"I'm human now."
Ankh calmly pulled his sword back.
"I care about my family. I worry about my friends. If protecting them means putting everything I have on the line, I'll do it without hesitation."
His blade rose again.
"And if I run into some piece of trash I can't stand, I'm perfectly willing to draw my sword on them too."
"That sounds pretty normal to me."
He swung.
An almost invisible slash exploded against the glowing barrier in front of Zous.
"The power of a god is what allows you to live that way."
Zous raised one hand, effortlessly stopping the sword waves Ankh sent toward them.
"Human emotion merely distorts your judgment."
"You can afford to live in this contradictory state because you possess overwhelming strength. Without that strength, you might have become nothing more than another broken person trapped in some forgotten corner of this incomplete world."
"Then I'd get stronger again."
Ankh's expression hardened.
"And I'd crawl out of that miserable corner until I got back to wherever the hell I wanted to be."
He had heard enough.
Ankh swept his blade sideways with tremendous force, shattering the glowing barrier outright, then shot forward like a streak of light.
"Absurd…"
Zous sighed and drifted backward with effortless grace.
"In the perfect world I intend to create, humanity would not even need to experience suffering."
"Perfect, my ass!"
Ankh stayed right on them, black divine power surging around his body.
"What's even the point of being alive in a world like that?!"
Yusalk had already told him what kind of world Zous and his faction wanted to build.
When the Laws of All Things abandoned the original Divine Realm, Zous and the gods aligned with him decided to create a new one.
Their plan was to restart the world, reclaim the power of emotion, and strip humanity of the very possibility of ever becoming gods.
The reincarnated world would become little more than a manufactured sandbox.
Humans would continue to exist, but without genuine emotion.
Their thoughts would be rigid and predetermined, every choice guided solely toward whatever outcome best served the development of the world as a whole.
No uncontrolled desire.
No irrational hatred.
No selfish love.
No ambition dangerous enough to reach the level of divinity.
In a certain sense, it truly would be a perfect world.
The problem was that the things living in it could no longer meaningfully be called human.
"You keep talking like gaining emotions was some unforgivable mistake."
Ankh's sword flashed again.
"Don't tell me the God of Emotion didn't affect you at all."
The premature death of the God of Emotion had given every god some measure of personal desire.
The difference was that Ankh's faction had willingly embraced those emotions until they became whole.
Zous and the others had not.
That faint trace of feeling had merely transformed them from perfectly impartial embodiments of natural law into beings capable of having their own intentions.
Zous did not deny it.
"I was affected."
"But the influence remains within a manageable range."
"And for the new world, gods like us would actually be better suited to carefully observing humanity's development."
"Tch."
Ankh immediately understood.
"So that's what this is really about. You're afraid someone in that fake world might become a god again."
"Yes."
Zous answered without hesitation.
There was no reason for them to lie.
"Authority over the laws of existence cannot be entrusted to beings outside the Twenty-Three Gods."
Their palm met Ankh's descending blade.
The entire artificial Divine Realm shook violently.
Ankh narrowed his eyes and poured all of his Death Divine Power into the Dragon God's Arsenal.
A concentrated torrent of black radiance erupted from the blade and tore toward Zous.
For the first time, the power Zous released was completely different.
Dark violet Destruction Divine Power surged from their hand and slammed head-on into Ankh's Death Divine Power.
The collision swallowed the hall.
Two torrents of divine force tore through the magnificent palace, ripping apart walls, statues, and space itself.
This Divine Realm had been temporarily created by Zous solely for this conversation.
Now it began to collapse.
The scenery around them blurred again, and through the distortion Ankh could faintly see the magnificent temple breaking apart and sinking into ruin.
It almost felt symbolic.
As though the age of the old gods had finally begun its descent into twilight.
The night sky returned.
Ankh continued pouring everything into his attack, but then his expression changed.
His divine power was being eroded.
The black current of Death Divine Power gradually dimmed, weakening little by little until it was finally swallowed by the overwhelming flood of destruction.
Ankh was blasted from the sky.
Boom—!
His body smashed straight through a mountain peak before crashing into the earth on the other side.
By the time he finally came to a stop, a massive crater had been carved into the ground.
Ankh dragged himself out of it with one hand pressed against his chest.
Something felt wrong.
He slowly flexed his fingers.
Just now…
For an instant, it had felt as though his Death Divine Power had suddenly weakened on its own.
"What the hell happened…?"
"Humans are strange creatures."
Zous's voice came from the foot of the shattered mountain.
"Overflowing with emotion, yet intelligent enough to deceive themselves whenever the truth becomes inconvenient."
They had appeared in front of Ankh without warning.
There was no satisfaction in their voice. No smugness.
Only calm certainty.
"You already know that 'Seram' is gone."
A terrifying black sword wave tore toward them.
Zous merely shifted half a step aside.
The attack passed by and erased a massive section of the ruined mountain behind them.
Ankh stood there breathing heavily, killing intent blazing in his eyes.
Zous ignored it.
"That being you called 'Seram' was never truly independent."
"It was only a vessel you created to carry part of your power."
"You've already noticed the changes recently, haven't you?"
"Every trace of Seram has disappeared completely."
"And the memories and divine power that he was supposed to pass on to you are now beginning to awaken directly within you."
For the first time, something faintly complicated entered Zous's voice.
"That is also why I used the Black Dragon to seize part of the Death Divine Power."
"To weaken you before this moment."
Ankh forced himself upright and gave Zous a cold smile.
"Pretty thorough."
"You really planned all this just for today?"
"This is the final time I will ask."
Zous raised one hand.
Destruction energy so dense that it seemed capable of swallowing the night poured from their palm and flooded upward across the sky.
"Return, Ankhseram."
"Take your place as a god of the new world."
Ankh steadied his breathing and forced down the weakness inside him.
Then he stood straight.
"My answer hasn't changed."
His eyes sharpened.
"And there's one thing you got wrong."
Without hesitation, Ankh charged.
He ignored the terrifying divine pressure covering the entire sky and gathered his remaining Magic Power.
A God-Slaying Secret Art began taking shape in his hands.
His gaze was unwavering.
"Seram isn't gone."
"And that's one thing I know better than anyone!"
A trace of regret finally crossed Zous's radiant eyes.
"What a pity…"
...
Along the coast, the mountains had been reduced to a devastated wasteland.
Several enormous dragons lay sprawled across the ruined terrain, their bodies too badly injured to continue fighting.
Only Igneel and Ignia were still forcing themselves to remain upright through sheer willpower.
A vicious gleam flashed through Acnologia's eyes.
He seized Ignia's arm and brutally twisted it downward.
Before the Fire Dragon God could even cry out in pain, Acnologia opened his jaws directly in front of him.
A roar exploded at point-blank range.
Dark Magic Power tore through Ignia's body.
A massive hole was blown through his chest.
His enormous body immediately went limp and crashed toward the ground as his life force plunged to a dangerously faint level.
"Ignia!"
Igneel's eyes went bloodshot.
He roared and dove toward his son, while the gravely injured Metalicana and the others forced themselves back into motion to cover them.
Then—Every dragon suddenly froze.
One after another, they raised their heads toward the sky.
Fear appeared in their eyes.
And they were not the only ones.
Soldiers still fighting on distant battlefields stopped what they were doing.
People in towns, cities, villages, and remote corners across the continent instinctively looked upward.
The moon and stars were gone.
The entire night sky had transformed into something resembling an enormous dark-violet mirror stretching across the world.
But the world reflected inside it was not their own.
It showed a place that seemed completely dead.
Endless ruins spread beneath a hollow sky.
Everything was broken, empty, and lifeless.
There were no people, no lights, no signs that civilization had ever survived whatever disaster had struck.
It was an apocalyptic world reduced to silence and decay.
Far away, Zeref slowly rose to his feet and stared into the heavens.
His quiet sigh seemed to come from both impossibly far away and right beside the listener's ear.
"The book called The End… has finally opened to its first page."