The implosion of the Core had extinguished all magical light. The cavern was plunged into a darkness broken only by the faint, dying embers of Valerius's golden circle and the weary glow of Kaito's Sun-Blade.
In the profound silence, the only sound was the ragged breathing of the survivors and the soft, frantic sobs of one of Valerius's mages.
Duke Valerius stood on his platform, staring at the spot where the magnificent Core had been.
His godhood, his empire, his entire reason for being—all had vanished into a tiny, dead stone.
His face, once a mask of arrogant calculation, was now a canvas of utter devastation and creeping madness. "It's... gone?" he mumbled, stumbling forward.
"My power... my throne..." Haruto, leaning heavily on Lyra for support, looked at the broken man.
There was no triumph in his heart, only a deep, weary sadness. "It's over, Valerius."
"Over?" The Duke's head snapped up, his eyes wild. "It is not over! I am the Regent! I am the true power!" He scrambled for a ceremonial dagger at his belt, its blade glowing with a feeble light.
"I will rebuild! I will start anew!" He lunged, not at Haruto, but at the inert Core, as if he could somehow reignite it with his will alone.
But he never reached it.
A figure stepped out of the shadows near the platform. It was King Alistair, freed in the chaos by loyalists or perhaps simply forgotten.
His robes were torn, his crown was missing, but in his hand, he held a solid, unmagical royal guard's sword.
"Your ambition ends here, Usurper," Alistair said, his voice hollow but firm. Valerius laughed, a broken, pathetic sound.
"You? You are a relic! A failure!" "And you are a traitor who would have destroyed the world for a crown," Alistair replied.
With a single, clean thrust, born of a lifetime of repressed fury and shame, he ran the sword through Duke Valerius's chest.
The Usurper gasped, looking down at the blade in disbelief.
He fell to his knees, then crumpled onto the cold stone, his dream of godhood dying with him.
King Alistair dropped the sword, its clatter echoing in the silent cavern. He looked at Haruto, his expression unreadable—a mixture of guilt, regret, and a dawning, horrifying clarity.
"The darkness... was never in you, was it, boy?" he said softly, his gaze falling on the dead Core.
"It was in the throne all along." With that, the former king turned and walked slowly into the darkness of a side tunnel, leaving his kingdom and his sins behind forever.