The girl stood tall amidst the silent battlefield, surrounded by the ruins of magic and the bloodstains of fallen angels. A golden aura enveloped her, pulsing slowly like the final breath of a world on the brink of extinction. Qayin had been destroyed, Azazel had fallen—yet this victory came at an immeasurable cost.
"Forgive me, nee-san," the girl whispered softly, reluctant to look back at the figure of the woman with golden hair and towering white wings standing there.
"You foolish little sister," the golden-haired woman replied, her voice trembling as she fought back tears on the verge of breaking.
"I'm leaving now, nee-san," the girl said, offering a faint smile before slowly disappearing from sight.
The same smile she had once seen before.
The night wind carried the scent of burning metal and smoldering embers. The world had just endured a small apocalypse that shook everything, but the price paid went far beyond blood or magic. The sky above Atlantis cracked open wide, and from that rift descended a mournful cry, audible only to a mother.
Iris stood frozen among the ruins of the underground palace, her body motionless. Her heartbeat was not driven by fear, but by a dreadful premonition of something inevitable—a loss creeping silently through the stillness.
Suddenly, a shadow appeared behind her.
It was no ordinary teleportation. It was not the common magic known by many.
This was a technique mastered only by those who had made a pact with death:
Shadowstep Through the Thousand Veins.
A shadowy step that crawls through the very veins of the world's life—traveling along the earth's pulsing arteries, the shimmering bloodstreams of the stars, and the silent corridors between unseen spaces and times. From this darkness, the figure of the girl slowly emerged—daughter of Fitran and Iris. Her clothes were tattered, blood trickled from the cracked corner of her lips, and her eyes had nearly lost their spark of life. Yet, beneath all this suffering, she still managed a smile. Her body, beginning to fracture like cursed glass, stood tall… right before her mother.
"Mother…" her voice hoarse, almost a whisper from a silent tomb.
Iris froze, trapped in fear and confusion. Her hand reached out hesitantly but dared not touch her daughter. She understood... the meaning of the faint cracks trembling in the air, and the significance of that shadowy presence—vague yet threatening. The Shadowstep technique could only be used once in a lifetime—not as a step backward, but as a final, eternal farewell.
"No… please don't do this… you've already fought Azazel. There is still hope to save you… I can call your father's name… I can—"
"I can't..." The girl gave a bitter smile, her face filled with sorrow and resolve. "Father has sacrificed the rest of his life to seal the wound Qayin left in me. And I... I am using this body as a vessel to close the gap between worlds. I am no longer alive, Mother. I am merely passing through the last shadow remaining... to say goodbye."
Her body began to crack—not from the surface, but from within—like clay under the strain of overwhelming cultivation power. The cracks released a faint, glowing light, signaling the slow spread of destruction. Iris's eyes blazed with anger, not directed at the world, but at the cruel fate even kings could not defy.
"At least... let me hold your hand..." Iris whispered, her voice trembling, fragile with hope.
The girl nodded softly. As their hands touched, a gentle and fragile warmth enveloped the moment, as if time itself had stopped within this eternal yet fleeting embrace.
"Mother... do not cry for me. For I am the embodiment of a love that even hell cannot destroy. I am the witness to the love between Father and Mother, a love that surpasses all bounds and faces the darkest shadows."
Iris's voice weakened to almost a whisper. "Name... what is your name?"
The girl gazed at the sky fractured by glowing cracks, as if waiting for fate to speak further.
"I no longer need a name... because I am not a part of this world's fate," the girl replied with a voice that pierced the heart. "After destroying Qayin, I am but the emptiness left behind. So to you, I am nobody."
Since Qayin has been destroyed, his birth record vanished along with his destiny. The girl is no longer Iris's or Fitran's child; her existence has been erased from the world's life line. Though the fetus inside Iris's womb is her, the child to be born will not truly be her. She and Qayin were one entity within one body, but the child that will come forth is a different being— not the version that stands before Iris now.
Suddenly, her body transformed into shards of shadow that danced gently among sparkling fragments of light. She did not explode, nor vanish abruptly. Slowly, she unraveled into delicate black petals that floated and drifted away, disappearing into the vast sky beyond human sight.
Iris collapsed to her knees, silent and paralyzed by profound sorrow.
The world sank into stillness, as if every pulse and heartbeat halted along with the departure of that final shadow.
"Mother..." a soft voice whispered, filling the void.
"Your name is Aurelia Fateiris," Iris said hoarsely, her eyes brimming with tears threatening to spill.
"I know you will disappear forever. Mother can feel it," Iris said softly, touching her belly with hope. "The child inside me now might be different from the one I once saw before me. Maybe this is just a mother's instinct, but please accept this name as a memory to always cherish."
Tears streamed down the girl's face as she trembled with deep emotion.
"Aurelia..." she continued quietly, "I love that name."
"Forgive me, mother. I have to leave first..." Aurelia whispered the farewell with a broken voice, just before Aurelia's figure slowly faded away like morning mist swept away by the wind.
Unable to hold back the overwhelming pain in her chest, Iris broke into sobs, her sorrowful cries filling the empty space around her.
Suddenly, a small, gentle yet clear voice sounded.
"Mama..."
Before her appeared a tiny baby with loving eyes and a peaceful face.
Aurelia's image appeared... only for a moment.