The silence after Nyx’s death was suffocating. The factory floor felt like a graveyard, the air heavy with the scent of rust and blood. Alastor stared down at her lifeless body, her twisted smile still etched into her face, mocking him even in death.

He crouched beside her, running a hand over his face. The weight of her betrayal sat like a stone in his chest, but what haunted him more was the bitter truth beneath it: Nyx had been right.

Everyone had a price.

She had gambled everything on Lucius’s offer of power and lost. But was Alastor really so different? Hadn’t he been chasing power too? Not for the sake of greed, but for the freedom it promised—for a way to break the loop, destroy the Pyramid, and rewrite the rules of existence.

And yet… how many lives had been lost along the way? How many more would be sacrificed by the time this war ended?

He closed his eyes, exhaustion pressing against the edges of his mind. The path ahead was stained with blood, and Nyx’s death was just another mark on a ledger that kept growing.

How much more could he take? How far was too far? When did survival turn into something else—something monstrous?

Aurora’s voice crackled over the comm-link in his ear. "Alastor?" she called, her voice cautious, uncertain. "Are you okay? What happened?"

He didn’t answer immediately, his gaze lingering on Nyx’s still form. A part of him hated her for what she had done, but another part of him— the part that remembered their shared battles, their near-misses with death—grieved for her.

Would it ever end? Or would the loop simply turn him into another Lucius, another monster convinced he was doing the right thing?

He clenched his fists, frustration boiling beneath his skin. Was power really worth this? Or had he already lost too much?

Before he could sink deeper into his thoughts, a familiar voice—sharp, cutting, and cold as steel—broke through his spiral of doubt. Selene.

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"You can’t afford to hesitate now, Creed."

Alastor stood slowly, turning toward her. Selene’s image flickered in the shadows, her presence solid yet distant, as if she were a ghost lingering just outside reality. But there was no mistaking the hard edge in her voice—a voice that had seen too many wars, too many betrayals to entertain doubt.

He shook his head slowly. "How many more people have to die, Selene?" he asked, his voice low, almost tired. "How many betrayals? How much blood do we spill before this stops being a fight for freedom—and becomes just another power struggle?"

Selene’s violet eyes locked onto his, cold and unwavering. "You already know the answer to that."

Alastor clenched his jaw, anger flickering beneath his grief. "Do I?"

She took a step closer, her movements slow and deliberate. There was no softness in her gaze, no sympathy. Only the brutal honesty of someone who had accepted the truth long ago: survival came with a cost, and the ones who hesitated were the first to fall.

"We’re too far gone for doubt," Selene said quietly, her voice like a blade cutting through the silence. "If you start questioning now, you’ll break. And if you break, everything we’ve fought for dies with you."

Alastor looked away, the weight of her words pressing down on him. Selene was right—he knew that. Doubt was a luxury they couldn’t afford. Not when Lucius was still out there, waiting to crush them beneath the Pyramid’s endless cycles. Not when the only path forward was through fire and ruin.

"You think I don’t question it too?" Selene asked, her tone sharp but not unkind. "Every day, I ask myself how much more blood I can live with on my hands. But I know one thing—if we hesitate, if we stop moving, we lose. And we can’t afford to lose, not now."

Alastor let out a slow breath, his hands falling to his sides. There was no comfort in her words—only truth. A truth he didn’t want to hear, but one he needed to accept.

He glanced down at Nyx’s body one last time, her final words echoing in his mind: "Everyone has a price."

Maybe she had been right about that, too. Maybe Alastor had already paid his price.

Selene’s gaze didn’t waver, her presence solid and unwavering, as if she had been waiting for him to reach this moment all along. "There’s no going back," she said, her voice cold but steady. "We’re all in this, until the end."

Alastor closed his eyes for a brief moment, letting the weight of her words settle over him. There was no turning back now. The only way out was forward—through the betrayal, through the blood, through the endless cycle of death and rebirth.

When he opened his eyes again, the hesitation was gone. Nyx was dead, and there was no time for regret.

The war wasn’t over. Not yet.