I staggered.

  The weight of it hit all at once — the endless attempts, the merciless grind, the countless failures stacked on top of each other like a debt I'd just finished paying. My mind felt wrung out, barely holding itself together.

  Then the notification appeared.

  [Quest Complete!]

  [Rewards: Divinity Increased, 50,000 Faith Points, Excalibur, Hero Ashkart's Memories, Key to the Tear.]

  I stared at it for a moment. Then forced myself upright, bones protesting, head spinning.

  Keep moving.

  I cast [Preserve] on Ashkart's body first. Quietly, without ceremony. His remains weren't going to rot in this corridor — not after everything. He deserved better than that. A hero's rest, at minimum.

  I looked at his face. That faint smile still there, even now.

  Why are you smiling like that?

  Like he'd left the world satisfied. Like he'd seen something in our fight that gave him peace about what came after.

  …I'm sorry, Ashkart.

  I wasn't here for noble reasons. I wasn't here to save humanity or fulfill some divine destiny or carry the weight of the world on principle. I had ugly, selfish reasons for being here, and every one of them was still true.

  He was pure. I'm not.

  I wondered, distantly, if I was thinking as Yoo-ra right now and not as Josephine. Josephine would have taken a title like Saint or Champion and wielded it like a weapon — demanding love, admiration, loyalty, everything her family had withheld. But I knew too well that the hollow worship she'd craved was a lie. I didn't want it.

  I pushed the thought down and kept walking.

  The corridor stretched ahead toward the Tear, the silence thick enough to drown in. My spirit felt like it was teetering on the edge of something.

  "So," a voice said behind me. "You really defeated Ashkart."

  Almodey. Standing there with that twisted smile of his, eyes gleaming with something that made my instincts prickle.

  "I had my doubts," he said, grin widening. "But here you are. Having slain that monster."

  Something coiled around my feet.

  I looked down. Chains of miasma — heavy, suffocating, pulling tight before I could react.

  What the—

  "Thank you," Almodey said pleasantly, "for ridding us of that nuisance." His face began to warp, features melting into something inhuman. "Now hand over the key. Without Ashkart, my plan to conquer the empire will finally be—"

  A fist connected with the side of his head with a crack that echoed through the corridor.

  Amarok lowered her hand, completely deadpan. "You thought that was a good idea? Picking a fight when she's barely standing?"

  "Ouch!" Almodey whined, clutching his skull. "I was only trying to lighten the mood!"

  "That was your idea of lightening the mood."

  "…Well—"

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  She hit him again.

  "The chains only seal the pain," she said, turning to me and crossing her arms. "They don't make it go away. Get it together. You're going to be a liability at this rate."

  The chains dissolved. The pain pulled back to a manageable hum. My vision cleared.

  I looked at both of them. "If we're done with the theatrics."

  We moved through the corridor together, each step heavy with what was coming. As we walked, Almodey and Amarok filled in pieces I hadn't known — Ashkart's vigil, the battles he'd fought alone to keep the darkness from bleeding past the barrier, the sheer willpower it had taken to hold that line for decades without rest, without relief, without anyone knowing.

  "We owe everything to him," Amarok said quietly, her usual energy subdued. "Without Ashkart, this world would've—"

  The corridor ended.

  And I stopped.

  The Tear.

  I'd been bracing for something dramatic — a cosmic glow, a portal, some gateway framed with ancient power. What I got instead was a literal gash in reality. A wound in the fabric of everything, edges gnashing like jaws, the void beyond it hungry and absolute.

  "Ah," Almodey murmured, reaching out to touch the barrier around it. Ripples shimmered across the surface. "My old nemesis. We meet again."

  "O' blessed one, do you wish to—"

  "Stop calling me that," I said flatly.

  Amarok raised her hands in surrender, grinning. "Alright, alright. Josephine."

  We took our positions.

  I pressed the Key against the barrier. Power surged immediately — a violent pulse crackling through the air, the barrier humming as it absorbed the Key and vanished.

  Thick, vile miasma erupted from the Tear at once.

  "Protection spells!" I called.

  Everyone cast simultaneously. A dome sealed around us, holding off the worst of it.

  Beside me, rune marks blazed across Amarok's skin — ancient symbols lighting up as she chanted, dropped to one knee, the power running through her like a live wire. Mechanus was already moving, Angelus steadying himself with his staff, both of them flexing into their prepared forms.

  I pushed through the stack of buffs, protections, area effects — everything the Akashic Records could provide, laid out in sequence across all of them.

  Amarok glanced over with something that looked almost like genuine awe. "To think you'd surpass the Four Sages when it comes to magic."

  Mechanus nodded. "Truly the gods' chosen."

  "Stop," I said. "You're wasting time."

  Amarok's expression shifted, something quieter moving behind her eyes. "You've been through hell, haven't you."

  "Don't look at me like that."

  "Josephine." Angelus's voice was gentle. He put a hand on my back, and I didn't shrug it off. "We know. We tried to defeat Ashkart ourselves, once. We failed every time." A pause. "You didn't."

  I staggered slightly as the exhaustion hit again — knees shaking, body reminding me it had technically died more times than I could count. The others moved in around me, steady, not making a production of it.

  "We're here," Amarok said simply. She looked at the Tear. "We're ready."

  I steeled myself.

  "Amarok — now!"

  She crushed the runes with a battle cry, form expanding, massive. She grabbed what remained of the barrier like a boulder and hurled it straight at the Tear.

  "Mechanus, thrusters!"

  Mechanus converted our protective dome into something that moved — engines igniting, propelling us forward in a direct charge. We braced. The momentum built.

  Then an invisible force slammed us back.

  "Angelus—!"

  "Divine Descent!"

  His body ignited with divine energy, eyes sparking like lightning, hair blazing with unearthly light. The glow expanded outward—

  [Tyr responds to the call of his follower!]

  A pillar of light crashed down and Tyr manifested beside us, radiant and grinning, brown hair absolutely ridiculous with divine energy, blue eyes glowing. He took one look at me and immediately pulled me into a hug like I was some kind of precious stuffed animal.

  "JOSEPHINE! I've waited so long to meet you in person! You're even cuter up close!"

  [Xipe: TYR YOU FUCKING BASTARD I'LL KILL YOU WHEN YOU GET BACK HERE]

  [Hecatia: Sweetheart, step away from Tyr before I turn him into dust when he returns~ ?]

  [The remaining gods are registering their protests in the background.]

  "Um," I said, muffled against his shoulder. "Tyr."

  [Due to Tyr's influence, all divine interferences are nullified!]

  "Don't mind them!" he said cheerfully, waving at the chorus of furious gods. "They're just jealous I get to descend first." He set me down and his expression shifted — just slightly — into something serious. "Now. Since I'm here in the flesh, I'll need a small fee."

  I stared at him. "A fee."

  "Just one thing!" He beamed. "Call me Uncle Tyr. Just once."

  [ERROR. ERROR. WARNING — SYSTEM OVERLOADING]

  "JUST SAY IT, JOSEPHINE." Almodey's voice cracked from behind me, straining. "I CANNOT HOLD THIS MUCH LONGER—"

  "FINE." I took a breath. "Uncle Tyr. Please help us."

  [SYSTEM OVERLOAD. System hibernating…]

  The grin that split Tyr's face could have lit up the entire capital. "Anything for my darling niece!"

  He materialized a sword — massive, glowing blue, divine — and swung it at the Tear with a force that sent shockwaves through the entire space, tearing a gaping hole in what had been impenetrable.

  "ALMODEY, NOW!"

  Almodey unleashed the beam from his spell circle without a word, piercing straight toward the heart of the Tear.

  Everything aligned.

  The universe held its breath.

  And I leaped directly into the Tear's path.