CHAPTER 284: DEFINITIVE END

A few minutes later, Niara was already fully recovered. It was a real miracle, because even if Darian could heal her, it would only be limited to the physical aspect. Her life force had been burned away, and it would take a long time to regenerate it using only the strength of her bloodline. To fix it completely, he’d need to find resources capable of directly restoring it.

All of this was only possible thanks to the pills made with the Celestial Blood Fruit. According to Veyle, these fruits were incredibly rich in life force — a true treasure.

Beasts could eat them directly and get great effects, greatly improving their constitution and potential; but that was a huge waste. Pills made from this fruit had several times the potential and could be used by any race to recover vitality.

In the future, Veyle planned to focus on creating the best possible pill of this kind, precisely because none could be wasted. Darian had only managed to get a few hundred of these fruits, and there was no easy way to get more. After all, to grow a Celestial Demon Tree, you had to offer sacrifices in exchange for the fruits.

When Niara stood up, she gave Darian a deep look. His expression shifted, then he quickly looked away, still a little confused about the situation.

Niara let out a soft laugh to herself, but she wasn’t going to push anything. Lucy had taught her many things, but the main one was how to deal with Darian. He was very reflective, and she needed to be patient. Everyone had their own pace, and she would wait as long as it took for him to sort out his thoughts.

Darian turned to the others, then to the blood-covered battlefield littered with beast parts.

"We won... somehow..." he muttered, and everyone clenched their fists, fired up.

They hadn’t just won — they hadn’t lost anyone. It had been an almost impossible battle, but no one doubted he could pull off that miracle.

His plans had worked perfectly... except for the unpredictable ending. But in the end, he handled everything himself and returned to normal.

"We can’t waste time. Irana only has three more days in this universe before she has to go back," Darian said seriously. "We’ll end up leaving some things behind, but I’ve already collected pretty much everything valuable from this place. Athven, purify all the trees and natural life forms. The only problem is... how we’re going to move everyone quickly."

Athven nodded enthusiastically. "Lord, that’s not a problem. My true body has the ability to create a small world where natural life forms can enter and stay temporarily."

Darian nodded, satisfied. Then he turned to everyone: "Those who are able, help Athven gather everything as fast as possible. We leave in one day."

Everyone agreed. No one was seriously hurt, they were just drained of energy to fight. Athven quickly took on his true form and pushed his power to the max to remove the corruption from the trees that hadn’t awakened yet.

In just a few hours, he’d be done. Meanwhile, people spread out in all directions to bring him the already purified trees.

At that moment, Darian took a deep breath, sensing the location of the Risen Lord’s seal. When he turned to head there, a voice spoke beside him.

"So... now you can stay in that form that’s kind of like when you’re on Earth... how are we going to move together?" Niara murmured.

Darian turned to her... then looked down at himself, and only then realized he wasn’t the small dragon anymore.

When he had evolved his rings and body, he knew new abilities had appeared, but he had never imagined he could return to human form... maybe because, deep down, he liked the way he was... or, more precisely, how close he was to her in the small dragon form. Realizing that, his gaze wavered.

Niara reached out a hand toward him. "We could go together, holding hands. How about it?"

"I don’t think that’s necessary," he replied quickly, a little nervous.

Now he was shy? Niara could feel his inner conflict and found it amusing.

Darian took a deep breath, desperately shifting his focus.

That body was a solid, efficient physical manifestation — something he never would have been able to create without a lot of time to practice and test. Then, he turned his attention to his soul and the rings...

He trembled, noticing the major changes. He tried to remember exactly what had happened after the dead body of the Risen Lord attacked them...

His memories were hazy, like a dream where parts are forgotten upon waking, leaving only vague fragments. He remembered a massive, incredible creature staring at him... then feeling that something very important had happened, but not knowing what.

From there, he remembered perfectly everything after waking back to reality. He had been completely consumed by uncontrollable rage. He couldn’t think of anything except unloading all that anger. Everyone he looked at seemed to be mocking and ridiculing him... that wasn’t him. It was like someone had taken over his body, and he could only watch and feel things without interfering.

Darian exhaled heavily. If he didn’t remember, there was nothing to do. So he tried to manipulate his body, changing form.

He had to go back to the small dragon form. To use his full power in this universe, he needed to stay very, very close to Niara physically. Doing that in a form similar to his true body... he wasn’t even comfortable thinking about it.

But when that form appeared again, it looked nothing like before. His rainbow colors had vanished — now, he was completely black and terrifying. In fact...

"My soul... I don’t know what this is, but I’m completely taken over by the black power. And my white power... it’s gone, nowhere to be found... I’ve lost my healing ability and everything else."

Darian muttered in pain. Niara answered calmly, sensing his distress:

"It’s probably temporary, because of the Heart Demon that took over your body. At some point, we’ll find a way to get you back to what you were before."

He nodded. This time, victory had come with a huge loss — half of his powers had vanished, and he didn’t even know why.

Niara picked him up and gently wrapped him in her body. This time, Darian could clearly feel something different.

She noticed, and inside, she was happy about it... but at the same time, she couldn’t help but feel a bit resentful. So before, he saw her as a pet and not as a woman?

After that, Niara huffed and flapped her wings, flying toward a very specific place he had pointed out.

...

Twenty hours passed quickly. In that time, Athven had already stored hundreds of thousands of dormant trees in a small inner world.

All the allies gathered in a mountainous region. The place had nothing that stood out; not even Athven could sense anything special there.

But when they met up with Darian, he pulled out the main mark they had managed to steal in the middle of the battle. Channeling a bit of black power into it, the mark pulsed and opened a passage in space, surprising everyone.

Darian could easily feel the heavy concentration of karma in that spot. Without this main mark, it would’ve taken a long time to pinpoint the exact location in space.

With that in hand, everything became simple. He gestured, and a two‑meter‑wide sphere made entirely of black runes emerged from the space.

Immediately, everyone felt the environment turn cold and grim. This was the core of the seal left by the Risen Lord.

Now, with no Risen left inside the World of Life, this seal no longer had any defensive power; all they had to do was destroy it for the place to collapse forever.

Darian turned to the others. Amara nodded, and the flying ship appeared again. Everyone boarded.

*CRACK!*

Darian shattered the core, and immediately, the whole place began to shake.

Niara flapped her wings and leapt onto the flying ship with Darian. He activated a spatial artifact, and in front of the vessel, a spatial channel to get out of there opened.

"GO!"

Amara shot forward with the flying ship.

There was nothing alive left in the World of Life. All the beasts and all the Risen that had lived there had died in battle. And now, this was, without a doubt, the end of that place.