The sky did not return.
It failed.
Where the Demon King and the man in black armor collided, reality peeled open like broken skin. Space warped inward, compressing sound, light, and matter into a collapsing core.
The battlefield ceased to exist.
The tower reacted instantly.
Runes ignited across every floor. Walls thickened. The core screamed—not in panic, but in warning.
LIMIT EXCEEDED
Elowen felt it.
She dropped to her knees.
"This place can't take it," she whispered.
The assistant braced himself as the tower shook violently. "My King—if this continues, the world will fracture."
The Demon King heard him.
He did not care.
The man in black armor laughed as his spear clashed against the Demon King's bare hand. Sparks of crushed stars scattered outward.
"Yes," the man said, eyes burning. "This is it. This is what we were made for."
"You were made to fail," the Demon King replied.
He twisted his wrist.
The spear cracked.
The man slid backward through shattered air, boots carving trenches through solid ground.
He coughed once.
Then smiled wider.
"Still stronger," he admitted. "But you're restrained."
The Demon King tilted his head.
"By what?"
The man glanced upward.
"The girl."
Elowen's breath hitched.
The man continued, voice sharp. "You're anchoring this world for her. If you weren't—this place would already be gone."
Silence followed.
The Demon King looked back at the tower.
At the flowers still blooming along its walls.
At the light holding broken reality together.
The world trembled again.
The man raised his remaining hand. "So here's the question."
Power surged around him, dark and unstable.
"Will you destroy the world…"
He smiled.
"…or protect it?"
The Demon King answered by snapping his fingers.
The tower expanded.
Not upward.
Outward.
A domain unfolded, swallowing the battlefield whole. Space stabilized forcibly, reality overwritten by the Demon King's authority.
The man froze.
"…You're claiming it."
"Yes," the Demon King said calmly. "This world. This space. This outcome."
The man laughed softly.
"Then I lose," he said.
The domain crushed inward.
The man dropped to one knee, armor cracking, aura flickering violently.
He looked up one last time.
"Next time," he said. "I won't hold back."
The Demon King raised his hand.
The man vanished—sealed, not erased.
Silence slammed down.
The sky repaired itself slowly, terrified of breaking again.
---
Elowen collapsed forward, exhausted.
The Demon King caught her before she hit the floor.
She looked up at him, breathing hard.
"Did… did I do okay?"
"Yes," he replied.
The tower settled.
The world exhaled.
Far away, surviving armies ran.
Kings abdicated.
Gods went silent.
Because the world had learned something irreversible.
It could not contain him.
And it could not afford to lose her.