"Lumine!!!"Von, Elias, Wendy, and Joseph cried out in unison.
But Lumine… didn't respond. Her eyes no longer held recognition.That timid, warm light in her gaze—gone.
The dark winged man leaned close to her ear, voice like a venomous wind."Kill them all."
A black aura erupted around her, swirling like smoke and forming an armor that pulsed with malevolent energy. Her once golden eyes flared into a blinding crimson—cold, unfeeling.
Von's heart cracked."Is this… how it ends again?"
He dropped to his knees, the weight of 99 lives crashing down on his shoulders."Why…?"
Then—Lumine moved.In a single, flawless motion, she dashed toward Von, a dark spear forming in her hand. The tip pulsed, aimed straight for his heart.
"CLANG!!"
Sparks flew. The spear was stopped—an axe caught it mid-strike.
Joseph.
"Get it together, Von!" Joseph growled, teeth clenched. "She's not the Lumine we knew anymore!"
But there was no time to recover.
Lumine snarled—a sound not her own—and slammed her hand to the ground. Black spikes shot up from the earth beneath Joseph, aiming to impale him.
"Hands of Blank!" Wendy's voice rang out.
Invisible forces gripped both Von and Joseph, yanking them away just in time. A dozen jagged spikes tore through the ground where they'd stood.
Wendy stumbled from the exertion but kept her focus."She's faster than before… stronger, too."
Elias wasted no time. She flipped forward, twin daggers drawn. Her silhouette blurred as she rushed in, a whirlwind of movement.
"Come on then! I always wanna know who's stronger!" Elias shouted, clashing blades with Lumine.
Sparks lit the darkened field as dagger met spear.Their fight was fierce—Lumine's strikes were ruthless, inhuman. Elias barely kept up, ducking and parrying as the corrupted girl moved like a storm incarnate.
Behind them, Von stood back up—his eyes dull with heartbreak, yet burning with something deeper.
This wasn't the end.
Not yet.
---
On the other side of the battlefield...
As Lumine's fury kept Von and his allies occupied, the dark-winged man strolled calmly, his steps deliberate.
"Well," he mused aloud, the wind swirling his cloak of shadows,"Now that the distractions are out of the way... how about another friendly fight, Evengalion?"
The golden radiant man—Evengalion—gritted his teeth, blood still seeping from the wound in his chest.
"$@%#@$, what have my creations ever done to you? Why all this?" he asked, his voice heavy with sorrow.
The dark-winged one smirked, unfurling twin blades pulsing with chaotic aura."That's irrelevant. What matters is this—you need to die... so I can become the true Lord of this world."
Without hesitation, the archangels leapt to protect Evengalion.One by one, they fell—sliced through, shattered, disintegrated. Their divine forms were no match for the dark-winged man's overwhelming power.
They weren't fighting to win.They were stalling—for him.For Evengalion.
But each death carved deeper grief into the golden god's soul.
"No more," he whispered. "I won't watch this again."
He raised a trembling hand."With The Authority Above All: Restart!"
A blinding sphere of runes circled his body, shimmering with ancient code.It was a spell forged not for himself—but for Von.A safeguard. A reset.
It would end this cycle and start anew... again.
But using it came at a cost.
As the spell activated, Evengalion's divine form began to glitch—like broken light, reality splitting at his edges.His golden glow dimmed. His wings burned away.From his fracturing body, another being began to form—an identical version, split from the source.
He was sacrificing himself.
"No!!" the dark-winged man screamed. In desperation, he hurled a spear of condensed dark energy straight at Evengalion's skull.
It hit.
His head burst into radiant fragments. His body collapsed.
But it was already done.The new version of Evengalion stood, eyes wide open, heart still beating—carrying forward the essence without the divine burden.
All around them, the world began to fade—like sunlight dissolving a nightmare.The broken battlefield, the sky torn by light and shadow, even the screams… vanished.
The cycle did not end with Von's death.This time, Evengalion died for him.
"Fuck you, Evengalion!!" the voice of the dark-winged man echoed in the collapsing space."This isn't over!"
---
Silence.
A breeze blew gently across Von's face under a soft morning sun.
Von opened his eyes.
"…I'm back again," he said quietly, staring at the ceiling.