In that moment, Kamigan no longer resembled anything human.
Standing over the soldiers, he moved and fought with the instincts of a beast—yet his mind drifted elsewhere, locked in unconsciousness.
His body was battered, bleeding, broken. Only the numbing fog of his dreams dulled the pain enough to keep him standing. He did not realize how close he was to falling.
Within the labyrinth of his mind, Kamigan knew nothing of the chaos unfolding around him.
He floated adrift in a vast, silent void, surrounded by a sea of distant stars.
"Where... am I?" he whispered into the emptiness.
"How did I get here? Can I even escape? I have to save them... I have to sa—"
But the memory of Emilia's death surfaced, heavy and cruel. His words caught in his throat.
"I can't save anyone," he muttered. "I can barely even save myself."
As the weight of his failures anchored him deeper into the void, a glimmer caught his eye.
A light, faint at first, growing steadily stronger.
He turned toward it, confused.
"What is that?"
From the darkness emerged a great tree, luminous and immense.
Its roots and branches spread outward like rivers of golden flame.
It glowed with a fierce, yellow brilliance, a sun in the shape of a tree—yet it neither burned nor wavered.
Around it, seven black spheres orbited slowly, each vast enough to eclipse entire worlds.
As Kamigan watched, a heavy presence pressed down on him, and a voice rang out—harsh, countless, and cold, as if a thousand souls spoke at once.
In fear, he thought,
"Is this the same voice Aldric once heard? If it is, then—"
Before he could finish the thought, the voice thundered through the void:
"Thou who hast come too close to the truth shall face appropriate penalty: reconstructing the balance of causality."
Kamigan's heart seized with dread.
"Will I meet the same fate as Aldric?"
But then the voice faltered, twitching, as if confused:
"Unable to reconstruct balance of causality. The being punishment is directed at... does not exist."
Kamigan froze, stunned.
"What... did it just say? 'Does not exist'? Are they saying I... I am no longer real?"
If that were true, he should have already been cast into another time.
Yet he lingered here, unmoving, unclaimed.
"Am I dead?" he wondered.
"Is this the afterlife?"
He almost laughed at the thought, a sound without humor.
"Since when did I start believing in such things..."
Yet the questions gnawed at him.
"If I am not dead, then what is this place? And why would the voice deny my existence?"
As he pondered, the ground beneath him crumbled.
He began to sink—falling, endlessly falling—into the depths of the void.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself sprawled across the desert sands.
The sky above had changed.
It was no longer a gentle night but a swirling storm, heavy and dark.
Kamigan stared upward—and lightning, vast and merciless, split the heavens.
It struck him like a spear hurled by the gods.
Pain, pure and searing, surged through him, tearing a scream from his lungs.
For a moment, he teetered on the edge of consciousness, one breath away from oblivion.
And through the storm, he heard it: a different voice.
It was not the thousand souls.
This one carried weight enough to shatter mountains, a voice of thunder itself:
"I've found him."
At those words, Kamigan finally let go.
He closed his eyes, and in the quiet that followed, peace found him.
"Ahh... maybe this time, I'll truly die," he thought, before the darkness claimed him.
---
---
But that peace did not last long, as in the very next moment, he jolted up, greeted by pain and stinging all over his body. When he fully came back to his senses, he found himself in a fighting stance. Looking around, he realized he was in Thornbarrow, surrounded by flames and destruction.
Standing before him was a man holding a longsword with two cutting edges. The sword's handle was completely black, looking as though it was coated in fine silk, and its blade didn't have the look of metal — it was completely white, like snow. The man was clad in black attire and wore black gloves that left the upper parts of his fingers exposed. He too was in a fighting stance.
This man was David Lancaster, the leader of the Phantom Scourge. He had steady black eyes that stared directly at Kamigan, and shoulder-length blond hair. His tall, slender figure gave him an imposing presence.
Looking at Kamigan, he said, "What was with that last attack?"
Kamigan's face twisted in confusion. (Last attack? What's he talking about?) he wondered.
But Lancaster continued, "The look in your eyes has changed too. It's less deadly now. And even though it was little, I could still sense essence from you."
Kamigan said, "Huh? Essence? What's that?" (Is this guy crazy? He's just been mumbling on since—)
As Kamigan tried to take one more step forward, immense pain rushed through his body. He collapsed to his knees, coughing out blood.
—
---
And Lancaster said, "Huh, you've finally fallen. You were a worthy opponent. I'll remember you as long as I live."
Kamigan looked up at Lancaster, wondering to himself, Why am I in such bad condition? Is it because I was fighting this guy? But... I don't even have a memory of how I got here.
As Kamigan drifted deeper into his thoughts, Lancaster raised his sword, ready to behead him at any moment. Lancaster spoke, "This is a cursed technique. Whoever dies by it is said to suffer ten thousand deaths. I don't know if it's true or not... but I wish you could tell me."
Kamigan looked at him and replied, "Yeah... but perhaps in the next lifetime."
Lancaster smiled and said, "No, in the next ten thousand."
The air became still. The winds calmed. The screams faded into nothing. Everywhere fell into dead silence.
Lancaster held his sword directly over his head, took a deep breath, exhaled cold air, and said,
"Mystic Blade, Second Form: Silent Hymn of the Abyss."
His sword fell in a single, clean strike at an incredible speed.
As the blade approached, memories flashed through Kamigan's mind—of the time he spent with Dr. Aldric and his family. In his mind, he thought, In the end... I couldn't save them.
In a beautiful, immaculate arc, the sword beheaded Kamigan. As his head touched the floor, the wave of the slash continued, slicing the entire village cleanly in two.