The void was restless.
Not the endless, quiet stillness she carried within herself, but an intrusion—a shiver through her domain. Ophis sat upon the broken stones of what had once been a shrine, blood dripping slow and steady from the corner of her mouth. It was rare for her to bleed. Rarer still for her to admit why.
She pressed her fingers to the wound and frowned. “Tch.”
How long had it been since anyone had marked her like this? Centuries? Millennia? No—longer. The only one who had ever pushed her this far was her Silence, her daughter in all but blood. Hespera had cut her, broken her, rebuilt her in spar after spar, until pain had become something that meant… presence. Connection. Not defeat.
This was different.
Her gaze slid to the cracked horizon, where Pandora raged against the Primordials. The noise of reality tearing itself apart would have deafened any other ear. Ophis merely listened, quiet, cold.
She thought back to the ambush.
From the memories she had devoured when she killed him, she understood. He had done it—crafted a weapon using her essence, her silence, her blood. A blade that could pierce even a Primordial. A blade that had pierced her.
She spat another mouthful of blood onto the stones, watched it hiss into nothing.
“Pitiful,” she muttered. “But clever.”
The irony was not lost on her. Her own strength had armed her enemy. Her own blindness had left her vulnerable. It was a mistake she would not make again.
She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. For a moment, she remembered the last time she had bled this much. Not against some usurper. Not against the Outer Choirs. But against her Silence. Against Hespera.
A spar. A laugh. A bruise that lingered for days.
The memory cracked something in her stillness. Against the backdrop of annihilation, Ophis smiled—not cold, not cruel, but faint. Almost human.
“My Silence,” she whispered, “you are still the best thing in my eternity.”
The sky screamed again, and Ophis opened her eyes. They glowed now, twin void-stars burning with intent.
Her blood had been spilled.
Her stillness had been pierced.
Her patience had ended.
And the universe would remember why the Infinite Dragon was feared.
The stones around Ophis shifted—at first she thought it was the weight of her silence pressing outward, but no. A shadow pooled, blacker than even her void, and from it rose a form as old as the first dusk.
Nyx.
The Primordial of Night dragged herself into the open, her robes torn and her hair tangled like storm-cloud strands. Her movements were slow, deliberate, the way only one who had survived the collapse of countless worlds could move. Yet her presence was still suffocating, deep as the infinite stars.
“Ophis,” Nyx murmured, voice low, like velvet pulled over stone. She crouched down beside the dragon, her hand cool as midnight when she touched Ophis’s arm. “You shouldn’t be on the ground. Not you.”
Ophis let out the faintest breath. Not a sigh, not pain—just acknowledgment. “They struck me. Clever trick. My blood… used against me.”
Nyx’s trinary eyes narrowed. “Loki.”
A pause. Ophis gave the smallest nod.
The Night goddess pressed her lips thin, then slid an arm beneath Ophis’s shoulder, helping her to her feet. The dragon’s weight was more symbolic than real—still, Nyx bore it without hesitation, her own knees nearly buckling.
“You’re not finished yet,” Nyx said quietly. “Neither of us are.”
From the folds of her torn robe, she withdrew two vials. Small, fragile glass containers, each filled with liquid that shimmered like the border between dream and waking. Not water. Not wine. Something more.
Ophis’s gaze lingered. “Those.”
Nyx’s smile was faint, almost sorrowful. “Gifts. From your Silence. She pressed them into my hand long ago. ‘For when nothing else remains,’ she said.”
She uncorked the first and pressed it to Ophis’s lips. The taste was strange—bitter at first, then unbearably sweet, like drinking the memory of starlight itself. Ophis felt her wound knit, not fully, but enough. Enough to stand tall again. Enough to remember why she could not fall here.
The second vial Nyx swallowed herself. Color returned faintly to her cheeks, the ragged cuts along her arms sealing into pale scars. Her aura of night deepened, steadied.
When the silence stretched too long, Ophis asked, “You would spend them now?”
Nyx’s eyes glittered, reflecting the carnage above. “What better time? The woman we both cherish is buried inside that… thing. If we wait, there may be nothing left to save.”
For a rare moment, Ophis’s lips curved. Not a smile. Something harder. Something sharper. “Then let us go.”
The two of them stood together—dragon and night. Broken, bleeding still, but rising.
And with the faint trace of Hespera’s last mercy burning in their veins, they turned toward the storm.
The crimson skies of the Underworld were cracking.
Not in the way storms broke clouds, nor in the way earthquakes split stone—this was deeper, wrong. Entire sections of the obsidian ceiling above the realm of devils fractured like brittle glass, bleeding motes of void-fire that fell in slow, spiraling arcs. The ancient wards that had once kept the Underworld stable hummed with static, failing one by one.
In the Gremory estate, panic was already spreading. Servants scrambled through the halls, shouting orders, rushing to secure artifacts and protective wards, only to find half their spells unraveling mid-chant.
Rias stood at the heart of the chaos, her peerage gathered close. Her crimson hair clung to her face with sweat, her breathing sharp. She had seen many battles, many terrors. But never the Underworld itself convulsing like a dying beast.
“Rias-sama!” Akeno called from across the hall, her lightning already sparking across her fingertips. “The spatial gates—every one of them is collapsing. I can’t anchor a teleport circle to Earth!”
Before Rias could respond, a piercing cry cut through the chaos.
Koneko.
The nekomata girl dropped to her knees without warning, clutching her chest, eyes wide and brimming with tears. A sound ripped out of her throat—raw, desperate, an animal scream of grief.
“S-sis… Nee-sama!” Koneko’s voice broke, trembling. “She’s… gone. She’s gone!”
Rias’s blood turned cold. She rushed to her rook’s side, only to see Koneko’s body seize violently before collapsing limp in her arms. Her breathing steadied after a moment, but her aura—the familiar steady hum of devil power—flickered in and out like a failing flame.
“Koneko!” Rias shook her gently, fear rising in her throat. “Stay with me!”
But no answer came.
It was then the ground itself groaned—a sound like titans grinding their teeth. The walls of the Gremory estate trembled, chandeliers crashing down from above. Outside, the hellfire rivers that had burned eternal for eons guttered and died, leaving only ash.
The Underworld was unraveling.
Gaspar clutched at his head, his sacred gear flickering open without his will. “T-time! Time is—stopping! Starting! I—I don’t know!” His tears streaked his face as the halls warped and bent.
A pillar of basalt split through the floor, crushing part of the estate’s outer walls as the landscape itself began to shift. Devils screamed in the distance. Entire noble houses could be heard collapsing, their sigils burning out of existence.
Rias forced her fear down, trying to keep her voice steady. “Akeno! Brother! Anyone—can we anchor a path to the human world? Even to Kuoh?”
Akeno shook her head violently, wings twitching as another thunderous crack split the ceiling. “It’s not just our gates. Every path is collapsing. Someone—something—is tearing at the roots of reality itself.”
Sirzechs appeared then, crimson aura burning like a beacon. His eyes were grim, his voice steady but urgent. “Rias. Gather your peerage. All of you. We are leaving the estate now. The old paths may be gone, but there are deeper ways in the Underworld. Ways even Pandora may not have noticed.”
Rias blinked, chest tight. “…Pandora?”
Sirzechs’ jaw clenched. He didn’t answer at first—but the look in his eyes told her enough. He knew. He had felt the moment mercy had died.
Another crack tore through the sky, this one so loud the devils of the estate collapsed to their knees. Koneko stirred weakly in Rias’s arms, whispering one last word before passing out completely:
“Hespera…”
Rias froze.
The name felt like the very heart of the storm. "Fuck. What did she do this time?!"