The capital city of Radiantus was no longer bathed in sunlight.
A shroud of grey filtered the skies, heavy and unnatural, like the world itself was holding its breath. Bells tolled not in celebration, nor alarm but in mourning. Because the clergy knew what was coming.
This was not a summoning.
It was a funeral.
The Sacrifice Begins
Beneath the Grand Cathedral, in a sanctum lined with gold and divine scripture, the High Priestess stood before an altar carved from celestial stone. Thirteen priests knelt around it, each bound in ritual chains of light, their eyes wide with terror but they did not resist.
They were the price.
King Alistair looked on from the gallery above, fingers trembling.
"We will never survive this unscathed," whispered an elderly bishop beside him.
The king didn't look at him. "Then let the world burn. But the abyss will not take my kingdom."
The High Priestess raised her hands.
"Begin the Rite."
The priests screamed as their life force ignited, their souls drawn upward in threads of molten light. The runes on the walls glowed a searing white, and the cathedral began to quake, dust falling from centuries-old stone.
The Last Light was waking.
The Risen Flame
Far away, in the abyssal territory, Oscar jolted awake if sleep was even something he still knew.
He felt it.
A spike of divine wrath unlike anything before. Not holy. Not righteous.
Desperate.
Selene rushed to him, her cloak billowing with shadow.
"What is that?" she demanded.
Oscar didn't answer immediately. He simply stared eastward, toward Radiantus.
"They've summoned something ancient," he murmured. "Something that was sealed long before the Abyss ever existed."
Darius joined them, his expression grim. "Should we march?"
Oscar shook his head slowly. "No. Not yet. This is their answer. Let them show their hand."
Selene's brow furrowed. "And if it destroys them all?"
Oscar's voice was calm. "Then we won't have to."
A City on Fire
Back in Radiantus, the sky cracked open with golden flame.
A figure descended from the rift above the cathedral neither angel nor man, its form a radiant silhouette crowned with a halo of burning time. Its wings weren't feathers, but blades of glass and memory, refracting light that scorched the earth.
The Last Light had returned.
People screamed as its presence set the air ablaze. Crops withered. Water turned to mist. Those of weak faith fell to their knees, vomiting light from their eyes and mouths.
King Alistair shielded his face, trembling.
"Last Light… cleanse our enemies. Burn the abyss from this world!"
The being turned its gaze to him.
There was no recognition.
No loyalty.
No mercy.
The Last Light did not serve.
It judged.
A Warning Delivered
Three nights later, an envoy of fire and ash arrived at Oscar's citadel. It wasn't a man. It wasn't alive. It floated into the throne hall an ethereal projection shaped like a knight of the old Radiant Order, burning from within.
"Oscar, Abyss Incarnate," it spoke with a voice that echoed in light and agony. "You have violated the balance. You've invoked the Echo. The Last Light has returned not for salvation but to erase all unworthy."
Oscar rose from his throne.
"And who decides who is worthy?"
The specter's eyes blazed. "The Flame decides."
Oscar smiled faintly. "Then let it come. And we will see if it burns brighter than the dark."
The figure exploded in a flash of light, searing the floor with a radiant symbol.
A challenge.
A declaration.
The gods had made their move.
And Oscar… would answer.
A Throne of Ash and Bone
The flames did not distinguish between sinner or saint.
Radiantus, once the beacon of the Holy Kingdom, now smoldered beneath the wrath of its own summoned savior. The Last Light moved through the city with a terrifying calmness, its steps leaving trails of molten glass and scorched prayer.
Children of faith were turned to salt. Priests were silenced by divine rupture. Even the golden statues of saints wept liquid metal.
This was not deliverance.
This was erasure.
The King's Last Stand
King Alistair stood on his balcony, watching his kingdom unravel.
"My people… what have I done?"
His hands gripped the railing so hard that blood ran down his knuckles. Below, the Holy Guard what remained of it attempted to push back the flame with shields of blessed steel, but it melted like paper.
The Last Light had turned its back on them.
"Is this penance?" the king whispered.
A hand touched his shoulder.
It was the High Priestess. Her robes were torn, her face lined with soot, but her eyes still burned with conviction.
"This is what we summoned," she said softly. "It has no master. It is the divine."
The king turned to her. "Then we must stop it."
"No," she replied. "We must beg."
Oscar's Throne of Shadows
Far away, Oscar sat upon his throne of ever-shifting bone and shadow, watching the vision pool.
He saw the burning capital. The fleeing nobles. The crumbling cathedrals. The Seraphim Knights, once the last hope of the Holy Kingdom, now decimated by a being that deemed them obsolete.
"Beautiful," he muttered.
Selene, ever close, raised a brow.
"Beautiful?"
"Yes," Oscar said, his voice low and cold. "Because now… now they'll understand. Faith is not salvation. It's a leash. And the gods? They will hang their own believers with it."
Darius approached, kneeling.
"The Last Light marches west. It does not discriminate. Villages along the sacred rivers have burned. The Holy Kingdom is collapsing."
Oscar's fingers drummed the throne's armrest.
"Then it's time."
"Time for what?"
Oscar stood.
"To claim the ashes."
A March Through Fire
With a wave of his hand, the abyss stirred. Columns of darkened warriors rose not undead, not demons, but transcended. Paladins who had renounced the light. Templars broken and reforged. Even Aldric now walked beside Oscar, cloaked in silence, his holy blade blackened and warped.
They marched toward Radiantus.not to conquer.
But to inherit what remained.
Villagers opened their doors to the abyss, not out of fear but hope. For as monstrous as Oscar had become, his darkness was honest. The light had betrayed them. The abyss offered them truth.
And truth was a balm that burned less than divine lies.
The Cathedral Falls
By the time Oscar's army arrived, Radiantus was nearly unrecognizable.
The Last Light stood atop the Grand Cathedral, wings spread wide, preparing a final incantation that would reduce the city to scorched history.
Oscar stepped through the gate, his eyes locked on the being above.
"Enough," he commanded, his voice a thunderclap in the smoldering air.
The Last Light paused.
It turned its gaze downward.
For the first time…
It saw him.
When God Meets the Abyss
The world seemed to hold its breath.
Radiantus was silent not by peace, but by fear. Ashes drifted like snow, the bones of saints cracking beneath the boots of Oscar's army. The Grand Cathedral loomed above them all, cracked, burning, and crumbling beneath the weight of divine fire.
And there, at its peak, the Last Light stood wings of white flame stretched wide, a halo of pure judgment glowing above its head.
Oscar stared up, his abyssal form casting no shadow, for he was the shadow. Beneath him, his generals waited in silence. None dared speak.
Not even Selene.
Not even Aldric.
Because they felt it too.
This wasn't just war anymore.
This was God.
A Voice from the Sky
The Last Light opened its mouth not to speak, but to declare.
Its voice echoed not only in the air but in the soul.
> "You, born of corruption. You, who wear pain like a crown. Why do you come here? You are not welcome in the domain of the divine."
Oscar stepped forward, unshaken.
His voice did not echo.
It cut.
"I come not for welcome. I come for truth."
The Last Light tilted its head.
> "Truth belongs to the Light. And you… are the abyss."
Oscar raised his hand.
"The Light abandoned the people. I claimed them. You burned the faithful. I offered them purpose. Tell me, divine flame who is the real savior now?"
The silence that followed was heavier than any roar of battle.
Selene Speaks
Behind Oscar, Selene stepped beside him.
"If the Light is so perfect," she said, "why does it kill those who worship it? Why does it burn the desperate and spare the wicked?"
The Last Light looked at her.
> "Because imperfection must be purged. Even those who kneel may rot."
Selene scoffed. "Then your holiness is just another brand of cruelty."
Oscar smirked. "A tyrant with wings is still a tyrant."
The flames of the Last Light flared.
> "Then let judgment fall."
Judgment Unleashed
The skies cracked open.
Blinding beams of divine energy rained down from above, obliterating entire districts in a heartbeat. Spires crumbled, towers fell, and fire bloomed across the landscape like a second sun.
But Oscar did not move.
He raised a single hand and the abyss rose with him.
A great dome of writhing shadow unfurled from his palm, swallowing the holy fire mid-air. Light hissed as it touched the darkness, screaming as it was devoured.
Not repelled.
Not resisted.
But eaten.
The Last Light's wings flickered.
> "Impossible…"
Oscar's eyes glowed, cold and endless.
"You brought judgment," he said. "Now let me return the favor."
The Rise of the Abyssal Crown
The Grand Cathedral shook.
Not from divine wrath but from within.
Darkness surged from beneath its foundations, rising like a tidal wave. Bones reanimated, not as mindless undead, but as sentient abyssal sentries. Statues of saints wept black ichor. The altars cracked, revealing ancient heresies buried beneath the marble.
And from this storm…
Oscar ascended.
Not as a man.
Not even as a king.
But as something else entirely.
He hovered in the sky now, level with the Last Light, surrounded by a halo of writhing black energy, his throne trailing behind him like a comet of screams and whispers.
The people below could only kneel.
Because this… this was their new god.