The streets of "Aucasia" were not as Alaric remembered them from his youth. The marble walls oozed a sticky golden light that clung to the eyes, and the air was thick with the scent of "burnt incense" that masked the smell of death behind it. The elegant houses once bustling with life had become silent silos; their inhabitants had not fled, but were found in corners of rooms and on balconies like golden idols, their hands frozen mid-air as they tried to shield their faces from the light.
Alaric marched at the forefront, his black crown emitting waves of eclipse that extinguished the light in the path of his army's footsteps. Whenever he passed by a golden statue, the gold would crumble and turn to grey ash, revealing the human body beneath—lifeless and cold, freed from the "sanctity" of the guardians.
Directly behind him, Elianor walked with steps heavy with remorse. Her blue shroud fluttered amidst the grey dust like the sole surviving banner of the human spirit. She said in a choked voice:
"Alaric… look at them. They were not killed by swords; they were killed by their own 'perfection.' The Guardians of the Covenant did not cleanse the city of evil—they cleansed it of life itself."
Alaric suddenly stopped at the "Grand Justice Square." The square was crowded with thousands of statues, and at its center rose a massive platform upon which sat two of the remaining six commanders: "Sadiq" (The Truthful), bearer of the Spirit Scales, and "Azrael" (Azra-eel), weaver of luminous shrouds.
Sadiq spoke in a voice as calm as flowing water, yet carrying a weight that could shatter stone:
"You have come, O King of Chaos. You have defiled the purity of this place with your feet stained in the ashes of swamps. These you see around you are not dead—they are 'preserved' in a state of absolute certainty. We have stripped from them doubt, fear, and desire… We have stripped from them 'humanity,' for it is the source of defilement."
Alaric raised his sword, "Soul-Gloom," and the crown upon his head began to secrete a black, viscous substance that dripped down his cheeks like tears of tar. He roared with a voice that shook the molten minarets:
"Your certainty is a shroud, and your purity is nothingness! You killed Kalgar… and you killed these children because they cried from hunger—and crying, in your law, is defilement. Today, I will return to this city its 'shadows'… I will return to it its right to be flawed, mistaken, and alive!"
Battle erupted in the heart of the square. Azrael waved his hands, and from his fingers shot threads of sharp, white light like blades, attempting to envelop the Army of the Forgotten in shrouds of radiance to freeze them. But Alaric's army no longer feared the light; they had learned from Kalgar's death that "Emptiness" absorbs "Certainty."
The forgotten fighters surged forward like grey ghosts, piercing the threads of light with their stone-like bodies. Above the square, Alaric clashed with the two commanders. Sadiq tried to touch Alaric's heart with his scales to weigh his sins, but each time he drew near, he found Alaric's heart to be a "void that cannot be weighed."
"Where is your heart?" Sadiq cried in astonishment. "Where is the weight that should shatter your soul?"
Alaric replied, plunging his sword into the celestial commander's shoulder:
"I consumed my heart so your scales could never reach it! I now carry the hearts of all those you turned into salt. My sin is my existence… and my punishment is your victory!"
As the battle raged, Elianor noticed something horrifying: the golden minarets of the capital had begun to "pulsate." They were not merely melting; they were draining power from both the bodies of the Forgotten Army and the golden statues alike. Elianor discovered that all of "Aucasia" had been transformed into a "Great Furnace" aimed at summoning the final entity among the Guardians of the Covenant—"The Light of Lights" —which spares nothing and leaves nothing.
Elianor screamed toward Alaric:
"Alaric! They are sacrificing the entire city! This battle is a trap… They are charging the minarets with our souls to open the sky's gateway completely!"
Alaric paused for a second and looked toward the peak of the royal palace, where a "golden hole" had begun to form, swallowing the clouds. He realized that the commanders he was fighting were merely "offerings" to complete the ritual.
With a suicidal strike, Alaric pushed the two commanders, Sadiq and Azrael, toward one of the pulsating minarets, using his crown's energy to fuse their luminous essence with the molten metal. The minaret exploded with blinding light, and the two commanders fell, scorched by their own radiance.
But time had nearly run out. The sky above the capital began to crack, and from it emerged a sound that was not a sound, but a "frequency" that caused the army's bones to disintegrate. "The Light of Lights" began its descent, and the city started to evaporate under the weight of its arrival.
Alaric grabbed Elianor's hand, his black armor cracking under the pressure. He looked at her with eyes filled with both despair and strength:
"Elianor… the Crown tells me there is only one way to stop this golden eclipse. I must turn the entire capital into a 'Void.' I must absorb this light into my body… even if it turns me into a statue of darkness forever."
Elianor wept, and raised her blue shroud to tie it around Alaric's neck for the last time:
"Do what must be done, O King of Fumes… and I will be the one to guard your statue until the world awakens again."
Alaric began to summon all the energy of the "Core of Emptiness," and the capital of "Aucasia" started to drown in a great blackness, swallowing the golden light in a cosmic struggle whose echoes would last for thousands of chapters to come.
The "Great Eclipse" had begun, and the capital became an arena where light burned against nothingness, awaiting the outcome of this terrible collision.