For a while, nothing moved—not even the flying insects.
It was as if everything had died with the clash.
Stillness hung in the air like ash.
But then—
The woman.
The one untouched. Unshaken.
She moved.
Her steps were soft—like a sea breeze brushing the surface of a sleeping ocean.
Her eyes drifted toward Oliver, and in them lingered a strange harmony of joy, agony, and fear.
She knew.
She knew what the ring had chosen him for.
She did not speak.
She did not sigh.
She simply walked.
Her footsteps faded as she reached the trees untouched by chaos. Then she raised the object in her arms and cast it into the air.
What once looked like a carved wooden piece now transformed—
—wings burst forth, feathers spread wide.
It was a bird.
A dove.
White. Bright. Alive.
Yet it still bore the same ancient carvings etched across its body.
And as it rose—
higher and higher—
it perched atop one of the tallest trees.
That tree was no ordinary one.
It stood with another, a twin pillar of age and strength, both towering above all else.
Despite the destruction around, they still bore fruit.
Ancient fruit.
Their bark, though old, was like stone—engraved with countless symbols, runes, and signs.
Those carvings didn't always appear.
Only when someone great stood near.
Or when fate itself came to test them.
Even Yama knew this.
As the dove vanished into the upper canopy, so did the woman.
Gone.
No flash.
No sound.
No trace.
Oliver stared at the spot where she had stood, bewildered.
All around him, the crowd began to stir.
Some rose slowly, coughing blood.
Others remained on the ground—not dead, not broken—but paralyzed by a pain deeper than wounds.
A pain of soul and marrow.
"Who was that woman?" he muttered, standing fully now.
He followed the direction her feet had gone, but the trail ended where she had stood.
No footsteps.
No portals.
Nothing.
"Was she one of the Supreme Ones…? Or a living dead?"
He scratched his head, his mind spiraling.
Then—
A presence.
Familiar.
Leo.
He wasn't running.
Wasn't shouting like the others.
He walked slowly… as if wearing a crown of cost.
And beside him—
A woman.
Not just any woman.
Her presence darkened the light.
A fell-looking lady whose silence screamed with power.
"Wait… where did Leo go… and who's that beside him?"
Oliver's eyes narrowed.
"That face… wasn't she one of the three ladies who sat at the table with the food?"
He began to remember.
All three women.
The ones seated at the table when Leo approached the food.
And yes—she had been one of them.
The same face.
The same eerie calm.
But his thoughts couldn't settle.
Not on her.
Not fully.
The memory of the vanished woman and the echo of the clash still rang through his bones.
As he stood on the last spot where she had been, something shifted in the air.
He noticed it—
The crowd.
They were moving.
Rushing toward something.
Someone.
Yama.
Oliver joined them, drawn by a current of expectation too strong to resist.
It was as if they were pulled by instinct—
As if something monumental had just occurred.
But before he got far—
He felt it.
A presence.
Something… moving.
Underneath Yama's lifeless body.
He hadn't even turned yet, but the sensation struck him like a whisper to the soul.
Something was there.
Stirring.
Watching.
But before he could process it, the presence faded back into uncertainty, like a breath swallowed by silence.
He shook it off and pushed through the crowd.
The closer he got, the more he began to hear it.
A name.
Passed from mouth to mouth.
Whispers growing into speech.
Speech growing into chant.
At first, he thought they were calling for the man.
Yama.
But no.
The name they spoke was not his.
It was Oliver's.
His own name.
"What?" he breathed.
"Why are they… saying my name?"
He dashed closer, panic threading through awe.
And then—
He saw it.
It wasn't just something to behold.
It wasn't just something strange.
It was something that gripped the soul—
—and bound it forever.
Upon reaching the spot where the man had fallen, Oliver saw something startling.
The man still breathed.
His chest rose and fell in short, ragged bursts—
but the rest of him was still.
Motionless.
His limbs dangled like strings had been cut.
One man from the crowd bent down, cradled the broken body, and carried him swiftly toward one of the buildings.
Oliver barely registered it.
He turned back to Yama.
To the place where the terror had ended.
Where something far worse was beginning.
Yama's body.
It had started to sink.
Not decay. Not vanish.
Sink.
Like a statue easing into soft soil,
like a god being taken back into the womb of the world.
No soil shifted.
No dust rose.
The ground accepted him as if it had been waiting.
One moment, Yama's broken form lay before them—
and the next, his torso was halfway beneath the surface,
his arms limp at his sides,
his face frozen in that final, twisted scowl.
A low hum began to build.
It didn't come from any mouth.
It came from beneath.
A vibration.
A thrum.
Like something ancient had been disturbed.
The people stepped back.
Not out of fear—
but reverence.
Even Leo paused.
Even the fell-looking lady beside him tilted her head, as if listening to a voice only she could hear.
Oliver stood frozen.
All thoughts vanished.
All he could do was watch.
Yama's head was the last to disappear—
those fearsome, silent eyes still open,
as though staring straight into the soul of whoever watched him last.
Then—
Silence.
The hum faded.
The earth closed.
And where Yama's body had been,
there was now only a mark.