The Black March ended at the foot of the Eastern Wall.
But hope ended long before that.
The wall was a relic of a dying world.
Cracked stone.
Fading Sigil barriers.
Desperate fighters clutching rusted weapons and half-formed spells.
No armies.
No reinforcements.
Only the last gasps of a species clinging to survival.
The sky rumbled overhead,
the clouds bruised and weeping black rain.
And from the horizon came the end.
Asura stood atop a shattered ridge,
his shadow stretching across the valley like a second death.
Behind him surged the Abyss.
Creatures stitched together from nightmare and hatred.
Broken Sigil users, their minds melted and reborn into weapons.
Twisted soldiers who had once been men, now hollowed by Worldbreaker Aura.
An army without mercy.
An army without need for survival.
Asura raised one hand.
The ground itself seemed to groan in protest.
He did not shout commands.
He did not need to.
The Abyss obeyed him like a corpse obeys gravity.
The Black March began to run.
Toward the Eastern Wall.
Toward the last hope.
Toward the final stand.
Inside the city, Arin Veyla moved among the defenders.
No generals.
No grand speeches.
Only battered men and women —
mothers with knives,
children clutching broken swords,
elderly warriors with faded tattoos.
Arin activated the last Guardian Sigils embedded into the shattered stones.
Weak shields flared into life —
barely holding against the pressure bearing down from the horizon.
She stood at the very center,
her Light Sigil burning against her chest,
pain gnawing through her veins with every heartbeat.
She knew this wall would fall.
They all knew.
But that didn't matter.
You don't hold the line because you expect to survive.
You hold the line because there's no one else left to do it.
The Abyss hit the wall like a tidal wave.
Screams tore the night apart.
Sigils flashed —
fire, light, ice, metal —
desperate, beautiful, doomed.
The first rank of defenders fell within minutes —
crushed beneath claws, ripped apart by blackened magic, devoured by abyssal monstrosities.
Arin unleashed her Light Sigil.
A shield of pure white flared outward,
pushing the first wave back.
The creatures hissed and shrieked, recoiling from the forbidden light.
For a heartbeat —
a single, shuddering heartbeat —
the wall held.
But only for a heartbeat.
The second wave came.
Stronger.
Faster.
Hungrier.
The Eastern Wall cracked.
Then it broke.
The defenders fought like wolves with broken legs.
Every blow they struck was a prayer.
Every breath they drew was a rebellion.
But it wasn't enough.
The Abyss poured through the breach.
Flooding the city.
Swallowing the streets.
Drowning the last hope.
Arin stood atop the shattered gate,
blood dripping from her palms,
her body burning from overdrawn Sigils.
She watched as the flood reached the inner wards —
as her friends, her students, her people vanished into the screaming black tide.
Still, she did not fall back.
Still, she stood.
Because if she ran now,
if she broke now,
there would be nothing left worth saving.
Far above the battlefield,
Asura watched.
Silent.
Cold.
Unmoved.
He could feel her light straining against the inevitable.
Pathetic.
Glorious.
Inevitable.
The System chimed:
[Eastern Wall Breached: 100%.]
[City Defense Status: Critical Collapse.]
[Recommended Action: Final Purge.]
Asura lowered his hand.
The Abyss howled in response.
The Eastern Capital, the last light of resistance,
began to fall.
In the heart of the city,
Arin dropped to one knee,
the Light Sigil sputtering in her chest.
Tears mixed with blood on her face.
The ground shook beneath her.
The air burned around her.
But she looked up.
Through the ash.
Through the fire.
Through the darkness.
And she saw him.
A single figure standing atop the ruins.
Watching her.
Waiting.
The Monarch of Abyss.
The End of Worlds.
The boy she never met —
but somehow always knew.
Asura.
Their eyes locked across the battlefield.
Two broken souls.
Two shattered dreams.
Two promises written in blood and ruin.
Neither spoke.
Neither moved.
But the war had already begun.