The moment the Overlord of Puppets awakened, it sent all the city’s residents away from Arthania so that it would not lose any more of them.
Or more precisely, any more of its puppets.
It thought it had finished with Arthania when it surrounded her with its curtain and isolated her from the world, trapping her within that hidden space.
It thought she would continue fighting and resisting until her last breath... and it was prepared for that.
Prepared to subdue her and take her.
Even if she burned its threads hundreds of times, no, thousands of times... it did not really matter.
In the end, it was still a monster at the peak of Rank 6... an ancient disaster capable of threatening an entire nation.
So while it isolated Arthania in that darkness, it extended its threads outward... toward that group that was moving farther and farther away.
But it did not doubt for even a single moment that they could escape from it.
After all, they were nothing more than insects in its eyes.
But the moment Arthania dropped her spear, everything changed.
For the first time in hundreds of years, the Overlord of Puppets felt danger.
Its countless eyes met those small amber eyes.
So small, like an ant compared to it.
Its threads wrapped around Arthania, threads she would never be able to escape no matter how hard she tried... but she had never tried from the beginning.
Instead, she allowed the thousands of threads to burrow into her body while the echo of her words resounded through the void.
"You do not understand... and you never understood."
"I am Arthania... I am the ember born among the burning ashes."
With every word, the feeling inside the Overlord of Puppets grew stronger, and with it her eyes shone with a light purer than the stars.
Her smile widened, the final words leaving her mouth as they filled the void around them.
"If I cannot protect anything... then I will burn everything."
The world fell silent, as though every sound had disappeared, while the Overlord of Puppets tried to let go of Arthania and retreat.
But it was too late.
If Caius Astroweild had been there in that moment, it would have seen something astonishing inside Arthania’s body.
A light like the sun itself burned within her.
She closed her eyes while the memories of her life flowed through her consciousness.
From the moment she was born until this day, there had been far too many memories.
A few of them were beautiful, and many were uglier than nightmares.
But she had never hated her life.
Why... she did not truly know.
She remembered thousands of faces in a single instant, some of which she thought she had forgotten long ago.
’Father... Mother... old man...’
In the final moment, she remembered that group she had met only one day ago... only one day, and things had turned into this.
A calm and sharp young man and a red-haired girl who had not exchanged a single word with them.
A blond young man who seemed to have stepped out of a fairy tale with a girl who looked like a princess, acting firmly and trying to take the lead.
And someone she did not fully understand.
And finally, a kind girl.
Arthania smiled warmly one last time.
"What an interesting group... perhaps if we had met in another world... I wonder what would happen."
It was true that meeting them had led to all of this, but she did not blame them... because after all, the thing that deserved blame was directly in front of her.
Without delay, the sun inside her burned and expanded as it devoured everything.
The threads that had become fuel for its ignition.
The hands that had surrounded her and the eyes that had looked at her.
And Arthania herself.
Everything within the black void without exception... drowned in a world of white light.
No, even the void itself began to tear apart, and that curtain separating them from the world began to burn.
At that moment, immersed in the explosion created by Arthania’s burning, all the Overlord of Puppets felt was... pain.
Indescribable pain.
Its black skin burned while its blood evaporated in an instant.
Its countless fingers melted while its eyes burst and dissolved.
It wanted to scream.
And it did.
But there was not a single sound in the world.
Because everything drowned... drowned in those flames ignited by that woman from the distant past.
The darkness tore apart, revealing the city behind it while the explosion spilled outward.
Those white houses and stone streets of Asfaria... all of them without exception drowned in the blinding radiance.
With every passing moment, the explosion grew stronger.
The houses melted and flowed across the ground that had turned into liquid, while the wells and the fields at the edges evaporated.
Even the essence in the air burned... burned, feeding this explosion more and more.
Until it reached the walls of the maze, consuming tens of thousands of puppets and turning them into nothing.
Awakener or ordinary human, before the judgment of that light, everyone was equal.
All of them... nothing.
Even the stone maze itself shook as the explosion melted the towering stone walls.
In a single moment... a single moment was enough.
For Asfaria to disappear completely along with everything inside it.
While the light flooded the world like a star born in the depths of the desert.
...
Far away, Caius Astroweild and the others ran.
They ran and ran to save their lives while being crushed by the overwhelming presence behind them.
But at one moment it vanished... that pressure that weighed down their bodies and shook their souls disappeared.
Then in the next moment, the world became brighter... far brighter.
As if the sun itself had risen behind them.
Heat flooded the world and the ground shook violently while stones fell from the towering walls.
At that moment, they had no choice but to turn around.
Only to see a massive dome of white light devouring the entire center.
The light reflected in their eyes while their ears almost burst from the sound that thundered through the entire maze and the desert afterward.
As if thousands of bolts of lightning were striking at the same time and their sound engulfed the world itself.
After she stopped running, Leona stood with her arms hanging limply at her sides, staring at the place where Asfaria should have been while tears flowed from her blue eyes.
One inaudible word escaped her lips.
"Arthania..."
...
Inside a room created by Elliot inside the stone wall, the six of them sat on the dirt floor in deadly silence.
Kyle leaned against the wall while staring at the ground before him with lost eyes. Who knew what thoughts were going through his mind.
As for Izel, she simply sat staring at the light burns on her skin while Ellen leaned silently against the wall, searching for some rest for her exhausted body.
At the same time, Elliot clasped his hands together while Caius rested his head against the wall, staring at the ceiling of chaotic stone.
And in the corner, Leona placed her head between her knees and stared at the ground with empty eyes.
Her thoughts were complete chaos. She still did not fully understand what had happened.
It had been only one day...
One day in which they met Arthania and wandered through Asfaria, then ran away, leaving everything burning behind them.
Even after the explosion calmed and the presence of the Overlord of Puppets disappeared from the world, they continued moving farther away before finally stopping here to rest.
Again and again, the image of the great explosion repeated in their minds, along with a question whose answer they were not sure of.
Leona hesitated before asking in a tired voice.
"...Did that thing die...?"
Her faint words echoed through the stone walls while the others remained silent.
No one knew the answer.
Until Caius let out a tired sigh as he lowered his head.
"The explosion was powerful... very powerful, not like something a person in Rank 5 could create."
His voice echoed while everyone looked at him.
"But I do not think that was enough to kill it."
...
At the center of the stone maze and beneath the sky that had begun turning yellow with the sunrise, all traces of the explosion had vanished and all that remained was destruction.
The houses had melted and merged with the ground while the towering stone walls collapsed and shattered.
All that remained was a crater covering the entire center, filled with hot magma that was still trying to cool while trails of white smoke rose from it.
Arthania and everyone who had lived in that city had disappeared without a trace.
There was no sign indicating whether the Overlord of Puppets had died or survived somehow.
But despite all of that, there was one thing that was certain...
Beneath the sunrise and the silhouette of the shattered moon in the sky, the curtain had fallen on the performance that had lasted for centuries.
And yet, just as Asfaria had long ago been forgotten by history, today it was erased from existence itself, becoming nothing more than a memory in the minds of six people.
And perhaps an ancient monster.
Thus disappeared the last city upon the face of the earth.
Asfaria... the Eternal City of Puppets.