THE VILLAIN'S POV

Chapter 611: The Red Moon’s Descent (2)

“You gave a fine performance, Pure Vessel. I suppose you’d have done better given more time to grow.”

Crimson set the Kingslayer against Snow’s neck, red eyes gleaming.

“This is the end.”

His hand twitched ..the blade was a hair from severing Snow’s throat ..when time itself seemed to hitch. A sword sheathed in pure light crashed against the Kingslayer, arresting its advance. Crimson’s eyes widened for a heartbeat before a newcomer’s punch slammed into him and hurled him back.

Audrey had returned ..drawn by the wrongness she felt in the valley ..just in time to snatch Snow from death.

Her green eyes swept the battlefield, searching for one face. It wasn’t there.

Orsted was gone ..and his killer stood before her.

Crimson touched his crimson cuirass; an indentation the shape of a fist marred the plate.

“She dented my armor with a single punch…”

“A troublesome opponent,” he muttered.

Audrey glanced at her own hand … shattered and bloody, bone showing. The instant her fist met that strange armor, a backlash had ripped through her knuckles.

So ..that was the armor’s trick.

A powerful demon, clad in a stubborn, reflective shell, and wielding a spear that could kill SSS-class fighters in a single blow.

Orsted was dead. Snow would have followed, if not for her.

“All the way out here from your hole, are you, demon?”

Drawing a vast tide of sacred light around her blade, Audrey advanced.

Golden sigils flared across her skin; the pressure she exuded was in no way beneath Crimson’s.

Steel met steel again.

“This aura… I’d say you’ve reached the Fifth Stage ..Curse of Immortality,” Audrey measured him as their weapons sparked. Crimson blinked, surprised at the precision of her read.

“And if I have?”

Satisfied she was right, Audrey smiled as her body blazed ..light flooding the Valley of the End and driving the darkness from the sky.

“It’s only that I find it ridiculous… I reached the very peak of that stage long ago.”

BOOM!!!

Unleashing her full might, Audrey collided with Crimson in a thunderous clash that shook earth and sky alike, drawing Lightbearers from afar as their duel wrought devastation. It was a battle on an entirely different plane—one usually seen only when one of the Seven Great Powers crosses blades with a member of the Upper Ten Demons ..

Audrey had the strength to outmatch most ranked at that level.

True to the name she had been given long ago ..the Legendary Vessel ..she drove Crimson, the Red Moon, back and forced defeat upon him.

But she could not kill him. The gap she opened through sheer power was bridged again and again by the demon’s world-breaking abilities ..tricks that more than once threatened her life.

By day’s end, the battle of the Valley of the End closed as Audrey’s victory… yet it tasted like a crushing loss.

Crimson escaped alive.

Orsted died.

Snow was grievously wounded.

Even Audrey herself did not walk away unscathed.

Standing with Snow before Orsted’s body, both understood he had already gone, leaving them behind.

“I’m sorry, Snow… If only I’d arrived a little earlier, Orsted would still be with us,” Audrey said, a bitter line on her lips.

Snow only shook his head.

“No. Orsted died because he was weak—and I would have died too… because I’m weak.”

He faced his friend’s body.

“If we’d had enough power, we could have averted this ourselves. All we can blame is our own weakness ..our own naivety.”

He had run with Orsted to seize freedom.

But in the end, there was no escaping the Pure Vessel’s fate. Even far from the front, the demons came hunting for him, for the Light Soul within.

His selfish choice to flee hadn’t only endangered himself—it had cost Orsted his life, simply because he fought beside the accursed Pure Vessel.

Snow shouldered the whole weight of it. Bloodshot eyes fixed on his friend’s corpse—rage and guilt vying inside him.

Even when he tried to sidestep the war, the demons knocked on his door ..and this had been only the Fifth Seat.

As long as he bore the Light Soul, he was destined to collide with them again.

Audrey bore her share of blame as well.

She couldn’t help recalling the countless times Orsted had asked her to take them as disciples. If she’d trained them, perhaps they would have gained enough strength to survive. She hadn’t. And when disaster struck, she arrived late and barely saved one of them.

Snow and Audrey both carried the guilt—each in their own way.

She had never expected to care for those two. Yet standing over Orsted’s body, she realized he had meant far more to her than she’d ever admitted.

After a long silence, Audrey smiled, pained and soft.

“This place will feel so empty without him… It’s just the two of us now.”

Only the Legendary Vessel and the Pure Vessel remained.

For the first time, Audrey truly considered setting her goal aside and taking Snow as her disciple, to make him stronger. But he startled her with his decision.

“I’m going back to the Vessels.”

He had already chosen to return to that dark abyss.

If he hadn’t run ..if he had fulfilled his duty as the Pure Vessel ..none of this would have happened. The Broken Vessel would still be alive.

“I won’t live as Snow any longer. From now on I wage war against the demons ..as the Pure Vessel people have always looked to.”

Crimson’s incursion had already drawn many Lightbearers to the valley, and the Pure Vessel used the moment to return with them.

He thanked Audrey, wished her success in finding the one she had searched for, and thanked her for the days she had given him and Orsted in her valley.

A short season of life ..but they savored every moment.

As Snow turned to leave, Audrey lifted a hand for an instant, as if to stop him ..then let it fall, remembering the one she sought. For some reason, Snow resembled him in that moment. And she had to choose.

Audrey chose the past over the present, clinging to her original purpose, and let Snow go.

It would become, perhaps, her greatest regret, for none of them knew then that Crimson’s appearance among them was only the first tremor ..that the war had only just begun.

Thus the three parted, each stepping into a new branch of their tale ..while Orsted’s story ended there, with nothing left to write.