— Descent into the Ghost Realm —
The next moment, a violent mutation erupted.
The black mist coiling around the shadow convulsed as if alive, swelling outward in a grotesque surge. In an instant, it twisted and condensed into a colossal spectral skull—its surface translucent and warped, its hollow eye sockets burning with a pulsing, blood-red glow.
The air died.
Not merely cold—
but emptied.
Sound dulled. Light dimmed. Even breath seemed to lose weight.
An aura of absolute stillness, steeped in death and ancient malice, rolled outward like a tidal wave. Faces drained of color. Instinct screamed.
"Haha—devour you, then!"
The skull released a shriek sharp enough to pierce thought itself. Its massive jaws yawned open, rows of jagged, overlapping teeth spiraling inward like a grinder forged for souls rather than flesh.
It lunged.
Lightning erupted.
Eren's eyes blazed as he unleashed five thunderbolts in rapid succession—each strike splitting the air with deafening force, arcs of white-blue light tearing straight through the skull's path.
Yet the apparition did not slow.
The lightning was swallowed.
Not dispersed—consumed.
The skull surged through the storm and closed around him.
—
Darkness fell.
Not the absence of light—
but the presence of something vast.
Eren felt space collapse inward. There was no ground beneath his feet, no sky above—only an endless, suffocating void. Pressure descended from every direction at once, layered and overlapping, like mountains stacked upon oceans, crushing down without mercy.
His body locked.
Muscles refused to respond.
Even breath became a battle.
"Welcome... to my domain."
The voice reverberated everywhere and nowhere, folding over itself, echoing from angles that should not exist.
"This is the Ghost Realm," it continued, slow and savoring.
"Here, I am the law. Killing you would be effortless—"
A pause. Deliberate.
"But death would be too kind."
Eren forced his head up, veins standing out like cords along his neck.
"Then... what do you want?!"
"To break you."
The words fell like iron spikes driven into his mind.
"To grind your will into dust. To make you beg for annihilation."
"Now—kneel."
The pressure doubled.
His knees slammed downward as if struck by a hammer. Blood vessels bulged beneath his skin, bones groaning with dull, ominous cracks. His vision swam red as pain flooded every nerve.
"—Never!"
Eren roared through clenched teeth. Blood slid from the corner of his mouth, dripping into the void—but his back remained straight, rigid as drawn steel.
The presence hesitated.
"...Interesting."
For the first time, uncertainty crept into the voice.
"You can resist the Ghost Realm's authority?"
"A will like this... terrifying."
Eren drew in a ragged breath and forced his spiritual power to circulate. It tore through his meridians like wildfire through dry grass, clashing violently against the oppressive domain.
And then—
A thought surfaced.
"If I can't fight it..."
His gaze sharpened.
"...then I'll devour it."
He exhaled slowly and sat cross-legged in midair.
Deep within his sea of consciousness, the Obsidian Sigil stirred.
Not flaring—
awakening.
Hum—
A low, resonant vibration spread outward. The Ghost Realm shuddered. Fine fractures rippled through the void itself as streams of dark, ghostly energy were forcibly torn away—rushing toward Eren like rivers reversing their flow.
The pressure faltered.
"No—wait—what are you doing?!"
Panic tore through the voice.
"You're— you're consuming my foundational ghost energy?! That's impossible!"
"What kind of monster are you?!"
The void screamed.
The realm convulsed as its authority collapsed inward, its very structure unraveling. The shadow thrashed desperately, trying to reclaim control—but the domain no longer answered.
"Stop—please—cease this—!"
The pleas weakened, fragmenting into incoherent echoes, until even those were swallowed.
—CRACK!
Reality shattered.
Blinding light exploded outward as the Ghost Realm collapsed entirely.
---
When vision returned, the cemetery reappeared.
Eren stood where he had been all along, his coat stirring gently in the settling air.
At his feet lay the shadow—no longer towering, no longer monstrous.
Only a shriveled husk remained, dry and hollow, utterly drained. Not a single wisp of black mist lingered.
The ground around it was scorched clean.
Silence reigned.
And somewhere deep within Eren's chest, the energy core pulsed—
heavier than before.
---
— When Truth Collapses —
"Thank heavens... Eren won."
In the distance, Aveline exhaled the words as if they had been trapped in her lungs for far too long. Relief washed over her—not celebration, but the instinctive release of someone pulled back from the brink of disaster.
"That's the Overlord's might!"
Darius threw his head back and roared, his voice hoarse with fervor, eyes burning with unrestrained reverence.
The tension in the air finally began to lift.
Everyone felt it—
everyone except Lyra.
She stood frozen, unmoving, as though something had struck her squarely in the chest without leaving a mark. Her body remained upright, but her thoughts lagged behind, struggling to process what her ears had just received.
"Him..."
Her throat tightened. The word barely escaped.
"Eren?"
Her gaze locked onto that familiar silhouette, yet another image forced its way into her mind—
the darkness, the mask, the figure who had stood between her and death time and again.
"...Overlord?"
This time, her voice cracked.
"The one in the battle mask..."
"...was him?"
The structure holding her world together began to fail.
All the conclusions she had nailed down, all the truths she had repeated to herself until they felt immutable, suddenly lost their anchor. The man she had sworn to hate and the one who had saved her in the dark began to overlap.
She drew in a sharp breath, as if trying to swallow the air itself, only to feel suffocation close in instead.
"This... is absurd," she whispered.
"What kind of joke is this...?"
And then she broke.
Lyra surged forward.
Her steps were uneven, almost a stumble, as she charged toward Eren's back, her voice tearing free—
"Why would you do this to me?!"
"What am I to you, exactly?!"
Her world spun, fractured, collapsed inward.
Eren did not turn.
The wind tugged at the hem of his coat, yet he stood motionless, as though he had already accepted this moment long ago.
Silence stretched on—long enough for the air itself to feel heavy.
"...President Lyra."
The title halted even him for a fraction of a second.
It had been unused for too long.
Long enough to sound like something already broken.
"The tragedy of the Veyne family was not my doing," he said at last. His voice carried no urgency, no edge of self-defense—only a statement of fact.
"But for what happened to you that night... I have no grounds to deny responsibility."
He paused.
"If what followed can be called atonement—then that is all I can offer."
The words landed like a blunt blade.
Lyra's restraint shattered completely.
"Who asked for your atonement?!"
She slammed her fists against his chest, again and again, lacking strength but filled with collapse. Tears streamed down unchecked, blurring her vision.
"How am I supposed to face you after this?!"
"How am I supposed to keep living?!"
An enemy revealed as a savior.
A savior unmasked as the one she could never forgive.
That kind of contradiction was enough to tear a person apart.
Eren closed his eyes briefly, then released a slow breath.
"I know this is cruel," he said quietly.
"But if I had done nothing back then... you would already be dead."
The sentence struck its mark.
Lyra froze.
Her mouth opened, but no words emerged. Everything she had forced down finally broke free, and her sobs spilled out—raw, helpless, unrestrained.
They were not accusations.
Not rage.
Only the sound of someone hollowed out by truth.
Time stretched within that sound.
Gradually, the sobbing weakened, fading into silence.
Only then did Eren turn.
His gaze was deeper than the night itself, his voice controlled—almost unsteady beneath the restraint.
"Enough."
"Pull yourself together."
The words fell like cold water.
"The one who orchestrated all of this—"
"is right here, before us."
Lyra shuddered.
She drew in a breath, lifted her hand, and wiped the tears from her face. The chaos inside her was forcibly compressed, condensed into something sharp and frigid.
Her eyes slid past Eren.
They locked onto the withered remains on the ground.
In that moment, she finally understood—
some truths are not meant to be forgiven.
They are meant to be answered for.