The world did not end with fire.
It ended with relief.
The Demon Gate collapsed inward without spectacle or resistance. The sky closed over itself where reality had once been torn apart, seams fading until there was nothing left to mark where damnation had clawed its way into the world. The land exhaled. The wind softened. Far away, birds circled hesitantly, as if uncertain whether they were allowed to exist again.
Only ruins remained.
Cracked stone. Melted steel. Hills split apart by weapons that no longer existed.
And at the center of it all—
A single boy.
He stood where the Gate had been, knees locked, spine straight through sheer refusal alone. Now that the work was finished, his body shook uncontrollably. Every breath scraped raw through his chest. Blood dried dark against his skin, clinging to his hair, soaking what remained of his coat.
At his feet rested the box.
Unchanged.
Untouched.
Everything else—every traced blade, every manifested miracle, every authority dragged into the world by force—had vanished the moment the Gate sealed. The cards were gone. The power was gone.
The Archer card had burned out silently.
He had felt it leave.
Not violently.
Not painfully.
Just… empty.
For the first time since Lust, there was nothing installed within him.
He was human again.
And humanity had come for him.
They arrived cautiously.
Scouts first. Survivors emerging from hiding. Soldiers wearing armor hastily repaired from scraps, holding weapons that looked pitiful against the scars of the battlefield. They stared from a distance, whispering, pointing, arguing among themselves.
Some fell to their knees when they saw the sealed land.
Some wept.
Others stared at the boy with naked fear.
Then the leaders came.
Kings who had lost armies. Priests whose prayers had gone unanswered. Scholars who had watched the laws of nature bend, shatter, and reform around a single existence.
They did not approach him immediately.
They argued.
Voices overlapped. Fear dressed itself as reason. Consensus formed not through justice—but through terror.
Because no one could deny the truth.
The Demon Gate was gone.
The Seven were gone.
But the one who had fought them still stood.
A boy who had wielded weapons no forge had created.
A boy who had carried the authority of heroes before heroes had names.
A boy who had survived what no human body should have endured.
He watched them gather without moving.
Did not plead.
Did not explain.
He already knew.
When they finally approached, boots crunched against broken stone. Spears were leveled. Bows were drawn. Priests clutched charms that trembled uselessly in their hands.
An older man stepped forward, authority heavy on his shoulders.
"By decree of humanity," he said, voice steady only through effort, "you are to stand trial."
The boy blinked once.
"For what?" he asked.
The man hesitated.
"For endangering the world."
A faint breath escaped the boy—almost a laugh.
A scholar stepped forward, eyes wild with awe and fear. "You wielded power beyond the natural order. You bent laws that had not yet been written."
A priest cut in sharply. "You crossed the boundary between man and the forbidden."
A soldier shouted, "You could have become another Gate!"
The accusations piled up.
The boy listened.
Then nodded.
"I did," he said simply.
Silence fell.
They had not expected agreement.
"I wielded power that shouldn't exist," he continued. "I survived things no human should survive. I ended threats you couldn't."
He looked at them—really looked.
"But I'm still human."
That was the wrong answer.
Fear surged instantly.
Human meant possible.
Possible meant repeatable.
Repeatable meant uncontrollable.
The leader swallowed. "That," he said quietly, "is precisely the problem."
The sentence came without ceremony.
Without appeal.
"The world cannot afford another you."
The boy closed his eyes.
Not in despair.
In understanding.
"So that's it," he murmured. "You're afraid."
No one denied it.
"You're not killing me because I failed," he said softly. "You're killing me because I succeeded."
They bound him.
Rough rope bit into torn wrists. He did not resist. There was nothing left to summon. No steel answered him now.
As they led him away, he glanced back once.
The land was quiet.
Peaceful.
The box remained behind, half-buried in stone, unnoticed amid relief and fear alike.
It waited.
The execution was public.
A scaffold raised hastily from broken timber and stone. Crowds gathered—survivors, refugees, soldiers, families saved by a world that still existed.
They looked at him with conflicted eyes.
Some with hatred.
Some with gratitude.
Most with fear.
Charges were read that did not quite fit.
Crimes declared that had no precedent.
Laws invoked that had not existed when he broke them.
The boy stood quietly as the sentence was pronounced.
Death.
For the sake of humanity.
As they placed him at the center, a voice broke from the crowd.
"He saved us!"
The executioner hesitated.
The leader raised a hand.
"He did," the man said loudly. "And that is why he must die."
The logic was absolute.
If salvation required monsters—
Then monsters could not be allowed to live.
The boy met the executioner's eyes.
"Do it," he said calmly.
The blade fell.
There was no miracle.
No resistance.
No last defiance.
Steel met flesh.
The world did not tremble.
His body collapsed.
The crowd did not cheer.
They did not mourn.
They dispersed slowly, carrying with them a world that would continue—clean, intact, and built upon a choice they would never name.
When the scaffold stood empty and the land grew quiet once more, only one thing remained untouched.
The box.
Waiting.