The final tunnel, and the Confrontation.

Hornet had sat there for a short time being too stunned to even say anything.

"a-are you sure?" Hornet asks.

"yes, the system, and all the charms, are gone." I say.

Hornet leans back in the bench, I do so as well.

"what now?" Hornet asks.

"now, I walk back to hub and go to the last tunnel then kill Radiance." I say.

Hornet stands up and looks at me.

"but without the system you'll die!" Hornet yells.

"there is a possibility of death, yes." I say.

"then lets just go and live together in our house, please Ember." Hornet says.

"I can't, I'm not going to make you suffer." I say, and stand up.

"what do you mean?" Hornet asks, apparently forgetting a crucial clincher.

"in a hundred years, you'll be here, and I won't" I say.

that gets her attention.

"have you forgotten that you have eternal life, and I do not, I would rather die for you than watch as you lose me to time." I say.

she tears up a little.

I hug her.

"I have to go through with this, system or no, I will save you, or die trying." I say.

that makes the waterworks increase tenfold.

we just stand there hugging, with Hornet drenching my shoulder.

after a little bit, I let go and pull back, Hornet does so too.

"please, come back to me." Hornet asks, with red eyes and tear stains down her mask.

"I will, even if I die, I will be with you, always." I say, then walk back through the tunnel.

I then make it to hub, and look at the other tunnels, they all have lost their supernatural glow that happens when a new tunnel is opened.

I then look to the last and largest tunnel, number eight.

the size in comparison, is if I was a normal human the tunnel would be the empire state building.

I walk forwards into the tunnel.

after a few seconds of walking I come to a wall, and on the ground is a magic circle.

I walk into it.

suddenly everything is white, then black.

I open my eyes and sit up, I am back at the beginning?

no, I look down it is different then what I know, I can feel it.

I once again fall.

I land, and the surroundings tickle my memory a bit, but I cant quite remember from where.

I go through the path, slaying several bugs and breaking down barriers, then come to the big doors, unbroken.

now I know I am somewhere diffrent.

I break the doors, and look down the cliff.

dirtmouth, undestroyed.

millions of thoughts are swimming through my head, and none of them will be answered here.

I entered dirtmouth, but its a ghost town, no bodies, no destruction, just an empty town.

I get to where the well is suppose to be.

but in its place is a portal, inside lies the white temple. (with all the sawblades and spikes, however this version has no bug priests bowing to you all over the place)

I stepped forward, and begun the journey to the bottom.

(time skip)

I made it to the last chamber, it was different, it was another magic circle.

I walked into it, and once more my vision cut out.

opening my eyes I found out I'm currently sitting on the bench before the fight against the Hollow Knight in the black egg.

I steady myself, and press on.

there he is, but instead of the one bound, what I see is the pure vessel from the boss rush finally.

he prepares his nail, I prepare both of mine(remember Ember had used the alchemy to make a second weapon, it was not stored in the system) and take my stance.

we rush towards one another at full speed, I am only slightly faster than him.

we swing our blades, and a clash ensues.

"did you think you would be able to fight the Radiance so easily?" the Hollow Knight asks, in a voice that is ethereal yet grounded in reality, its weird, I think the closest thing to it is the ethereals' from X-com 2.

"no, and yet I continue." I say back, then break the clash by taking one of my blades away to try for a swipe with it, when he pulls away.

"why continue, it is but a futile struggle." the Hollow Knight says, before summoning many white spears.

"because-" I start, as I am dodging the spears.

"there is a promise I must keep!" I shout, as I charge the Hollow Knight.

"useless!" he proclaims, before going to block the swipe I was going to do.

but then I use only one blade, and I used it to bring me behind him, and swiped with my other blade.

"AGH!" the Hollow Knight grunts in pain, as I have left a deep gash in his back.

I make a swipe for his legs, when he jumps and swipes at me.

I managed to dodge it but was then hit when he swung it back towards me with the blunt end.

I flew into the air and landed a few feet away.

I don't instantly charge back into the fight, because I was winded by the blow.

"every power you have gained is thanks to the Radiance! your very reincarnation is thanks to the Radiance as well! you should be thankful!" the Hollow Knight says.

"what *pant* do you *pant* mean?" I managed to say while trying to get more air in my lungs.

"that voice you had heard from your stay in the void, that was the Radiance!" the Hollow Knight said.

I simply stood back up, and started walking towards him.

"yes, you should come and praise the Radiance with me! after all, it is thanks to the Radiance that you even still live!" said the Hollow Knight.

instead of responding I kept walking towards him.

the Hollow Knight was getting a little unnerved from my lack of response.

once I was close enough I drove my blades into his chest, he tried to block it, sensing it at the last second, but he missed.

"I don't care." I say.

the Hollow Knight collapses, and I see something underneath his corpse, I pick it up, and see it is some kind of gem, the nail I had when I fell down here suddenly now has a slot at the base for the gem.

I put the gem into the nail, and the nail glows white for a few seconds before toning down.

I now feel something in my mind letting me know how to use this gem, it is the dream sword.

I press on, and see a tunnel ahead.

inside lies a statue, about the size of me, and its in the form of the Radiance.

I charge up the dream sword to hit the statue, because that is what I am suppose to do.(there are glowing wisps coming off the statue that match the ones you see in game around ghosts)

I hit the statue with the dream sword, and the world around me suddenly glows white, and I black out.

coming to for what must be the third time since this tunnel opened, I see a world of clouds, and platforms going up.

this is it, the final fight.

I climb the platforms, and reach the current top platform.

I look out to the clouds, and draw my nails.

the flapping of wings is heard from above me.

it comes into view, The Radiance.

the size is at least double what was shown in the game.

the Radiance starts off the battle by throwing many light spears at me.

I block or dodge them, and start hitting the eye area of the Radiance.

after hitting the spot a few times, it lets out a shreak, and suddenly there were several light balls that homed in to me.

I managed to lead them into the Radiance itself.

and after doing so with every light ball, the platforms below me fell away, and new ones appeared above me.

I began to climb, with light spears and homing light balls trying to kill me the whole way.

I make it to the top, and we are now far above the clouds and I can see a horizon that has a sun, but is it setting, or rising.

I am broken out of my musings(and reference) to the sound of the Radiance shreeking again.

this time however, it makes light clones of me.

I do battle with them with all the light spears and homing light balls also trying to kill me, sometimes I manage to have a light ball slam into one of the copies, and it explodes.

I manage to kill all the light clones, and land some more hits on the Radiance again.

the clouds around us change color from the golden white that they were, to a crimson red.

the Radiance, also changed, but it turned almost entirely black, and had red feathers.

I managed to hit some more times the eye area, but it was very dificult, now there are twice as many clones, but they are no longer pure white, they are red.

and there are also instead of light spears there are now black tendrils that sometimes tries to impale me, and instead of the homing light ball, its a black energy sphere that stays in one place for a few seconds and expands to twice its size, then tries to go to my last position where I was standing.

it was grueling.

but I managed to do it, all the clones dead, all the energy balls and tendrils stopped, and the Radiance is now laying on the platform, half the size of the original.(the original from the game not the one introduced here, what I'm saying is its half the size it was before not that it is the size of the original game, sounds confusing.)

"HOW?" the Radiance asks, in a voice that sounds like hundreds of other voices together.(however unlike the 40k daemon, the voices sounded peaceful.)

"because I had to." I said.

"WHY?" it asked.

"because of a promise." I said, drawing my nails and started walking to the eye section.

"WHO?" it asked.

"who am I, you know who I was, I'll tell you who I am now." I say.

"I am Ember Hollow, your end." I say, then plunge my nails into its eyes.

it lets out a shriek and expels many wisps, I'm assuming they are the souls of all who have died in the world.

I then black out, for the fourth time.

...To be, ended.

(a/n, yeah this is the end, but I will be putting the epilogue right after I put this chapter out there, if it does not show, then refresh your webnovel.)