The nerve-grating sound of something scratching dragged Leon from the depths of memory. The recollection vanished like incense smoke.
His blood-hazed vision now held only a familiar tattered cloak instead of the monk’s weathered face. A black insect, nearly invisible against the black fabric, crawled steadily toward Veronica’s still form.
Leon brushed it away, then pulled the shrouded woman deeper into his embrace. His touch was tenderly possessive, like a lover drawing his beloved closer beneath the bedsheets.
He had decided that, until his final breath escaped his lips, nothing would touch her—not even if divine providence itself reached out with spectral fingers. This death was his alone to claim, for which he bore absolute responsibility. No force in heaven or hell could interfere or intervene.
What I’ve claimed, I won’t surrender. Not unless you rise up yourself and demand to be released from my grasp.
Leon recognized the madness in his thoughts, and his lips curved into a ghastly smile. As he tilted his head back, the pallid moonlight struck his face with blinding intensity.
Time had become a broken hourglass. Had three weeks nearly passed, or was the end still distant?
When his consciousness returned between waves of agony as his entrails twisted within him, sometimes daylight filtered through the cavern entrance, sometimes stars. Sometimes reality itself seemed a fevered hallucination. Yet the excruciating pain remained his one constant companion. Blood seeped from his pores as though his very skin had been flayed from his flesh, and strength had abandoned him, as if every bone in his body had been pulverized to dust. The sensation of his intestines being wrung like wet linen sent him thrashing, his limbs contorting in grotesque angles, trapping him in a thick and suffocating darkness. End me. Just end this torment. He had ground those words between his teeth countless times, but fate cruelly denied him his only desire.
This was the price for three miraculous weeks of borrowed life. The divine punishment exceeded even his darkest expectations.
Even as death seemed imminent, release remained tantalizingly beyond reach. Whoever first spoke of “pain worse than death” had uttered literal truth. His numerous attempts at self-destruction had brought not sweet oblivion but only fresh torments. The searing heat that carved through him like a reaper’s scythe forced him to endure every agony a mortal vessel could bear. He vomited blood, his flesh withered, his bones liquefied within him, and yet the spark of life refused to be extinguished.
If mere existence could be called living.
Leon’s gaze drifted downward. A slain Bahamut, its head twisted at an impossible angle, was being methodically devoured by carrion insects. Its hollow crimson eyes seemed to cast an almost sorrowful gaze in his direction, as if whispering that he had already descended into the abyss. He was trapped in a pit with countless corpses, drowning in a lake of blood, shackled so he could never again breach the surface and draw breath.
But then, what about Veronica? he thought deliriously. Is she still waiting alone in that endless snowfield?
For a heartbeat, a vision flashed before him—a wind-swept expanse of pristine snow and a delicate silhouette viewed from behind. He saw a city reduced to ashes and a woman sitting alone, arms wrapped around herself in solitary comfort. After weeping for what seemed an eternity, she raised her head. Finally sensing his approach, she began to turn. But just before their eyes could meet, the momentarily subdued agony surged back with vengeful fury, shredding the vision.
Leon’s teeth ground together as he hunched his broad shoulders. The arm cradling Veronica trembled violently against his will.
His dying brain betrayed him—he could no longer recall with perfect clarity how her expression looked when he would memorize her features before each battle. He couldn’t remember how her eyes flashed when she muttered “liar,” whether her eyes crinkled at the corners when she laughed, or if just the edges of her lips would curve upward. Panic clawed at him. He yearned for her with desperate intensity—just one more glimpse of her living face. He would gladly endure this infernal torment for eternity if he could behold her just once more.
Yes, her physical form rested in his arms, but what he craved wasn’t her mere appearance but her laughter, her indignant complaints, and her whispered confessions in the dark. He wanted the living essence of their love.
His twisted hand scraped against stone, tendons standing out like cords beneath his skin. Leon summoned his remaining strength and rose slowly to his feet. With Veronica’s shrouded form cradled in one arm and his sword gripped in the other, he took a single agonizing step. Blood splashed beneath his boot, and his wounds screamed in protest. He neither flinched nor acknowledged the pain. He walked with unwavering determination, bearing his precious burden toward the source of that ethereal white light—to the sacred resting place of Genesis.
Only upon reaching the gleaming divine blade did Leon gently lay Veronica beside him. She rested before the kneeling knight, blissfully unaware of the sacrilege about to unfold.
Even in his deteriorated state, Leon recognized the madness of his intention. Though the rational part of his mind had fractured, enough cognition remained to understand the magnitude of his transgression. This was the desperate gambit of a soul who had turned its back on divinity and plummeted to the darkest depths. Success wasn’t guaranteed—far from it.
But despite his knightly honor and the last whispers of piety warning him against this path, Leon knew he had no choice but to try.
Why didn’t I think of this sooner?
Nothing contained more raw life force than a consecrated blade that had devoured its masters for over a millennium.
“Pope Ilias desecrated dozens of holy relics to harness the divine power sealed within them. Such sacrilege can hardly be called miraculous.”
“…I don’t care,” Leon muttered, raising Apocalypse high above his head before plunging it downward in a perfect arc. An unholy metallic shriek echoed through the cavern as if the sword itself cried out in anguish. Leon’s face remained a stone mask as he lifted his blade and brought it crashing down upon Genesis again with savage force. While the merciless execution of the sacred weapon continued, the corpses of fallen Bahamuts formed a silent audience, their lifeless eyes witnessing this final heresy.
The two divine blades had clashed in battle many times before, but this confrontation was fundamentally different. First, Genesis was now masterless; second, Apocalypse was not merely wielded by its chosen knight but had the cross necklace wrapped around its core; and finally, Leon was targeting not the hallowed white blade but the lion-embossed hilt.
He was shattering God’s sword and desecrating a divine artifact. Leon understood the consequences better than any living soul. He, a paladin anointed by holy oil, was deliberately destroying the church’s final sacred relic, when even the most hardened heretic would hesitate before such blasphemy. Through the shower of sparks erupting from the tortured metal, the sacred oath he had sworn at his ordination ceremony resonated in his mind like an accusation.
I, Leon Berg, swear before the sanctuary of the Holy One who sanctifies us…
The metallic shriek continued.
That I shall uphold God’s commandments throughout my mortal days and pledge unwavering loyalty to His anointed priests…
Leon continued his savage assault, his face expressionless.
That I shall shield the innocent, bow before no false idols, and dedicate my remaining breath solely to His divine purpose…
Finally, something cracked.
That my gaze shall forever remain fixed upon His glory alone.
What shattered wasn’t merely metal, but the foundation of his former existence. For her sake, Leon had forsaken his most sacred vows. He had pledged his knight’s oath to a new deity.
In reflection, Veronica had been like a solitary ray of sunshine piercing the coldest winter day. She was a precious ember of warmth that had found him when he lay curled against the biting cold, when he was sprawled in a pit, dying without even the awareness of his impending doom.
Her sudden radiance had felt foreign, driving him to retreat into familiar shadows time and again—yet without her light, he would have perished in that eternal winter. The soul saved that fateful day hadn’t been hers, but his own. He had never truly been her savior, not once—at least not until this moment.
Finally, the seemingly impervious lion’s head began to fracture. Rather than waiting, Leon struck once more with renewed determination. A spiderweb of fissures spread beyond the sculpted mane, consuming the entire hilt like a creeping plague. Then, astonishingly, the handle of Apocalypse also began to fracture in sympathetic response, as if the two divine weapons shared a mystical connection. Then the lion ornament crumbled completely to dust, revealing beneath it a blade of such pristine whiteness it resembled crystallized moonlight. Brilliant radiance erupted from both liberated swords, bathing the cavern in blinding light.
A tremendous surge of primordial life force enveloped the two figures. It was the final miracle—one that would remain forever unrecorded in the annals of holy scripture.