Dawn came late.
The sun, once gold, now rose pale crimson through veils of drifting ash. Where the Ascension Fields had stood, only an endless scar stretched toward the horizon—silent, glowing faintly with residual mana.
Lyn stood at its center, cloak torn, eyes reflecting the sky's strange hue. His breath left trails of light as if the air itself had yet to decide whether he belonged to it.
Rhea approached carefully, her boots crunching over glass dust. "You've been standing there since nightfall. You should rest."
He didn't look back. "Rest would mean I'm finished."
"The world nearly ended yesterday," she whispered. "That's as finished as it gets."
Umbra's voice echoed softly behind them, no longer a shape but a presence that filled the air. —He is right to remain awake. The Seventh did not die cleanly. There are… remnants.
Arden, dragging a cracked blade behind him, snorted. "Of course there are. Nothing in this rebellion ever dies quietly."
He looked toward the horizon where faint silhouettes moved among the ruins—tamers, refugees, spirits unbound from their former masters. Some wandered aimlessly, others knelt as if awaiting new orders that would never come.
"They're lost," Rhea said. "The Seals held their bonds together. Now…"
"Now they have to learn to live free," Lyn finished.
He turned then, eyes softer but no less strange. The mark of his crest now shimmered across his entire forearm, a shifting lattice of silver and black.
Umbra's whisper throbbed through the air. —You carry what they once worshiped. The Seventh's power will draw everything that still remembers the gods.
"Let them come," Lyn said quietly. "If they want salvation, they'll have to earn it alongside us."
Rhea frowned. "And if they want revenge?"
He gave a faint, weary smile. "Then I'll remind them what rebellion costs."
The wind stirred. From the ashes rose a faint light—small motes of energy floating like fireflies. Rhea extended a hand; one landed on her palm and pulsed faintly before vanishing.
"Mana's rebuilding itself," she said, awe slipping into her tone. "The world's adapting."
"That's what rebirth means," Lyn murmured. "It starts in ruin."
Arden sheathed his broken blade. "So what now, Commander? We rebuild? Or keep fighting ghosts?"
Lyn looked around—the fractured plains, the spirits flickering like lost stars, the first whispers of wind carrying voices of both fear and prayer.
"We rebuild," he said finally. "But not as the old world did. No more gods. No more masters. Just tamers and spirits, equal under the same sky."
Umbra's shadow rippled faintly, approval hidden within its calm hum. —Then we begin again. A world unchained.
Rhea smiled faintly through her exhaustion. "Then I guess this is the first dawn of the new rebellion."
Lyn shook his head slowly. "No. The rebellion ended when the Seventh fell. This…" He looked toward the rising light, where warmth began to break through the ash. "…this is the beginning of living."
For a long while, none of them spoke. The wind sang softly through the ruin, carrying with it the scent of stone, ash, and something new—hope, fragile but real.
High above, the remnants of the aurora faded into the newborn sun.
And beneath that pale sky, Lyn took his first step toward a world no longer ruled by gods.