who could be undone by logic or law; they were wrath given flesh.
These two had been with me as long as Thorn had. In a way, they were my parents—if such a word meant anything to beings like us. When I inherited the mantle of the Kralscell of Sentience, they came with it, dwelling within my throne-world ever since.
Forhorn—the golden leviathan—was boastful, destructive, and utterly unhinged. His laughter could bend light itself. Seririna was his opposite: a creature of elegance and control, one of the last of the Saraph, angels once born in the abyss. She carried herself with grace, emotionless yet kind in a way that transcended empathy.
Both their species were extinct—erased in the same collapse that devoured the Thrones. Or, as the Thrones still called themselves in arrogance: Clarity.
What race Clarity's three true heads once belonged to, none can say. Even Seririna and Forhorn refuse to speak of it; the universal restrictions Clarity left behind would tear them apart for revealing too much.
It was Forhorn who hid them both within the inheritance of the Kralscell. He concealed not only himself, but a fragment of the Throne of Chaos, stolen from its corpse. From that theft came my twin Authorities—Void and Horizons—which fused into what the multiverse now calls the Authority of Severance.
How they achieved this, I don't know. The process tore most of Forhorn's memories apart, and Seririna, being only a fragment of a Primaeva, never possessed a past that was truly her own. The mystery haunts me still.
Fate's scream dragged me back to the present. Forhorn's jaws clamped down on the bird-man's arm, tearing it clean off. Blue essence gushed from the wound, a river of primordial energy streaming toward the world-tree before his arm regenerated anew. Exhausted, he stumbled—only for Seririna's wing to smash him into the crimson grass below.
He laughed. A raw, broken laugh that echoed through the void.
"Ahahah! It seems my true self will have some entertainment after all!" he croaked, rolling onto his back. "Hahahaha~!"
When the laughter finally faded, Forhorn and Seririna drifted back to my side. They had drained him of nearly everything he was—soul, power, and dignity alike.
"The stringer of destinies always was an affray lunatic!" Forhorn bellowed, shaking the air. "Little mouse, the time has come! Take Fate's feather—erase this treacherous wretch!"
"Should I assume you'd like me to do the same with the other two?" I asked dryly.
"Yes, little mouse!" Forhorn's roar nearly ruptured my ears. "I care not for your sarcasm! This is duty—our satisfaction after millennia spent skulking beneath their venomous shadow!"
Seririna sighed softly beside me. Her wings folded into a shadowed veil as she reached forward, taking the baby from my arms before I even noticed the motion. "Go," she said gently. "Forhorn will not calm until what must be done is done."
The leviathan loomed over her, his golden eyes burning like twin suns. "It is not a tantrum, Saraph! It is justice! Payment owed to the one who once sought to erase me in his hunger for perfection!"
Their argument trailed behind me as I walked toward the fallen man. He struggled to stand, one wing broken, his face obscured in shifting blur.
Kneeling in the red grass, he scooped a handful of soil and turned it in his palm before noticing me. "For a being without a real heart," he rasped, "you carry far too much inside you."
I said nothing. The gauntlets on my forearms flared with a soft hum.
[Skill: Winter Inverse — Ekrix Gauntlet.]
Metal shimmered, coating my hands and forearms in silver and amber. Steam hissed from the joints, thick with aether.
"There's a reason," I said, flexing my fists, "they call me Mad Knight."
"As well as a hundred other names." The faceless being dropped the soil. His voice was both pity and disdain. "Strife. Homunculus. Leviathan. Glitch. Evil spirit. Kralscell. You've worn them all—and still, you don't know who you are, Wrath."
I froze mid-step. Forhorn's roars, Seririna's whispers, even the hum of the void—all fell silent.
"You may never die for your crimes," he continued, "but neither will you be redeemed. The only thing waiting for you… is eternal imprisonment in the White Room."
His words cracked something in me.
Images surged through my mind: that perfect, empty chamber. Smooth white walls without seams. No sound. No exit. No time.
There were centuries when I couldn't tell up from down. Eons when my soul broke apart and stitched itself together again just to have something to do. I'd screamed until I forgot what a voice was. I'd begged to dream, only to realize that dreaming might mean I was still trapped there.
I had learned not to hope. Because hope was the cruelest feature of that place.
The White Room. My first prison. My birthplace.
I shook my head, forcing the memories back into their cage.
Fate watched me, smiling through his pain. "That place still waits for you," he said. "No matter what you do, every act of mercy, every rebellion, every cause you claim—it's all to prove this isn't a dream. That you aren't still in that room. But it's always been the same. You only ever cared about yourself."
I sighed. "Someone has to."
[stigma: equal correlation — sequence: 0.1]
[skill: autumn king's conquest — crusader!]
"That still doesn't mean i shouldn't tear you apart!" Clenching my right fist, aether steamed out of my [ekrix gauntlet] and it broke straight through the faceless mans chest.
Dispersing his blue energy outside his body before my leg came up and kicked into his ribs. Forcing out what scraps of primordial power were still trapped within his soul as aether forcefully coursed through his entire body while he was rolling across the white floor.
"Hehehe... ourgh!" While coughing up blood onto the white floor, the faceless man laughed. "Just because I'm mortal now. Don't think you can win the next time. Against the real Throne of Fate. You'll be all alone then, just as you were in the beginning."
Gripping the man up by his tunic, i lifted him up only to sock him right in his bloodied cheek with my gauntlet, blowing out another wave of blue energy with punch after punch into his face.
Once i was done i tossed him onto the ground and huffed. "Lets end this properly. Fight me. Don't just berate me."
"He~!" A battle hungry smirk crossed the mans empty face that i could see even without him having a face. "Hahaha! You truly don't care! No wonder Limit avoids you, and Choice fears you!"
Cracking my gauntlets knuckles i asked, "What does Fate think of me then?"
Getting up from the floor, Fate used the very last drop of his blue energy to recover his body into peak condition. Now looking completely unhurt as the blue stream got taken out of him and into the giant tree towering above. "I find your anomalous existence exhilarating! You are the only one who can truly imagine the final wish!"
[stigma: equal correlation — sequence: 0.0!]
A mad smile stretched across my face and i ran over to immediately to crash knuckles with Fate itself. Both of us without our powers, him being sucked dry and me being restrained by the stigma.
Right now we were only two men running on hate.
"Ah!" Wincing backwards the sharp edges of my gauntlets knuckles pierced Fate's fingers and i chased after him with my other fist straight into his left shoulder before jumping up and kicking him down with both of my feet.
Rolling backwards Fate quickly got back into his feet and dodged to the side as my left fist flew past his face. While i was right next to him Fate shotgunned his fist straight into my rib cage.
Whistling in pain i kicked my leg up straight into his chin with the metallic greave covering my shins knocking his head upwards and opening his neck for my left elbow as it dug straight into his trapezius before making him yell in pain.
Immediately before he could recover i jumped up and kicked his head straight down into the floor with a flying kick.
As i landed my feet on the ground i took a step back and stabilised my breathing. Allowing me to catch my breath as Fate got up from the floor while Forhorn and Seririna watched from nearby.
Standing back up the muscular man wiped off the sweat and blood on his brow. "It really is interesting. Getting this tired so quickly. Humans really are pathetic beings."
"I may agree, but just shut up and fight." I demanded, and Fate quickly obliged as he ran and pelted my chest with both his fists. Bruising both my arms instead as I blocked with my gauntlets but the force behind his attack was enough to reach all the way past my defence.
Not relenting Fate continued and ran straight for me with a massive sweep of a haymaker fist which i ducked right under before swinging my left fist behind me to charge a punch straight into the middle of his spine with my gauntlet.
"Ahhh!" Howling in pain Fate slashed his arm around hitting straight into my skull putting me into a daze. Gripping my shirt the man then head butted his skull against mine spitting blood everywhere before lifting me up and throwing me back down on the ground.
I groaned in pain while Fate raised his leg to stomp in my chest but i quickly realised and rolled to the side getting out the way. raising myself back up onto two feet as a flurry of punches came straight for me.
Dodging and blocking between attack i managed to counter well. Fate's fist's mainly grazed against my cheeks and shoulders as his onslaught went on getting in the rare few direct hits i couldn't avoid but with every hit he struck into me i countered with a punch of my own right into his neck or sternum.
With one last strong punch Fate toppled his body forwards as i dodged, giving me enough time to dance around him and punch directly for his right shoulder blade.
Expecting that however, Fate sank down his body on his right side by collapsing his knee into the ground.
My arm hanged in the air above him and right as i tried to pull away he grabbed me with both hands and pulled me over his back. As i got tossed over his wide back Fate pulled my arm down kicked his leg off the floor breaking my left elbow in two before splattering my back onto the ground.
Whistling my scream through clenched teeth, i swept my legs under Fate while i laid on the floor and tripped him over before hammering the side of my right fist straight into his nose. Disorienting him long enough for me to get up and grab my broken arm to ram the broken bones straight into his neck.
Wide eyed Fate reached for his neck to stop the bleeding but i tore the sharp bones of my left arm through his skin, opening the wound even further before stepping off his body.
"Just... incredible." He said.
[stigma: equal correlation — sequence release]
Aether was unblocked in my body and my left arm twisted wildly before fixing into the correct position with the bones no longer broken. Even if this is just a dreamscape in the mental realm the pain always hurts like its real. "You want to know how i won, Fate? Desperation. Something a being like you will never know."
Before Fate died he spouted his last words with a perturbed grin. "You wont win, leviathan. Theres no way for you to go. Your travel will end before its destination. You will beg for death, but they cannot grant you what you want."
Wiping the blood off from my face i huffed. "I will either find a way or make one. Through adversity, towards the stars." Looking to the distance i saw Seririna and Forhorn watching me with grateful expressions. "In the end. The only thing that matters is how well i lived. Not how long."
Giving his final breath, Fate laid his head down on the white floor with a smile. Crumbling into blue dust that got taken by the wind into Sefirot's golden tree trunk.