"What… what are you saying?" Elif's voice broke like a branch under frost. "Where are you going?"
Icariel didn't answer at first.
His eyes… they weren't his anymore. They were voids. The same haunted hollows he wore when he'd murdered the royal advisor.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't stay here. I shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place. These are matters far beyond me. I did what I could. That's all I had."
He turned. His shadow stretched long behind him—stained in blood not his own.
Elif reached out, a half-step forward. "Hey! What are you—"
"Elif." Elena raised a hand.
The girl froze mid-word.
Elena didn't speak right away. She looked at him—really looked. Into the boy's face, pale from blood loss and burden. His body was healed now, but not his soul. Not the pain of being needed beyond reason. Not the guilt of surviving when he never meant to be anyone's hero.
She saw it. And she understood.
Her silver eyes shimmered with grief and gratitude. "Icariel," she said, her voice thin as thread. "I understand."
Icariel blinked. His body swayed like he'd been struck anew.
She lowered her head again in a gesture so rare among elves it could've shattered protocol.
"Thank you, Icariel. Again. If we survive this… if fate ever allows us to meet again… I'll do whatever I can for you. Anything. You saved my daughter's life not once but three times. You saved me. You saved my husband. You fought battles you didn't start. Solved problems you never caused. And you asked for nothing in return."
Her voice trembled. Not with fear—but with truth too raw to shield.
"You came here for a reward. A simple gesture of gratitude. And instead, you gave more than we could repay. You overdid yourself for a battle that was never yours."
She raised her head now. One silver tear had pooled—but it did not fall. Her voice, though heavy, was resolute.
"So I say this, from the deepest part of my heart: may you live, and live long. May you be well, wherever you go. Again… thank you."
Silence.
Even the wind held its breath.
"…Mom," Elif whispered, her hand at her chest.
Around them, the royal guards shifted uneasily—battle-hardened men looking suddenly hollowed, their eyes not on the sky, but on the quiet boy before them.
Icariel's head lowered. His hair veiled his eyes.
"…Thanks for feeding me," he muttered. "And taking care of me. And for not asking questions I wasn't ready to answer. I won't forget it."
Then he turned away.
The parting had no grandeur. No speech. No orchestral flourish.
Just the soft crunch of his footsteps moving toward the far end of the cliff—toward the direction he'd first come from. Toward the place where the forest's edge still shimmered faintly with mana from the last portal.
Calven, stepped aside. He nodded once, firm and respectful.
Icariel nodded back.
He walked with steady breath, though his stomach felt hollow. Not with fear. Not anymore. But something colder—something that almost ached.
Then he stopped. Turned slightly.
"You can come with me," he said, voice flat. "We can go somewhere safe. Once things settle here, you could come back."
Elena smiled faintly.
"No," she replied. "We've run long enough. It's time we stood with Aelar—and with our people."
Her hand brushed her daughter's hair. "Don't you agree?"
Elif nodded, though her lips were pale.
"…As you wish," Icariel murmured. He bit his lip.
No one followed. Only the wind, still heavy with ash and faint magic, moved with him.
Inside his mind, he called the voice.
"I'll always choose myself," he whispered inwardly. "I know that. But still…"
His teeth clenched.
"…I feel like shit right now."
The voice replied without cruelty.
"That's what it means to survive. Regret, pain, guilt—these are the shadows of staying alive. But you chose right. Your life takes priority. You've done more than enough. You earned what this place could offer you."
But then—
Just as Icariel's foot reached the stone lip where he would leap and run—
Fwip.
Something fell and pulsed.
Something appeared.
Right in front of him. A small, glowing blue orb.
The same kind that opened the portal that brought out the Yetis. The one that had summoned the second horror.
A breath caught in his throat.
"…What?"
Fwwooom.
The orb cracked, and a portal roared open. Blue and bright. It shimmered with unstable energy, humming like a beast trying not to wake.
Icariel stepped back in a clean, reflexive jump—landing beside Elif, Elena, and the royal guards.
"Get ready," he said coldly. "This isn't good. This isn't right."
He stared at the shattered orb and the newly appeared portal. No one had touched it. No one had thrown it.
"Who dropped this?" he muttered. "How—how the hell did this get here?"
He gritted his teeth. His fingers curled, white-knuckled.
Something was wrong.
He could feel it deep in his gut, where fear lived quiet and ancient.
But just before the blue light could swallow everything—Up above, the storm of battle cracked louder than thunder.
And in that moment—In the sky—Something was said between Virethiel and Aelar.
And with it—something was revealed.
Something they said to the invader that led to disaster.
Just moments before Icariel turned his back on the Elena and Elif above the white castle, the battle in the sky surged anew.
A blur of shadows and silver light—Virethiel reappeared behind the invader. Her blade hissed through the air, aimed at the back of his neck.
But he was ready.
Again.
He turned too fast, caught her strike mid-swing—and kicked.
Her body snapped sideways, a silver streak spiraling across the air like a broken star. She smashed through a tree-sized pillar of ice still floating from the earlier skirmish.
"Damn," she groaned, twisting mid-air to slow herself. "I'm still not used to floating magic while attacking. But… at least I bought some time…"
Before the words had fully formed in her mind, Aelar appeared in a blur. Faster than thought.
The invader's eyes—those hellish orange eyes—widened.
Aelar's borrowed blade was already buried in the invader's shoulder.
It wasn't a killing blow. Not deep enough. But it was blood.
Real blood.
"So you bleed after all," Aelar said, smiling—a mocking, wolfish thing.
The invader snarled.
Still impaled, he moved like a shadow coiled tight. His arm snapped forward, leg thrusting out—a sharp, brutal kick straight into Aelar's gut.
The elf grunted as the blow slammed him backward. Pain surged through his ribs like a cracking shell, but his grip didn't falter—he ripped the sword free as he fell away.
Blood splattered into the wind.
And yet—the invader smiled again. The blade had left a mark, but not enough.
"All that," the invader hissed,"for a pitiful scratch."
Then his voice twisted—like something laughing with its throat slit.
"Why are you even fighting?" he asked. "I already told you. It's over. Your home is rotting from within. Your home roots are choked with traitors."
Virethiel reappeared beside Aelar, clutching her ribs where his earlier strike had landed.
Her face paled. "What is he talking about?" she asked via telepathy.
Aelar hesitated.
Then replied, slowly.
"…The reason I dropped my guard before. The reason I let him get that hit on me—it wasn't just the injury. My mana was depleting fast. Too fast. I couldn't hold my Vital Surge. But…"
He hesitated.
"…He said something. Something impossible. That our royal adviser—our most trusted brain—was working with them."
Silence.
He shook his head, as if trying to throw off the thought. "It was ridiculous. I didn't believe it. But somehow… I let my guard down for a second."
A pause.
"It's true," Virethiel said, her voice a whisper in his mind.
Aelar froze.
"…What?"
"He was the traitor. I only found out a moment ago. It… it shook me too. But it's been resolved."
"How?"
She didn't speak it through thought.
She said it aloud—voice echoing through the sky like a blade dropped in a cathedral.
"Your human disciple… killed him."
It was pure shock.
Aelar's mind fractured at the edges.
The invader laughed again, teeth bared. "Are you coming or not?" he sneered. "It's two against one. Have the elves grown this cowardly since I last buried one?"
But he was cut off—by laughter.
Not his own.
It came from Aelar.
Real laughter. Deep. Uncontainable. He threw his head back, palm to his face.
Even the invader blinked.
"Princess," Aelar said between laughs, "Are you sure?"
"Yes," Virethiel said with a proud, pained smile.
Aelar howled. "I don't care about the details," he gasped. "But that brat—that odd little brat—outdid me again…"
He lowered his hand.
His green eyes, narrowed through his fingers, were deadly serious now.
"Shut up, bastard," he said. "I've got good news."
"Oh? What news could possibly—?"
"You said the Tree of Life fragment would soon be yours. That even if you did nothing, it would come to you. Because our adviser was working for you."
The invader's grin froze.
"Well guess what," Aelar said, stepping forward. "The same brat who stopped your punch—meant to kill me and my daughter like it was nothing—killed your inside man."
The invader's expression finally cracked. Realization hit like ice-water.
"That… that's not possible," he muttered.
Virethiel stepped forward.
"Oh, he also killed the Yeti warriors you snuck in through your portal." She pointed to the ruined castle doors. "And that girl down there—your precious red-and-yellow pawn? He beat her too. Alone."
She smiled, thin and sharp as a blade. "Quite the performance for a non-elf. Wouldn't you agree?"
"…For real?" Aelar asked, turning to her with disbelief.
"He had my help. But yes. No doubt—he was our cannon in this battle."
Aelar exhaled slowly.
"…That fool. That death-obsessed fool." He smiled. "But maybe that obsession is what saved us all."
Yet they had made one fatal mistake. They said too much.
The invader said nothing.
Then, slowly, he reached into his pocket.
Pulled out his hand.
And showed them three blue orbs.
Virethiel's heart stopped.
She recognized them instantly—the same void-glass orbs embedded in the Crog's skull that opened the first portal.
"No—"
"Thanks for the update," the invader said. "If I'd known Plan A had failed, I'd have started Plan B earlier."
His eyes darkened.
"And now, I have a new name on my list."
He looked down.
Toward the castle.
Toward the boy walking away.
"Icariel."
"MASTER, STOP HIM!" Virethiel shrieked, her body lunging forward, arms outstretched, hair fanned in desperation.
But he was faster.
He turned his hand down—
—and dropped the orbs.
"One," he said.
"Two."
"Too late."
"NO!" Virethiel shrieked, her voice breaking the sky.
Below—
Icariel stopped as the orbs fell at his feet.