I had only casted the Mass Resurrection spell a hand full of times, and every one of them had been extremely taxing. Without the support of Miki’s dungeon, it would have been impossible to do what I had done in Dioshin. At this point, I had everything going against it. I was already low on mana, and I was in Twilight’s domain. Not only did she claim the souls for herself, but she had slowly been trying to unify with them for untold years.

Through some chance and luck, Sapphire had used her skill as a necromancer to force the souls to enter their bodies, and it created a single opportunity. Knowing this, I had to make the spell work, and so I put everything I had into it. A wave of light erupted from my body, shooting out across the city square and covering the army of undead. When the wave struck Twilight, she let out a cry, her darkness trying to push the light away. However, the light was resilient, and her body flickered, disappearing as she fled back into the darkness of the palace keep.

Sapphire, who had still been held up by her, finally dropped to the ground. Even as I continued the spell, I raced toward Sapphire. Her injury wasn’t just severe, but catastrophic. I didn’t know what blade she used to stab her, but I instinctively could tell that it had special properties like Alysium. That meant that it could damage a person’s very lifeforce.

As I ran toward her, the undead seemed to turn into white light, their bodies floating away to dust. As the bodies disappeared, a white light was leftover, devoid of the darkness of the wraiths. They remained glowing for a few moments and then flickered out, disappearing from this world. One by one, the entire army of undead and wraiths were eliminated. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but that wasn’t what I was concerned about.

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I reached Sapphire, putting my arms around her and lifting her head. At this point, the black curse had already covered her body, and the black corruption was crawling up her neck. She was undoubtedly dying.

“No… Sapphire… you can hold on.”

I lifted my hand to heal her, but she reached out and grabbed my wrist, stopping me. “Family… safe…”

A tear began to fall down my cheek. My heart had already been wounded when I found I couldn’t save Garnet, and watching this little girl in my hands that I was helpless to save, caused all of that emotion to finally come tumbling forth.

“Yeah, your family is safe. They’re all safe.” I tried to force a smile on my face, just as she was doing.

A look of relief appeared in her eyes, and then there was nothing. She stared blankly up until her body slowly started to turn to ash. Within moments, her body could no longer be held up by me, and then it fell apart, falling to the ground with a puff. Only the outline of a little girl remained.

“Master…” A hand gently touched my shoulder.

“I can save her!” I snapped, raising my hand and casting resurrection.

She was a monster without substantial lore, at least not enough to be called a karmic soul, but I could still bring it back. I had to!

“Her lore is destroyed… the darkness made sure of that.”

“No! I can resurrect her…”

“Master…”

“I can!”

“Master, you already have.”

I turned for the first time, looking up at Garnet standing there. Garnet was the daughter of the King. Yet, so was Sapphire. The answer to that was simple. They were the same person. They always had been.