Years later, Caelum Dross vanished.
No obituary. No trace. Only stories. In forgotten libraries and ink-scrawled journals, revolutionaries still whisper his name, unsure if he was ever real—or simply a spell someone dared to believe in.
The traitor still walks, older now, quieter. He sleeps with lights on. Mirrors covered.
And sometimes, in dreams, the devil visits him again.
"You were lucky," she says. "He let you live."
Across the sea, a scholar writes a book titled Ash as Justice: The Myth of Caelum Dross. Inside it, one paragraph flickers with clarity:
He did not rewrite the world. He shattered its illusions. And in doing so, gave truth a shape that could burn and heal at once.
The devil watches from whatever realm she hails. She smiles, slowly.
"That was my favorite deal."
But even she knows this truth—
Caelum Dross didn't sell his soul.
He forged it into a blade.
Then turned, one last time, toward light.