Gi pushed [Unstoppable Nobility] as hard as he could, chasing after the Demon Emperor who sprinted in the air on pockets of sand. A few demons below fired shards of earth or fire as Gi passed, but they all missed so fast was their chase.

The Emperor's target, Wane, stood calmly on top of the remnants of the southern wall on the eastern side. He charged another [Piercing Light], preparing to loose it as the Emperor came rapidly closer.

"He's too fast!" Gi yelled over the cacophony of battle. "RUN!"

Mere feet away, Wane fired off his attack, it wasn't charged long enough to do damage so it simply bounced off of the Emperor's chest.

Wane, still not perfectly recovered from his coma, kicked back off the parapet and fell inside the wall. The Emperor's fist missed him by inches, but he wasn't limited to moving in the vertical space and ricocheted off a layer of sand in the air toward the falling Wane.

The Emperor's attack allowed Gi to close the distance and he was just behind him as the Emperor shot towards the ground. The inner courtyard was a mess of rubble, bodies, and fighting, but it was the wall of mud that greeted him that he was most surprised to see.

"You're mine!" Ellen yelled.

The mud surged up to engulf the Emperor and Gi had to pirouette through the air to avoid it.

The ball of mud surrounding the demon boiled like a pot left for too long and Ellen herself had her arms in the air struggling to fully contain the Emperor inside. Gi doubted that she'd be able to fully lock him in, but it gave them an opportunity.

The rest of the battle had progressed since he'd last been inside the walls. Even as he watched, General Rowan stabbed the first heir with his rapier over and over, adding dozens of wounds to the hundreds already weeping blood across his body. The flames of the first heir were flickering, barely there.

The other side of the battle was the opposite. Flames danced across the body of the second heir from where King Rellington had engulfed him in his ultimate ability. The elven Queen must have recovered some of her Aether as she'd joined Krayli in peppering the second heir as well.

Both would be dead soon, but it meant that they just needed time. Time that Ellen was buying them.

Gi's options flooded through his mind as he tried to consider the best path forward. Try to recover, set up a trap, help his clanmates and tackle the Emperor together. They were all good ideas, but they were dependent on how long the Emperor would remain trapped.

From the look of Ellen's mud, it wouldn't take long. This might be the only opportunity that he got to try and end it. He couldn't hold anything back.

He dropped onto the closest intact roof nearby. His Aether had been in a good state, mostly because he'd spent so much time getting his ass kicked, but that was fortuitous now.

Light ignited in his palm. Aether flowed along the rivers inside of him from every inch of his body and funneled towards the bead of light that was steadily growing. Keeping part of the growing attack outside of him meant that some of his Aether would be lost, but it was worth it for the extra control. Control that he used to increase the pace of his siphoning Aether.

He pushed as hard as he could and it felt like the Aether inside of him was a river of razorblades so quick was its passage. It would be agony to use any of his Skills after this, but if things went right, he wouldn't need to use any other Skills.

As fast as he was pushing, it was still far too slow and his building attack was a beacon for anyone with a developed Soul.

The ball of mud stilled for a second and he could see that Ellen pushed all the harder, trying to compress the ball into something that would end him.

It wouldn't last.

Gi looked around for anyone that could hold off the Emperor, but they were all busy with their own fights. Even Samba, who he hadn't seen reach the inside of the wall was sitting in a daze not far from Kumo who lay lifeless on the ground.

Before he could come up with a plan, the mud exploded.

Filith spattered against the wall and the closest demons. Ellen was hit by some kind of backlash as she cried out and dropped to the ground. He didn't think she was dead, but it would take her a few seconds to recover.

The Emperor stood on two pockets of sand in the air where the mudball used to be. His form still looked completely untouched, but his breaths were coming heavily. Had they somehow started to wear him out? It made no sense with his emphasis as an attrition fighter, but something had pressed him.

The Emperor's eyes fell on Gi and his slowly building Skill. He still had about a quarter of his Aether left that he was trying to force into [Divine Commandment]. If he dropped it now, he'd lose all the Aether that he'd built up and would no longer be strong enough to end the Emperor.

"Help!" Gi yelled out. "We need to stall him!"

Gi's cries didn't appear to be answered. Everyone was just as far away as he'd last seen them, each engaged in their own battles.

The Emperor charged.

Gi couldn't fly or run. The only thing he could do was focus on his [Divine Commandment]. Screaming, he pushed it even harder. The effort of trying to force it stretched his internal pathways and the pain increased tenfold. He was screaming, but he couldn't move.

A [Piercing Light] lanced through the air and hit the Emperor. Gi hadn't noticed Wane charging his own attack from behind the house, but it was enough to cause the Emperor to stumble - slowed but not stopped.

Even as the Emperor righted himself, a giant web crashed into him and a huge Poe flew from behind Gi.

"HAVE NO FEAR! POE IS HERE!"

The webbing only lasted an instant. Poe's presence was a relief, but with Kumo and Veritas already dead, it was also a terror.

Poe's giant forelimb shot downward like a scorpion's tail, but the Emperor stopped it easily with one hand, squeezing it. Poe screamed out, but didn't shrink to stop it, instead enduring the pain to continue to apply pressure. The Emperor took another step and another, knocking Poe's leg to the side.

Pushing as hard as he could, Gi felt something inside him snap. His internal Aether started to unravel, disconnecting itself from his own building Skill. The light in his palm flickered from a star on the verge of exploding to a candle sputtering in a fierce wind.

As his Aether ran haywire inside him, Gi could feel his Skill failing, but he didn't know what to do. He tried to focus his intent, but anytime he grabbed one part with his mind, another section seemed to explode outward and his [Divine Commandment] slowly started to erode despite the power that he'd made.

It was all he could do to keep it from exploding. He'd bet it all on this attack and if he didn't find a way to fix it, they were all dead. The universe itself might be dead. He didn't know why Danna had gone silent, but he prayed - to his wife, to his soulmate, to his goddess.

Please... Just give me a path forward. Any path and I'll take it.

For the briefest moment, he felt her presence pulse into him. It steadied his panicked mind and wrapped him up in her holy embrace. Her presence faded as soon it had appeared, but the Divine Aether that she'd used to embrace him remained. It was his Aether, but Divine Aether was different.

That's it!

A pillar of mud stretched from the ground to snag on one of the Emperor's legs. Ellen was on her hands and knees, one hand raised upwards as she forced her Aether to hold. Another giant web struck the Emperor, but none of them could stop him. He was a juggernaut, unwilling and unable to die.

But Gi had a solution. He spun his Divine Aether, pulling it out of the chaotic mess of his unraveling Skill and forced it around the exploding detritus inside of him. First, he encircled it in a sphere and slowly started to reshape that back into faux meridians that could get his Aether back moving towards the Skill.

It stabilized, but the Emperor was still coming. Even with the unexpected help, he just didn't have time.

"FOR KUMO!"

A dozen beams of light struck the Emperor harmlessly and Gi's head whirled to see the source. The Inquisitors that had followed Kumo fired a volley that did even less than Wane's attack had, but they weren't the only ones that had come.

Sanya, Kumo's second, led the rest of her Hunters in a charge towards the Emperor. They kicked off of the nearby building to fly into the air, each of them grabbing a leg or an arm or even the Emperor's torso before pummeling the Emperor with their Skills or maces.

Sanya landed beside Gi for just a second. "Kumo went to poison the Emperor. We know she did it. How could she fail with your life on the line? If we stall, we win. We won't let her success end here."

"Wait!" Gi yelled after her, but she'd already joined the mass of Otters climbing over the Emperor like ants trying to take down a human.

And they died.

The Emperor shoved away another attack from Poe and snatched one of the Hunters off his arm before tearing them in two. Pieces of them were flung into the hordes of demons still being held back by the Veridians. One by one they were ripped off of him and torn apart.

Even Sanya herself wasn't spared.

Gi felt helpless as he watched his clan die one by one to try and string together enough moments for them to snatch an impossible victory. Tears welled up in his eyes and it took all of his self control not to force his Skill again and ruin the progress that he'd reclaimed.

Their lives being spent in such a way felt senseless and cruel, but it had done enough. Samba had returned.

"NO MORE!"

Samba leapt into the air, using his [Darting Fortress] to cover the gap. Gi hadn't even known his Charge Skill could be used like that, but he sailed through the air like lightning and slammed into the Emperor. A few of the Hunters that still lived were knocked off, but Samba wrapped up the Emperor in his [Fighting Style].

While Samba couldn't fly, he did hook both of his ankles at the Emperor's knees, using his Strength to hold himself in place.

Like before, Samba's strength wasn't enough to control the Emperor, but something was different this time. The demon's reactions seemed just a touch slower than it should and his breath continued to be beleaguered.

Had Kumo actually given her life to poison him? Where did she even get poison strong enough to impact someone of the Demon Emperor's Vitality?

Either way, Kumo's actions had given Samba just enough leverage to continue stalling the Emperor.

Gi's [Divine Commandment] now radiated like a second sun. Its ancient aura thrummed in the air as a hymn echoing in an old temple seemed just beyond listening. It spread over the battlefield and those demons closest to him had to shade their eyes against its light.

The Emperor refused to die quietly.

He let loose his own Aether. Sand popped into existence in a cloud all around him and started to burrow into Samba's flesh. A millions tiny holes appeared in the large Otter and blood dribbled out of each of them. Gi felt Samba's own Domain flare as he tried to combat the damage, but it wasn't enough to stop it.

Gi was so close. The light in his hand had started to buck wildly as the last of his Aether slowly poured into it.

"Just a few more seconds!" Gi yelled. Samba yelled back, his response more a shout of defiance against the pain than anything intelligible.

"I'll get you those seconds!" Tiria raced across the sky, stepping on the water in the air that didn't seem like it should be able to hold her as she was wrapped in Water Aether like it was a mech suit.

As large as Samba, she looped two of the Emperor's arms in a lock that looked similar to Samba's own [Fighting Style]. The Water Aether that enclosed her kept off the worst of the Emperor's area attack.

Her help let Samba swim his own arm underneath the Emperor's other side and lock the other two limbs out with his head.

"DO IT!" Samba yelled, his voice strained.

It took one more second for his overcharged Skill to click into place, but it was finally ready. He released it, forced to use his Divine Aether that encompassed the Skill to aim it as his internal pathways were destroyed.

It felt like trying to hold Queen Siht by her tail, but somehow he managed to fire it. The world turned dark as the concentrated beam of light shot towards the Emperor. The weight of an era was contained within that beam and the Emperor knew its power.

With a surge of desperate strength, he flung Tiria off of him, but the attack was too fast. It sliced through his torso, leaving a huge gaping wound that had been boiled by the strength of Gi's attack.

The Emperor hacked up blood as the damage hadn't just been limited to the direct impact and Gi's Aether exploded into his body. The sand that the Emperor stood on puffed into non-existence and he fell.

Gi sagged against the roof as he'd used every fraction of Aether within himself. His Soul was on fire from the damage that he'd done, but he still tried to scrape his own life force for another attack.

The Emperor was grievously injured, but he wasn't dead. Pain stopped Gi's attempt to build another attack and dread filled him as he saw the Emperor impossibly roll to his side as he attempted to stand up even with a giant hole in him.

Then Wane and the Inquisitors were there.

The onslaught that had done nothing earlier now opened up wounds all across the Emperor's body, joining the damage that Gi had already done. They circled around him, firing dozens and dozens of attacks even after Gi was confident that he was killed.

The little strength Gi had flowed out of him and he fell flat against the roof. Poe shrunk to his medium size and caught him before he could slide off.

"How's... the rest of the battle?" Gi asked.

"The second heir still lives, but with my wifey and the General fighting him, he should be gone soon."

Gi took a labored breath. "So we won?"

"I think so?" Poe said.

Gi could see that even with their Emperor dead, many in the horde of demons hadn't even noticed. They still threw themselves bodily against the Veridians who even with the help of Samba's Templars and the Midnight Elves were well past having a coherent line of defense.

With all the heirs dead, Gi would just have to trust that Rowan would handle the bulk of the army somehow. The demons had lost.

"How... How many of ours died?" Gi choked out. It was a question he didn't want to ask, but Poe was one of the few who could answer before the battle was over.

Poe's face screwed up, like he was trying to stop tears from falling. It made the dragonfly look like a terror, but he understood. Gi hated how much this had cost them. He hated that this path was the greater good.

"Over half...," Poe said. "The Inquisitors and Priests did the best, but... the Templar and Hunters..."

"And the others?"

"Nori's goblins were almost completely wiped out. Nori herself died along with her second. Cedrick, the human that we found died first. And Kumo..."

"Yeah."

The two of them faded into silence. It was a heavy cost and looking out over the demons that still lived, it seemed like their people should have been worth more. They were worth more. Reality just refused to see it.

A notification appeared.

Empire Stage has ended.

Primary Goal completed.

"The second heir is dead," Gi said. His plot had worked. With Galvina having sworn to him, he was now the defacto leader of the Demon Empire. He could feel the light wanting to take him, but he forced it back for a moment, keeping himself grounded in reality.

"Poe, I need to take the last step. I need to get to Danna."

"You're... you're leaving? Already?"

"Not just yet, but... soon. Something is going on with the gods and I can't delay or our victory here might be for nothing."

"We just got you back..."

"I know. It's not fair especially after what it cost. I know it doesn't feel like it now, but I promise it will be worth it."

"I trust you..." Poe's words were at odds with the tremor in his voice. He knew the stakes, but Poe was a monster that led with his heart. To him, his best friend was dying again. Having to hurt Poe like that formed an empty knot in his chest.

Gi's body ached, but even just laying there didn't provide any relief. His body had been beat to hell and back and his Soul had been flayed on the inside. There was no relief to be had and the pain was a constant reminder that he was lingering too long.

"Can you get General Rowan and the other leaders?"

"Sure, Boss," Poe said, his voice was shaky and it took him several seconds before he was willing to leave. As soon as Poe left, he let the light take him.

The familiar endless sea of white greeted him, but veins of darkness were interspersed throughout its essence. Each somehow right next to him and still millions of light years away. It was a scope beyond his understanding, but he'd have to learn to understand it.

First, an emperor; then, a god.

The gods had schooled him on what to expect from the Emperor Stage. So the next notification wasn't a surprise.

Choose an Inheritor.

In that sea of white, his pain and emotiones were normally absent, but this time, there was still an echo of whatever damage he'd done to his channels. It wasn't Truth so it wasn't really there, but mortality muddied the waters of what Truth meant; thus, the echo.

Thankfully, it was muted enough to ignore so he turned his attention to the choice before him.

An Inheritor was similar to a Subgenitor in a way. If a Progenitor fell, the clan's peak was terminated, but the Subgenitor was a path to restore that peak and become a new Progenitor for the clan. That was the path that Tiria had rejected after his own death.

An Inheritor was slightly different. When a mortal became a god, that had a lasting impact on reality. It was an afterimage of that divinity and the Inheritor became the focal point of that.

As the name implied, they inherited some of the nascent god's power while the clan itself became the first seed of divine worship. When an Inheritor is born, it stopped anyone else from walking the path to the heavens as the clan's peak was already in the heavens.

That was the choice he had to make. Functionally, who would lead the Underbridge when he was gone.

An image of each of his three remaining Elites appeared in front of him. They were hollow like the visions he got of Skill Upgrades, but each of them were true to themselves.

Wane stood alone in a room surrounded by research. Killer, his and Wax's cat, lay nearby and Wane gently stroked him. The original leader of the Inquisitors was currently half the person that he used to be with one part of his soul across the veil.

Yet somehow, he was still greater than many. He was both pure of focus and loyal to a fault. It was the Twins that had stood over him on Igna and it was them that helped him find the weaknesses against the Spiked Eagles. They'd always had his back from the beginning and they'd be a good choice to lead the Underbridge.

Still, the look of melancholy on Wane's face made him question the decision. Would giving him a job make him feel more connected to the clan? Or would it interrupt his search for peace?

Gi moved to the next image.

It was Tiria. Her image didn't show her surrounded in her [Waterborn Armory] like he'd just seen her. No, she was not that goddess of war. Instead, it showed her back at the Lake Encampment in the domed Headquarters at her desk, filling out documents.

When Gi had been lost in visions of the Father, it was Tiria who'd kept the clan together. She'd done everything perfectly, and if anything fell through the cracks, she simply hoisted it onto her shoulders like Atlas holding up their world.

That burden had been too much for her. When Gi had passed before, she'd left, the guilt being too much. She'd changed and grown, but he thought she realized that being a leader wasn't what she truly wanted - even someone that loved the clan as much as she did.

With Kumo's passing, that left the last image - Samba.

Samba had taken the most circuitous route of them all. He'd thrown himself into training the clan and trying to protect everyone wholeheartedly, but that was the thing about him, he did everything wholeheartedly.

When he decided that Gi was becoming corrupt, it was difficult for him to hold back. When he felt Kumo had made the wrong decision, he struck out on his own. In some ways, he was the most foolish, but he also had learned the most as well.

He relied on Tala and now Alice to keep him on track. He'd slowly come to realize the hardships of being a leader and the lessons he'd learned were invaluable. But would he continue to be foolish? Or had he learned enough to be a worthy Inheritor?

They were all loyal, and while the choice felt obvious to him, he still wished he saw Kumo there. Someone willing to fight when it was required. Someone with the drive to make difficult decisions easily. He'd miss her something fierce and he hoped he got an opportunity to see her again across the veil.

Gi lingered.

Time was different in this place and he spent longer than required just basking in the memories he'd made with the people he cared about. When he returned, it would only be to leave again so he selfishly took as much time as he could.

Eventually, he felt the tug of inevitability and made his choice.

Samba.

Almost immediately, the light deposited him back on top of the roof. All the pain that had been held off came crashing back into him and a fit of coughing took over. Before Poe could return with the General, his three Elites made their way up to the roof to sit with him.

All of them looked awful, even Wane who'd taken no visible wounds during the fight. Exhaustion and Aether depletion were their own special torment. The four of them remained silent for what felt like a long time in the throes of his pain, but it was nice to just sit there and pretend it was the old days right after the Dungeon when they'd all come together.

"Why?" It was Samba who broke the quiet.

"Saw the notification?" Gi asked with a pained smile.

"I denounced the clan. I rejected both you and... and Kumo." His voice caught on the last part.

"And yet, you came when we were in danger."

"I..."

"Was it not you that joined forces with me despite your feelings? Was it not you that held against the demons to protect the humans you didn't even know?"

All of them looked out at the horde. The fighting had slowed down. With the second heir dead, the King, Elder Altman, General Rowan, and the Midnight Elf Queen had started pushing back hard. With the increased pressure and mounting dead, the demons had clearly learned that something had gone wrong and were being routed about as fast as you could with a giant horde.

"What about Tiria?" Samba asked.

It was Tiria who responded. "I think Gi made the right choice."

It had been an emotional day for all of them, but perhaps even moreso for Samba, his voice was cracked and pleading. "But I've made so many mistakes."

Gi nodded. "As have I, but we're still here. We're still trying our best for the people we care about. It's okay to be scared of leading. I always am, but you have to remember that everyone will be here for you - Tiria, Wane, Tala, Alice. None of them will be shy about speaking up. Trust me."

Samba choked out a laugh. "My wife did secede from the clan right to your face. I love her so much."

"She is pretty great."

Samba's smile turned wistful. "If Kumo was here, she'd probably say something snarky about her being better than me."

"Maybe, but for her, the snark was always just sibling banter."

Samba rubbed his giant thumb across his palm. Even there, wounds from the Emperor's attack was still present.

"...I was a bad brother," he said after a moment.

"And I was a bad Progenitor. All we can do is try to be better the next time."

Both Samba and Wane quietly sniffed as they held back tears. Gi didn't know exactly what their thoughts were, but he could guess. They'd all lost so many people on their journey and they were about to lose one more. Tiria broached it first.

"So you're leaving after this?"

"As soon as Rowan gets here. The gods have been silent since the battle started and that makes me worried. Danna helped me a little towards the end so I think she's okay, but they're distracted or conserving divinity. Both options mean something terrible has happened."

"I cost so much to bring you back and now... you're about to leave again."

They all thought of Mark. Gi knew that Tiria still felt guilty about that and he was sure Samba had a cocktail of conflicted emotions about that. None of them brought it up though, not willing to taint their last conversation with that.

"The world will change after I ascend. It won't split back to a monster world and a human one. The system might change or it might not. You'll need to be strong and rely on each other."

"We will," Samba said, "and... you weren't a bad Progenitor. I know I've had some hateful thoughts, but I regret anything I've ever said that made you think you weren't worthy of us."

Water sprang to Gi's eyes. "Thank you. That means more to me than you know."

Interrupting them, Rowan appeared in a flash. The human General looked as rough as all of them did and he even wavered a bit on the roof. He ran his hands through his hair as he looked down at them.

"Veritas is dead," he said bluntly and Gi nodded.

"One among many, sadly."

"The seeds of victory are always watered by the blood of the young," he said, and for the first time since Gi had met the man, he actually looked his years.

"Cedrick died."

"And Luke, and a half dozen other commanders and many times more of their troops."

"Victory doesn't feel like victory today."

"It rarely does."

General Rowan inhaled deeply and then let his breath out in a rush. The tension and exhaustion didn't leave him, but this was a man who'd lived a life of war, and as hard as today had been for him, he was ready for the next steps.

"Most of the nobles fled or hid once the wall came down. Veritas himself didn't have any direct heirs so their will be a succession after this, but for now, I'm declaring myself steward of the Empire until such a time as a new Emperor is crowned."

After Veritas's death, he'd suspected something like that might happen, but he wanted to be respectful of Veritas and the relationship he'd had with Rowan over the years. His mind might have been failing, but that didn't negate all the good he'd done for his people.

"I suppose you want me to kneel or something now?" Rowan asked. Gi didn't like the phrasing, but he'd already delayed too long to have a chance to talk with his Elites.

"The gods still need me. Veridia is the last faction needed for me to ascend."

Poe returned then and flattened himself against Gi, hugging him as tightly as he could manage. He patted his oldest friend's back gently.

"I'll miss you, buddy." Gi looked around at Wane, Tiria, and Samba as well, taking in their faces one last time. "I'll miss all of you."

All three of them joined Poe in his death grip hug and Gi tried unsuccessfully to hug each of them back in turn. He knew that he might never see them again, and if he did, it would be as they passed through Danna's heaven before reincarnation. After a life fully lived, they'd be different than they were now and so would he.

This moment was an ending and now that he'd arrived to it, his throat felt choked up. The pain of his body couldn't compare to the sense of loss that he was about to experience, but he couldn't delay. His fears that he was already needed forced him to say his next words.

"If you wanted to swear now, I think this is how I'd like to go."

The General straightened up to his full height, despite the weariness of the battle that hung about him like a cloak. "For services rendered to Veridia, I hereby swear allegiance to you as steward of the Empire. May you guide us in the heavens as you have done on Earth."

He knelt.

Being hugged by his loved ones, Poe's cries were the last thing he heard before he was absconded by light.

God Stage has ended.

Primary Goal completed.