CHAPTER 77.
Chapter 77: The Price of Light
The silence that followed was not peace—it was the absence of sound, as if the world itself held its breath.
Where Antares once stood, there was nothing.
Not a corpse.
Not ashes.
Just emptiness—an unbeing carved into reality by Jean's final blow. The Dragon Lord had not been defeated. He had been erased.
The clouds parted. The sky cleared. The stars shimmered again for the first time in months. And slowly—trembling, unbelieving—the world began to move.
Vaelros the Hollow fell to his knees, his once-bound relic—the shattered black egg—reduced to inert stone in his palm. The shadows that had cloaked him since the war began unraveled into wisps. He looked up, the hollow in his chest deeper than ever.
> "She… she actually did it…"
Raigen stirred in the rubble, feathers scorched, wings broken, but alive. Karen, her face streaked with tears, leaned into her guardian's trembling neck.
> "She saved us," she whispered.
Charles Luther stood alone atop a ruined cliff, his cloak torn, his aura cracked. For the first time in decades, he looked old. Beside him, Silvia bowed her head, her crimson blade buried in the dirt.
Even Raven, her face unreadable, wiped something from the corner of her eye and said nothing.
But Ryan Magus did.
> "Where is she?"
The question cut through the stillness.
Everyone looked skyward—toward the point where the light had begun, where Eclipsion had been swung, where Solstice had flared in final judgment.
But Jean was gone.
No trace. No body. No falling figure.
Just… radiance, fading into memory.
The Emissary of Light had delivered the world from annihilation.
And vanished with the dawn.
---
The survivors gathered in the center of the battlefield—the once-grand city now shattered into a crater rimmed by scorched stone and fractured towers. What remained of the Luther Envoy Knights, the Magistery Sages, the Iron Empire's blazing vanguard, the Sovereignty's divine stewards, and even remnants of the Shadow Guild… all stood in silent circle.
A single sword remained embedded in the stone.
Solstice.
Still warm to the touch.
No one dared remove it.
Erin Magus looked upon the blade, her voice soft.
> "She burned so bright... that she left no shadow behind."
The world had been saved.
But its savior was lost to it.
---
In the months that followed, the war ended. The dragons scattered—leaderless, enraged, broken. Peace was not easy, but it held. Treaties were signed. Old grudges faded. Even Charles Luther stepped down from the Patriarchy, naming Jean—though absent—as the rightful Matriarch of the Luther Clan.
A statue was erected where the light had first struck.
Jean Luther. Sword raised. Wolf by her side.
Whitney, her guardian, remained at the base for days, howling at the moon, waiting.
Then, one day, he too was gone.
No one saw him leave.
But the legend had already begun.
> She who became light.
She who ended the war.
She who walked beyond power to protect a world unworthy of her.
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