The sight beyond the Realms of Tartarus, the domain in which Hades had inherited, was not a battlefield but rather the aftermath of something far worse.

  Darren stood near the edge of the Ferry, staring through the protective shimmer of the bubble that encased the vessel, and felt something inside him go quiet. He could only hear the kind of deathly silence that settled over ruins long abandoned. There were no stars in the distance that shone with warmth or promise, no distant civilizations that his eyes could see across the void. The cosmos stretched outward in every direction, but it was hollow, the live having been stolen from them.

  He saw planets.

  Or what had once been planets.

  There were worlds that had eroded down to fractured shells, their surfaces split apart as if something had emptied them from within. Chunks of planetary crust drifted lazily through the vacuum, colliding against one another in slow, soundless impacts. Any planets that once might have been home to billions had been now reduced to uneven masses of stone, cracked open and gutted. There was no atmosphere clinging to them, no oceans glinting under light, no green or blue.

  Any life that might have once existed there had been erased long ago.

  The absence of it was nearly suffocating.

  The Ferry continued forward, gliding through that graveyard of worlds, and Darren could not help but feel impossibly small. The Underworld had felt vast when he first arrived, endless even. But this seemed somehow more infinite, desolation without boundary.

  “Earlier, you asked what the Gates were trying to keep out.” Marianne murmured.

  Darren barely had time to process the words before a deafening crash erupted above them.

  The entire golden lattice of runes surrounding the Ferry rippled violently as something slammed into it from the outside. The impact reverberated through the deck beneath Darren’s feet. He stumbled, looking up instinctively.

  The darkness had returned. But this time, it was not formless. Or perhaps Darren was simply close enough to see the shapes writhed within it. They pressed hard against the barrier, their silhouettes distorted by the shimmering protection. Then the black veil thinned just enough for him to see.

  Corpses.

  Living corpses.

  They drifted through the void like a grotesque tide, their limbs jerking in unnatural motions. Their skin hung loosely from bone, some of it sloughing away entirely, exposing ribs and hollow cavities. Fingers scraped along the barrier, leaving trails of blackened residue. Their eyes were clouded and empty, stripped of reason.

  Still, they moved with purpose.

  Each and every one of them had been driven by madness.

  One face pressed close against the barrier, its mouth hanging open as if mid-scream, though no sound carried through. Its flesh peeled back from its jaw, and Darren could see the bone beneath. It should have been dead, nothing more than drifting remains.

  Instead, it stared right at him.

  But it was not their appearance alone that made his heart pound painfully against his ribs.

  Darren had seen more than his fair share of dead bodies.

  It was their energy.

  The darkness they carried was not simply absence of light, it was a force of nature just like Mana itself. It felt wrong in a way that defied description. It coiled around the barrier, seeping against it like oil, pressing inward. Beneath that wrongness was something more insidious.

  Invitation.

  Whispers brushed against the edges of Darren’s thoughts, soft at first, then louder. Promises of relief that would come from his surrender, of letting go such that he might find true peace. The abyss did not demand anything from him. It simply tempted Darren to leave the safety of his ship, to let himself drown in the darkness that had corrupted the dead. His vision blurred slightly as his thoughts began to blur, the edges of his sanity feeling thin, like string having been pulled too tight.

  The longer he stared, the harder it became to look away...and the harder it became to remember himself.

  Charon’s warning echoed in his mind.

  Be careful out there. Focus on keeping your sanity in check.

  Now he understood the Ferryman's urgency for caution.

  If he did not guard his mind, he would lose it.

  The barrier shuddered again under another impact, cracks of distorted light spidering across its surface.

  Then the Witch moved.

  She raised her hand, and the runes etched into the bubble flared to life. They did not glow gently, they blazed with blinding golden light, twisting and rearranging at her command. The protective sphere contorted, folding inward before surging outward in a single, violent motion. A spike formed and erupted from the barrier like a spear of condensed force, tearing directly through the mass of darkness. The hordes of ghouls split apart as the spike punched through it, scattering the hordes. Bodies were hurled backward, their forms breaking apart under the force, dissolving into drifting fragments.

  The whispers faltered and the pressure on Darren's mind finally eased.

  The Ferry did not slow. It continued sailing forward, cutting through the fractured remnants, the attack nothing more than an obstacle.

  Darren tore his gaze away from the dispersing horde and looked at Marianne. The runes still shimmered faintly around her, responding to her presence like obedient soldiers awaiting command. She had controlled those symbols and bent them to her will. It was like she understood their structure, their purpose, and reshaped them as she saw fit.

  Just like before, Marianne Elarion did not look mortal at all.

  But then the golden light dimmed.

  Her shoulders sagged and drooped, the wooden staff she had formed earlier from thin air trembling slightly as she leaned against it for support. The strain was visible now, the color having drained from her face, breath uneven.

  Power like that demanded a cost.

  No matter how much control she possessed over those runes, no matter how seamlessly she wielded them—

  She was still mortal.

  And mortals had their limits.

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  “They call them the Undead.” Marianne’s voice carried no dramatics, no attempt to frighten him.

  It was simply a statement of fact.

  There had once been an old saying back in Hiraeth, something murmured half in jest and half in superstition when storms lingered too long or when graveyards felt too quiet.

  When there was no more room in Hell, the dead would walk among them.

  He had never believed it when he was still among the Lands of the Living.

  Back then, it had just been a dramatic way of describing the cruelty of men who threw morality to the side. But now, staring at the drifting corpses clawing mindlessly at the barrier, Darren realized it had not been a metaphor at all.

  It had been a warning.

  Everything he once knew—even the boundary between life and death that had always been a constant—had crumbled away just like the ruined planets that littered the space beyond.

  That truth was difficult to swallow. Harder still was accepting that this devastation was not confined to a single world. Because it was everywhere. The evidence surrounded them in every direction in dead planets, hordes of living corpses and the cosmos themselves reduced to decay.

  “If that darkness reaches us…” Darren began, unable to stop the thought from forming aloud.

  Marianne did not allow him to finish.

  “The gods always thought the end would come with war,” she said quietly.

  There was something almost bitter in her tone.

  “But their end began with a sickness that cannot be cured.”

  Marianne's gaze drifted briefly toward the dissipating remnants of the horde.

  “What you see out there is a virus.”

  The word felt almost mundane compared to the horror before them.

  “A virus? You mean a plague.” Darren repeated, struggling to reconcile the concept.

  “You could call it that,” she nodded, “If it reaches us, then we will join them. Our souls will become forever corrupted. We will wander the realms just as they do, mindlessly searching for any signs of life to consume.”

  This was not simple death. It was infection of the soul itself, twisting what someone was at their core until nothing remained but hunger and madness. Darren shook his head slowly. His mind could grasp the words individually, but put together they felt impossible. It was already difficult enough to withstand the oppressive despair that lingered beyond the barrier. But the darkness alone threatened to unravel his sanity.

  It was easy to lose one’s mind when confronted with a reality so bleak.

  Entire worlds had fallen. The gods had failed. War had not been their undoing, something far more insidious had.

  For a fleeting moment, he understood how someone could simply give in. He could see how many other mortals were dragged into hopelessness so deep that they ended up ultimately surrendering willingly to it.

  But he could not afford that.

  He still had something to fight for.

  That was the difference.

  Even surrounded by ruin, there was still a reason pushing him forward.

  He turned his attention back to Marianne, narrowing his eyes slightly.

  “You said you knew me,” he stated. “But I don’t know you.”

  His memory remained intact despite the eons that had passed since he had last drawn breath. Time had dulled nothing. Faces, battles, names—they were all preserved with complete clarity.

  He remembered his wife and daughter.

  He remembered the King of the Dragons.

  He remembered Magnus. He remembered Rosalia.

  But Marianne Elarion?

  Not once had their paths crossed. Not once had he even heard of her during his lifetime

  “There are many stories about you,” Marianne replied.

  Her expression did not change, but there was something knowing in her eyes.

  “You are the man who nearly defeated the King of the Dragons, the only opponent who the Titan of War ever acknowledged in all his years of battle. Of course I know you, Darren Ittriki," she explained. “There are very few people who do not know your name.”

  Darren fell silent.

  He had never sought legend, never desired to be etched into history as anything more than a man fighting for what he loved most: his family. But time had reshaped him into something mythical, his deeds carried forward long after his life had ended.

  For a fleeting second, Darren almost accepted her explanation.

  But the more he replayed the moment in his mind, the less it fit.

  When she had first seen his face, there had been something peculiar in her eyes and it wasn't the distant awe of someone meeting a figure from myth.

  It had been recognition of someone she knew personally.

  As if she had truly known him.

  By the time that Darren had recalled that look in her eyes, Marianne had already turned and begun descending below deck. She moved with purpose, though the strength she had displayed moments earlier was clearly fading.

  Darren followed without hesitation.

  He would not allow her to dismiss this.

  “Do you take me for a fool?” The man demanded. “Why can you not tell me the truth?”

  Marianne glanced back at him but did not slow her pace. Her expression remained frustratingly calm, though there was strain behind it now. She gave a small shrug, as if the matter were beyond her control.

  “Why ask questions you know I cannot give you the answers to?” she replied. “I swore Oaths, Darren. Just like you have.”

  Oaths.

  There were some promises that bound more than honor, sealing lips and shackling truths. He himself had taken Oaths in his lifetime that no blade could sever. Now he was bound to keep the one he had made to Hades. Because it was the only way he would see his family once more.

  Mariane stumbled, her balance tipping forward, but Darren reacted instantly. He reached out and caught her by the arm before she could hit the floor. Up close, it was now clear the toll of manipulating the runes that made up the Gates of the Underworld to such an extent that had been taken on her. It had drained her far more than she had let on.

  Her weight sagged against him.

  “Find Charon’s quarters,” the Wicked Witch whispered, her voice thinner now. “I will not be able to stay awake for much longer.”

  Darren tightened his grip, steadying her as they moved together through the dim corridor. The Ferry creaked softly around them, still sailing onward through the dead cosmos.

  He had thought that leaving the Underworld would give him some answers.

  Instead, the opposite had occurred.

  Darren was left with more and more questions and the only one who could have given him those answers would soon go unconscious.

  “You will find the Compass of Life in those quarters,” she continued faintly. “Follow it. Keep us alive.”

  Her knees buckled without warning.

  Darren caught her fully this time, lowering her carefully so she did not strike the floor. Her face had gone pale, a sheen of sweat clinging to her skin. Her breathing was shallow and uneven. But for some reason, she still remained calm. It was like she trusted him completely, knowing that he would be able to manage what came next.

  Just before her eyes slipped closed, Darren leaned closer.

  “Answer me this then.” he said quietly.

  Her gaze flickered back to him, unfocused but still barely present.

  “Charon said that if we reach the City of Iron, there will be many people who want you dead.” His jaw tightened slightly. “Why is that?”

  For some reason, Darren did not think that there were oaths keeping her from answering this question.

  Only exhaustion.

  Perhaps if she had been stronger, more guarded, she would have chosen silence. But whatever walls she kept so carefully constructed were crumbling under fatigue.

  Her lips parted.

  “Because I unleashed Ragnar?k across the realms,” she whispered.

  The words were as soft as they were devastating. Darren stared at her, searching her face for any sign of delirium twisting her meaning. There were none. This was both an answer and confession combined.

  “I’m the one who brought about the end of the worlds.”