The climb up the final stretch to the peak feels like an eternity for Emrys’s frail body, but soon, they finally reach the top. As the summit comes into view, their eyes fall upon a looming, majestic temple. Its cold stone walls stand stoically against the dawn sky, untouched by time.

“The place where the gods reside,” Rowan breaths out in awe.

Avery lets out a sigh of relief, his breath visible in the cold air. “We made it,” he mutters.

The air is thin and crisp, filled with a sense of impending finality. Avery, Rowan, and Emrys approach the temple cautiously, their footsteps echoing in the stillness of the morning.

In front of the massive doors, Emrys pauses. “Shouldn’t we wait for the other three?”

Rowan sighs and turns to Emrys. “You seem like a nice guy, Emrys,” he begins, his tone laced with both pity and practicality, “but you’re part of the Abandoned World now. It’s every player for themselves here.”

“But we promised to meet—” Emrys starts, but Rowan cuts him off.

“They’re most likely dead,” Rowan interrupts bluntly. “That beast cut off their path up. And even after that, the three of us barely made it up here by sheer luck and my vines.”

A moment of heavy silence hangs between them. Emrys looks down with mixed feelings. He opens his mouth to argue but is suddenly interrupted by a sharp, echoing crack.

An arrow whizzes through the air, and Avery lets out a gasp as he stumbles backward, clutching his shoulder. Blood seeps through his fingers, staining his clothes.

“Avery!” Emrys rushes to his side, moving quickly to treat him.

Rowan’s eyes widen, and he swiftly draws out a dagger, scanning the surroundings for the source of the attack. “Get ready,” Rowan warns them.

“I’m fine,” Avery says to Emrys, straightening up and readying his wind ability.

From the shadows, other players emerge, some driving sturdy vehicles, their leader stepping forward with an unsettlingly familiar presence.

Cas.

Emrys's heart sinks when he sees Cas leading the hostile group. The other doesn’t hesitate, launching an attack on Rowan who stands in front of them, his movements swift and precise. Rowan summons plants to defend himself, but Cas slices through them easily.

“Cas, stop!” Emrys shouts, jumping in his path. He pulls out a sword from his dimensional space and raises it defensively, stopping Cas in his tracks. “Don’t do this.”

Cas pauses, staring at Emrys with a cold, unreadable gaze.

The other members of Cas’s group engage in combat with Rowan and Avery. The air is filled with the clash of weapons and elements and the shouts of battle. Cas steps toward Emrys, his hand reaching out, but just then, a glowing lance impales itself in the ground at Cas’s feet with a heavy impact.

Wesley, Lily, and Clara arrive in the nick of time, the helicopter they hijacked hovering unstably overhead. Clara, using her wind abilities, keeps the vehicle going until they crash to the ground.

They jump out of the helicopter and quickly join the fight. Clara falls back with Avery and they use their wind abilities to stir up the wind and push their enemies back. Lily resummons her lance, sending crackling water and spiritual force out from it to drive Cas back, away from Emrys.

With their team of different elemental users reunited, they regain the upper hand. Wesley reworks the terrain to their advantage, Rowan restrains and attacks with his plant ability, Clara and Avery aim strong gusts of wind at their opponents, Lily makes forceful and wide-ranging attacks with her lance along with her water ability.

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Then Cas rejoins the fight.

He grabs an axe from one of his fallen teammates and hurls it toward Lily. Clara screams for her sister to watch out.

Lily raises her lance, creating a barrier of water as well, but the axe slices right through the water as if it were air and shatters her lance, striking her dead on. She cries out in pain, collapsing to the ground as blood pours from the fatal wound.

Clara rushes to her sister’s side, her face pale with fear. “Lily, no!” she cries, holding her dying sister close.

Without Clara by his side, Avery is quickly overwhelmed and suffers more injuries.

“Avery!” Rowan tries to get to him, but he is struck while he’s distracted, falling to the ground with a painful grunt.

Wesley curses under his breath, his eyes filled with desperation and anger. He looks around at his fallen teammates and finally his eyes land on Emrys. He stares at him with wide eyes, a plan formulating quickly in his mind.

Emrys runs over to him. Thinking he needs something from his dimensional storage, he asks, “What do you need?”

To Emrys’s surprise, Wesley grabs him suddenly, and something sharp and cold presses against his neck. Wesley holds a dagger against his neck and shouts to Cas, “Stop moving!”

Cas, who had been striding over to them, stops dead in his tracks.

“Stop your teammates too,” Wesley says.

Cas looks at his group and raises a hand. They immediately stop attacking and retreat, eyeing Cas with nervous gazes.

“Any funny moves, and I’ll kill him,” Wesley warns. The dagger presses closer against Emrys’s neck, creating a thin cut and a trickle of blood.

Wesley orders one of the opponents’ vehicles to be emptied out, and motions for his injured teammates to get on. Cas’s team look at their motionless leader uneasily, but Cas only watches with cold eyes.

Once they’ve successfully boarded, Wesley finally moves toward the vehicle as well, still holding tightly to Emrys. But at that moment, Cas moves at lightning speed.

A blade of shadow flies straight toward Wesley and Emrys. Wesley barely manages to jump out of the way, pushing Emrys to the opposite side. The blade flies past them, silent and deadly, cutting clean through a boulder behind them.

Rowan drives the vehicle toward Wesley, Avery waiting at the open door to pull him in. Wesley grabs Avery’s hand and jumps into the moving vehicle. He then turns to Emrys who’s still stunned on the ground.

“Emrys, we have to retreat, now!” Wesley shouts urgently, his hand outstretched toward him.

Emrys raises his hand to grab Wesley’s but Cas is quicker, grabbing Emrys and jumping far away from the retreating vehicle.

Cas instructs his team calmly, “Chase after them.”

They comply immediately, climbing into the remaining vehicle and driving after them.

Emrys tries to move, but Cas moves in his way. He wants to shout at him, but just then, an explosion booms, the force of the blast causing the ground to tremble and dust to fly up. Emrys is thrown to the ground, his vision blurring from the impact. When he looks up, he sees the devastating aftermath—the bodies of his allies and foes scattered across the ground in the distance.

Emrys rises to his feet, his hand clutching the dagger Wesley had left with him when he pushed him out of the way of Cas’s shadow blade. Cas remains standing beside him when Emrys staggers to his feet. Amidst the wreckage, they are the only ones left standing.

Emrys hears a ding and sees Coral pop out on the blue terminal to alert him that the main task has been completed and he can leave at any time.

The world seems to slow down around them as the gravity of the moment sinks in. He stares at Cas, his expression one of profound disappointment and sorrow.

“Why?” Emrys demands, his voice breaking.

“So you will live,” Cas responds.

Emrys raises the dagger to Cas’s neck.

Despite Cas’s seemingly blank expression, he is confused. He doesn’t think he did anything wrong. This instance is categorized as a Wipeout instance because of the incredibly high mortality rate. Typically no one survives, however, it’s also common that one player survives as one of the winning conditions. It is possible for a group of allies to survive, but what goes on in that temple is far more complicated than a simple battle royale out here. Knowing this, Cas killed everyone except Emrys to ensure he is the one to survive. Just as he promised him in the first phase. Emrys will survive.

“Would you like to be transported out now?” The system asks.

“Yes,” Emrys replies, his voice hollow.

As he begins to disappear, he looks at Cas one last time. “You truly are a monster after all,” he says, his voice heavy with disappointment.

Cas stands there, watching as Emrys vanishes from the instance. He remains in place even as the world around him fades away, the temple and the battlefield dissolving into nothingness. Inside the fading temple, a goddess sits alone, tears falling down her cheeks.