The Beast strained against the chains binding it, muscles tensing, tendrils of that dark energy flickering along its body as it fought the restraints, yet even as it struggled, its many eyes never left Zee. They were locked onto her, fixed with that suffocating Bestial Hatred, and yet… something in the way it stared shifted when she spoke.
"Xain… it hurts doesn't it?"
The words were simple, almost fragile, but they struck something. The Beast did not lunge, did not thrash harder, it focused. Truly focused.
Ercale raised a hand and motioned sharply for everyone else to stay back, stepping away himself to give space, leaving only Zee in front of it.
"And I'm not talking about this, not about all the pain you have been going through fighting like this, no," she continued, shaking her head as she steadied her voice. "I'm talking about what you were feeling before, before you turned into this. You might think that no one noticed, but I did. That pain you felt, thinking that you weren't doing anything, that everyone else was fighting and doing something while you weren't doing anything, I noticed."
She took a step forward.
The Beast did not move.
"I know you don't think of yourself as anything exceptional, you always put others over yourself, but you weren't useless, you weren't. You came up with the plan, you saved Gurion and Hittag, you helped save Sir Bryanard, Sir Calvinel, and so many others. You were helping Xain, even without fighting the Demon King yourself, you were helping."
Another step.
Still no attack.
"But then you said it, you will sacrifice, everything that you am to make sure we all survive this, and you didn't realize that, everyone surviving means you have to as well, and you have to do it as you, not this, not this Beast."
Tears began to gather in her eyes as she closed the remaining distance, standing directly in front of it, close enough that she could reach out.
"You said that for the first time in your life, you wanted to kill someone, and I know that's not true. You would never be a killer, that's just not you. You are the boy who wants to save everyone, but never kill someone. You despite you not thinking it are a hero Xain, and if you aren't seen that by the world or yourself, you still are my hero, and Nori's hero."
Her hand lifted.
Slowly, gently, she pressed it against the Beast's chest.
"So please, Xain… please come back… because I can't lose someone I love the second time."
The Beast froze.
Completely.
Its body stopped straining against the chains, the tension draining out of it as a tremor ran through its frame. The dark plating began to recede in places, the surface shifting, pulling back, its face splitting open slightly as if something inside was pushing through. For a brief moment, just a glimpse, there was something beneath it, someone beneath it, Xain visible within the monstrous shell.
Zee's expression filled with hope—
The opening snapped shut.
"No…."
The voice was wrong.
It was not Xain's. It was not even close. It was something deeper, something older, something filled with a suffocating, overwhelming Hatred.
"I… will… not… be… trapped… again!"
The Beast roared, and a violent shockwave exploded outward from its body. Zee was thrown back instantly, the force ripping her off her feet before Bram rushed in and caught her mid-flight, skidding back a step as he absorbed the impact.
"Shit, did that thing just speak?" he demanded, eyes locked on it.
"X-Xain…" Zee called out weakly, breathless in his arms.
Ercale's expression hardened, his eyes narrowing sharply. "The chains… it's breaking the chains, it changed!" he called out.
The Beast's body began to glow, that hateful black energy intensifying, thickening, until it started to eat at the astral bindings themselves. The chains did not snap. They melted. Dissolved into nothing as the energy consumed them entirely.
"I… will… never… go… back!" it roared, its gaze sweeping across all of them, every eye burning with Extreme Bestial Hatred.
Off to the side, X exhaled and pushed himself up to his feet. "I need you to do something," he said, turning toward Sarandel.
"What is it? Something that will put a stop to the Beast?" she asked immediately.
He nodded once. "It's a long shot, but it might work."
He leaned in and whispered into her ear. She gave him a brief, searching look, then nodded.
X vanished.
Back at the center, the Beast brought its hands together, its twin tails rising and coiling into position, forming a deliberate, ritualistic shape.
"Bestial Reality," it whispered.
Ercale's eyes widened, and he reacted instantly, bringing his own hands together. "Soul Chamber," he invoked, the only one present capable of even attempting to defend against what was about to be unleashed.
Before either could complete it.
The sky filled with motion.
Arrows rained down in a sudden, overwhelming volley, slamming into the ground in rapid succession and forcing everyone, including the Beast, to break away and create distance as the impacts carved space between them.
"What are you doing!?" Ercale snapped, turning toward Sarandel.
She didn't answer and simply pointed. Ercale scoffed, but he followed her gesture anyway, turning back toward the Beast just in time to see something, something impossibly fast that struck the Beast before even he could track it, before he could process it, before he could react, and in the same instant both it and the Beast vanished from sight.