The Goddess's Might Saves the World - Chapter 10 - Part 4

Ultimate Embrace and Cosmic Sealing
—When the Divine embraces the darkness with her heart, even the universe trembles.
Silence fell upon the center of the cosmos, yet a stain of darkness still writhed.
It was Nyar’s final form—the “Core of the Dream-Embryo,”
a formless maternal shadow, unfurling countless thread-like tendrils,
like snakes, like wind, like a mirror of memory,
twisting and struggling beneath the Divine Flame.
“I am the immortal Mother Dream;
even the Light shall eventually grow weary.
O Flame, you are merely the rebellious child in my embrace!”
Nyar’s voice arrived simultaneously from multiple dimensions,
carrying both lament and curse.
Her form began to swell,
devouring the stellar remnants previously purified by the Flame,
transforming into a jet-black planet,
slowly rotating in the lightless abyss.
The Goddess stood upon the crest of a ring of stars,
her platinum hair cascading like flowing clouds.
Though cracks marred her body,
the Flame still pulsed in her sacred center—the final heart of the universe.
She raised a hand, her fingertips turning to light,
a silent halo spreading from her palm,
each wave causing space itself to quake.
“Mother, you gave birth to all the worlds.
And I shall grant all the worlds their rest.”
She slowly closed her eyes;
light spread outwards from within her body,
the particles of the entire universe began to spin,
as if everything was responding to her pulse.
The Hero’s lingering soul materialized behind her.
He transformed into a pure flame-shadow,
and spoke in a soft voice:
“You don’t seek destruction, but embrace.
I understand now—this is the true nature of the ‘Seal.'”
The Goddess nodded slightly.
She opened her arms, and the torrent of Flame instantly converged on her Divine Core.
In that moment, her stance was like a deity in ancient frescoes:
arms outstretched, the light at her Divine Core was like two suns and moons arising together,
illuminating the very edge of the universe.
“Mother-Flame Style—Unleash.”
The White Flame erupted from her Divine Core.
It was no longer a scorching fire,
but an amalgamation of embrace, gravity, love, and suppression.
The Flame condensed in space into two colossal rings,
forming a “Holy Light Ring Array” between them,
slowly encircling Nyar’s black planet.
Nyar’s thousand eyes opened simultaneously,
each one spewing black lightning,
striking the White Flame Ring and unleashing waves of shock.
“You intend to seal me?
Then let the world fall into the eternal night of dreams alongside me!”
Black and white intertwined,
the boundaries of myriad worlds stretched into fine silk threads,
spatial fissures extended into unseen depths,
stars were torn into fragments,
as the Sea of Light and the Tide of Darkness surged as one.
The Hero’s voice rang out once more,
“She isn’t seeking to destroy now… but to save.”
The Goddess slowly leaned forward,
her arms open—as if to embrace the entire universe.
The flame in her Divine Core vibrated at a high frequency,
light refracting into countless arcs,
each arc corresponding to a law of existence:
Life, Death, Dream, Truth, Fire, Heart, Light, Dark, Divine.
“Ultimate—Embrace Suppression, Activated.”
All sound vanished from heaven and earth.
The Flame Rings began to contract,
the White Flame pressing down upon Nyar’s black star.
The force was not physical, but a compression at the level of the laws of existence—Space was pushed to its critical limit,
and all concepts were squeezed into pure energy.
Nyar roared, her body beginning to shatter,
each fragment dissolving into broken dreams,
swallowed by the brilliant flame-light.
“You cannot! You should not!”
The Goddess merely whispered:
“You are mistaken—it’s not ‘cannot,’
it is ‘must.'”
She bowed her head, using the light and flame in her Divine Core as the core,
her arms circled,
slowly embracing the entirety of Nyar—that star of the unextinguished Mother Dream.
At that moment, the universe seemed to stop.
The flame-light flowed like a sea,
forming a layer of extreme pressure between her and the black star,
the two forces opposing, resonating, and merging—
The White Flame rolled,
the Light Ring vibrated,
The Black Dream disintegrated.
“Ultimate Seal—Commence.”
As the words fell,
the entire universe exploded into an instant of infinite white.
All color vanished, leaving only light.
The light was both gentle and merciless,
both slumber and judgment.
In that eternal instant,
the prologue of world reconstruction
was completely pressed into silence by the divine embrace.
When Light embraces Darkness, even judgment turns into a song.
The cosmos trembled.
The Flame Ring in the Goddess’s sacred center had entirely encompassed Nyar;
white and black intertwined into a helix, as if time itself were burning.
Each ring pattern glittered with different law sigils,
the pulse of life and death, the resonance of dream and truth,
and the most primal “Breath” since Creation.
Yet—Nyar had not surrendered.
The suppressed black Mother Body began to convulse in reverse,
her thousand eyes opened at once,
each one reflecting different universes,
the “Unquenched Dreams” she still controlled.
“You think this is the end?
O Goddess, your embrace is too small to hold the cycle of the Mother Dream!”
Her voice became a thousand roars,
a resonance of planetary collapse, tearing through the layers of flame-light.
The White Flame wavered momentarily.
The Goddess’s brow furrowed,
the light waves in her Divine Core begin to vibrate, refracting light into countless fragments.
The Hero’s soul appeared behind her;
his remnant form reached out and held her shoulder:
“Hold on, you can’t let her seize the rhythm back…”
The Goddess took a deep breath,
her long hair fluttering in the waveless void,
the flame-light flowing along her fingertips into the darkness.
Her voice was low and calm:
“Nyar, you have forgotten.
I too was born from your dream.”
She abruptly clasped her hands together—
The Flame Rings instantly reversed,
all energy focusing inward to the center,
erupting in a great sound that could tear time and space.
It was—”Flame-Ring Collapse.”
The entire sealing array turned into a colossal white sun,
streams of light shooting out, destroying all the black tendrils.
Nyar’s wail echoed throughout the abyss:
“No! You rebellious daughter! I allowed you to exist to continue me, not—!”
Her words were consumed by the Flame.
The white light penetrated the black mist, and her form began to shatter.
Each fragment of the wreckage shrieked and struggled,
turning into black feathers,
which were compressed into the endless Holy Flame in the Goddess’s Divine Core.
The Hero’s soul stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her.
He smiled and whispered, “Is this your answer? Embracing instead of destroying?”
“No,” she replied, her voice soft yet resonating with the cosmos,
“It is sealing fear with love.
If you don’t embrace the darkness, the light will forever remain just a blade.”
She placed her hand over her heart.
The Holy Flame began to slowly contract,
all the energy of the Flame Rings was re-compressed into a single Light Core,
which slowly settled against her heart,
emitting a steady pulse—
“Thump. Thump.”
Nyar’s residual voice still struggled.
“I will be reborn… one day… the Dream will return…”
The Goddess whispered, “Then let the Dream sleep for a while.”
Her arms tightly held the black mist;
the particles of the entire universe paused for this action.
The White Flame surged from her Divine Core,
no longer violent, but a gentle, continuous, and resolute light.
The Hero reached out, merging his soul into that light.
He smiled, “You are no longer alone.”
The light of the two overlapped.
The Flame Core turned into pure white,
the ultimate state merging god and man, light and dark, flame and dream—
the “Holy Flame Sealing Style.”
The White Flame began to rotate,
expanding outward from the Goddess’s center into infinite rings.
Each ring folded time and reassembled space.
Nyar’s final residual sound was covered by the light.
“Flame—Ultimate—Slumber.”
The universe emitted an extremely low resonance.
It was no longer an explosion, but a heartbeat.
All forces instantly froze.
The boundaries of the abyss contracted,
Nyar’s black Mother Body was finally sealed by the light into a silvery-white sphere,
floating silently in the heart of the Sea of Flame.
The Goddess slowly lowered her hands,
her figure trembling in the light,
her divine robes dissolving into fragments of flowing light, scattering with the flame-wind.
The Flame still burning in her core was like an infant’s breath—
frail yet truly alive.
The Hero’s soul was almost transparent,
but he still smiled and reached out, “You did it. The cosmos… is breathing.”
The Goddess also smiled; there was no ecstatic triumph in that smile,
only the quietude of release.
“Yes, finally—silence.”
However, there was still a hint of unease in her eyes,
for deep within that sealed silver sphere,
a faint pulse still persisted.
“The Dream… will not die.
But at least for now, it sleeps.”
She murmured softly,
letting the flame-light rotate around the sphere, forming a Ring of Slumber.
That was—the prototype of the Cosmic Seal.
The Flame Ring flickered one last time,
the tremor in heaven and earth gradually ceased.
The universe welcomed a brief peace.
It was the final sigh of the universe, and the first breath of its rebirth.
The explosive light of the White Flame consumed everything.
Time lost all meaning, and space was folded into a pure, luminous surface.
There was no up, no down, no life, no death.
Only the pair of intertwined figures—the Goddess and the Hero’s soul—
floating in the eternal center.
Light flowed slowly around them, breathing like the tide.
Each rise and fall reflected countless phantoms of the past:
the sound of stars burning out, the first cry of a world’s birth,
and that dream that never ceased—Nyar’s final wish.
The Goddess quietly lowered her head,
her hair lifted by the flame-wind, the Light Core in her sacred center slowly contracting.
The light was no longer violent, but pulsed like a heart.
“The seal is complete…”
Her voice was like a thread of light, merging into the depths of the cosmos.
The Hero’s soul floated semi-transparently before her.
He smiled, still asking in that familiar tone:
“So… this time, do you really intend to stay?”
The Goddess’s gaze wavered; the flame-light in her eyes reflected the residual fire of infinite galaxies.
“I can’t leave; this place still requires me.
If the Flame dies out, the seal will awaken.
I… must become the core of this light.”
The Hero gave a wry smile, “And what about you? Your heart—it will be burned out by this flame.”
The Goddess slowly extended her hand, her fingertip lightly touching his face,
a touch composed of light, yet still gentle.
“If I can stand here beside you,
even turning into Flame won’t be lonely.”
The Hero closed his eyes, allowing his soul to open completely,
transforming into fragmented light dust, pulsing with the Flame in her core.
He smiled and said, “Then let me… become your Flame Core.”
The Goddess did not reply, but slowly embraced herself tighter.
In that instant, the light in her Divine Core surged—
The Hero’s soul was completely absorbed, merging with her Divine Flame.
The two consciousnesses intertwined and resonated,
turning into a single voice, echoing throughout the universe.
“Heart of Flame, Merge as One.”
The sound shattered the last remnants of black mist.
Nyar’s residual soul struggled within the sealing sphere,
but the pressure of the White Flame was like a sacred breath,
pushing her into a deeper sleep.
“Slumber—Mother Dream. Your children will live on for you.”
Following this soft utterance,
the outermost halo of the black sphere contracted into a white line,
finally becoming a silver stellar ring, floating quietly.
That was the symbol of the completed seal.
The Goddess’s body began to turn transparent;
she felt her power dissipating. It was not death, but a kind of “integration.”
She was being absorbed by the cosmos, becoming a part of it.
“Are you leaving?”
It was the Hero’s voice, but now he was no longer external,
but existed within her Divine Core.
The Goddess gently shook her head,
“No… I will stay.
But no longer as ‘I,’
but as the light, the Flame, the existence that once called forth the dawn.”
She looked towards the distant silver stellar ring.
That was the final boundary between her and Nyar,
and the cornerstone of the new world.
“From now on, this light will no longer belong to a god,
but to all life.”
She slowly raised both hands,
the flame-waves from her Divine Core scattering, transforming into countless light particles.
Each particle carried the Hero’s memories, her love, their vow,
drifting toward the silent cosmos—
They would become the cores of new stars.
The Hero’s voice rang out one last time in the Flame:
“…See, that is what the dawn looks like.”
The Goddess smiled,
her eyes reflecting a world of infinite white light,
and then, she closed her eyes—
The light of the entire universe blossomed at that very moment.
The White Flame turned into a rain of stars, pouring over all worlds.
Countless nascent galaxies were born in the afterglow of her core-flame.
Her figure gradually faded,
leaving behind only a Holy Light that pulsed rhythmically like a heartbeat.
That light was the new center of the universe.
And deep within the light,
there were two souls—
still embracing, still burning.
After the light burst, all worlds were silent. Even the heartbeat of the Divine was buried in the stillness.
The universe ceased breathing.
It was a stillness without end,
where even the threads of time were burned through, suspended amidst the ashes of light.
At the moment the Goddess’s seal was completed, all things were “reset” simultaneously.
No stars, no realms, no sound.
Only a vast expanse of white light-wasteland,
boundless, with cooled energy floating like dust.
Upon this white wilderness—
A solitary shadow slowly drifted down.
The Goddess.
Her long hair had long since turned into flowing light,
her divine body shattered, the Flame Core in her core only a faint flicker.
She floated quietly above the fractured earth,
like a fallen star—
even her divinity on the brink of collapse.
She opened her eyes.
In her sight, there was no sky,
only light scattered like feathers.
These were the fragments of the Flame she had used to seal Nyar, now devoid of order.
“…Is it over?”
Her voice was almost swallowed by the silence.
But deep within that soundless space,
a single droplet—slipped down her cheek.
It was the “Tear of Flame.”
It fell upon the shattered ground, emitting a faint light pulse,
spreading outwards in circles,
as though a forgotten heartbeat had begun anew.
The earth trembled.
The dormant particles were awakened by that tear.
Countless dust motes of light gathered, reconstructing the rudiments of mountains, rivers, stars, and seas.
That was—the pulse of the new world.
The Goddess whispered: “…The Flame is still breathing.”
She tried to reach out and touch the light,
but found she couldn’t move.
The cracks in her divine body spread to her shoulders,
every breath accompanied by the sound of splintering.
Suddenly, a wisp of ash drifted down from the light,
slowly condensing into a shape before her.
It was the Hero’s residual soul.
He knelt, and placed a hand on the back of hers.
The ash transformed into warmth.
“…You are awake.”
He smiled, his voice as soft as the wind.
The Goddess gazed at him, murmuring,
“Why are you still here? After the seal was complete, you should have been swallowed by the light.”
The Hero shook his head: “Because you wept.
Your tears allowed me to remain.”
He looked down at the shimmering white earth beneath their feet.
“Is this your world?”
The Goddess replied softly: “No, this is the rebirth… we bought with the Flame.”
Distant light particles gathered into forms;
before their eyes, transparent mountains slowly rose,
rivers flowed with a silvery appearance,
and the seeds of stars fell from the sky, like rain.
It was the birth of a new cosmos.
With the Goddess’s flame as the core,
and the Hero’s soul as the catalyst,
all things began to reconstruct.
The Hero looked up at her face.
“We did it, didn’t we?”
The Goddess didn’t immediately reply.
Her gaze passed over him, fixed on the starlight slowly beginning to shine in the distance.
Those were the first stars once devoured by Nyar, now being reborn by the flame-light.
She finally smiled.
“Yes… it is over.”
She raised her hand, gently stroking the Hero’s cheek,
the gesture almost like a human farewell,
yet appearing especially solemn in this soundless world.
“But it has also begun.”
As the words fell,
light radiated from her core—
It was not an explosion, but a return.
Countless silver-white fragments began to spread outwards,
as if time were reignited,
and the roots of the world began to grow anew.
The Hero whispered, “…You are vanishing.”
“I’m not vanishing,” the Goddess gently shook her head,
“I’m merely returning to my place. The Flame must remain in the place of origin,
otherwise, the world will fall back into a dream.”
Her hand slowly slipped from his face,
turning into a wisp of light dust, falling into his palm.
“And what about you?” he asked.
“I will always be here.”
She smiled and closed her eyes,
“When the Flame breathes, when dawn returns—
You will see me if you look up.”
The light gradually intensified,
the boundaries of heaven and earth began to blur.
The Hero knelt in the center of the light,
clutching the wisp of dust that had been her hand,
his tears merging with the light, dripping onto the ground.
—At that moment, the world began to reconstruct.
All things revived,
the pulse of the new universe sounded.
However, in the depths of the light,
a faint whisper could still be heard—
“While the Flame breathes, I exist.”
After the stillness, the world breathed again; and from the ashes, the light tried to learn to stand.
The Hero knelt in the center of the light.
He felt he was no longer just the form of a soul, but—some new “composition.”
As his fingertips covered the Goddess’s hand, subtle flame-light seeped into his palm lines,
the light was no longer scorching, but carried the warmth of a heartbeat.
“…This is your heart, still burning.”
He whispered.
The Goddess smiled, her voice echoing like an aftersound across the hollow ground.
“No, this is ‘ours.’ When you shed the final tear, it chose to coexist with you.”
The ground began to tremble.
It was not collapse, but the throbbing of the new world’s heart.
Fragments of light were drawn towards him,
each mote containing the memory of all previous worlds.
He reached out, and the light gathered at his heart like birds returning to their nest.
Boom—
A silver-white column of light shot up from within him, piercing the sky.
The light acted as a conduit, linking him and the Goddess as one.
The Flame in her core and the light in his heart called to each other,
like two hearts beating in sync.
“See—the world still remembers our form.”
He looked up, his eyes reflecting the Goddess’s light-wrapped silhouette.
Her divine body was still dissolving,
but in the light’s tremor, her figure remained sacred and resolute,
as if the entire universe were holding its breath for her.
“Your Flame has returned to my body,
yet my soul also remains in your heart.”
Her tone was slow yet carried the authority of the Divine;
every syllable vibrated with the nascent laws.
The Hero tightly grasped the hilt of his sword, which had long since turned into pure light,
its blade is no longer metal, but composed of conviction and the Flame Core.
He whispered: “Then—I shall take your Flame as my sword, and my soul as the steel.”
The White Flame spread along his arm,
his skin gradually replaced by light.
Bone and flesh reorganized;
the boundary between god and man was utterly erased at this moment.
A roar resounded between heaven and earth.
All the fissures in the entire cosmos simultaneously opened and closed in that instant,
the echo of creation.
Countless energy storms whirled around him,
as if all the stars were praying.
“O Hero—no, Successor of the Flame.”
The Goddess’s voice was now deep and monumental,
“In my name, I grant you new life.”
She raised her right hand, condensing the remaining Divine Light into a white ring,
slowly placing it into his heart.
The Flame merged with his heart.
The Hero’s body trembled,
a rune on his heart lit up, becoming the “Primal Mark” of the new universe.
“Is this… a new destiny?”
“No, a connection. When the world falls into dream again,
your Flame will remind it: that dawn once existed.”
The Hero looked up at the Goddess’s increasingly transparent face.
He tried to speak, but the light in his throat swallowed the words.
It was a silent call.
The Goddess merely smiled,
reaching out and gently touching his forehead with her fingertip.
“Awaken, O Flame of the World.”
The next instant—
The roar resumed.
A pair of light wings unfurled behind him,
not feathered wings, but energy conduits composed of flame-lines.
Each tremor stirred the tides of the nebula.
His pupils turned into the contrasting colors of silver and white,
balancing human emotion with divine nature.
The silver light on the ground began to condense;
where he knelt, the first blade of light-grass grew,
swaying in the vacuum, as if breathing.
The Goddess chuckled softly: “See, even the barren earth learns to grow.”
He looked up; a breeze echoed in the windless world.
“That breeze, is that your voice?”
“If the Flame still burns, that is me.”
He placed his hand over his heart, where the light-rune still flickered.
In that moment, he finally understood:
The Goddess hadn’t left;
she had merely become the breath of all things,
transforming into the Flame Core in his core,
pulsing along with this nascent earth.
He slowly rose, his steps steady,
new light-roots growing from the ground with every step he took.
Behind him, countless star particles ascended,
one after another, reconstructing the night sky.
“You said—while the Flame breathes, you exist.”
He spoke softly, looking towards the distant horizon.
There, a faint feminine silhouette was visible,
her hair like a river of light, the Flame in her core still flickering.
“Then, listen well—I will ensure this Flame never ceases.”
He raised his Holy Sword,
the White Flame igniting with it,
tearing open the curtain of the sky, illuminating the entire reborn world.
At the edge of the light, the world was still, yet the heartbeat continued.
The Hero slowly opened his eyes.
Around him, countless silver-white dust motes fell like snow,
fragments of the earth floated in the air, like islands of dream.
He looked down, finding himself surrounded by a soft, white glow—
It was the Goddess’s embrace.
She didn’t speak, but her arms, composed of that faint light, gently tightened,
holding him entirely beneath the Flame Core in her core.
It was not a mortal embrace, but like the entire cosmos shielding him.
He could hear the rhythm of the light,
his heartbeat and the Flame Core overlapping—one strong, one weak, one human, one divine,
their rhythm gradually merging into one.
“…Your heart is still beating,” he whispered.
The Goddess lowered her gaze, her eyes reflecting his trembling shadow.
“This is the Flame you gave me; how could it not burn.”
Light currents interlaced between them,
the Flame in her core flickering gently in her embrace, like a breath.
The Goddess’s lips held a smile,
a smile that was both like gentle dawn and the white light just before the sun breaks.
“Do you still fear?” she asked.
The Hero’s cheeks flushed, his voice almost inaudible:
“…Only that it’s too close. So close it feels like a dream.”
The Goddess sighed softly, her palm resting on his back.
“If the dream can be warm, then let the dream continue to stretch.”
She rested her forehead on his shoulder,
the flame-light in her core seeping into his body.
The warmth was soft yet carried the power of the Divine,
making his heart beat strongly again.
Flame and bl00d merged, light and flesh were reborn.
The Hero bit his lip, finally raising his head.
“Goddess… I—”
His voice trembled,
sounding especially clear in the infinitely silent universe.
“I wish to stay by your side, not as a worshipper, nor a warrior,
but simply—as one who can see your smile.”
The Goddess’s gaze softened instantly.
She didn’t reply immediately, but embraced him with a deeper light.
The halo of the Flame spread out from their overlapping cores,
merging into the ground, merging into the sky.
With the breathing of that white light,
the earth began to regain its contours.
The shattered world was sown with the seeds of light,
mountains rose, clouds lifted, and the sound of wind returned.
The Goddess whispered: “The world will remember this moment.
Your words will become the wind, blowing across every flower.”
He responded softly: “And you? Will you remember me?”
Her finger lightly touched his forehead,
where the light-mark briefly overlapped with the Flame-mark in her core.
“When your heart beats, when the world is reborn,
I will be there, in that breath.”
The Hero froze, looking into her pupils that reflected infinite worlds.
It was not a farewell, but a vow.
The next instant,
the Goddess’s flame-light turned into a thousand threads of fine light,
flowing along their tightly pressed cores into the earth—
They were the seeds of the Flame,
to sprout in the soil of the new world,
becoming the life cycle that would never be extinguished.
He was still held by her light,
a blush on his face,
but finally letting out a genuine smile.
“…I understand. This isn’t the end.”
She replied softly: “Correct. This is the start of breathing.”
The heart of the new world was born within their embrace.
The light slowly brightened.
It was not a sudden burst, but a breath, an awakening emanating from the depths of the world.
The platinum-white light pierced through the shattered earth, the broken sky, and the still nebula,
as though someone had gently peeled open the eye of the universe in the darkness before dawn.
The wind returned.
It was the new world’s first breeze, without direction, and without a name.
It merely brushed softly past the Goddess and the Hero, carrying unformed dust,
writing the first trace of life’s breath upon this silent wasteland.
The Hero looked up.
He saw the sky—a sky no longer a battlefield, but a blank canvas.
Light spilled from a distant fissure, like a reversing silver river,
and above it, a sun slowly rose.
It was the first new star of the world.
Its fire no longer belonged to destruction.
It was the continuation of the Flame, the heart of the Divine reignited within the cosmos.
He reached out; the sunlight fell into his palm.
Slightly warm, real.
“…You did it.” he whispered.
The Goddess stood behind him, her long hair now a waterfall of light.
Her figure was transparent, like a wisp of cloud swallowed by the dawn.
“No,” she replied gently, “it is the world we reborn together.”
The light remained in her core.
That Flame Core was now soft,
no longer a scorching fire, but a pulsating constant star.
The light rose and fell with her breath, warm and peaceful, like a cradle in a mother’s arms.
The Hero turned and gazed at her.
“And you? Will you stay here?”
The Goddess smiled.
There was no sadness, no separation in her smile.
“I am already a part of this world. When the wind brushes your face, that is me.
When you look up at the night sky, that is me breathing.
I no longer require a physical form; as long as the Flame continues to burn, I will not vanish.”
He stared at her, light flickering in his eyes.
“You always speak like a prayer.”
“Then let the prayer become reality.”
She reached out, her fingertip touching his heart.
The rune there resonated once more with her Flame Core.
A pure white arc of light spread out, covering the entire sky.
Instantly, heaven and earth gained sound.
The symphony of all things reviving began,
distant light dust turned into flowers and trees, mountains and rivers,
the contours of the world were redrawn.
The wind carried the scent of flowers,
the sound of water traveled through the mountains,
the chirping of newborn birds took flight in the silent air.
The Hero closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.
The air contained the salt of the sea and the warmth of fire.
When he opened his eyes, the Goddess was no longer behind him.
Only light, boundless light.
“…Goodbye, Goddess.”
“No, until we meet again.”
The voice came on the wind,
soft as a dream, yet clear enough to bring tears.
He smiled, raising his hand toward the sun.
In that moment, his shadow was stretched out,
overlapping with the nascent river of light in the distance.
He stepped forward, walking over flowers and dust,
each step leaving silver sparks on the ground.
They were not embers, but the kindling of the new world.
The sky grew brighter,
clouds were gilded, the sea reflected silver-white,
the breath of the entire universe resumed in the same instant.
—From silence to sound,
from darkness to dawn,
from destruction to birth.
This is the end.
Not the cessation of battle, but the continuation of love.
When the last wisp of white light dissipated,
the scene froze in that moment—
The Hero stood upon the plain of light, the Goddess’s Flame burning in his core,
and in the depths of the sky, a massive light cloud slowly blossomed,
like her smile,
soft and eternal.
“While the Flame breathes, I exist.”