I swept my perception across the core layer once more, slow and thorough this time.
After destroying the last two portals, I did not allow myself the comfort of assumption. If the Eternals had learned anything from conquering countless worlds, it was patience. Traps layered inside traps. Reinforcements hidden behind contingencies. I extended my Psynapse outward, threading it through fractured space, broken structures, and the lingering echoes of sealing laws that had not fully dissipated yet.
Nothing answered.
The core layer was finally exposed.
Only the rift remained. For the first time since we had entered this battlefield, the Eternal side had nothing left between us and the source.
I did not waste the moment.
My domain was still active, its pressure hanging over the battlefield like a second sky. Violet clouds rolled slowly, heavy with lightning and law. I lifted my hand and turned my attention downward, toward the phantoms still scattered across the core layer.
They were strong. Disciplined. And still active despite the death of the Eternals.
But they were no longer protected.
I willed the domain to move.
Lightning answered immediately.
Not one bolt. Not a storm aimed blindly.
Thousands of precise strikes formed at once.
Each bolt was thin, sharp, and absolute, guided by law rather than instinct. They fired downward in silence at first, then the sound followed, crack after crack after crack, until the core layer was filled with blinding flashes.
Each bolt found a target.
Phantoms were pierced through the chest, through the head, through their cores. Some tried to raise shields. Some activated domains too late. Some froze when the pressure of my domain crushed their will before their bodies could react.
There was no randomness in it.
No mercy either.
Lightning chained between them, jumping from one phantom to the next, burning through deathmist-infused armor. Their bodies detonated mid-air, scattering fragments that evaporated before they could fall.
Within moments, the organized resistance on the core layer ceased to exist.
I let the lightning fade slowly, allowing the last echoes to dissipate into the void. Below me, the battlefield had changed shape. The Eternal presence that had once dominated this layer was gone, replaced by broken structures, drifting debris, and silence interrupted only by distant fighting.
I shifted my attention to the second layer.
The demons had nearly overrun it.
Silver was there, unmistakable even at a distance. His massive form moved through space with terrifying grace, carrying a vast mass of demon soldiers on his back. Their emotions spilled into the void; rage, relief, grief, triumph, all tangled together, burning brighter the closer they came to the core layer.
They could feel it.
They were close.
Close to ending something that had haunted them for decades.
I allowed myself a breath before turning my focus elsewhere.
Knight.
I found him quickly.
He was inside the tower, along with Lyrate, Primus, North, Steve, and Mazikeen. The structure’s interior was already under control. The strongest defenders inside were Lower Transcendents at best, and even they were being handled efficiently.
Lyrate’s presence was calm and terrifying at the same time. Knight’s shadows were everywhere. They did not need me.
I stepped forward and arrived at the edge of the core layer, hovering directly before the rift.
Up close, it was overwhelming.
The rift was no longer a simple tear in space. It was a colossal wound, stretching so wide that its glow drowned out the stars behind it. Colors twisted and overlapped—violet, gold, black, and hues that did not belong to any spectrum I recognized.
The light was blinding, not because it was bright, but because it carried intent.
Power.
On the edges of the rift, laws collided endlessly. Our universe pushed inward, trying to close the wound. Something on the other side pushed back just as relentlessly.
The pressure made my skin crawl.
My domain was still active, amplifying everything. I could feel its weight pressing down on every being across all three layers, friend and enemy alike.
I exhaled and released it.
The violet clouds thinned. The lightning retreated. The pressure eased.
Across the battlefield, I felt countless beings sag slightly, unaware they had been resisting something so heavy until it was gone.
Then I focused.
Right to Insight.
The world peeled open.
I did not look at the rift as an object. I looked at it as a process.
I saw Essence streams being torn apart and reassembled. I saw laws bending, snapping, and reforging themselves again and again. I saw the boundary between universes behaving like a massive engine: intake, compression, output.
And then I froze.
Because I recognized it.
The structure.
The flow.
The logic behind it.
This was how my Dawn Core worked.
Not in scale, but in principle.
I stared into the rift, my mind racing with implications, possibilities, and dangers I was not ready to name yet.
Whatever lay beyond it was not just an enemy.
It was a system.
One that mirrored my own growth in ways that made me deeply uncomfortable.
Below me, the demon army surged forward, pouring onto the core layer at last. Silver descended, releasing his cargo, and the demons spread out, roaring as they claimed ground that had once been untouchable.
This was victory.
But it was not the end.
Not yet.
I remained where I was, hovering before the rift, my attention fixed on the churning laws beyond.
For the first time since this war began, I was not thinking about the battlefield behind me.
I was thinking about what came next.
I floated near the edge of the core layer, my attention fixed on the rift.
That thought lingered when I felt a familiar presence approach.
Saleos arrived beside me without a word, fire laws folding neatly around his body as he came to a stop in the void.
He did not look at the rift at first. Instead, his eyes moved across the battlefield below, the second layer nearly conquered, demon forces surging forward with renewed fury, Eternal formations breaking apart under the pressure.
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then Saleos exhaled slowly. It was not a sigh of relief. It was the kind of breath someone took after holding themselves together for too long.